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Cash to the poor: Giving money directly works surprisingly well

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

#51
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nature is unfair. That is no argument against striving for an as fair society as possible.

> as fair society as possible The problem with this line of thought is that it's never ending if you try to "fix things" for everyone. Because there's limited resources and there are choices you have to take anyway and the solutions you will implement will never end up being fair for everyone, while it will prove to be a burden for society as a whole.

but it's not a quest for perfect fairness - rather an attempt to maximise benefits. $300B in a vault, whilst millions starve is pretty obviously unfair, and actually detrimental to society overall. generally, when inequality grows, so does societal instability and discord.

At some point, we as a society have to argue with the American Ideology of "free markets for ever, for everyone, for everything."

It simply does not bode well for our species in terms of morality, survival or many other metrics to have people dying of thirst while another man washes his collection of Maybachs.

Some inequality is inevitable. Too much inequality is a disaster.

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

#52

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...

The Economist article talks about someone in Kenya being given $1000USD. That's about 84800KSH.

Minimum wage for Kenya varies, but 4855KSH ($57USD) per month is what a general laborer gets.[1]

That person is getting very roughly 17 months income. That's very different to "winning the lottery".

But perhaps this man is one of the 50% of Kenyans living below the poverty line.[2] ($2USD per day) So, if he gets $1.25USD per day a $1000USD lump sum would be a bit more than 2 years income.

Microfinance is not the wonder that people once thought it was[3], but giving money to people directly seems to work quite well.

[1] http://www.wageindicator.org/main/salary/minimum-wage/kenya

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/kenya

[2] http://c2050922.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/images/172...

[3] http://www.irinnews.org/report/95067/development-microfinanc...

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

#53
post #5

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). 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.

A naturalistic fallacy[1] if I ever saw one. Nature is grossly unfair. It is also extremely cruel. Of course, it's neither of those things because these are anthropic traits – nature just is. Modeling your behavior on "nature" is senseless. Maybe we should all behave like electrons, absorb or emit energy occasionally, and move about more or less randomly[2].

> Stop the egalitarian bullshit.

Whether you subscribe to humanistic politics or not, calling it "bullshit" is ridiculous. We are not trying to change or defy nature, or even romanticize it (like I said, nature is). The question everyone is trying to propose answers to is how should human beings behave – as individuals and as a society. The answers have no intrinsic truth to them. They are a result of each one's peculiar sentiment.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

[2]: Actually, there is a hypothesis that all electrons are exactly the same - in fact, they are the same electron - so, according to that we actually share our electrons with everyone and everything else; maybe nature is egalitarian after all.

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

#54

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…

The real problem is not excessive wealth but generational transfer of such. Let someone reap the benefits. BUT then take away the majority of the wealth away upon death so he could not transfer it. Let his decendands be able to inherit total value of 100 each (whatever the poverty line is that year) and take away the rest. This way we make the emerging of elites harder and falling out of them easier.

Not only wealth is transferred from generation to generation. Jewellery, old family houses, paintings and lots of other possibly expensive stuff. For many people, it's not about money. It's memories and other non-financial stuff. That 200 years old watch from your grand-grand-grand-father? Whoopsie, it's expensive these days! If you try to take away that, people won't be happy.

If you try to loopholes to allow that kind of transfer, people will use that to transfer wealth to their children. Even if you don't add them, there're many ways to work around that. For example, parents may sell stuff to their children for many times less than market value. You can't deny people rights to sell stuff for whatever they want, do you?

There's no law that can't be worked around. Some people want laws to hide real world from themselves. Other people accept reality.

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

#55
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nature is unfair. And some people really want it to stay that way. I read somewhere that we were all born with the same rights. It's still a joke, a few centuries after someone had understood that: Money equals power. Power equals rights (in our society, until now).

As far as I know there are still powerful people ending up in prison (at least in the US) once in a while, which seems to go against your last point. If Money equalled power then Madoff would never have landed in prison with a 150 years sentence.

Madoffs mistake was to rip off other rich people.

How much time will the gentlemen convicted of OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS OF LIBOR MANIPULATION get? Nothing - the only people really suffering there were mortgagees and small to mid size banks.

The banks involved will pay maybe a billion dollars in fines, borne of course by both shareholders (including your 401K) and customers. Meanwhile, the banks profited far more than that, and the individuals involved simply got moved to another office.

I met one of the VPs for Lehman Bros, responsible in all but law for what happened in 2008. He has a very nice job working for a major Asia Pacific bank, and earns a hell of a lot more than you or I ever will.

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

#56

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…

I've had similar thoughts on social security. It would make a lot of sense to simply require citizens to save or invest a certain portion of their annual income. You could have enforced diversification (certain percentages allowed for high vs. low risk), and accreditation boards to vet and approve mutual and index funds. Also, the investment would have a very stimulative effect on the economy, and you could probably…

That's only viable if you also force salaries up dramatically for low earners, or what you are doing is requiring people to starve.

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

#57
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had similar thoughts on social security. It would make a lot of sense to simply require citizens to save or invest a certain portion of their annual income. You could have enforced diversification (certain percentages allowed for high vs. low risk), and accreditation boards to vet and approve mutual and index funds. Also, the investment would have a very stimulative effect on the economy, and you could probably…

That's only viable if you also force salaries up dramatically for low earners, or what you are doing is requiring people to starve.

No, I'm saying individuals would invest in lieu of social security. Those low earners are already losing part of their income to social security.

There would obviously have to be a transitionary period where the government makes up the shortfall, in order to honor the commitments made to retirees. It would be painful, but only a small addition to the 87 Trillion in current liabilities of the U.S. government.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732335320...

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

#58

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…

But "the government" is people. Society said, "let people take care of people", and government is the answer to how to do that. The government is "full of corruption and waste" because people are.

We constantly try to find ways to organize society (and government as a crucial part of society) in ways that minimize corruption and waste, or mitigate their effects.

> That is something that no government could ever accomplish.

What you're suggesting is simply a new form of government. It might be great; it could perhaps work. But it's certainly not something to suggest offhand. Our current form(s) of government is a result of centuries (and millennia) of gradual, and sometimes revolutionary, progress. I wouldn't just throw it out the window. But hey, if you want to start a revolution, by all means – go for it. It's been a while since we've had a good revolution in the West. And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile).

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

#59
post #34

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. 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.

Sure. The other HNer appears to claim that's not _all_ it is, you appear to have claimed that's all it is.

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

#60
post #33

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…

> 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.

Only if you define an individuals freedom as "freedom to deprive others of access to shared natural resources through violence" (I use the term violence since libertarians seems overly fond of referring to government interference as "violence"; except when it comes to enforcing private property). Hence Proudhon's "property is theft".

> With Egalitarianism, you end up with policies where education is strictly controlled by one governmental body

Why? Most egalitarian ideologies want to dismantle the state and introduce some form or other of direct democracy which would preclude strict government control of education or pretty much everything else.

Marx, for example, considered the only political purpose of the state to be the oppression of one class by another, and the goal of socialism to remove the class struggle by enacting policies that would remove the capitalist class, by turning them into workers. And the natural end-point, according to Marx, would be the "withering away of the state", as in a class-less society it would have no political purpose.

Anarchists argue for a more direct approach: Destroy the state outright.

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

Why? The original form of socialism was the idea of a meritocracy where a central goal would be to ensure people were given the opportunity to develop personally and promoted according to skill (read up on Saint Simon).

> You end up with public health services which are subpar, with waiting lines and mediocre equipment

This is contrary to real world experiences, where the universal healthcare systems for the most part are cheaper and better than mostly privatized systems like the US.

> And this has already happened in many countries in Europe where such policies were driven to the core of the governmental actions.

So this is why most European healthcare systems consistently rank better than the US system?

> My point is that libertarian ideals are more respectful of individuals

No, it is respectful of property owners. Libertarianism is what you get when you take anarchism or communism but don't follow the thinking through to its logical extension, but single out private property for special treatment.

Somehow, according to the libertarian, we need government enforcement of one persons "right" to deprive others of access to certain resources, while we don't need governments for pretty much everything else. The hypocrisy of this doesn't seem to phase anyone.

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