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I have to admit I'm a confused mix of beliefs right now. I agree that funding for children is among the best return on investment [1] (to the point that I thin

I have to admit I'm a confused mix of beliefs right now. I agree that funding for children is among the best return on investment [1] (to the point that I think we should rank initiatives and spend on kids first before anyone else gets their turn in line for the same ROI), but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. In fact, our recent history has shown that any kind of allocation of money to some goal mostly leads to the thing being targeted simply getting more expensive (higher education I'm looking at you), given how practiced private equity is at exploiting these things. And the other poster above is correct, of course you're going to see some number of people previously on the edge move into positive territory as soon as you roll out any measure like this. The question is how efficient and effective can you make the expenditure of tax dollars? And how free market vs. controlling you have to be to do it? So if some service (child care, health, education) is so important and we want to be efficient about it, doesn't that call for some public entity to provide some basic level of service that people can opt out of and pay more for privately if they want? So that we don't get private enterprise just sucking at the teat of free government money, inflating prices, and at last some guarantee of us getting what we allocated tax money for? [1] https://www.impact.upenn.edu/early-childhood-toolkit/why-invest/what-is-the-return-on-investment/ https://www.impact.upenn.edu/early-childhood-toolkit/why-inv... and some other articles I've seen on the topic, will try to find and edit comment

david38 5y ago
This is why I believe in universal food stamp cards. Have some regulations attached of course, like nutrition classes, but it takes the place of what some of the money buys, only better. Child nutrition is probably the single best ROI you can get anyway. Why everyone doesn’t have such a card is beyond me.
throwaway6734 5y ago
>but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. Why? We do it with social security and that seems like a well liked program. Individuals are generally pretty good at deciding what they need
- supernova87a 5y ago
  I commented in reply also above. Giving money to people who are reasonably well equipped to spend it on things that there are mature and reasonably efficient markets for is fine. No one has trouble finding groceries and standard items needed for living with their SS checks. When you give money to people to spend on say, childcare, and there is not the built up social / labor infrastructure to do it, private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices and not actually provide more of the service desired. Come to think of it, if you go back to the Social Security example, giving people more money because they can't afford housing is not going to magically create housing on its own. It will just produce more expensive housing as people try to outbid each other. We've all seen how that plays out.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    You're worried that nannies will be jacking up prices for their services, and that this will not help develop sufficient "infrastructure"? Doesn't seem all that realistic.
    - supernova87a 5y ago
      Private equity owned childcare centers. I don't think it's implausible at all.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    The increase in prices is potentially a necessary signal for improving infrastructure. I.e. prices drive competition and expended services.
zozbot234 5y ago
Giving money to households with no strings attached is the polar opposite of "private enterprise just sucking at the teat of free government money". I'm not sure why you think one would follow from the other. Public services have even poorer incentives than subsidized private ones (which again, this is not), they're only acceptable when the private sector alone will absolutely never provide that service under competitive conditions.
- supernova87a 5y ago
  I don't think you got what I'm saying. I mean that when you simply give money to people where there may not be efficient markets for some needed good (which you wanted the money spent on), private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices and not actually provide more of the service desired.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices When this happens, it's because there are unrelated supply constraints, usually resulting from misguided government intervention. The healthcare sector is a good example in the U.S.
    - kmos17 5y ago
      Yes exactly, or sometimes it is due to regulations written to protect profits creating abnormal market conditions, like for student loans, they are backed by the government and can’t be discharged in bankruptcy and everyone is surprised tuitions have gone up so much?
newbie789 5y ago
gonzo41 5y ago
You can regulate things like higher education. IF you limited the size of loans, or made them government loans you could cap the price. You could also control interest rates with regulation. Using Australia as an example, I went to a good University and had a government loan for the courses. I am 2 months away from paying it off (humble brag for me). But it was a government loan with no interest. So this is a good example of government offering a service to a point, that the private sector wouldn't ever touch. If the US government offered a 0% loan for education up to 50K and required payment only after reaching a certain income threshold, that policy would put top down pressure on expensive courses. They'd still exists but the bulk of everyone would be doing a course they could pay off and the competition would change the market. Likewise, I've recently been thinking about labor productivity with women returning to the workplace. Having kids is bad for families budgets (child care is a killer). Caring for kids keeps women out of the workforce. I think if public schools offered pre K care from about 18 months to kinder then you'd have parents being able to get back to work and you'd permanently reduce childcare costs. I suspect it'd pay itself off a few times over. Similar to building quality infrastructure. The problem with that second idea is that it would cost a ton upfront and the payback would be over the medium to longer term, like infrastructure. People are bad at long term choices and there's the trend of populism in politics at the moment. Which doesn't help anything.

david38 5y ago

This is why I believe in universal food stamp cards. Have some regulations attached of course, like nutrition classes, but it takes the place of what some of the money buys, only better. Child nutrition is probably the single best ROI you can get anyway. Why everyone doesn’t have such a card is beyond me.

throwaway6734 5y ago

>but I can see that purely dumping money into people's bank accounts is a rough tool to do it. Why? We do it with social security and that seems like a well liked program. Individuals are generally pretty good at deciding what they need

supernova87a 5y ago
I commented in reply also above. Giving money to people who are reasonably well equipped to spend it on things that there are mature and reasonably efficient markets for is fine. No one has trouble finding groceries and standard items needed for living with their SS checks. When you give money to people to spend on say, childcare, and there is not the built up social / labor infrastructure to do it, private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices and not actually provide more of the service desired. Come to think of it, if you go back to the Social Security example, giving people more money because they can't afford housing is not going to magically create housing on its own. It will just produce more expensive housing as people try to outbid each other. We've all seen how that plays out.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  You're worried that nannies will be jacking up prices for their services, and that this will not help develop sufficient "infrastructure"? Doesn't seem all that realistic.
  - supernova87a 5y ago
    Private equity owned childcare centers. I don't think it's implausible at all.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  The increase in prices is potentially a necessary signal for improving infrastructure. I.e. prices drive competition and expended services.

zozbot234 5y ago

Giving money to households with no strings attached is the polar opposite of "private enterprise just sucking at the teat of free government money". I'm not sure why you think one would follow from the other. Public services have even poorer incentives than subsidized private ones (which again, this is not), they're only acceptable when the private sector alone will absolutely never provide that service under competitive conditions.

supernova87a 5y ago
I don't think you got what I'm saying. I mean that when you simply give money to people where there may not be efficient markets for some needed good (which you wanted the money spent on), private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices and not actually provide more of the service desired.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > private enterprise often will just exploit the infusion of money to jack up prices When this happens, it's because there are unrelated supply constraints, usually resulting from misguided government intervention. The healthcare sector is a good example in the U.S.
  - kmos17 5y ago
    Yes exactly, or sometimes it is due to regulations written to protect profits creating abnormal market conditions, like for student loans, they are backed by the government and can’t be discharged in bankruptcy and everyone is surprised tuitions have gone up so much?

newbie789 5y ago

gonzo41 5y ago

You can regulate things like higher education. IF you limited the size of loans, or made them government loans you could cap the price. You could also control interest rates with regulation. Using Australia as an example, I went to a good University and had a government loan for the courses. I am 2 months away from paying it off (humble brag for me). But it was a government loan with no interest. So this is a good example of government offering a service to a point, that the private sector wouldn't ever touch. If the US government offered a 0% loan for education up to 50K and required payment only after reaching a certain income threshold, that policy would put top down pressure on expensive courses. They'd still exists but the bulk of everyone would be doing a course they could pay off and the competition would change the market. Likewise, I've recently been thinking about labor productivity with women returning to the workplace. Having kids is bad for families budgets (child care is a killer). Caring for kids keeps women out of the workforce. I think if public schools offered pre K care from about 18 months to kinder then you'd have parents being able to get back to work and you'd permanently reduce childcare costs. I suspect it'd pay itself off a few times over. Similar to building quality infrastructure. The problem with that second idea is that it would cost a ton upfront and the payback would be over the medium to longer term, like infrastructure. People are bad at long term choices and there's the trend of populism in politics at the moment. Which doesn't help anything.