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Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

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Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#61

Post by sigzero »

drcube wrote: post #7

I've been saying this for years now. Give people the freedom to make their own economic decisions without the fate of crushing poverty over their heads. Give them the financial breathing room to learn a new skill, start a business, or simply find a better job than the one they currently have. Basically, the freedom to take risks. Rich people have been telling us for decades that is what they bring to the table. Risk.…

"And if it decreases crime, disease, teen pregnancy, and the dropout rate, that's just icing on the cake."

You have zero idea if that is truly the case or not.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#62

Post by hga »

George McGovern lost to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election in part due to his "demogrant" proposal to give $1,000, $5,600 in 2013 dollars, to every US citizen.

In my memory, the political ads against it were only exceeded in impact with the ones about his proposed gutting of our military (had toy soldiers, ships, etc. on maps with a hand sweeping away the percentage he proposed to cut; this did not do well in a period when Cold War was very hot).

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#63

Post by simplemath »

sp332 wrote: post #28
peterdundi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When unemployment fluctuates the bar for earning money is fluctuating. If you're the kind of person who is near that bar you need to take a good hard look at yourself.

Something external changed, and suddenly there's a problem with me? I need to look at myself, because someone else raised a bar? I think your point is bullshit. It's not like people are capable of making money when the mill shuts down. There is literally no money left in the town then.

His point IS bullshit - if there is one to be gleaned at all. Its a classic cautionary tale in myopic argumentation - He's doing OK, so everyone else should be too, and if they aren't they aren't trying hard enough. Externality-free projection.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#64

Post by prostoalex »

tghw wrote: post #33
cobrausn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator. With that gone? Won't we see a higher divide between skilled and unskilled, rich and poor? I'm a bit skeptical about this supposed panacea that cures crime, disease, and teen pregnancy, all in one fell swoop.

The one real world example we have, of Dauphin, suggests this is not the case at all. A final report was never issued, but Dr. Evelyn Forget conducted an analysis of the program in 2009 which was published in 2011. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less becaus…

If every child is eligible for his fair share of minimum income, there's a good incentive to direct productive-work energy into baby-making activities, boosting household's basic income numbers with each new addition.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#65

Post by carbocation »

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

From the optimist's view, think how many people whose lives are being spent working at Walmart or McDonald's who could instead be at home developing skills they are actually interested in (which school does a poor job of teaching), such as programming or sculpture, etc.

Imagine the entrepreneurs who might feel freed to give business a chance, rather than feeling that they can't quit their day jobs?

It would be a grand experiment with potentially huge benefits (and, as always, risks).

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#67

Post by tghw »

cobrausn wrote: post #52
njharman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to get an education to seek greater opportunities? That, "make mo money", is the poorest and most cynical incentive to "get an education". Education is it's own reward. Not everyone desires/benefits from going into debt for a piece of paper. People should be free (by having basic income) to choose their own education (or not at all). And not be forced into becoming fuel for the economic machine.

But by providing them a minimum income, you basically make them into fuel for the economic machine - a consumer with no viable skills. And the vital years for gaining these skills are full of distractions, made all the easier to acquire by a basic income.

Look at the Mincome example I posted above. Teens are more likely to graduate high school. Why? Because they aren't pressured to help support their families.

This "distraction" theory is a far stretch. Teens have always had distractions. And most of them have the means to acquire those distractions. So they might buy a video game they couldn't afford before. They also don't have to try to go to school and work a full time job to support their family. Having to go to school and work is a much larger distraction.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#68

Post by jrs99 »

ams6110 wrote: post #22
ataggart wrote: post #4

Whatever the economic effect, I have a hard time imagining the political class giving up the power that comes from being the middle men between dispersed costs and concentrated benefits.

I have two concerns: the first is basically the one you identified: welfare and similar programs are less about helping people and more about keeping a large voting block in a state of dependency. I'm not sure the alternative of basic income changes that, it might actually increase it since more people would be getting basic income than are currently getting welfare and other forms of assistance. Any program which en…

$34,000 is foolish when you can do a pilot program for $12K per year, or even $6 K per year to simply see what happens.

There's no other way around it. You need to give people money in a more automatized world.

wages and prices may increase, but money will still be more evenly distributed than it was before. As in the person that had nothing will now be able to get something even if prices increase. That is what's important. We simply can't leave these people behind because a robot will eventually do what they can do 24 hours per day without getting tired and more accurately than any human on earth.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#69

Post by Xdes »

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

Or a good reason for private security.
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