To help poor people, give them money • Hacker News Board

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#31

Post by tg3 » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

ianferrel wrote: post #13

The best way to help poor people who make reasonably good decisions is to give them money. People who make bad decisions often end up poor. Giving them money will not help them make better decisions, and may make them worse off. How you think those two effects interact, and how much you value efficiency of donation vs. enabling people with poor decision making skills to waste probably determines where you stand on th…

I think that this is a myth, perpetuated by people who wish to rationalize their position (which also happens to be wealth-maximizing for themselves).

Empirically, giving people money helps them. This experiment with the homeless in London is a good place to start: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-money-might-be-t...

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#32

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #10

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. I am sorry, just this statement alone, disqualifies your whole argumentation. It is just a barroom cliche of the rich.

Sometimes cliches are cliches because they're accurate. And who cares if you think my argument should automatically be "disqualified" because it doesn't match your politics.

[deleted]

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#33

Post by mangeletti » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

This works in small experiments because when you give money to a small group of poor people (A) within a larger group of poor people (B), group A gains leverage compared to their prior position and compared to group B.

When you give money to all poor people, the net result is simply inflation[1]. If transfer payments were made to taper up from max(wealth) (receives $0) to min(wealth) (receives $average(wealth)), disparity would be brought to 0, which would naturally lead to everybody doing what they wanted rather than what earned them income. This would be a lot of fun, but it would unfortunately reduce the developmental value of humans to zero[2], and machines would evolve to replace us all (could be gray goo, could be the borg, etc.).

The true path to freedom from work is to work collaboratively on a humanoid robot with some basic rules for human interaction: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Those should suffice for a while, but I know not what will come of them down the line.

That's all for now :) Have a great weekend, everyone!

1. http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-4/Newt...

2. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/05/robots_of_the_f....

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#34

Post by analog31 » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #15

Shivetya wrote: post #8

Have to chastise you for one example, giving them money so they can buy a cell phone? Why? To be further in debt with monthly fees? There are programs for poor people to get a limited cell plan for free and government offices keyed to assisting the poor do direct them there. I would never give them cash. While you certainly cited all sorts of needs; this is not hard and runs along the lines of "for the children, no o…

"Have to chastise you for one example, giving them money so they can buy a cell phone? Why? To be further in debt with monthly fees?" I feel what you're saying, but in 2015, one needs a phone to get (and usually to hold) a job. Especially low-wage jobs. E.g. a temp agency might start calling at 7h30 because they're looking for someone to fill in. Don't pick up your phone? We'll just give the job to someone else, oh a…

Anecdote: I meet quite a few people from lower income levels in my side job as a musician. Once, we were chatting about our cell phone plans, and I cracked a lame joke, like "the cell phone will truly liberate the homeless."

One of the other musicians said, in all seriousness: "Hey, my cell phone is my lifeline when I'm homeless." Another guy chipped in: "Me too."

It used to be cited that lack of a mailing address was a real impediment to the homeless getting back into a normal economic life, and the cell phone may play a similar role today.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#35

Post by pa5tabear » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #11

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. Sorry, but that is not really logical. Many people are poor simply because they don't earn enough money. There is a difference.

By "as a group" I meant most. Most poor people I know are poor because of their choices or because of the place they live. Neither of which are fixed with cash.

Some poor people are just born into bad situations and stay that way. You can't extrapolate your limited experience onto all of them.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#36

Post by jack-r-abbit » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #24

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who make bad decisions often end up poor. Giving them money will not help them make better decisions, and may make them worse off. But there are also many people who started poor and stayed poor, because they did not have the possibilities of the rich. Or is your argument, that somebody whose parents where rich, will stay rich, because he made all the good decisions himself? There are so many rich, that make…

There are plenty of wealthy people (mainly inherited) who became poor after bad investments. But, obviously if you have significant amounts of capital, it's harder to lose it all.

Also plenty of wealthy people that completely earned their money themselves but still ended up poor once the fat pay checks stopped coming. Athletes and musicians are probably the most obvious examples.

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#37

Post by Frondo » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #7

thedevil wrote: post #4

This article seems naive, at best. Time after time, when I've helped family members with cash, it winds up getting wasted horribly and helping them less than it hurt me to give it to them. When I help them with what they need, their situation improves. And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. Yet the article asks me to abandon reason and experience because there's some "a gro…

> And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. I am sorry, just this statement alone, disqualifies your whole argumentation. It is just a barroom cliche of the rich.

(responding to undo an accidental downvote...)

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#38

Post by thedevil » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #22

thedevil wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes cliches are cliches because they're accurate. And who cares if you think my argument should automatically be "disqualified" because it doesn't match your politics.

[deleted]

I do help others financially, quite a bit. And actually giving someone money in a way that helps them is a lot different than talking about someone else helping out people.

And what's with the childish ad hominem? Do you think you're still in high school?

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#39

Post by kstenerud » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #4

This article seems naive, at best. Time after time, when I've helped family members with cash, it winds up getting wasted horribly and helping them less than it hurt me to give it to them. When I help them with what they need, their situation improves. And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. Yet the article asks me to abandon reason and experience because there's some "a gro…

The point of basic income is to provide a baseline level of stability. There are many things that lead to poverty, but it is the inherent instability that traps people there.

When there is a monthly stipend that someone knows they can rely on no matter what happens (getting sick, losing their job, family emergency), they are suddenly capable of thinking beyond immediate needs.

Many people caught in the poverty trap know full well that they're making short term decisions that will do more harm than good in the long run, but often the better decision is beyond your means, either financially, or time-wise (because you're working 3 jobs and still falling behind on your bills and coming home completely drained and exhausted).

Re: To help poor people, give them money

#40

Post by tg3 » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #11

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor. Sorry, but that is not really logical. Many people are poor simply because they don't earn enough money. There is a difference.

By "as a group" I meant most. Most poor people I know are poor because of their choices or because of the place they live. Neither of which are fixed with cash.

I would assume, then that you don't know many poor people.

Based on the relationship between poverty and ethnicity, I'd say it's related to much more than their choices.