4 ms·

> Why not instead give each adult a voucher for housing (just barely adequate for cheap housing) and each person $5/day food stamps (or something similar), rega

> Why not instead give each adult a voucher for housing (just barely adequate for cheap housing) and each person $5/day food stamps (or something similar), regardless of income. Because individuals are better at determining their priorities than are central planners. It sounds like your parents were bad with money -- but it also sounds like your assistance with budgeting has been more valuable than the government could ever hope to be.

ddorian43 11y ago
Individuals in that situation usually are not.
- nostromo 11y ago
  While some poor people are bad with money, I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of them are capable of deciding between paying rent and buying a new TV.
  - over 11y ago
    Speaking from personal experience with a bunch of people that live way too close to zero or negative net worth, it's not buy a new TV or pay rent, it's buy a new TV or maintain a 6-12 month safety net in case everything goes to hell (which you might need, one day, to pay rent). But hey, that's what loans and credit cards are for, right?
    - thedevil 11y ago
      This exactly. It's not like they buy TVs instead of paying rent. Of course very few are that stupid. The problem is that they charge up their cards and blow their safety buffer on the TV/car/etc.
thedevil 11y ago
I'm not promoting any central planning. That certainly would be a disaster. The reason I suggest a voucher and food stamps is because they give the individuals the flexibility to apply them to their situation. Edit: Also, it's definitely not just my parents. Look around you, there's payday loans on every corner. My parents only took a couple payday loans that I knew about. Their money-management issues are a drop in the ocean of similar problems.
- _ak 11y ago
  With vouchers and food stamps, you're effectively prescribing how the basic income is supposed to be spent. But that totally misses the point of a basic income. You get money, you spend it as you see fit. Where some people will pay their rent and buy food, others may want to spend it on booze and gambling. They'd still have free reign over the money just like people with an income have nowadays. Nobody shall be able to force you to spend your money in a way that prescribes a very specific kind of lifestyle.
- thedevil 11y ago
  _ak: "Nobody shall be able to force you to spend your money in a way that prescribes a very specific kind of lifestyle." But they're not spending their money, they're spending other people's money. ak, If your version of basic income is about taking money from one group and letting another group blow it on alcohol and cigarettes, then it's obviously a bad idea.
  - js8 11y ago
    "But they're not spending their money, they're spending other people's money." No, that's not true. The purpose of the BI is that it's their money and their decision. It's just like when you get salary you get to decide what to do with it, it's not your employers money. "If your version of basic income is about taking money from one group and letting another group blow it on alcohol and cigarettes, then it's obviously a bad idea." It isn't at all obvious to me. If everybody would spend money on alcohol and cigarettes, we wouldn't face an ecological crisis, for example. A famous scientist or actor has a much larger ecological footprint than a gambling addict.
- chipsy 11y ago
  Things that this does not cover: Transportation Education Health Childcare Clothes Job-seeking expenses If you want the flexibility to cover every avenue of "i and my family have a shot at making it," you either arrive at a combinatorial explosion of complex needs-tested programs, or basic income. Since every program you make will induce some unique form of leakage, corruption or freeloading, the expectation of BI is that it limits that to "some people do not have the personality to manage personal finances, and will always be broke in any given situation." But that doesn't take anything "away" from people who can be responsible - they will in fact be insulated from the drag-the-family-down dynamic that prevails in the deepest instances of developed-world poverty, because they get their own BI at adulthood and can just run away from the situation without severe risk or hardship.

ddorian43 11y ago

Individuals in that situation usually are not.

nostromo 11y ago
While some poor people are bad with money, I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of them are capable of deciding between paying rent and buying a new TV.
- over 11y ago
  Speaking from personal experience with a bunch of people that live way too close to zero or negative net worth, it's not buy a new TV or pay rent, it's buy a new TV or maintain a 6-12 month safety net in case everything goes to hell (which you might need, one day, to pay rent). But hey, that's what loans and credit cards are for, right?
  - thedevil 11y ago
    This exactly. It's not like they buy TVs instead of paying rent. Of course very few are that stupid. The problem is that they charge up their cards and blow their safety buffer on the TV/car/etc.

thedevil 11y ago

I'm not promoting any central planning. That certainly would be a disaster. The reason I suggest a voucher and food stamps is because they give the individuals the flexibility to apply them to their situation. Edit: Also, it's definitely not just my parents. Look around you, there's payday loans on every corner. My parents only took a couple payday loans that I knew about. Their money-management issues are a drop in the ocean of similar problems.

_ak 11y ago
With vouchers and food stamps, you're effectively prescribing how the basic income is supposed to be spent. But that totally misses the point of a basic income. You get money, you spend it as you see fit. Where some people will pay their rent and buy food, others may want to spend it on booze and gambling. They'd still have free reign over the money just like people with an income have nowadays. Nobody shall be able to force you to spend your money in a way that prescribes a very specific kind of lifestyle.
thedevil 11y ago
_ak: "Nobody shall be able to force you to spend your money in a way that prescribes a very specific kind of lifestyle." But they're not spending their money, they're spending other people's money. ak, If your version of basic income is about taking money from one group and letting another group blow it on alcohol and cigarettes, then it's obviously a bad idea.
- js8 11y ago
  "But they're not spending their money, they're spending other people's money." No, that's not true. The purpose of the BI is that it's their money and their decision. It's just like when you get salary you get to decide what to do with it, it's not your employers money. "If your version of basic income is about taking money from one group and letting another group blow it on alcohol and cigarettes, then it's obviously a bad idea." It isn't at all obvious to me. If everybody would spend money on alcohol and cigarettes, we wouldn't face an ecological crisis, for example. A famous scientist or actor has a much larger ecological footprint than a gambling addict.
chipsy 11y ago
Things that this does not cover: Transportation Education Health Childcare Clothes Job-seeking expenses If you want the flexibility to cover every avenue of "i and my family have a shot at making it," you either arrive at a combinatorial explosion of complex needs-tested programs, or basic income. Since every program you make will induce some unique form of leakage, corruption or freeloading, the expectation of BI is that it limits that to "some people do not have the personality to manage personal finances, and will always be broke in any given situation." But that doesn't take anything "away" from people who can be responsible - they will in fact be insulated from the drag-the-family-down dynamic that prevails in the deepest instances of developed-world poverty, because they get their own BI at adulthood and can just run away from the situation without severe risk or hardship.