Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#81

Post by BitwiseFool » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

WarChortle wrote: post #80

BitwiseFool wrote: post #64

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" 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 de…

I am speaking in generalities because I don't know your exact stance on everything. The American military budget is so massively over-bloated its sickening. No only that, they made 35 Trillion dollars in adjustments in 2019 alone. The year before they made 30 Trillion dollars in adjustments. In 2018 the pentagon failed its first ever independent audit, instead of releasing the report, they changed their own rules to…

>"If people really cared about not wasting their tax dollars they would be outraged over the pentagon."

Personally, I am. And at large, just about any American will agree that we spend too much on the military industrial complex. The barriers to reducing military spending are different from the pressures put on politicians to manage social welfare programs.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#82

Post by Chris2048 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 6:23 PM UTC

shakna wrote: post #14

galfarragem wrote: post #6

Major takeaway: "evidence has accumulated that in many circumstances, cash improves the life of poor people more than equivalent spending on aid programs or goods."

> Anyway I suspect if we change the meaning of "poor people" from African centric to West centric results may be less clear. > In 2009, when Michael Faye co-founded the New York-based nonprofit GiveDirectly, whose mission is to alleviate poverty by providing unconditional cash transfers, skeptical development experts and philanthropists told him the sums would be misspent. But in the following decade, evidence has ac…

The comments don't make sense wrt to the OP: has this post been majorly re-edited?

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#83

Post by shakna » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #82

shakna wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway I suspect if we change the meaning of "poor people" from African centric to West centric results may be less clear. > In 2009, when Michael Faye co-founded the New York-based nonprofit GiveDirectly, whose mission is to alleviate poverty by providing unconditional cash transfers, skeptical development experts and philanthropists told him the sums would be misspent. But in the following decade, evidence has ac…

The comments don't make sense wrt to the OP: has this post been majorly re-edited?

The first line of my above comment was a direct quote that was removed from the above parent's post. Making my comment now somewhat pointless, yes.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#84

Post by adventured » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:33 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #60

shakna wrote: post #12

> 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…

> That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible And every time I say on HN that I can do something in a weekend, I get downvoted.

This premise can't be done quickly in the US, and it's bordering on comically absurd that anyone here would dare to suggest otherwise.

The US bureaucracies, federal and states, and the criss-cross between them, is extraordinarily large, complex and inefficient. The US Federal Government all by itself is a spending machine larger than Europe's biggest economy.

To pretend a system like Togo's could be implemented quickly in the US, one would have to pretend the US government system isn't presently constructed as it is. It would be necessary to invent an elaborate fantasy, where you start from a blank slate and have to deal with none of what presently exists.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#85

Post by pdonis » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

typon wrote: post #40

galfarragem wrote: post #33

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

If anything is sacrificing the well-being of poor Americans who deserve better, it is the fact that helping them is punted to government bureaucracies instead of being done by private individuals and charitable organizations who are both able and motivated to exercise much better judgment about who needs help and what help is needed than any government bureaucrat can possibly do.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#86

Post by WarChortle » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #81

WarChortle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am speaking in generalities because I don't know your exact stance on everything. The American military budget is so massively over-bloated its sickening. No only that, they made 35 Trillion dollars in adjustments in 2019 alone. The year before they made 30 Trillion dollars in adjustments. In 2018 the pentagon failed its first ever independent audit, instead of releasing the report, they changed their own rules to…

>"If people really cared about not wasting their tax dollars they would be outraged over the pentagon." Personally, I am. And at large, just about any American will agree that we spend too much on the military industrial complex. The barriers to reducing military spending are different from the pressures put on politicians to manage social welfare programs.

> just about any American will agree that we spend too much on the military industrial complex

That's not my experience, Can't tell you the amount of people I've meet that have no problem with the military having a blank check.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#87

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

cturner wrote: post #43

ctdonath wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US "poverty line" is at 80th percentile of world incomes.

This would be a powerful point with a reference - can you cite it?

Poverty line = $12,880/yr : https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...

"A $12,880 income in the United States has enough buying power to put you in the 84th percentile globally for per-person income" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global...

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#88

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #10

ctdonath wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US "poverty line" is at 80th percentile of world incomes.

Absolute numbers don't matter. Purchasing power matters.

That's accounting for PPP adjustments.

Poverty line is a published official statement.

Percentile of world incomes, PPP adjusted, are easily found. Find and compare them.

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#89

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #85

typon wrote: post #40

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

If anything is sacrificing the well-being of poor Americans who deserve better, it is the fact that helping them is punted to government bureaucracies instead of being done by private individuals and charitable organizations who are both able and motivated to exercise much better judgment about who needs help and what help is needed than any government bureaucrat can possibly do.

> instead of being done by private individuals and charitable organizations

Private, un-accountable entities deciding who deserves help and who does not is feudalism, not democracy. We already have this issue with religious/-associated organizations denying help to LGBT or nationalist organizations denying help to non-Whites.

Government-ran operations may have their deficits, yes, but at least they are mandated to be available equally to all persons meeting the democratically decided criteria!

Re: Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

#90

Post by jjoonathan » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #85

typon wrote: post #40

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

If anything is sacrificing the well-being of poor Americans who deserve better, it is the fact that helping them is punted to government bureaucracies instead of being done by private individuals and charitable organizations who are both able and motivated to exercise much better judgment about who needs help and what help is needed than any government bureaucrat can possibly do.

Quite the opposite. Our instincts surrounding charity are to help when it won't directly hurt us -- but if everything is commoditized, all charity directly hurts us. A dollar we give to the poor today is a dollar we can't use to shelter our family on a future rainy day. Directly incentivizing against individual action and then insisting on individual action as the only path forward is a guaranteed recipe for continued failure -- which is exactly what we observe. This is a collective problem and collective action is the only viable path to solving it.