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Togo made a digital government stimulus system in two weeks

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

#111

Post by tylerhou »

refurb wrote: post #105
tylerhou wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to advocate for; making it much harder to receive unemployment benefits? Then your statement demonstrates the exact point the parent commenter is trying to make. 89% of payments weren't considered fraudulent. I.e. it seems like you're suggesting that you'd rather sacrifice the well-being of the millions of people who received legitimate unemployment benefits just to prevent payments to a relativel…

What are you advocating for? Social programs that enrich organize crime to the tune of billions?

I'm advocating for the honest representation of the net utility for social programs by stating their benefits in addition to their downsides. It's not a fair representation to only show losses without acknowledging that without unemployment (or with more stringent fraud checks that also would increase false rejections), many people would have lost their homes or lives during the pandemic.

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

#112

Post by jjoonathan »

pdonis wrote: post #97
jjoonathan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 continue…

> A dollar we give to the poor today is a dollar we can't use to shelter our family on a future rainy day So is a dollar you pay in taxes, ostensibly to help the poor but in reality it won't (see my post elsewhere in this thread on government bureaucracies). At least if you spend the dollar directly on a poor person, you know it's going directly to that poor person. > Directly incentivizing against individual action…

> So is a dollar you pay in taxes,

Nope.

My neighbor has to pay it too, and it's my neighbor that I'm bidding against for assets.

The world is full of zero (or negative) sum games that can be overcome through cooperation.

> We observe continued failure because people think that they have already paid to help the poor

Yes, my parents keep giving money to their church. I grew up there, I've seen what their charitable efforts look like. That's why I so strongly prefer programs like food stamps.

> Basically, what you're saying is that you don't want to do the work yourself

I already do -- but statistics are a thing, I know that I'm atypical. You know what sucks most about writing that big check to GiveWell every year? It's not the idea of devoting some of my work to a good cause -- that part feels good -- it's knowing that others won't, and that they will have an advantage over me as a result. Working harder for a good cause is one thing, getting a kick in the nuts on top of that is something else, defending the idea of rewarding charity with a kick in the nuts is something truly special, in the extra-chromosome sense of the word.

I believe that incentives matter, and I believe that fixing incentives is how we get out of this. We fix the incentives by making sure that everyone puts money into the pot.

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

#113

Post by pdonis »

op00to wrote: post #107
pdonis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A dollar we give to the poor today is a dollar we can't use to shelter our family on a future rainy day So is a dollar you pay in taxes, ostensibly to help the poor but in reality it won't (see my post elsewhere in this thread on government bureaucracies). At least if you spend the dollar directly on a poor person, you know it's going directly to that poor person. > Directly incentivizing against individual action…

> government bureaucrats […] who are even less motivated to actually help people than you are Can you explain how those who work in government are less motivated to help others than those employed outside of government?

Because the only way for the government to execute anything is to create a mindless, bureaucratic organization operating according to mindless, bureaucratic processes to do it. And the kind of person who will thrive in such an organization is not the kind of person who will be either good at helping others or motivated to do it. Only a private charity, answerable only to its owners and not to a fickle democratic process and a mindless bureaucracy, can exercise the kind of judgment required to find and keep the kind of people who are good at helping others and motivated to do it.

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

#114

Post by pdonis »

jjoonathan wrote: post #112
pdonis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A dollar we give to the poor today is a dollar we can't use to shelter our family on a future rainy day So is a dollar you pay in taxes, ostensibly to help the poor but in reality it won't (see my post elsewhere in this thread on government bureaucracies). At least if you spend the dollar directly on a poor person, you know it's going directly to that poor person. > Directly incentivizing against individual action…

> So is a dollar you pay in taxes, Nope. My neighbor has to pay it too, and it's my neighbor that I'm bidding against for assets. The world is full of zero (or negative) sum games that can be overcome through cooperation. > We observe continued failure because people think that they have already paid to help the poor Yes, my parents keep giving money to their church. I grew up there, I've seen what their charitable e…

> My neighbor has to pay it too, and it's my neighbor that I'm bidding against for assets.

No, you're not. You're bidding against the government and all of the contractors the government hires to do things. And the government can print money; you can't.

> The world is full of zero (or negative) sum games that can be overcome through cooperation.

Yes, and one of them is called "special interest politics". The way to overcome that through cooperation is for people to cooperatively agree to not give governments so much power.

> my parents keep giving money to their church. I grew up there, I've seen what their charitable efforts look like. That's why I so strongly prefer programs like food stamps.

So basically, you don't think private charities, or at least churches, or at least churches like the one you grew up in, do a good job of helping people, based on your personal experience. Fair enough.

Next question: do you have personal experience with food stamp programs?

> I already do -- but statistics are a thing, I know that I'm atypical.

I'm not so sure, but let's assume for the sake of argument that you are. Then you have two choices:

(1) Since our country is a democracy, and since the majority of people don't actually want to help others (according to your hypothesis that we've accepted for the sake of argument), then you (and my wife and I, since we are atypical the same way you are) are outvoted. If the majority doesn't actually want to help people, their will should prevail and the government should stop doing it.

(2) If you want to argue that helping people is a good thing even if the majority doesn't want to do it, then you're admitting that you're willing to impose the will of a minority on the majority in a supposedly democratic country. In other words, you're basically saying that your will should prevail, on no other grounds than your personal opinion that helping people is a good thing.

Which do you pick?

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

#115

Post by pdonis »

jjoonathan wrote: post #112
pdonis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A dollar we give to the poor today is a dollar we can't use to shelter our family on a future rainy day So is a dollar you pay in taxes, ostensibly to help the poor but in reality it won't (see my post elsewhere in this thread on government bureaucracies). At least if you spend the dollar directly on a poor person, you know it's going directly to that poor person. > Directly incentivizing against individual action…

> So is a dollar you pay in taxes, Nope. My neighbor has to pay it too, and it's my neighbor that I'm bidding against for assets. The world is full of zero (or negative) sum games that can be overcome through cooperation. > We observe continued failure because people think that they have already paid to help the poor Yes, my parents keep giving money to their church. I grew up there, I've seen what their charitable e…

> We fix the incentives by making sure that everyone puts money into the pot.

Forcing people to contribute money in taxes is not "fixing incentives". It's just brute force.

The best way to increase people's incentive to help others would be to remove the illusion that they can outsource that task to the government.

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

tsimionescu wrote: post #78
complianceowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake you make is assuming that your supposed 'noble intentions' justify what you are proposing; they do not. Your noble intentions are absolutely hypocritical and fake. If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money.…

"the idle" are almost universally those at the top of the wealth chain, doing nothing whatsoever and living handsomely off of rent, their ancestor's wealth and so on. This myth of the idle poor has to die. Poor people are overwhelmingly working, and the vast majority are working much harder than the upper middle class, and almost universally harder than the 0.01%. Unfortunately, most poor people made the mistake to w…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by WarChortle »

tylerhou wrote: post #109
creato wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

35 trillion is almost double the entire GDP of the US, and almost 10x the entire federal budget. I don't know where you are getting that number.

They're not saying that the US spends $35T on defense, they are saying that the budget is so complex that the aggregate value of internal transactions (i.e. budget allocation flowing down to sub-departments) is $35T. They use this complexity to claim (without evidence) that some money must be being skimmed. Not a fan of the amount the US spends on defense, but I'm also not a fan of arguments that make claims without…

> I'm also not a fan of arguments that make claims without any proof.

I'm with you but in this case the Pentagon hid the results of its first independent audit. There is no proof, but the fact they changed the rules to hide the results of the audit says all I need to know. If the pentagon wants to prove me wrong I'm all for it. Release the results and prove me wrong.

I won't hold my breath.

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

#118

Post by hellojesus »

shakna wrote: post #110
hellojesus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The utility of government exists to cater for the citizens, regardless of who they are. This is more or less my point. Taxes used for food/housing of individuals is akin to wealth redistribution. It is not money going to a public good/service but rather to individuals via an involuntary transaction. While it may benefit the party receiving the redistributed wealth, it does not necessarily benefit the giving party (…

> it also leads to moral hazard in a variety of ways such as corporate subsidiaries for low wage positions because they know workers will qualify for government handouts and therefore the workers demand lower wages. Easily overcome by simply having reasonable minimum wage laws. Whereby corporations are required to provide a living wage. > Therefore the government is not catering to all citizens. In fact, it is active…

> Easily overcome by simply having reasonable minimum wage laws. Whereby corporations are required to provide a living wage.

You are proposing fixing a negative externality caused by government policy with more government policy, which also happens to actively harm citizens.

Minimum wage laws add barriers to entry into the labor market for citizens. It ensures that laborers whom cannot provide utility at or in excess of the minimum wage cannot get a job in the first place.

It also actively prohibits private citizens from making voluntary, private transactions that pose no harm to third parties.

> Failing to provide support for citizens _does_ actively harm citizens. The choice you're proposing is between "maybe harm" and "we know it harms". They're not equivalent.

My point was that there was harm induced, definitively, upon Peter when you rob him to pay Paul. The only "maybe" about it was in the event that Peter wanted to give Paul the money anyway. But we know that is a specific case and not general.

> For the third and final time - Where?

I don't have a good charity to recommend. I do most of my giving through the local church and it's partner organizations. They release spending profiles, and I can see the difference my dollars make in the local ccommunity.

It appears you are correct about SA, which I didn't know https://www.businesspundit.com/10-infuriatingly-greedy-chari...

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

#119

Post by Chris2048 »

masklinn wrote: post #5
djbusby wrote: post #3

Smaller countries are like startups, can move fast and fix things. USA is bogged down legacy provider in this case taking ages to get a small change through the bureaucracy

The biggest impediment to modernising anything is that one of the US two parties is resolutely against anything government-related working better, and the other one is at best wishy-washy about it. EBT doesn’t have to be a disaster, and programs don’t have to be means-tested, they’re designed that way on purpose.

> against anything government-related working better

I think there's some injected subjectivity/interpretation here: You don't get the concrete option to "make something better", you get the option to "spend money on something" with the aim of making it better.

These aren't always the same, and sometimes reform (the implied power to change things that comes with new funding) can make things worse.

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

#120

Post by fmajid »

gerbilly wrote: post #57
cycomanic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. Rudger Bergman goes into a bit of detail on the history of that perception, which he attributes to the opposition against Nixon's UBI (at least in the US). So what we now have in many western nations is a huge bureaucratic body to prevent fraud on social security systems which at the same time significantly increase hu…

> The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. This is the Just world hypothesis in action.¹ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

No, it’s Protestantism and the pernicious concept of grace as opposed to good works in Judaism, Catholic/Orthodox Christianity or Islam. If you are poor, you must be cursed by God and therefore deserve everything that happens to you. What’s more, the elect who have grace are entitled to make your life even worse for their benefit.
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