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Suspicious Discontinuities

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Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#151

Post by refurb »

selimthegrim wrote: post #102
refurb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that weird? #2 gets killed, new #2 takes his/her place, #2 gets killed.

Do you really think they were all actually No 2s? That AQI had that bad opsec? Don't we hit the No 3 too every once in a while?

Presumably the #3 became the #2, when the original #2 was killed.

I see your point - do they just say #2 to sound impressive, however, they seem to know the structure of AQI pretty well and folks get promoted into that role when a death occurs, so I’m going with “likely true”.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#152

Post by adrianN »

thrower123 wrote: post #78
tjr225 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either that or a more progressive stance on socialist policies that provide basics to everyone. At least with socialist style policies there isn't the possibility of those spending their UBI on junk food or wine our whatever, but I really would prefer either to the current state of affairs.

Government paternalism is terrifying. People are going to screw up, and make bad choices, but having choices is better than being treated like a child your entire life.

Providing free healthcare, free education and free food to those who need it is quite different from being treated like a child.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#153

Post by quietbritishjim »

lostmsu wrote: post #31
DavidVoid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic but this reminded me of what is perhaps their most depressing pair of graphs. Look at "A woman's age vs. the age of the men sho look best to her" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617... and then compare that with "A man's age vs. the age of the women who look best to him" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617...

Why is it depressing? Biologically this must be tuned to the best age for having kids, and men's age hardly matters.

Something can be completely expected and explainable while still being depressing. I don't see how that's surprising.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#154

Post by smcl »

thedance wrote: post #89
thrower123 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, these discontinuities and the perverse incentives that they lead to on the cusps have been elements of these programs for longer than I've been alive.

Depending on how long you’ve been here, you may have been living under a Reagan-esque conservative regime the whole time. Over my entire life I’ve seen only actual republican policies, or policies of weak-minded Democrats easily baited into acting like Republicans. There hasn’t been a sincere and effective advocate for the poor in America since LBJ.

You're being downvoted but you're correct. A glance at some of the potential Democratic presidential nominees tells the whole story: Biden (classic case of "weak-minded Democrats easily baited into acting like Republicans"), Warren (actually was a Republican, during the Reagan years no less!), Buttigieg (previously a firm supporter of M4A then was somehow persuaded to water it down to "Medicare for all...who want it") ... Bloomberg!

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#155

Post by PhantomGremlin »

gowld wrote: post #64

Sickening of these "unintended" consequences are that programs designed to help the poor end up being used by the rich and well-connected -- parents who "disown" their children" to make them look poor during college application, or who lie about or overemphasize their racial background to claim affirmative action rewards.

parents who "disown" their children" to make them look poor during college application

I'm sure this happens. Parents can also get divorced, the kid then becomes a dependent of a poor parent.

But it goes both ways. E.g. in a case I'm familiar with, a friend of my daughter:

1) her father died when she was young, IIRC a junior in high school

2) now she's poor, mother doesn't have or make much money. Fortunately there are things like life insurance and social security survivors benefits to help.

3) colleges like to give good financial aid packages to poor people.

4) mother remarries, but this is a 2nd marriage and so people are older, with existing children

5) now mother is part of a household with a lot higher income; sucks for the daughter because now she isn't getting jack-shit in terms of college financial aid

I certainly wouldn't expect her new stepfather to want to pay $20,000 or more per year tuition for an 18 year old girl whose mother he just married. Especially when he has his own kids to think of for college.

Unfortunately for the kid, community college became the only option.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#156

Post by peteretep »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #150
peteretep wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not an unsolvable expansion So your solution is "spend a lot of extra money on social security", which is fine, but it doesn't satisfy the constraints.

You said you didn't want to "unilaterally extend benefits to a whole bunch of people", not that the cost couldn't increase even the tiniest amount. But even so, smoothing out the curve some might be better overall even if the max amount drops. Also you could extend the curve so that 'benefits' go negative at the high end. Now your budget is fine...

Your plan both massively increases the number of people on benefits and also increases costs by 20% on your 50% proposal, which in the UK means £15b-ish. Reconciling this with "even the tiniest amount" is impossible.

> Also you could extend the curve so that 'benefits' go negative at the high end

You've just invented tax, congratulations.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#157

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

adrianN wrote: post #152
thrower123 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government paternalism is terrifying. People are going to screw up, and make bad choices, but having choices is better than being treated like a child your entire life.

Providing free healthcare, free education and free food to those who need it is quite different from being treated like a child.

Especially if they end up in a higher tax bracket.

It's not government paternalism that's terrifying, but cultural demonisation and paternalistic contempt for the poor, combined with unthinking adulation of the extremely rich.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#158

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

crooked-v wrote: post #119
umvi wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have been more hungry, but death by starvation in the USA is nearly unheard of. I personally have never heard of anyone - homeless or otherwise - dying of starvation in the USA. The only people I've heard of dying of starvation were stranded on a mountain or on the ocean or something.

"Well, at least there aren't a lot of people literally starving to death" isn't exactly a glowing endorsement of the system.

Especially in the UK, where there literally are people starving to death now.

People in the US who live in a comfortable six-figure-middle-class bubble really have no idea how precarious their position is.

All it takes is one expensive long-lasting serious illness and they'll be out on the street with the other people who "made poor choices."

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#159

Post by iainmerrick »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #129
peteretep wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would you see this working, exactly? You've got to make sure people who need the benefits and can't work get supported, you need to not discourage people from working (and most people _do_ want to work), and you also can't just (afford to) unilaterally extend benefits to a whole bunch of people who don't currently get them. So, concrete proposal on how you'd structure this?

The exact same way as the new system, except instead of 63% it's a much smaller number. Edit: Why are people downvoting this? I don't understand what's so confusing about SilasX's argument. Removing cliffs and changing it to a smooth dropoff is good. But that dropoff doesn't have to be £.63 in benefits per £1 earned. That's a pretty big effective marginal tax rate! Why not £.50 or £.30? It should be extremely easy to…

I totally agree, but I just realised -- there’s another cliff edge here!

I surveyed opinions on tax brackets a while back, and it seemed like there was a big psychological barrier at the 50% rate.

Most high earners would be willing to pay a 50% marginal tax rate (albeit some very grudgingly) but almost nobody was willing to go over 50%.

What’s good enough for the rich should do for the poor as well. The benefit drop off rate (effectively a marginal tax rate) should be 50% at the very most.

“For each dollar earned, I get to keep more than I give away in tax/benefits” is a cliff edge, but I think a reasonably justifiable one.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#160

Post by fitech »

taneq wrote: post #123
nnx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Andrew Yang rightly said "nobody has ever wondered if shareholders would screw up, make bad choices, when receiving their dividends".

And this is the right way to look at it. In addition to being a free agent, every citizen should be treated as a shareholder in the nation.

no company that has costs well above revenue for decades is paying out dividends.
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