51–60 of 126 posts
The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.
The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.
Yes, if you draw a line in the sand as to what does and doesn't count as poverty and then give away a marginal sum of money, suddenly many people cross from nearby one side of that line to nearby the other. Surely this makes a difference in the lives of these people but on large scales, how much of a difference have you actually made? Effectively what you've erected is a subsidy for high rent and low wages which targ…
Judging by the article, quite a large difference.
>there must be better solutions than solidifying the systematic problems which capture this segment of the population.
We're talking about poor children here. The systemic problem of this segment of the population is that they are poor. It's easy to talk about poor adults and prescribe behavioral adjustments, it's a way of assigning desert. It's much harder to talk about poor children because it's obvious that no child deserves to be poor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If not, then what definition/test of it are you using that the wars you don't like count, but that one doesn't? 1) Are they committing genocide? 2) Did they attack you?
So you'd be cool with the US sitting out ww2 if japan didn't bomb pearl harbor?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the capitalist mindset you described were accurate, then we would have the kind of society you described because we’ve had a very capitalist economy from the start. But that’s not what we see, so unfortunately what you assert cannot be true. However, you’re right that we live in capitalism. And it creates child poverty.
That [some] child poverty exists in a capitalist society does not mean that capitalism creates child poverty.
The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.
Yes, if you draw a line in the sand as to what does and doesn't count as poverty and then give away a marginal sum of money, suddenly many people cross from nearby one side of that line to nearby the other. Surely this makes a difference in the lives of these people but on large scales, how much of a difference have you actually made? Effectively what you've erected is a subsidy for high rent and low wages which targ…
Giving cash to liquidity- and asset-constrained folks with high-value spending needs (like raising a kid) makes a huge difference if you can even roughly target the intervention to them. It's almost impossible to theoretically bound the benefit, it could be very large indeed. Even if some money were wasted on "bad" spending, and even though redistributing it is inherently costly, it's the kind of thing that's absolutely worth trying. It has all the well-known benefits of UBI, except on an even larger scale.
The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.
I think you are straw-man'ing a bit. Of course giving people money results in them having more money. News at 11. But it's reasonable to question whether that's a good solution, a band-aid, or perhaps a short-term hack with future blowback, etc. Direct cash transfers are not exactly some foolproof, no-brainer solution to poverty. We've made a real mess in some third world countries with the cash spigot.
Has there been a comparable scenario of direct cash transfers to poor people?
I have to admit I'm a confused mix of beliefs right now. I agree that funding for children is among the best return on investment [1] (to the point that I think we should rank initiatives and spend on kids first before anyone else gets their turn in line for the same ROI), but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. In fact, our recent history has shown that any kind…
The fact that this article even needed to be written says a lot about the state of politics in America. I don't think I will ever wrap my head around the fact that there are politicians who seem to sincerely believe that the best way to decrease poverty is to give tax cuts to the rich and huge corporations, instead of actions like what's described in the article.
Expanding income tax credits to people who don't earn income is just as strange to me
To phrase child welfare in terms of a capitalist mindset: if you care about expanding your business and keeping labor costs down, you care about the size and quality of the domestic labor pool, and thus you care about the access to education, the stable living arrangements, and mental welfare of your fellow country people and their families, and thus you support welfare to your poorest country people. To do otherwise…
I don’t think any sensible capitalist would disagree with this. But the implication that follows, which is “therefor the government should collect more taxes to finance more programs…” is not so obviously a good idea. The government is the least efficient resource allocator ever created. If you ask the government to do something, it will deliver the lowest possible quality outcome, and the highest possible price. Bas…
Why? And are you sure? Are there any statistics on the matter regarding this particular program?
I have to admit I'm a confused mix of beliefs right now. I agree that funding for children is among the best return on investment [1] (to the point that I think we should rank initiatives and spend on kids first before anyone else gets their turn in line for the same ROI), but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. In fact, our recent history has shown that any kind…
Using Australia as an example, I went to a good University and had a government loan for the courses. I am 2 months away from paying it off (humble brag for me). But it was a government loan with no interest. So this is a good example of government offering a service to a point, that the private sector wouldn't ever touch.
If the US government offered a 0% loan for education up to 50K and required payment only after reaching a certain income threshold, that policy would put top down pressure on expensive courses. They'd still exists but the bulk of everyone would be doing a course they could pay off and the competition would change the market.
Likewise, I've recently been thinking about labor productivity with women returning to the workplace. Having kids is bad for families budgets (child care is a killer). Caring for kids keeps women out of the workforce.
I think if public schools offered pre K care from about 18 months to kinder then you'd have parents being able to get back to work and you'd permanently reduce childcare costs. I suspect it'd pay itself off a few times over. Similar to building quality infrastructure.
The problem with that second idea is that it would cost a ton upfront and the payback would be over the medium to longer term, like infrastructure.
People are bad at long term choices and there's the trend of populism in politics at the moment. Which doesn't help anything.