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GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

givedirectly.org

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Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#141

Post by jlg23 »

mwambua wrote: post #124

I'm a Kenyan and I can tell you that this will do more harm than good. NGO money has been distorting our economy for years now... giving people livelihoods they can't sustain, making job opportunities that create no value and making our government vestigial. The poor people that you're supporting elect the same corrupt politicians every year because they have no idea that the government is supposed to be supporting t…

Wouldn't a basic income reduce the dependency on NGOs? If the situation in Kenya is similar to what humanitarian aid workers tell me about Haiti it's basically people joining NGO programs to make a livelihood but not planning on using learned skills or connections made to make a living independently when the project ends but rather looking for the next program.

This is a sincere question, I'm fully aware that a lot of NGOs intend to do good but do more harm :(

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#142

Post by home_boi »

The study won't be valid unless they wait at least 2 generations after UBI is implemented.

People born before UBI grew up with the scarcity on their minds, shaping the way they act with UBI.

People born right after UBI is implemented will be biased by parents who grew up wirh scarcity, like the children of American immigrants.

The study can only be valid when the parents of the person to be observed has UBI for their entire life.

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#143

Post by skybrian »

mathattack wrote: post #77
skybrian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The donations will likely be in local currency (via mobile phone payments), but the charity needs to exchange dollars for local currency. So it helps somewhat with the exchange rate if the country is short on foreign currency, but I'd guess the scale is not nearly enough to have any significant effect. 2. It doesn't increase the amount of currency in the country as a whole. Locally, if the economy is doing better,…

So to be the devils advocate, why wouldn't the country print more money rather than rely on money from abroad?

It's a western charity, not a government. They don't print the money.

More generally, many countries need to make sure they have enough foreign currency to buy imports. Poor countries especially need to worry about this. Printing money to give away doesn't make sense when you can exchange it for something valuable.

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#144

Post by skybrian »

mwambua wrote: post #124

I'm a Kenyan and I can tell you that this will do more harm than good. NGO money has been distorting our economy for years now... giving people livelihoods they can't sustain, making job opportunities that create no value and making our government vestigial. The poor people that you're supporting elect the same corrupt politicians every year because they have no idea that the government is supposed to be supporting t…

Assuming they spend the money, why doesn't it help the businesses who sell things to them?

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#145

Post by awt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
awt wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, wouldn't you say though that if you receive money without working for it, you aren't really owed anything by society at large? Is it possible to transfer the "having done work" from one person to another? And no, investing does not fall into this category.

> In that case, wouldn't you say though that if you receive money without working for it, you aren't really owed anything by society at large? One perspective on UBI is that it is compensatory payment to those harmed by factors which enable greater aggregate economic performance at the result of concentrating returns in a narrower group and driving down real wages for the masses.

I'm fine with it as long as it is voluntary.

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#146

Post by mwambua »

jlg23 wrote: post #141
mwambua wrote: post #124

I'm a Kenyan and I can tell you that this will do more harm than good. NGO money has been distorting our economy for years now... giving people livelihoods they can't sustain, making job opportunities that create no value and making our government vestigial. The poor people that you're supporting elect the same corrupt politicians every year because they have no idea that the government is supposed to be supporting t…

Wouldn't a basic income reduce the dependency on NGOs? If the situation in Kenya is similar to what humanitarian aid workers tell me about Haiti it's basically people joining NGO programs to make a livelihood but not planning on using learned skills or connections made to make a living independently when the project ends but rather looking for the next program. This is a sincere question, I'm fully aware that a lot o…

You and @skunkworks both raise interesting points. I'll have to think through this some more... I have more experience with code than economic policies; but here's a first go:

I have a problem with neither paying taxes, nor helping raise up the underprivileged. However, I believe that the former should facilitate the latter, rather than feeding some official's offshore account.

I think that if external funding were withdrawn, then we'd see a lot more done to fairly distribute government revenue and our government would be motivated to increase that revenue by improving our balance of trade.

I'm a little biased towards capitalism... so I believe in equal and opposite reactions. The developed world deserves to eat what it's worked for too. Maybe we need a little negative pressure to see that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-DgV2vixSo

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#147

Post by dragonwriter »

skybrian wrote: post #140
dragonwriter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your responses here: this is a western charity putting in 10 million USD and soliciting (and not exclusively soliciting in the target country, which hasn't even been identified ) another 20 million USD for the effort. Where do you get the idea that the donations would "likely be in local currency"?

I don't know, but I've been watching GiveDirectly for a while and assume they'll handle this similarly to how they have before. This basic income experiment looks like a minor variation on what they already do. From https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income "Location: To be finalized, but likely East Africa, where we have existing operations." They've paid people before using mobile phone networks and it's worked wel…

Okay, I think the miscommunication is on the word "donation"; you're referring to the payments to beneficiaries it sounds like, I took "donations" as the money going in to GiveDirectly.

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#148

Post by ktRolster »

dragonwriter wrote: post #122
ktRolster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both cases we're talking about an infusion of cash from the outside, distributed somewhat equally (as opposed to being given to banks and politicians). This can be useful for answering questions such as: * Will this discourage entrepreneurship? * Will this create a culture of dependency? * Will this boost the economy overall? * If the economy is boosted, how sustainable is it? These are the kinds of questions you'…

> In both cases we're talking about an infusion of cash from the outside, distributed somewhat equally Remittances are not distributed even "somewhat equally".

Compared to giving the money to banks and politicians, yes, they are extremely equal

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#149

Post by safeharbourio »

Let us jump in with our opinion (We are a startup from Kenya), This has the potential to do great good, and at the same time, great harm. As someone from this region, my first thought like mwambua, is the instant abuse by corrupt individuals as a get rich quickly mechanism, and thats my biggest worry, will this project be able to ensure that needy people actually get this, or who decides who gets it? More or less this is the only thing i would have a problem with, as integrity issues down here have and continue to ruin everything, if this program can by some means manage to rise beyond that, then for sure, this will be great, and i would definitely look forward to the results. This is my take, if you can get it done transparently and with proper selection (weed out perennial NGO dependents), this may very well be the best social/political science experiment out there. As a tangential observation, one of the reasons corrupt politicians get power down here, is that they have the means(through dubious sources, usually stolen from the taxman) to dole out cash bribes/handouts to young otherwise destitute/jobless guys. Should this experiment change the economic circumstances on the ground, the politics will also have to change, which may be quite frightening for politicians, have you guys thought of what sort of reaction you will get from influential individuals with a stake in the status quo? That said, viva la basic income, bring it ;), we are all for it, after all, whats the worst that could happen?

Should some of the concerns we've raise be addressed, this will definately sidestep the problems mentioned in haiti and other areas on this thread.

Re: GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa

#150

Post by tootie »

mwambua wrote: post #124

I'm a Kenyan and I can tell you that this will do more harm than good. NGO money has been distorting our economy for years now... giving people livelihoods they can't sustain, making job opportunities that create no value and making our government vestigial. The poor people that you're supporting elect the same corrupt politicians every year because they have no idea that the government is supposed to be supporting t…

This is the inverse of what NGOs do. Put money in the hands of consumers and let them drive local markets to produce what they actually want and need.
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