4 ms·

Is It Nuts to Give to the Poor Without Strings Attached?

94 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

mgwhitfield 13y ago
maybe if your idea of giving expects something in return in which case... also if you sort of prioritize some social connection to supplying money, or you try to think about it with a strategy . . . is that giving
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tonyg 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
- lmartel 13y ago
  In my opinion basic income is one of very few potentially workable fixes for the socioeconomic mess we've created, and in a few hundred years people will refuse to believe anyone ever argued against it.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Basic income is an awesome concept. I have argued for it before with people and I often get the reply that if it was implemented then nobody would bother working. I generally then ask why any of the rich bother working on that basis, given the fact they don't have to. This question makes some people angry.
  - stretchwithme 13y ago
    Perhaps the working rich are motivated to accomplish something. And those who don't accomplish anything, perhaps they are not. Those who become rich because of their work arguably have habits of working and investing in their ability to produce. Those not able to produce will have less reason to learn how if their income is somehow guaranteed.
  - mikegagnon 13y ago
    I am aware of one experiment that has shown that basic income can work: http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income I don't think that's the real issue stopping basic income. I think the real issue is that the money has to come from somewhere --- specifically, the money would necessarily come from the high earners in society. And they would have to agree to basic income since in our current form of democracy the high-earners have a disproportionate influence on the law. However, the world's economy has been changing, such that it might actually behoove high earners to donate a portion of their earnings to basic income. Specifically, as automation decreases the need for human labor, then profits go up and employment goes down. This has actually been the trend since the 1970's. And if employment goes down too much, then there won't be enough spending money in the population's hands to fuel further earnings and economic growth. There is an excellent, short book by a couple of MIT economists that analyzes the economics of modern automation and makes the case for guaranteed income. "Race Against The Machine," by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.
    - rndmize 13y ago
      On that note, there's another book that's probably similar (haven't read the one you mentioned) called "The Lights In the Tunnel" (the author has a set your own price download for those only casually interested). http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      > I don't think that's the real issue stopping basic income. I think the real issue is that the money has to come from somewhere --- specifically, the money would necessarily come from the high earners in society. And they would have to agree to basic income since in our current form of democracy the high-earners have a disproportionate influence on the law. Money doesn't come only from taxes, it can also come from printing. However, relying on printing money to cover government expenses has been a bad idea pretty much everywhere (there are a lot of examples of hyperinflation, like Zimbabwe, Argentina and Germany). Among many nasty effects, it destroys any savings people have.
      - 13y ago
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Sorry, are they objecting that the economy cannot support a large class of nonworkers yet, or that they really just think work is a good thing in and of itself? Because in the latter case, "them's fightin' words."
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    I'm not at all opposed to basic income on moral grounds (it's actually a nice idea from that point of view), but I don't think it's sustainable economically, because it creates a positive feedback cycle. Here's why: let's say you compute an amount $X of income everyone gets. This means that everyone now has enough money for food, rent and other basic necessities. That means that the demand for these goods will increase (maybe not much in the US, but significantly in other parts of the world). That means that the prices for those goods will increase (unless production increases somehow, but why would it?). To adjust for this, the government would have to increase the income; then the prices would increase again and so on. Basically you'd have rampant inflation. Now the counterargument is going to be that this wouldn't happen, because production would increase up to a point where everyone's needs are met, and prices stabilize. However, production still depends on labor. What incentives would people have to put in more work to produce more?
    - venomsnake 13y ago
      Actually you are infusing the economy with much needed demand and liquidity this way. And inflation. It is mostly a number game - you have to keep the basic income: 1. Fair - everybody gets the same sum no matter of employment status. 2. Really basic - it should be enough for food and utility bills but not rent. Employment is complex topic. I go crazy if I stay without work for more than a few weeks. People like to work - case in point - almost every person has hobby that he is very passionate about. They don't like being forced into it.
      - rjsw 13y ago
        I wouldn't consider it basic income if it didn't include rent (or healthcare).
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      "unless production increases somehow, but why would it?" Personally, I think that one of the best things you could do to increase production is to ensure that people are not living hand to mouth. The personal strategies of the desperate are not conducive to a working economy. "What incentives would people have to put in more work to produce more?" Boredom and curiousity. That's all you ever need. Hunger only inspires people to get fed. Satiation inspires them to design new houses.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    It's amazing that so many with strong political opinions are also armchair psychologists that knows everything about what motivates human beings.
  - alphaoverlord 13y ago
    Why would this not just cause inflation to a point most people need to work again?
- StavrosK 13y ago
  I am really excited to see how this will play out in Cyprus. I really hope it works, has it ever been tried elsewhere?
  - yesbabyyes 13y ago
    It was tried in Dauphin, Canada for a few years in the seventies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome A few other examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Examples_of_implementation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Examples_of_implem...
  - kristianp 13y ago
    Here's a news article on the Cyprus program for those curious: http://cyprus-mail.com/2013/07/26/president-announces-guaranteed-minimum-income-for-all-citizens/ http://cyprus-mail.com/2013/07/26/president-announces-guaran...
- Kiro 13y ago
  I like the concept but I still think the decrease of incentive to work will be too big resulting in a deficit. I would love to be proven wrong though.
myfoolishpride 13y ago
It is insane to give money to people and expect that that will solve all their problems. Particularly if it is a one time thing (much like just handing a homeless person a dollar on the street). If you really want to help people it takes time, patience, and compassion. Poverty is a hard problem with no easy solution.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  That depends on the level of poverty. There's poverty and there's poverty. There's poverty where you grow up on one box of macaroni and cheese per day and your parents are never home but you have a roof over your head and at least free school lunches. You're not actually dying or being exploited into human impotence. You just lack avenues to grow into a full and complete person who can escape poverty. And then there's poverty once that same child grows up and the welfare system has been dismantled and there's no more public housing, so he/she is working two or three jobs just to afford a roof over their head, real food of any kind is unheard-of, and you'd kill for a good night's sleep or just one Sabbath meal -- if you had the energy to kill. The latter kind, you can solve just by giving people money. At the very least, it raises them up to the former kind, and from there, all you might need to really improve their life might be a decent library or a community center or a good source of stable jobs. There's no excuse for not contributing.
  - Muzza 13y ago
    > There's no excuse for not contributing. My effective income tax rate is 50%, and then there is an additional 25% VAT on everything I buy. How much more of my income does the all-knowing Eli Gottlieb suggest I "contribute"? Perhaps I should give away the remaining 25% and go live on the streets as a declaration of solidarity?
    - cmsmith 13y ago
      Aside from the general tone of this, that's not how taxes work. You can only pay VAT on the 50% of your income that you keep (and that is presuming you spend all of it). So you have 50% * 75% = 37.5% of your income left to give to charity. I also find it a bit interesting that you are OK (presumably) with giving away 63% of your income to the government, where you have hardly any say in how it is spent, but offended at the idea that you should give anything else away when you can choose where it goes.
atldev 13y ago
I've been to Kenya (village of Ngaamba) 4 times in the last 5 years on service trips through the 410Bridge organization. Their model relies on a village leadership council to prioritize need and decide how resources should be used. Then we come alongside and help. Our first trip focused on water. The second was infrastructure. The third was education. This past June it was staffing a medical clinic that was recently built. Now a community center has sprouted around the clinic and the trip next year will likely focus on micro-finance and entrepreneurship. This isn't charity. It is partnering with a talented group of village leaders that understand the needs of the community far better than we could. There is accountability but it's driven locally and it's sustainable. They'll be able to carry the momentum they created long after we're gone. There are plenty of models that work, and I'm glad there are so many helping out. But I've seen first-hand that allowing a community to pull the help they need works better than a foreign push model.
- skrebbel 13y ago
  > This isn't charity. Sooo, they pay you US rates for your consultancy?
  - atldev 13y ago
    No, we're all volunteers and we raise money for projects. What I mean is that we don't hand out money. We work alongside the community on each project.
    - Radim 13y ago
      Charity. But the best kind, the kind that may actually work long-term (as long as "raise money" means voluntary donations, and not some sort of taxation).
      - rtpg 13y ago
        Not trying to be snarky, but are you implying that raising money through taxation would somehow not make this work?
angersock 13y ago
While I'm very much in support of perhaps some sort of basic living wage, there is the undeniable issue that an incorrectly-applied dollar may simply support an ever-ratcheting drain on resources, as argued by Hardin: http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu/course/research/lifeboat.pdf http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu/course/research/lifeboat.pdf Whether you agree or not, there is something in the argument to consider.
- wmf 13y ago
  This kind of aid is based on the assumption that it creates economic growth which can solve those problems.
melloclello 13y ago
The powerful Venkatesh Rao recently wrote a column on related themes. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-quality-of-life/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-quality-of-life/ > When you actually meet people living in tough conditions, you realize that they don’t exactly make up dreams for their lives in some UN-approved sequence; water first, food next, healthcare third, money fourth, philosophy when I am rich, alcohol and marijuana never. It's better than this, go and read it.
GigabyteCoin 13y ago
Define "poor". When giving money to the poor in a highly oppressed area of the world (like Kenya) I would think that this is a great idea assuming that most people are inherently good and that their poorness-situation is due to a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of will power. When giving money to the poor methamphetamine-addict who is incessantly harassing every passer-by for some bus money (found in the downtown areas of many prosperous and free cities throughout North America) then no I would say that is a horrible waste of capital. Due to their having a lack of will power to "succeed" rather than a lack of opportunity.
- danenania 13y ago
  I'm going to assume that you yourself didn't grow up surrounded by addiction, poverty, and crime. What you refer to as 'will power' is socially constructed to a much greater degree than you seem to realize, and is deeply intertwined with privilege and opportunity.
  - agilebyte 13y ago
    That is why it is more beneficial to get people into more beneficial social constructs (shelters, programmes) rather then keep them in misery and throw money at them.
- mikegagnon 13y ago
  I regularly give small amounts of money directly to impoverished individuals I see on the street. You raise some points that I've heard before, and I would like to address them all, and explain why I think it is rational for me to give money the way I do. (1) "I would say that is a horrible waste of capital" to give money to meth addicts. I give a dollar to whoever asks me for money. I can't tell who is a meth addict and who is not. I am sure much of my charity goes to alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, meth, and other drugs. I just consider that a cost of doing business. For every dollar I give out, some subset of that money goes to __non-drug use__. I think that is a good use of my capital. (2) "Due to their lack of will power to 'succeed' rather than lack of opportunity." There's a couple of things to say to this sentiment. First, I often hear the notion that impoverished people have the opportunity to bring themselves out of poverty. That's not true. The world's economic system results in non-zero unemployment. Meaning there are more people who want jobs than there are available jobs. Thus there are inevitably many people who want to work but can't get it. The only way they can survive is through charity --- from either friends, family, strangers, the government, charities, etc. The last point I'll make might be the most controversial, but it is also at the core of why I give money directly to impoverished people. I am skeptical that "will power" exists in the literal sense. As in, I am skeptical that free will exists as much as people tend to intuitively believe. It seems to me that humans are just moist robot automatons whose actions are the result of their current physiological state and response to the stimuli on their senses. Some interesting scientific research has shown that humans can perceive more free will than they actually have. There is also some interesting philosophical arguments that suggest free will could be a complete illusion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will So I think it's possible that people who "lack of will power to "succeed"' are simply __unlucky__. And I happen to be lucky. I am smart, tenacious, hard-working, have relevant job skills and I happen to live in a society where those variables are rewarded with wealth. It therefore makes sense to me to give people small amounts of money when they ask for it. It just might be the case that I am lucky and they are not. I do not expect this money to solve any of their problems. But maybe the person I help will buy a tasty snack and their happiness will go up in those moments. Or maybe that person will buy a cheap ukulele and teach himself to play --- which happened the other day with someone I regularly give money to.
thomasfl 13y ago
It's great to see some innovation and progress in the field of humanitarian aid. The idea of just handing over money with no strings attached is so counterintuitive, but in the end it's the most harmless types of humanitarian aid there is. Improving poor peoples lifestyle, especially giving them hope for the future and a happy family life, is the most effective way to prevent terrorism. Happy people aren't terrorists. Disclaimer; I'm a blue eyed guy born and raised in norway. So excuse me for having a naive view on this topic.
ISL 13y ago
The same topic was covered (by the author) on Act I of this week's 'This American Life' http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i-was-just-trying-to-help http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i...
michaelpinto 13y ago
This is a double standard: We give welfare to large corporations with no strings attached.
nnq 13y ago
I think it should be obvious that you need two "moves" to lift people up from poverty: 1. build infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, communication, education services, political infrastructure, financial etc.) 2. "lift people up" to a level at which they can make use of the infrastructure, through education and covering some of their basic needs. No-string-attached donations are great for (2), but they are limited in impact and quite pointless if the people don't have the "infrastructure" to grab to once they are "lifted up a bit" - you'll only end up with poor uneducated people that will have more children so you'll end up with more poor uneducated people. Otoh, if you build the infrastructure but you don't do something to directly lift people up from misery, poverty and depression or hopelessness you'll probably end up with an even bigger waste of resources and lots of angry people. Philantropists and governments that want to lift their countries out of poverty should understand that you need both (1) and (2) simultaneously and that of course you need to have (2) with no-strings-attached (an ER doctor doesn't make a cardiac arrest patient sign a contract before resuscitating him!!!).
- m_mueller 13y ago
  From the examples posted in the articles it seems to me that 1) can be reduced to the financial part (e.g. microcredit systems such as water.org) and 2) should come first - you need to create a fertile ground where people can lift themselves up from basic survival mode into some sort of business to sustain their family. Once you have enough people being able to sell services to others, infrastructure should come automatically - probably roughly in the order of maslow's pyramid. The only other infrastructure that might be worth it to boost other than financials is education, since this should be expected to accelerate the growth process.
jpatokal 13y ago
Here's a counterexample when the answer to the title is pretty clearly "yes": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune_(2005_film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune_(2005_film) Also, pretty much every lottery winner ever. ...which is not to say that giving money to the poor is always a bad idea, but dropping huge lump sums (and in rural Kenya, $500 is huge) to random people with zero accountability does seem... inefficient at best.
- maxk42 13y ago
  Well there is certainly a difference between handing money to someone who is unfortunate and handing money to someone who is irresponsible.
  - jpatokal 13y ago
    And how do you propose to objectively differentiate between the two before you hand out the money?
    - maxk42 13y ago
      That's my point.
- HaloZero 13y ago
  It's about sample size isn't it? I"m sure the village had at least one person who wasted the money in some way. The article never mentions anybody, even if the village didn't, if you expanded it to a larger village there will be one person I'm sure. But more importantly there's a stark difference between somebody who lives homeless in a developed nation vs a bunch of villagers living in poverty. I'm not sure how well I could articulate them but I imagine it comes from the perspective of what is considered "well-off" for the homeless man vs the villagers.
- IanCal 13y ago
  Giving money directly to the poor (as in rural Kenya poor) seems to work pretty well actually. There's little overhead, which is great, and with no strict limits it doesn't stop people from doing something sensible just because theres some contract/other complications ("oh sorry, this grant doesn't cover buying a roof"). It turns out that the people seem to use the money productively. Givedirectly [0] are a charity that do this, and they do randomised trials and conduct follow up interviews. Maybe it's a difference in money. Give someone just enough money to make their life slightly less awful for a bit (e.g. enough for a drink, not enough to get somewhere to live) and it's probably not going to help much. Give someone enough to actually make a difference and they probably will. GiveDirectly finds that people get things like tin roofs, invest in their businesses, pay for education and medicine. A couple of quotes from their page > Cash transfers benefit children. Many studies find positive effects on the health of children - for example, large increases in height-for-age and weight-for-height in South Africa, large reductions in HIV infection rates and psychological distress in Malawi, and large reductions in the incidence of low birth weight in Uruguay (2,15,16,17,18,19,20,25,26,27,29). Several studies also find that unconditional cash transfers substantially increase schooling and decrease child labor. (21,22,23) and > Cash transfers have long-term impacts. Recipients often save or invest a large proportions of the transfers they receive, generating increases in future income. (1,2,3,4,5,6) One study found that men's annual income five years after receiving transfers had increased by 64%-96% of the grant amount. (24) The references are on the linked page. [0] http://www.givedirectly.org/evidence.php http://www.givedirectly.org/evidence.php
marincounty 13y ago
It's nuts to give to any 501C3 without looking at the free preview at Guidestar. I give to the guy's on the street without strings attached. Someday--that just might be you, or me?
mrgriscom 13y ago
I was disappointed that the article didn't address the issue of jealousy and conflict between those who receive the grants and those who don't. To me that seems like one of the biggest struggles in a scheme like this.
gabriel34 13y ago
It's interesting that people that bettered their lives with that money did so by entrepreneurship or by solving money draining problems(the roofs), which gave them long term benefits. In contrast, I live in Brazil, here we have a governmental handout program which gives sure money every month. People use that money to short term spending, there is not much entrepreneurship or sustainable richness generation among the receivers. It would APPEAR that one time downfall stimulates wise spending, since that has much more value than "blowing it on booze and cigarettes" or buying a plasma screen. One should, of course, have in mind that the article seems to only show us a few examples, constituting anecdotal evidence at best, prompting for further studies. Another thing to consider is if this model is better than microcredit which stimulates entrepreneurship less diffusely and possibly more efficiently in respect to the relation between total program cost versus social betterment. If on one side we have the fact that microcredit only costs the subsidy to the interest paid the debtor, things such as the metal roofs would not be feasible under such a model and although money would circulate and the entire society would benefit, this program would only be directly beneficial to people who have entrepreneur qualities, effectively creating very distant social classes (which is kind of ironic for a program which aims to distribute wealth). Could such a disparity dissipate over time, or would it evolve to a social abyss? For every society the answer is probably different and the ideal path probably lies somewhere in the middle. One thing is certain: no matter what route is taken, this certainly shakes things up; and in a stale misery scenery, I can't seem to find a reason for this not to be positive. My father once said that however bad a social program is, if it betters society it can only be the second worst thing to do, the worst being doing nothing.
- ENOTTY 13y ago
  Did you read the third and fourth graf of TFA? It appears Mexico gives regular handouts, which still stimulates wise spending. Microcredit was a huge fad a few years ago, but then some studies found that its effectiveness may be suspect and requires more study. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_microcredit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_microcredit
  - capex 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
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- ajdecon 13y ago
  ...Did you read the article, or just the title? This article is about giving money directly to Kenyan villagers, and in a different program to families in Mexico; and about how they've used the money on productive improvements like replacing thatched roofs with metal ones. It also acknowledges that this might not be the most effective approach, but that it's being tried in these contexts and deserves further study. This seems like a rather different context than misused American welfare dollars... and it seems unlikely to me that "low IQ" is a sufficient explanation for third-world village poverty.
  - ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
    Just the first half. It sparked rage within me because if this is applied to US laws things will get worse than what I already see on a daily basis. I need to quit my job and get out of St. Louis ASAP. I've seen too many things...
- edanm 13y ago
  We're not talking about poor people living in Western societies, where it's possible to claim that they choose to be poor. We're talking about poor people in Kenya, where the average person is poor because it's a poor country. And GiveWell, a "meta-charity" that studies and ranks other charities, gives GiveDirectly an incredibly high score - they consider it the second most effective charity. This doesn't mean they're necessarily right (nor would they claim so), but a bunch of smart people have studied this topic and came to that conclusion, so let's not assume that it's just a ludicrous idea for show.
robomartin 13y ago
The title is a question. And the answer to that question is a big "it depends". Being that this is the NY Times one always has to be guarded about potential ideological bend on articles. This is no different than watching Fox News vs. CNN. The bend here might be to somehow use some of these success stories to create support for our entitlement programs. The problem: Culture and History. A continuous stream of free money devolves a person into a state of mind from which it is hard to self-extract. By this I mean that free money forever and without any conditions creates, well, to put it simply, lazy people without any motivation. In that sense this kind of "help" is actually damaging to society, creating a whole layer of people with a perennial need for support. And, in this kind of an environment criminal twists and turns also develop. There are plenty of videos on Youtube from people explaining how to abuse the system by, for example, having lots of kids in order to increase your monthly take. The damage to society from such behavior probably can't be measured. You have single mothers with a bunch of kids from probably different fathers --none of whom really care about the kids. The kids are seen as sources for money and goods. They live a crappy life outside any semblance of even a quasi-normal nurturing family. The rest is history: Whole layers of society stuck in a perennial muck of poverty, ignorance, crime and social mayhem. We have tens of millions of people who have been on one or many layers of government handouts of generations. Generations. What we have accomplished with that is far from helping the poor. We have destroyed generations of people who would otherwise have certainly become very useful members of society. Giving money indiscriminately, with no limits or conditions for years, for generations, is horribly damaging. It only exacerbates the problem and creates a perennial load on society at large and a massive cultural and, yes, financial cost. And that's the culture and history. A lot of our poor have been living through various layers of handouts forever. And rather than helped them we have destroyed them as people. To be sure, it is the responsibility of any modern society to look after those, who through whatever circumstance in life, fall on hard times. I believe, with passion, that it is absolutely important to have a way to help individuals and families. Long term help that isn't careful about devolving those being helped to the point of, effectively, transforming them into less-than-useful members of society, isn't good. We have this problem. The poor being highlighted in this article come from a very different frame of reference. They are struggling as few of us can possibly imagine. And in their struggle they work hard --very, very hard-- to provide themselves and their families with a meager existence. They are poor beyond most Americans comprehension, yet they maintain family units and live within the nurturing context families provide. They do not --for the most part-- resort to crime and will do almost anything and take almost any job to earn some money for their families. They are not out there buying iPhones, cars, fancy TV's, eating expensive and bad junk food. I could go on, but I want to be somewhat kind to the American poor, the vast majority of whom are nice people on hard times. Regrettably we have millions who are not. When you take someone with the culture and history of this representative example of a Kenyan poor and, out of nowhere, provide him or her with a lifeline the results are bound to be very different. Of course they are not going to go out and burn that money on booze, TV's or other luxuries. That is not in their culture. They see this as an opportunity to make a real effort to intelligently better themselves. To improve their station in life and make an attempt to raise their family up a few notches from where they were. This culture is very similar to that of the masses of immigrants who made-up the US as well as those who continue coming here. The story is familiar: They come here with nothing. Often even without command of the language. And, after a few years of struggling, you find them doing very well. A lot of them end-up owning small local businesses and some create huge enterprises. Their children are well-balanced, respectful and dedicated to academic excellence. These poor and often uneducated immigrants almost always surpass our native poor in almost anything you might care to measure. Again, it is down to culture and history. Our poor don't have the drive. They lost it. And they lost it because we have been throwing money at them for generations. Immigrants come to our shores without any expectation of handouts. They land here already knowing that they are going to have to work hard and be relentless if they want to create a better life for their families. That they do. If we truly want to help our poor out of the caves (Platonic reference, not literal) we actually have to cut back on aid in a reasonably staged manner to force them into an alternative life path. I am not proposing this is easy. Not at all. The sad reality is that this would be political suicide for anyone to approach, even superficially. And because of this we have millions of poor that, generation after generation, stay in the muck and are unlikely to get out. We need to cut off the flow of free money and put into place a system that slowly reintegrates those of able body and mind (again, able body and mind) into the productive layers of society. Those with mental or physical ailments that prevent them from fully participating in society do deserve our help for as long as required. If a family exists then they would be expected to provide for them. Those without any kind of a support group would absolutely need public help for as long as required. We must keep in mind that we see incredible examples of what the disabled can do with great frequency. For example, there are disabled athletes that can do things most full-bodied couch potatoes in the US couldn't even dream of doing. We have to be very careful not to cause damage with handouts. I am not the one to decide where the lines are other than to say: Do not underestimate the power of a motivated individual to struggle and climb incredible hurdles to better themselves. At some level I am speaking as someone who has been there. I had a massive business failure early in my life. I am quite literally talking about something that left me with almost nothing but the clothes on my back. The job market was horrible at the time, with hundreds of engineers lining up for every single available job. My response was to start a small business from my garage. Within two years I had moved out of the garage and was employing several people. I did not take any government handouts. I raised a few thousand dollars from family and friends and worked 18 hour days seven days a week for two years. I can't describe the sense of pride and accomplishment this sort of thing brings. And, yes, while I am an engineer and far from being uneducated a struggle is a struggle. I know plenty of people with excellent educations who cave in when faced with trouble. I also have a very good friend from Israel who came to this country with no money and without even having finished high-school. He literally slept in his $250 junk car for six months as he launched into delivering small packages for businesses. He would sleep in the parking lot behind his customers businesses waiting for packages being ready for delivery at all hours of the night. He saved as much as he could and eventually got himself a newer car. Today he employs nearly fifty people, has a nice business a beautiful family and owns several properties. No education + No money + No handouts. Huge drive to succeed. Success. We have destroyed our poor through mindless handouts. Culture and History. Very important.

94 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

maybe if your idea of giving expects something in return in which case... also if you sort of prioritize some social connection to supplying money, or you try to think about it with a strategy . . . is that giving

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tonyg 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

lmartel 13y ago
In my opinion basic income is one of very few potentially workable fixes for the socioeconomic mess we've created, and in a few hundred years people will refuse to believe anyone ever argued against it.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
Basic income is an awesome concept. I have argued for it before with people and I often get the reply that if it was implemented then nobody would bother working. I generally then ask why any of the rich bother working on that basis, given the fact they don't have to. This question makes some people angry.
- stretchwithme 13y ago
  Perhaps the working rich are motivated to accomplish something. And those who don't accomplish anything, perhaps they are not. Those who become rich because of their work arguably have habits of working and investing in their ability to produce. Those not able to produce will have less reason to learn how if their income is somehow guaranteed.
- mikegagnon 13y ago
  I am aware of one experiment that has shown that basic income can work: http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income I don't think that's the real issue stopping basic income. I think the real issue is that the money has to come from somewhere --- specifically, the money would necessarily come from the high earners in society. And they would have to agree to basic income since in our current form of democracy the high-earners have a disproportionate influence on the law. However, the world's economy has been changing, such that it might actually behoove high earners to donate a portion of their earnings to basic income. Specifically, as automation decreases the need for human labor, then profits go up and employment goes down. This has actually been the trend since the 1970's. And if employment goes down too much, then there won't be enough spending money in the population's hands to fuel further earnings and economic growth. There is an excellent, short book by a couple of MIT economists that analyzes the economics of modern automation and makes the case for guaranteed income. "Race Against The Machine," by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.
  - rndmize 13y ago
    On that note, there's another book that's probably similar (haven't read the one you mentioned) called "The Lights In the Tunnel" (the author has a set your own price download for those only casually interested). http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > I don't think that's the real issue stopping basic income. I think the real issue is that the money has to come from somewhere --- specifically, the money would necessarily come from the high earners in society. And they would have to agree to basic income since in our current form of democracy the high-earners have a disproportionate influence on the law. Money doesn't come only from taxes, it can also come from printing. However, relying on printing money to cover government expenses has been a bad idea pretty much everywhere (there are a lot of examples of hyperinflation, like Zimbabwe, Argentina and Germany). Among many nasty effects, it destroys any savings people have.
    - 13y ago
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Sorry, are they objecting that the economy cannot support a large class of nonworkers yet, or that they really just think work is a good thing in and of itself? Because in the latter case, "them's fightin' words."
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  I'm not at all opposed to basic income on moral grounds (it's actually a nice idea from that point of view), but I don't think it's sustainable economically, because it creates a positive feedback cycle. Here's why: let's say you compute an amount $X of income everyone gets. This means that everyone now has enough money for food, rent and other basic necessities. That means that the demand for these goods will increase (maybe not much in the US, but significantly in other parts of the world). That means that the prices for those goods will increase (unless production increases somehow, but why would it?). To adjust for this, the government would have to increase the income; then the prices would increase again and so on. Basically you'd have rampant inflation. Now the counterargument is going to be that this wouldn't happen, because production would increase up to a point where everyone's needs are met, and prices stabilize. However, production still depends on labor. What incentives would people have to put in more work to produce more?
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Actually you are infusing the economy with much needed demand and liquidity this way. And inflation. It is mostly a number game - you have to keep the basic income: 1. Fair - everybody gets the same sum no matter of employment status. 2. Really basic - it should be enough for food and utility bills but not rent. Employment is complex topic. I go crazy if I stay without work for more than a few weeks. People like to work - case in point - almost every person has hobby that he is very passionate about. They don't like being forced into it.
    - rjsw 13y ago
      I wouldn't consider it basic income if it didn't include rent (or healthcare).
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    "unless production increases somehow, but why would it?" Personally, I think that one of the best things you could do to increase production is to ensure that people are not living hand to mouth. The personal strategies of the desperate are not conducive to a working economy. "What incentives would people have to put in more work to produce more?" Boredom and curiousity. That's all you ever need. Hunger only inspires people to get fed. Satiation inspires them to design new houses.
- Dewie 13y ago
  It's amazing that so many with strong political opinions are also armchair psychologists that knows everything about what motivates human beings.
- alphaoverlord 13y ago
  Why would this not just cause inflation to a point most people need to work again?
StavrosK 13y ago
I am really excited to see how this will play out in Cyprus. I really hope it works, has it ever been tried elsewhere?
- yesbabyyes 13y ago
  It was tried in Dauphin, Canada for a few years in the seventies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome A few other examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Examples_of_implementation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Examples_of_implem...
- kristianp 13y ago
  Here's a news article on the Cyprus program for those curious: http://cyprus-mail.com/2013/07/26/president-announces-guaranteed-minimum-income-for-all-citizens/ http://cyprus-mail.com/2013/07/26/president-announces-guaran...
Kiro 13y ago
I like the concept but I still think the decrease of incentive to work will be too big resulting in a deficit. I would love to be proven wrong though.

myfoolishpride 13y ago

It is insane to give money to people and expect that that will solve all their problems. Particularly if it is a one time thing (much like just handing a homeless person a dollar on the street). If you really want to help people it takes time, patience, and compassion. Poverty is a hard problem with no easy solution.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago
That depends on the level of poverty. There's poverty and there's poverty. There's poverty where you grow up on one box of macaroni and cheese per day and your parents are never home but you have a roof over your head and at least free school lunches. You're not actually dying or being exploited into human impotence. You just lack avenues to grow into a full and complete person who can escape poverty. And then there's poverty once that same child grows up and the welfare system has been dismantled and there's no more public housing, so he/she is working two or three jobs just to afford a roof over their head, real food of any kind is unheard-of, and you'd kill for a good night's sleep or just one Sabbath meal -- if you had the energy to kill. The latter kind, you can solve just by giving people money. At the very least, it raises them up to the former kind, and from there, all you might need to really improve their life might be a decent library or a community center or a good source of stable jobs. There's no excuse for not contributing.
- Muzza 13y ago
  > There's no excuse for not contributing. My effective income tax rate is 50%, and then there is an additional 25% VAT on everything I buy. How much more of my income does the all-knowing Eli Gottlieb suggest I "contribute"? Perhaps I should give away the remaining 25% and go live on the streets as a declaration of solidarity?
  - cmsmith 13y ago
    Aside from the general tone of this, that's not how taxes work. You can only pay VAT on the 50% of your income that you keep (and that is presuming you spend all of it). So you have 50% * 75% = 37.5% of your income left to give to charity. I also find it a bit interesting that you are OK (presumably) with giving away 63% of your income to the government, where you have hardly any say in how it is spent, but offended at the idea that you should give anything else away when you can choose where it goes.

atldev 13y ago

I've been to Kenya (village of Ngaamba) 4 times in the last 5 years on service trips through the 410Bridge organization. Their model relies on a village leadership council to prioritize need and decide how resources should be used. Then we come alongside and help. Our first trip focused on water. The second was infrastructure. The third was education. This past June it was staffing a medical clinic that was recently built. Now a community center has sprouted around the clinic and the trip next year will likely focus on micro-finance and entrepreneurship. This isn't charity. It is partnering with a talented group of village leaders that understand the needs of the community far better than we could. There is accountability but it's driven locally and it's sustainable. They'll be able to carry the momentum they created long after we're gone. There are plenty of models that work, and I'm glad there are so many helping out. But I've seen first-hand that allowing a community to pull the help they need works better than a foreign push model.

skrebbel 13y ago
> This isn't charity. Sooo, they pay you US rates for your consultancy?
- atldev 13y ago
  No, we're all volunteers and we raise money for projects. What I mean is that we don't hand out money. We work alongside the community on each project.
  - Radim 13y ago
    Charity. But the best kind, the kind that may actually work long-term (as long as "raise money" means voluntary donations, and not some sort of taxation).
    - rtpg 13y ago
      Not trying to be snarky, but are you implying that raising money through taxation would somehow not make this work?

angersock 13y ago

While I'm very much in support of perhaps some sort of basic living wage, there is the undeniable issue that an incorrectly-applied dollar may simply support an ever-ratcheting drain on resources, as argued by Hardin: http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu/course/research/lifeboat.pdf http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu/course/research/lifeboat.pdf Whether you agree or not, there is something in the argument to consider.

wmf 13y ago
This kind of aid is based on the assumption that it creates economic growth which can solve those problems.

melloclello 13y ago

The powerful Venkatesh Rao recently wrote a column on related themes. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-quality-of-life/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-quality-of-life/ > When you actually meet people living in tough conditions, you realize that they don’t exactly make up dreams for their lives in some UN-approved sequence; water first, food next, healthcare third, money fourth, philosophy when I am rich, alcohol and marijuana never. It's better than this, go and read it.

GigabyteCoin 13y ago

Define "poor". When giving money to the poor in a highly oppressed area of the world (like Kenya) I would think that this is a great idea assuming that most people are inherently good and that their poorness-situation is due to a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of will power. When giving money to the poor methamphetamine-addict who is incessantly harassing every passer-by for some bus money (found in the downtown areas of many prosperous and free cities throughout North America) then no I would say that is a horrible waste of capital. Due to their having a lack of will power to "succeed" rather than a lack of opportunity.

danenania 13y ago
I'm going to assume that you yourself didn't grow up surrounded by addiction, poverty, and crime. What you refer to as 'will power' is socially constructed to a much greater degree than you seem to realize, and is deeply intertwined with privilege and opportunity.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  That is why it is more beneficial to get people into more beneficial social constructs (shelters, programmes) rather then keep them in misery and throw money at them.
mikegagnon 13y ago
I regularly give small amounts of money directly to impoverished individuals I see on the street. You raise some points that I've heard before, and I would like to address them all, and explain why I think it is rational for me to give money the way I do. (1) "I would say that is a horrible waste of capital" to give money to meth addicts. I give a dollar to whoever asks me for money. I can't tell who is a meth addict and who is not. I am sure much of my charity goes to alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, meth, and other drugs. I just consider that a cost of doing business. For every dollar I give out, some subset of that money goes to __non-drug use__. I think that is a good use of my capital. (2) "Due to their lack of will power to 'succeed' rather than lack of opportunity." There's a couple of things to say to this sentiment. First, I often hear the notion that impoverished people have the opportunity to bring themselves out of poverty. That's not true. The world's economic system results in non-zero unemployment. Meaning there are more people who want jobs than there are available jobs. Thus there are inevitably many people who want to work but can't get it. The only way they can survive is through charity --- from either friends, family, strangers, the government, charities, etc. The last point I'll make might be the most controversial, but it is also at the core of why I give money directly to impoverished people. I am skeptical that "will power" exists in the literal sense. As in, I am skeptical that free will exists as much as people tend to intuitively believe. It seems to me that humans are just moist robot automatons whose actions are the result of their current physiological state and response to the stimuli on their senses. Some interesting scientific research has shown that humans can perceive more free will than they actually have. There is also some interesting philosophical arguments that suggest free will could be a complete illusion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will So I think it's possible that people who "lack of will power to "succeed"' are simply __unlucky__. And I happen to be lucky. I am smart, tenacious, hard-working, have relevant job skills and I happen to live in a society where those variables are rewarded with wealth. It therefore makes sense to me to give people small amounts of money when they ask for it. It just might be the case that I am lucky and they are not. I do not expect this money to solve any of their problems. But maybe the person I help will buy a tasty snack and their happiness will go up in those moments. Or maybe that person will buy a cheap ukulele and teach himself to play --- which happened the other day with someone I regularly give money to.

thomasfl 13y ago

It's great to see some innovation and progress in the field of humanitarian aid. The idea of just handing over money with no strings attached is so counterintuitive, but in the end it's the most harmless types of humanitarian aid there is. Improving poor peoples lifestyle, especially giving them hope for the future and a happy family life, is the most effective way to prevent terrorism. Happy people aren't terrorists. Disclaimer; I'm a blue eyed guy born and raised in norway. So excuse me for having a naive view on this topic.

ISL 13y ago

The same topic was covered (by the author) on Act I of this week's 'This American Life' http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i-was-just-trying-to-help http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i...

michaelpinto 13y ago

This is a double standard: We give welfare to large corporations with no strings attached.

nnq 13y ago

I think it should be obvious that you need two "moves" to lift people up from poverty: 1. build infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, communication, education services, political infrastructure, financial etc.) 2. "lift people up" to a level at which they can make use of the infrastructure, through education and covering some of their basic needs. No-string-attached donations are great for (2), but they are limited in impact and quite pointless if the people don't have the "infrastructure" to grab to once they are "lifted up a bit" - you'll only end up with poor uneducated people that will have more children so you'll end up with more poor uneducated people. Otoh, if you build the infrastructure but you don't do something to directly lift people up from misery, poverty and depression or hopelessness you'll probably end up with an even bigger waste of resources and lots of angry people. Philantropists and governments that want to lift their countries out of poverty should understand that you need both (1) and (2) simultaneously and that of course you need to have (2) with no-strings-attached (an ER doctor doesn't make a cardiac arrest patient sign a contract before resuscitating him!!!).

m_mueller 13y ago
From the examples posted in the articles it seems to me that 1) can be reduced to the financial part (e.g. microcredit systems such as water.org) and 2) should come first - you need to create a fertile ground where people can lift themselves up from basic survival mode into some sort of business to sustain their family. Once you have enough people being able to sell services to others, infrastructure should come automatically - probably roughly in the order of maslow's pyramid. The only other infrastructure that might be worth it to boost other than financials is education, since this should be expected to accelerate the growth process.

jpatokal 13y ago

Here's a counterexample when the answer to the title is pretty clearly "yes": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune_(2005_film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune_(2005_film) Also, pretty much every lottery winner ever. ...which is not to say that giving money to the poor is always a bad idea, but dropping huge lump sums (and in rural Kenya, $500 is huge) to random people with zero accountability does seem... inefficient at best.

maxk42 13y ago
Well there is certainly a difference between handing money to someone who is unfortunate and handing money to someone who is irresponsible.
- jpatokal 13y ago
  And how do you propose to objectively differentiate between the two before you hand out the money?
  - maxk42 13y ago
    That's my point.
HaloZero 13y ago
It's about sample size isn't it? I"m sure the village had at least one person who wasted the money in some way. The article never mentions anybody, even if the village didn't, if you expanded it to a larger village there will be one person I'm sure. But more importantly there's a stark difference between somebody who lives homeless in a developed nation vs a bunch of villagers living in poverty. I'm not sure how well I could articulate them but I imagine it comes from the perspective of what is considered "well-off" for the homeless man vs the villagers.
IanCal 13y ago
Giving money directly to the poor (as in rural Kenya poor) seems to work pretty well actually. There's little overhead, which is great, and with no strict limits it doesn't stop people from doing something sensible just because theres some contract/other complications ("oh sorry, this grant doesn't cover buying a roof"). It turns out that the people seem to use the money productively. Givedirectly [0] are a charity that do this, and they do randomised trials and conduct follow up interviews. Maybe it's a difference in money. Give someone just enough money to make their life slightly less awful for a bit (e.g. enough for a drink, not enough to get somewhere to live) and it's probably not going to help much. Give someone enough to actually make a difference and they probably will. GiveDirectly finds that people get things like tin roofs, invest in their businesses, pay for education and medicine. A couple of quotes from their page > Cash transfers benefit children. Many studies find positive effects on the health of children - for example, large increases in height-for-age and weight-for-height in South Africa, large reductions in HIV infection rates and psychological distress in Malawi, and large reductions in the incidence of low birth weight in Uruguay (2,15,16,17,18,19,20,25,26,27,29). Several studies also find that unconditional cash transfers substantially increase schooling and decrease child labor. (21,22,23) and > Cash transfers have long-term impacts. Recipients often save or invest a large proportions of the transfers they receive, generating increases in future income. (1,2,3,4,5,6) One study found that men's annual income five years after receiving transfers had increased by 64%-96% of the grant amount. (24) The references are on the linked page. [0] http://www.givedirectly.org/evidence.php http://www.givedirectly.org/evidence.php

marincounty 13y ago

It's nuts to give to any 501C3 without looking at the free preview at Guidestar. I give to the guy's on the street without strings attached. Someday--that just might be you, or me?

mrgriscom 13y ago

I was disappointed that the article didn't address the issue of jealousy and conflict between those who receive the grants and those who don't. To me that seems like one of the biggest struggles in a scheme like this.

gabriel34 13y ago

It's interesting that people that bettered their lives with that money did so by entrepreneurship or by solving money draining problems(the roofs), which gave them long term benefits. In contrast, I live in Brazil, here we have a governmental handout program which gives sure money every month. People use that money to short term spending, there is not much entrepreneurship or sustainable richness generation among the receivers. It would APPEAR that one time downfall stimulates wise spending, since that has much more value than "blowing it on booze and cigarettes" or buying a plasma screen. One should, of course, have in mind that the article seems to only show us a few examples, constituting anecdotal evidence at best, prompting for further studies. Another thing to consider is if this model is better than microcredit which stimulates entrepreneurship less diffusely and possibly more efficiently in respect to the relation between total program cost versus social betterment. If on one side we have the fact that microcredit only costs the subsidy to the interest paid the debtor, things such as the metal roofs would not be feasible under such a model and although money would circulate and the entire society would benefit, this program would only be directly beneficial to people who have entrepreneur qualities, effectively creating very distant social classes (which is kind of ironic for a program which aims to distribute wealth). Could such a disparity dissipate over time, or would it evolve to a social abyss? For every society the answer is probably different and the ideal path probably lies somewhere in the middle. One thing is certain: no matter what route is taken, this certainly shakes things up; and in a stale misery scenery, I can't seem to find a reason for this not to be positive. My father once said that however bad a social program is, if it betters society it can only be the second worst thing to do, the worst being doing nothing.

ENOTTY 13y ago
Did you read the third and fourth graf of TFA? It appears Mexico gives regular handouts, which still stimulates wise spending. Microcredit was a huge fad a few years ago, but then some studies found that its effectiveness may be suspect and requires more study. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_microcredit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_microcredit
- capex 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

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ajdecon 13y ago
...Did you read the article, or just the title? This article is about giving money directly to Kenyan villagers, and in a different program to families in Mexico; and about how they've used the money on productive improvements like replacing thatched roofs with metal ones. It also acknowledges that this might not be the most effective approach, but that it's being tried in these contexts and deserves further study. This seems like a rather different context than misused American welfare dollars... and it seems unlikely to me that "low IQ" is a sufficient explanation for third-world village poverty.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  Just the first half. It sparked rage within me because if this is applied to US laws things will get worse than what I already see on a daily basis. I need to quit my job and get out of St. Louis ASAP. I've seen too many things...
edanm 13y ago
We're not talking about poor people living in Western societies, where it's possible to claim that they choose to be poor. We're talking about poor people in Kenya, where the average person is poor because it's a poor country. And GiveWell, a "meta-charity" that studies and ranks other charities, gives GiveDirectly an incredibly high score - they consider it the second most effective charity. This doesn't mean they're necessarily right (nor would they claim so), but a bunch of smart people have studied this topic and came to that conclusion, so let's not assume that it's just a ludicrous idea for show.

robomartin 13y ago

The title is a question. And the answer to that question is a big "it depends". Being that this is the NY Times one always has to be guarded about potential ideological bend on articles. This is no different than watching Fox News vs. CNN. The bend here might be to somehow use some of these success stories to create support for our entitlement programs. The problem: Culture and History. A continuous stream of free money devolves a person into a state of mind from which it is hard to self-extract. By this I mean that free money forever and without any conditions creates, well, to put it simply, lazy people without any motivation. In that sense this kind of "help" is actually damaging to society, creating a whole layer of people with a perennial need for support. And, in this kind of an environment criminal twists and turns also develop. There are plenty of videos on Youtube from people explaining how to abuse the system by, for example, having lots of kids in order to increase your monthly take. The damage to society from such behavior probably can't be measured. You have single mothers with a bunch of kids from probably different fathers --none of whom really care about the kids. The kids are seen as sources for money and goods. They live a crappy life outside any semblance of even a quasi-normal nurturing family. The rest is history: Whole layers of society stuck in a perennial muck of poverty, ignorance, crime and social mayhem. We have tens of millions of people who have been on one or many layers of government handouts of generations. Generations. What we have accomplished with that is far from helping the poor. We have destroyed generations of people who would otherwise have certainly become very useful members of society. Giving money indiscriminately, with no limits or conditions for years, for generations, is horribly damaging. It only exacerbates the problem and creates a perennial load on society at large and a massive cultural and, yes, financial cost. And that's the culture and history. A lot of our poor have been living through various layers of handouts forever. And rather than helped them we have destroyed them as people. To be sure, it is the responsibility of any modern society to look after those, who through whatever circumstance in life, fall on hard times. I believe, with passion, that it is absolutely important to have a way to help individuals and families. Long term help that isn't careful about devolving those being helped to the point of, effectively, transforming them into less-than-useful members of society, isn't good. We have this problem. The poor being highlighted in this article come from a very different frame of reference. They are struggling as few of us can possibly imagine. And in their struggle they work hard --very, very hard-- to provide themselves and their families with a meager existence. They are poor beyond most Americans comprehension, yet they maintain family units and live within the nurturing context families provide. They do not --for the most part-- resort to crime and will do almost anything and take almost any job to earn some money for their families. They are not out there buying iPhones, cars, fancy TV's, eating expensive and bad junk food. I could go on, but I want to be somewhat kind to the American poor, the vast majority of whom are nice people on hard times. Regrettably we have millions who are not. When you take someone with the culture and history of this representative example of a Kenyan poor and, out of nowhere, provide him or her with a lifeline the results are bound to be very different. Of course they are not going to go out and burn that money on booze, TV's or other luxuries. That is not in their culture. They see this as an opportunity to make a real effort to intelligently better themselves. To improve their station in life and make an attempt to raise their family up a few notches from where they were. This culture is very similar to that of the masses of immigrants who made-up the US as well as those who continue coming here. The story is familiar: They come here with nothing. Often even without command of the language. And, after a few years of struggling, you find them doing very well. A lot of them end-up owning small local businesses and some create huge enterprises. Their children are well-balanced, respectful and dedicated to academic excellence. These poor and often uneducated immigrants almost always surpass our native poor in almost anything you might care to measure. Again, it is down to culture and history. Our poor don't have the drive. They lost it. And they lost it because we have been throwing money at them for generations. Immigrants come to our shores without any expectation of handouts. They land here already knowing that they are going to have to work hard and be relentless if they want to create a better life for their families. That they do. If we truly want to help our poor out of the caves (Platonic reference, not literal) we actually have to cut back on aid in a reasonably staged manner to force them into an alternative life path. I am not proposing this is easy. Not at all. The sad reality is that this would be political suicide for anyone to approach, even superficially. And because of this we have millions of poor that, generation after generation, stay in the muck and are unlikely to get out. We need to cut off the flow of free money and put into place a system that slowly reintegrates those of able body and mind (again, able body and mind) into the productive layers of society. Those with mental or physical ailments that prevent them from fully participating in society do deserve our help for as long as required. If a family exists then they would be expected to provide for them. Those without any kind of a support group would absolutely need public help for as long as required. We must keep in mind that we see incredible examples of what the disabled can do with great frequency. For example, there are disabled athletes that can do things most full-bodied couch potatoes in the US couldn't even dream of doing. We have to be very careful not to cause damage with handouts. I am not the one to decide where the lines are other than to say: Do not underestimate the power of a motivated individual to struggle and climb incredible hurdles to better themselves. At some level I am speaking as someone who has been there. I had a massive business failure early in my life. I am quite literally talking about something that left me with almost nothing but the clothes on my back. The job market was horrible at the time, with hundreds of engineers lining up for every single available job. My response was to start a small business from my garage. Within two years I had moved out of the garage and was employing several people. I did not take any government handouts. I raised a few thousand dollars from family and friends and worked 18 hour days seven days a week for two years. I can't describe the sense of pride and accomplishment this sort of thing brings. And, yes, while I am an engineer and far from being uneducated a struggle is a struggle. I know plenty of people with excellent educations who cave in when faced with trouble. I also have a very good friend from Israel who came to this country with no money and without even having finished high-school. He literally slept in his $250 junk car for six months as he launched into delivering small packages for businesses. He would sleep in the parking lot behind his customers businesses waiting for packages being ready for delivery at all hours of the night. He saved as much as he could and eventually got himself a newer car. Today he employs nearly fifty people, has a nice business a beautiful family and owns several properties. No education + No money + No handouts. Huge drive to succeed. Success. We have destroyed our poor through mindless handouts. Culture and History. Very important.