GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
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Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#2TL;DR:
"With your help, we will run a long-term, universal basic income and study it rigorously to find out.
We think the whole thing will cost roughly $30M, of which around 90% of the funds will go directly to very poor households."
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#3FYI the April 13 show of the Freakonomics Podcast takes on the question "Is the World Ready for a Guaranteed Basic Income?" and mentions some of the prior studies noted in this article.
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#4Recently fascinated by the thought of piping donations directly to poor populations and allowing them to use it as they wish. I watched the documentary Poverty, Inc. [0] regarding the "poverty industry" and how endless foreign aid in these countries is killing the economy. If Toms shoes dumps 1,000 pairs of shoes in the city center every week, how the hell would a cobbler stay in business. Or if the U.S. pumps an endless supply of rice into Haiti, how could Haitian rice farmers sell their inventory?
Instead, give these people the cash to purchase locally sourced goods or open a business of their own. Economies don't spring up out of a pile of free rice.
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#5While initially in favor of basic income due to the income trap created by the traditional approch, I have come to oppose it due to a better understanding I now have of the nature of money. Consider that basic income works when you think of money in the micro context as a means of exchange for goods and services, but not when you think of it in the macro context as a reflection of the wealth of a society. Simply transferring money from one group to another does not make the second group wealthier.
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#6While initially in favor of basic income due to the income trap created by the traditional approch, I have come to oppose it due to a better understanding I now have of the nature of money. Consider that basic income works when you think of money in the micro context as a means of exchange for goods and services, but not when you think of it in the macro context as a reflection of the wealth of a society. Simply tran…
Basic income isn't designed to make the recipients wealthier directly (OTOH, access to greater goods and services produces more opportunities to become wealthier over time, which is more the point.)
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#7While initially in favor of basic income due to the income trap created by the traditional approch, I have come to oppose it due to a better understanding I now have of the nature of money. Consider that basic income works when you think of money in the micro context as a means of exchange for goods and services, but not when you think of it in the macro context as a reflection of the wealth of a society. Simply tran…
Basic income isn't designed to make the recipients wealthier directly (OTOH, access to greater goods and services produces more opportunities to become wealthier over time, which is more the point.)
This implies that they're not wealthy because they don't have access, would you agree? Is it possible they're not wealthy because of some other reason?
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#8I like this. Everything I've learned about charity seems to indicate that in most cases, giving people who need money, money... is the way to go. Being able to examine the impact of a basic income in my view, is an additional benefit.
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#9Recently fascinated by the thought of piping donations directly to poor populations and allowing them to use it as they wish. I watched the documentary Poverty, Inc. [0] regarding the "poverty industry" and how endless foreign aid in these countries is killing the economy. If Toms shoes dumps 1,000 pairs of shoes in the city center every week, how the hell would a cobbler stay in business. Or if the U.S. pumps an end…
Also worth considering are countries where a large portion of the economy is based on family members sending remittances back from the United States (or other country). In a sense, they already have a form of basic income for the people who remain at home.
Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basic income isn't designed to make the recipients wealthier directly (OTOH, access to greater goods and services produces more opportunities to become wealthier over time, which is more the point.)
This implies that they're not wealthy because they don't have access, would you agree? Is it possible they're not wealthy because of some other reason?
> This implies that they're not wealthy because they don't have access, would you agree? Is it possible they're not wealthy because of some other reason?
Two things:
(1) opportunity for wealth building is only one, of many, reasons for BI, and (2) It is certain that for some portion of the population, additional income will not be sufficient for notably better wealth building. But its equally certain that some portion of the population that would net benefit from BI is held back solely by short-term resources.