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I think that when people say "hard problems" they mean "problems that almost certainly have solutions if you are willing to put in the effort". Poverty on the o
by glesica 13y ago
I think that when people say "hard problems" they mean "problems that almost certainly have solutions if you are willing to put in the effort". Poverty on the other hand is a much, much harder problem than that. In fact, no one quite knows how to solve it in a general way (there are things that seem to work in certain contexts but not in others, many special case half-solutions). And on top of that, there probably isn't a clear path between solving the poverty problem and wealth the way there is between solving the {photo sharing, social media, web search, ...} problem and wealth.
- beat 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! No more poverty, except in self-inflicted cases (drug addiction, for example), or things like severe and very expensive illness (which are covered by other means). This can be paid for in large part by the abolition of welfare systems, unemployment, Social Security, etc. The stock criticism is that people wouldn't work, because they wouldn't have to. Frankly, I don't want such poorly motivated people working anyway, because they're not productive. And anyone who wants more than barely-poverty will get a job or start a business. Another nice feature is that this supports people who want to do something productive but not financially valuable - charity work, ministry, art.
- beatpanda 13y agoFun fact: Richard Nixon supported something like this idea in the early 70's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
- michaelochurch 13y agoIt's always amusing to me to realize that, in 2013, Nixon would be too far left for the Democratic party.
- jiggy2011 13y agoBut then wouldn't businesses who sell a lot of goods to people on the minimum income just put their prices up to force the gov to increase the minimum income at above inflation rates every year? You also still have the problem of people like drug addicts who spend all of their minimum income on drugs/drink/gambling and are still left homeless.
- brown9-2 13y agoI would imagine the smartest way to implement such a thing would be to index the amount of money to a basket of goods, much like the way in which inflation is calculated.
- jiggy2011 13y agoI think the problem would be with relatively inelastic things like housing. A landlord could easily just set their rates to 70% of minimum income and as other properties would be out of reach to those on minimum income there would be little competition. At that point you would get strong pressure to increase the minimum income or implement price controls. We have had similar problems in the UK with private landlords renting out very poor quality housing at high prices to those on welfare. In the past we solving this by building lots of social housing.
- peterjancelis 13y agoI think a more sustainable way, if you want to implement a basic income, would be to have a low flat tax (say 10%) on all types of income, than divide the tax revenue across all citizens. That way everybody will cheer on the capitalists.
- beat 13y agoAnd wouldn't some other business step in then and undersell them? Supply and demand, man. And yes, there would still be people who blew their GMI money on drugs and wound up homeless. And there would still be charities to help them.
- 13y ago
- VMG 13y ago> The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! You left out the part where the money comes from. Your idea is fine and dandy, but I doubt you are currently implementing it yourself by spending your own money. The idea depends on everybody being forced to pay. Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort. I disagree with your premise that people who work for rewards are unmotivated. Those who think this is a good idea can go ahead and spread their wealth as they see fit, but I do have a problem with forcing others to do the same.
- jiggy2011 13y agoThose same arguments could be made against welfare to an extent. The advantage of this system is that it would be simpler and therefor cheaper to administer and possibly harder to game.
- VMG 13y agoThe fundamental problem is separating the cheaters from those who really deserve help. In a system where the individual can decide where to put the money, everybody can decide who is deserving of help. If you mandate wealth redistribution, you need to create a complex ruleset that decides who is eligible. The rules are established by the ineffective and opaque processes of politics and government. The resulting system is more complex, more expensive and easier to game.
- arrrg 13y agoWith a basic income guarantee everyone would get money, and the same amount. There is no need to divine who needs it because everyone does. No matter the income.
- VMG 13y agoTrue, my argument was against welfare, I misread your original comment. Basic income still has the problem that people get my money who do not deserve it in my opinion.
- run4yourlives 13y agoWhile I like the idea of a Basic Income, and have actually come to support it heartily, (if you don't, take a look at some of the economists who have, and why they do) you are being naive to think that "self-inflicted cases" are somehow anything other than a vast majority. Almost all homeless have mental illness and/or substance abuse issues. That's why they are unable to act on one of the endless options that exist at the moment that can get them even the most basic of accommodations and employment. The people your solution truly helps are the non-homeless poor. To be honest this is a much easier issue to address given some willpower. Then again, as a Canadian, I find basic medical care to be a no brainier as well, which seems to be something the US struggles with quite a bit. You can't simply suggest that addiction/mental illness is "self inflicted", give them $10K and say "You're on your own, bud." That isn't solving anything. Solving homeless is the same as solving mental illness and/or addiction, and those are massively hard problems to address.
- aidenn0 13y agocorrection: Nearly all chronic homeless have mental illness and/or substance abuse; the chronic homeless make up only about 1/8 of the homeless at any given time.
- run4yourlives 13y agoUnless you have a citation that says otherwise, anything I've seen seems to suggest that there is little difference in the high percentage of mentally ill/substance abusers between chronic/non-chronic homeless.
- aidenn0 13y agoJust about every article I can find talking about substance abuse and mental illness in homeless specifically focuses on the chronic homeless so I inferred from that. A bit of googling turned up this non-scholarly article though that compares the overall rate of mental illness among homeless to that of the chronically homeless and found ~3x difference http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902357.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07...
- WalterSear 13y agoThat's not the problem. Making people agree to it is the problem.
- axus 13y agoWouldn't this cause inflation? The price of food, shelter, and basic needs is determined by peoples' ability to pay. I'd expect the price to rise until a percentage of people were unable to pay, again.
- bradleyjg 13y agoIt would only cause monetary inflation if an equal amount of currency were not removed at the same time (through e.g. progressive taxation). Even if it did cause monetary inflation, that wouldn't necessarily lead to price inflation (depending e.g. on the slack in the economy). Even if there was price inflation it would likely not be uniform across goods and services. In short, while it would be possible to design a self defeating basic income program it is not inevitable. That said, I prefer the employer of last resort scheme being pushed by the Australian MMT crowd.
- bubbleRefuge 13y agoThe Job Guarantee or Employer of Last Resort (JG or ELR) program is a better solution. 1) Immediately moves the economy to full employment. All but eliminates social ills associated with unemployment. 2) Puts a floor on labor standards. That is in order to hire somebody out of labor pool, private business has to offer a better package. Health insurance should be automatic. (My Gosh prisoners get free health care!) 3) Counter-cyclical/Auto-Stabilizer/Buffer stock effect on macro economy. As economy improves people leave the JG program. As economy weakens, people shift into JG. 4) JG labor force can be put to work at local government levels to boost services. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee
- CodeMage 13y agoPoverty on the other hand is a much, much harder problem than that. In fact, no one quite knows how to solve it in a general way (there are things that seem to work in certain contexts but not in others, many special case half-solutions). Everyone keeps saying that, as if there were only two alternatives: 1) completely fix poverty in a general way or 2) keep the status quo (and allow it to get worse). There has to be some way to get from the current wealth inequality [1] to something more humane. [1]: http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2 http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely...
- lotharbot 13y agoSpeaking of wealth inequality: http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in-equalland.html http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in-equ...
- aidenn0 13y agoThere is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with high levels of wealth inequality. If wealth distribution were to stay as unequal as they are now, but total per-capita wealth increased at a steady rate, that would be a wonderful outcome for everyone. The issue is that the high levels of wealth inequality are used to capture nearly all of the wealth that is created, thus increasing the wealth inequality even more. That is a clearly unsustainable system.
- pessimizer 13y ago>There is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with high levels of wealth inequality. That would depend on your moral system, wouldn't it?
- aidenn0 13y agoOnly if meta-ethical moral relativism is correct.
- 13y ago