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Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

economist.com

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Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#31

Post by sv_underbelley »

ekianjo wrote: post #17
pyoung wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing society should do is ensure everyone has the same rights in regard to the Law no matter how rich, how poor, how different you may be. No, society should seek to maximize widespread improvements in quality of life and further humanities cause through social, technological, and cultural investments. Nature may be unfair, but just because we were born from it does not mean we have to model out society a…

> No, society should seek to maximize widespread improvements in quality of life and further humanities cause through social, technological, and cultural investments That's just your point of view. "Society" is not a unique body, it should be based on the sum of the individual aspirations of everyone part of it.

>>> The only thing society should do is ensure everyone has the same rights in regard to the Law no matter how rich, how poor, how different you may be. Anything beyond is just a call for arms-race to make everyone the same in every aspect (and incidentally, to render everyone poor by default).

And that's just your point of view. You're just arguing over what society should be, neither of you are privileged to The One True Definition.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#32

Post by sv_underbelley »

nikatwork wrote: post #24
joelrunyon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't see deviances like that in genetics. You don't? You don't think Lebron James is better than about a billion people at the game of basketball? This is the 80/20 rule niched down about 10x.

To use your metaphor, one player is given 300 free shots while everyone else only has one. And if you don't sink enough baskets, you starve. Also don't call in sick for a game, nobody cares. I don't understand why HN is so strongly anti- corporate and govt monopoly and yet so massively pro-personal monopoly.

There is usually a libertarian vein in anyone who thinks they possess a lever that can move the world. It's not necessarily a bad nor good thing.

Like all communities, we attract self-same thinkers.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#33

Post by ekianjo »

boomlinde wrote: post #23
ekianjo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Excessive wealth is usually hoarded (in bank accounts), not used: But if you want the economy to work the most (creating jobs, etc.), you need to make money circulate as much as possible (which is not what rich people usually do). Another economical fallacy. When you put money in the bank, it's not standing there doing nothing. Savings are invested, loaned, used to create additional value. That's why banks want y…

> Nature is unfair. [...] The only thing society should do is ensure everyone has the same rights in regard to the Law no matter how rich, how poor, how different you may be. Since you are so readily dismissing egalitarianism on the basis of being unnatural, I'm sure you have a great natural explanation for things like property rights and law. For all I care, you can have libertarian or egalitarian ideals, but make n…

I'm not just dismissive of Egalitarinism only because it's unnatural, but also because it goes against the individual's freedom in the end. There will be always be a point if you follow that line of thought where the power in place will crush your individual interests just for the sake of making your condition the same as everyone else (even on the basis of good intentions...). That, in itself, is against Human nature, where humans strive to build advantage for ourselves to improve our conditions and our odds to survival and to lead a better life. And don't tell me Humans don't do that, everyone wants their kids to be in good school and to get a better job than themselves. It's universal no matter from which culture you come from.

With Egalitarianism, you end up with policies where education is strictly controlled by one governmental body, and where Education goes to the lowest common denominator and becomes basically crap for everyone involved. You end up with public health services which are subpar, with waiting lines and mediocre equipment, because you want to treat everyone the same way while running on limited resources. And this has already happened in many countries in Europe where such policies were driven to the core of the governmental actions. In the end you create more inequalities because people who really have money have the possibility to leave the country and get better services elsewhere, while the middle-class and the poor are forever restrained to a diminished quality of life.

My point is that libertarian ideals are more respectful of individuals, because they allow for the flexibility of choosing your own course of action, maximizing your responsibility. In that sense they are closer to the natural order where one individual can create an advantage for themselves based on their action while living as part of a social group. I won't elaborate here on the principles and the philosophy behind it, it's a different subject altogether.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#34

Post by ekianjo »

sv_underbelley wrote: post #31
ekianjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, society should seek to maximize widespread improvements in quality of life and further humanities cause through social, technological, and cultural investments That's just your point of view. "Society" is not a unique body, it should be based on the sum of the individual aspirations of everyone part of it.

>>> The only thing society should do is ensure everyone has the same rights in regard to the Law no matter how rich, how poor, how different you may be. Anything beyond is just a call for arms-race to make everyone the same in every aspect (and incidentally, to render everyone poor by default). And that's just your point of view. You're just arguing over what society should be, neither of you are privileged to The On…

> You're just arguing over what society should be, neither of you are privileged to The One True Definition.

Maybe, but I think you'll find it hard to find people who don't agree that the Law should be the same for everyone, philosophically speaking.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#35

Post by tgandrews »

Not to be a downer but an academic study found this to have limited effect. I heard about it on freakonomics so can't vouch for how biased it was. Just an interesting point against the economist article. http://freakonomics.com/2013/09/26/would-a-big-bucket-of-cas...

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#37

Post by Crake »

ekianjo wrote: post #33
boomlinde wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nature is unfair. [...] The only thing society should do is ensure everyone has the same rights in regard to the Law no matter how rich, how poor, how different you may be. Since you are so readily dismissing egalitarianism on the basis of being unnatural, I'm sure you have a great natural explanation for things like property rights and law. For all I care, you can have libertarian or egalitarian ideals, but make n…

I'm not just dismissive of Egalitarinism only because it's unnatural, but also because it goes against the individual's freedom in the end. There will be always be a point if you follow that line of thought where the power in place will crush your individual interests just for the sake of making your condition the same as everyone else (even on the basis of good intentions...). That, in itself, is against Human natur…

>Education goes to the lowest common denominator and becomes basically crap for everyone involved

>health services which are subpar, with waiting lines and mediocre equipment

>the middle-class and the poor are forever restrained to a diminished quality of life

Are you sure you aren't talking about present day America? All of these things have become widespread here as a result of income inequality--something you've said you support.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#38

Post by goggles99 »

Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul (such as people who have made mistakes, people who have no reason to care, impoverished people, prisoners ETC.)...

What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Of course those who were receiving it would have to fulfill certain requirements, but wow what a concept. How about deducting some amount from that mandatory contribution of the person were to volunteer in the community?

We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. Many people may even give the money as cash to some people - personally. Have government oversight review and publish how well any charitable organization is doing at helping people become self reliant financially and socially (this will separate the wheat from the chaff).

People may actually become caring and have empathy for these people that they are helping. When people help others, they become happier people. Many people may even donate more money on top of the required amount and volunteer or switch careers to one that helps those in need.

Imaging that. That is something that no government could ever accomplish.

The government really de-humanizes people. It takes our money and does some things to help people. We never see this happen directly. The government keeps the bums and beggars out of sight so we never even see them. The government jails drug attics and other impoverished criminals so we never see them either.

All we ever see from the media is bad news. We never see lives being turned around from welfare or other social services.

My money says that once people start taking care of each other, their humanity will grow 1000% ala the Grinch.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#39

Post by nhaehnle »

thomasz wrote: post #4
frank_boyd wrote: post #2

As a matter of fact, society has not a single valid reason to allow concentration of excessive wealth on some kind of restricted group or "elite" (as, by the way, also promoted erroneously by the idea of the "American Dream"). Here are a few facts to explain that this concept is not sane at all: - Excessive wealth is usually hoarded (in bank accounts), not used: But if you want the economy to work the most (creating…

> Excessive wealth is usually hoarded (in bank accounts), not used: But if you want the economy to work the most (creating jobs, etc.), you need to make money circulate as much as possible (which is not what rich people usually do). Hell no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_identity

The savings identity is usually misinterpreted by laypeople, though.

Here's a small story to illustrate why S=I can be very misleading: Company C has always produced some type gadgets, for many years. Demand for the gadget has been stable, they just keep producing to what the demand is, end of story. Sounds boring, but this is what 99% of the economy is.

Now, for whatever reason (a recession, a policy change, it doesn't really matter), consumers want to save more. In doing so, they decide to reduce their purchase of C's gadget.

What happens now? Well, saving S goes up. At the same time, company C involuntarily builds up an inventory of gadgets that they had already started producing but which they can no longer sell. This build-up of inventory is counted as investment in the national accounts! So I goes up, and the identity S=I is maintained.

But S=I is maintained in a way that is in total conflict to the typical layperson's interpretation of the equation.

So, yes, an exogenous increase in saving will tend to push up "investment" (in quotation marks because it is involuntary investment). When all is said and done, we may all well be poorer for it in real terms, because the level of economic activity may have been reduced.

On the other hand, when there is an increase in voluntary investment, then I goes up. Then people's income increases, and that tends to lead to an increase in savings. So S=I is also maintained, but we tend to be richer for it in real terms due to a higher level of economic activity.

Re: Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

#40

Post by Crake »

robryan wrote: post #10
quink wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no one has the right to, for example, clean water? Or is that just egalitarian bullshit that is going to make everyone the same in every aspect too?

Governments exist to give everyone a basic set required services. I think even the biggest free market/ small government advocate would agree that access to clean drinking water is one of those services.

But access to college and health care isn't??
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