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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

#211

Post by amalag »

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…

Shh, don't bust the bubble of people living in Silicon Valley who think they can solve the world's problems. It is absolutely ridiculous but they will never figure it out. People need to work, this is a nice project in East Africa: http://workingvillages.org/

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

#212

Post by kogepathic »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #185
kogepathic wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have a TV, is it a _waste_ of money too. Yes I do, and yes, since it brings me no economic benefit and I could easily live without it, it is a waste of money. By comparison, my smartphone allows me to send emails, make phone calls, and generally communicate with my colleagues. This creates value. Watching TV or Netflix creates no economic value. It might create social value, but the OP is about creating econ…

Thanks for fleshing things out. If you don't mind one last question - you mentioned about communality not really working [for TV ownership at least], who then owns the PV array - is it your company that owns it, does the community acquire ownership over time. Who is responsible for repair and the costs of that?

The company owns it, and they handle operating costs and maintenance.

At this time, there are no plans to transfer ownership to the community.

Ownership transfer has been done before, notably by some NGOs, and to my knowledge it has always ended up with the system failing due to lack of maintenance (either due to skills or funds) and being parted out.

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

#213

Post by mathattack »

skybrian wrote: post #143
mathattack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right - it's a Western charity, but I'm asking - is it just solving a liquidity issue by pumping in the money? And if so, is the effect that different than if a central bank had done this?

I buy the "You need foreign currency as a country to purchase imports" point, but if we are talking about local money to support local demand, how is sending $30mm in, and exchanging it for local currency for local projects that different than the government just printing that same amount of local money?

There are inflationary effects of printing large amounts of money, but wouldn't this exist if you imported the same amount of money?

I recently reread the babysitting co-op story [0] and it got me thinking about these monetary implications.

Please note that I do agree that "giving people general support, and let them figure out what to do with it" is largely better than "I know what you need, so let me provide it for you" aid. II'm just working through the mechanics of this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op

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

#214

Post by dragonwriter »

comicjk wrote: post #210
dragonwriter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry that it would be a lot worse than that - that we could create a class of non-workers and workers. UBI is intended to alleviate the problem with means-tested social welfare programs in doing that by reducing the disincentive to taking action which would produce additional income faced by those on means-tested benefits where any additional income results in substantial (sometimes even dollar-for-dollar or gre…

Indexing UBI to a revenue stream is a bad idea because the revenue will tend to swing up and down in sync with economic cycles, making bubbles frothier and recessions worse. Constant spending by contrast acts more like an automatic stabilizer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_stabilizer

Indexing to revenue is a bit of a simplification. what I really think is the revenue stream should be split between current benefits and a reserve fund, with the reserve fund drawn from to avoid decreases in cyclical downturns. The idea is that the long-term effect should be increasing benefit with productivity, while avoiding short-term benefit drops.

And the effect you describe is really one of overall domestic spending, not one program in isolation.

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

#215

Post by alecdbrooks »

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…

Not to dismiss your experience as a resident of a country that's received significant aid, but there's substantial evidence that cash transfers work, which GiveDirectly has compiled[0], including the following benefits:

—Adults more likely to work, even five years later.

—Children are healthier and get more education.

—Adults do not spend the extra money on things like alcohol or tobacco.

—Adults make significantly more when surveyed years after receiving the cash grant.

GiveWell, which has spent a lot of effort evaluating GiveDirectly, does have some lingering concerns [1] that programs like GiveDirectly's might worsen inflation or hurt people who don't receive a grant and live nearby. Research on these questions isn't conclusive, but suggests some minor, short-term effects. I suspect broadening programs to more recipients will mitigate the latter problem.

[0]: https://givedirectly.org/research-on-cash-transfers

[1]: http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/cas...

Update: Fixed formatting and added to final paragraph.

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

#216

Post by EGreg »

jjawssd wrote: post #134
EGreg wrote: post #50

Basic income is inevitable. Wages have been lower relative to inflation, real estate etc because demand for human labor has been dropping. Consumer goods come down in price but real estate, gold and other limited resources are a reference for how low demand for human labor is falling. Technology enabled outsoucing, and automation, to erode the demand for human labor. Luddites were 150 years too early. The capabilitie…

> Already, most full time jobs are just make-work. Wow this is quite a bold statement! How can you be so sure and generalize so much?

Because I choose to be bold.

And I like to focus on the main factors in a situation if I can find them.

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

#218

Post by rewrew »

2noame wrote: post #153
rewrew wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly do low-interest loans to African entrepreneurs via Zidisha -- that's money that's helpful in a concentrated way, vs. bulk money that I'm skeptical won't have negative consequences.

In that case, you may want to read this. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-...

I'm skeptical because I mainly loan to the same people again and again, and they pay it back again and again. So there's something going on there.
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