61–70 of 128 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans are so concerned with accidentally helping someone who doesn't deserve it that they'd rather sacrifice the well being of millions who do
Unemployment in CA went $23B in debt because of Covid (spent more in benefits than collected). $11B is estimated to be fraud. Your statement is quite trite to be honest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need The key difference is the complete lack of regulation and data policies. The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country.
> The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country. The potential for building more advanced fraud protection systems also scales with the nation being discussed. Especially when you consider that the world's largest fraud protection experts are already operating within the borders of most of those richer nations. Why not partner with…
Because the problem domain is different for credit card transactions compared to covid stimulus?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need The key difference is the complete lack of regulation and data policies. The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country.
> The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country. The potential for building more advanced fraud protection systems also scales with the nation being discussed. Especially when you consider that the world's largest fraud protection experts are already operating within the borders of most of those richer nations. Why not partner with…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That perspective isn't one you'll find popular in the nations that should be able to deploy programs like these, but don't. Their voters don't see them as helping the poor, and don't see the poor as likely to invest any protective income into survival. That political discourse is easy to explain: while it is certainly helpful to "give the fish" to the starving one, it's less clear when you give the fish to "the idl…
Americans are so concerned with accidentally helping someone who doesn't deserve it that they'd rather sacrifice the well being of millions who do
This reads like hyperbole and cynicism. Americans as a whole donate a large amount to charity each year and the United States already has wide-ranging social welfare programs. I challenge the use of the word "accidentally", because there are legitimate concerns about dependency, freeloading, and quite frankly, fairness. It is easy to declare that some population is being "underserved" but the funds for that service need to come from somewhere. Why is it such a negative thing for I, as a contributor, to look at the system critically and with reservations?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans are so concerned with accidentally helping someone who doesn't deserve it that they'd rather sacrifice the well being of millions who do
The mistake you make is assuming that your supposed 'noble intentions' justify what you are proposing; they do not. Your noble intentions are absolutely hypocritical and fake. If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money.…
Why "instead"? Why can this person not both donate directly and wish that everyone else were obligated to do the same?
> In Togo, a nation of about 8 million people where the average income is below $2 a day, it took the government less than two weeks to design and launch an all-digital system for delivering monthly payments to about a quarter of the adult population. People such as Bamaze, with no tax or payroll records, were identified as in need, enrolled in the program, and paid without any in-person contact. 10 days from incepti…
Do you have any inside-information that this is true? Maybe there is a difference in cultural attitudes, but I'm sure there are lots of other differences too. Why is this the most important?
> In Togo, a nation of about 8 million people where the average income is below $2 a day, it took the government less than two weeks to design and launch an all-digital system for delivering monthly payments to about a quarter of the adult population. People such as Bamaze, with no tax or payroll records, were identified as in need, enrolled in the program, and paid without any in-person contact. 10 days from incepti…
The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. Rudger Bergman goes into a bit of detail on the history of that perception, which he attributes to the opposition against Nixon's UBI (at least in the US). So what we now have in many western nations is a huge bureaucratic body to prevent fraud on social security systems which at the same time significantly increase hu…
The (modern) meaning of this is hard to discern without knowing if "poor" means the same in the two contexts. Is it not possible someone in the US who is considered to be "poor" (by wealth or QoL) might not be in Togo?
> bureaucratic support to fight tax evasion
Do you mean actual (legal) tax evasion, or tax fairness?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
US "poverty line" is at 80th percentile of world incomes.
In part because we have used regulations to require you to be rich. In India the cheapest new street legal car is the Tato Nano, around $2500 (maybe small electric cars from China even less). But the cheapest new car in the US is the Chevy Spark at $13-14k. Building codes and zoning regulations mean there’s a minimum price you have to pay for housing in the US that’s around a factor of 10 higher than in much of the w…
I understand the sentiment, but I feel like this line of reasoning puts oneself into a catch-22. The first reaction would be to say "well, let's start slashing regulations". However, I suspect people who support the idea that there are regulations that "require you to be rich" would recoil at the idea of trimming things like ADA accessibility, needing GCFI outlets in homes, energy saving fixtures, mandating a certain level of green construction materials, et cetera.
In essence, the people who fear that our regulations require a certain level of wealth would not, in my mind, want to actually deregulate the market because they see the each regulation individually as being a positive thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mistake you make is assuming that your supposed 'noble intentions' justify what you are proposing; they do not. Your noble intentions are absolutely hypocritical and fake. If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money.…
> If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money. Why "instead"? Why can this person not both donate directly and wish that everyone else were obligated to do the same?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans are so concerned with accidentally helping someone who doesn't deserve it that they'd rather sacrifice the well being of millions who do
The mistake you make is assuming that your supposed 'noble intentions' justify what you are proposing; they do not. Your noble intentions are absolutely hypocritical and fake. If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money.…