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"for a family" Slightly unrelated: Of course children should receive BI. Why won't they? Of course, legal care must be taken so 10% of a family first child's

"for a family" Slightly unrelated: Of course children should receive BI. Why won't they? Of course, legal care must be taken so 10% of a family first child's BI, 33% of second child's BI, 50% for thirg child's BI (and so on) go to some special saving account then used to finance housing or education for those children. Or else a "family" collecting BI for their five children, living off it and then give children a boot after they grow up will become a social problem.

VLM 13y ago
Why should the .gov chose a winner as in "used to finance housing or education for those children"? Why not demand a savings account for iphones to make apple rich? The fundamental problem is housing and (excessive) education is a non-productive activity. I don't see any benefit for society as a whole, in a supply/demand situation, to make relators and school administrators wealthy, while making it financially much more difficult / impossible for kids from small families to compete. What philosophical reasoning behind a kid with only one bro/sis has to live in the poor ghetto or be unable to afford college, in comparison a kid with ten bro/sis will have far more money in his account and be better off for his/her entire life merely because his parents were more fertile? There's an obvious financial reason under this system for college admins and housing builders to encourage huge families, because they'll be able to suck more money out of them. Another interesting effect of inflating higher ed prices would be the elimination via unaffordability for adult education. No more going back to school to learn X if the tuition for X has been exploded such that only children with 18 years of savings and 10 siblings can afford it. I'm not sure as a cultural trend that using the hammer of .gov policy to discourage lifetime learning (insert cliche about the economy being faster than ever, blah blah) is a wise social goal.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Whoa whoa okay, let's put it in some savings account that is divided to all children equally once they're 18. They are then free to spend it as they want. This is to avoid inheritance problem: One- or two-kids families usually can conjure more help for grown-up children than big families, while big families receive more financial help but tend to eat thru it saving nothing. We need to defer some of that financial help till children grow up.
  - westicle 13y ago
    Why exactly does an 18-year old with a guaranteed income need 18 years' worth of savings invested for them? I don't think you really understand the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. The idea is that you can live and eat without the rigamarole of food stamps/qualifying for a benefit program etc. Introducing complexity such as investment programs and sliding scales for families is not productive and, in my view, counter to the underlying principle.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      It wouldn't be 18 years' worth of savings, more like 5 years of savings. That would let the child buy some home or attend so college. That's a bonus. the main thing that we get by this is discourage child farms by withholding some of BIG. And we can't just take some part of BIG because that would be, like, human rights violation.
      - westicle 13y ago
        I have a better way to discourage child farms: only pay BIG to adults.
        lutusp 13y ago
        But then those adults will have children and complain that the state is anti-child. I know this because people already do that, on less evidence.
        guard-of-terra 13y ago
        You'll have no children then. Having children is a crushing expense, magnified by the fact that most benefits will be scraped in the favour of BI. So, nobody have children and they accept a consumerist lifestyle and then bitch about their misspent life when it's too late, and birth rate plummets, and then your economy tanks.
        westicle 13y ago
westicle 13y ago
Not sure if you read all of the linked article but it proposes a basic income for adults only. This makes sense to me; children don't have a clue about money. Although if a child were say, emancipated from her family (living independently) perhaps she should receive a basic income?
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Pay it to the family. They have their parents' rights yet, don't they.
  - westicle 13y ago
    I think there are many, many problems with this concept. Children have vastly lower living expenses than adults (or more correctly - the basic marginal cost of adding a child to a household is negligible). There is no reliable way to ensure that income is actually spent on that child. It is apparent that some parents (for want of a better word) already see children as a benefits-magnet. This gives a viable alternative to working a productive job and earning a good wage: pump out 9 kids by the age of 21 and enjoy a sweet $100k salary until they come of age themselves. You may safely neglect them in the meantime and pass any costs thereof, such as incarceration or hospitalisation, onto the state. I think a much better approach is to limit a basic income to adults (or those financially independent of guardians) and give every child a Finnish-style baby box. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 Limits the financial impact of a child, and has very minimal opportunity for abuse.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      Everybody have vastly different living expenses. Accounting for that expenses is the thing we're trying to avoid when replacing every kind of pension and benefit with one BIG. Why would we want to revert it 180 degrees when talking about children? The whole point of what I wrote is avoiding the use of children as benefits-magnet by withhelding part of their BIG into savings. Pumping out 9 kids won't work because you'll get just 3 BIGs for them - the rest will go into savings. Then, having a child or two will actually be very financially rewarding because it's what is good for society.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
We might get to the point someday where we want to encourage a higher birthdate, like say much of Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore. This could be a decent way of doing that.

VLM 13y ago

Why should the .gov chose a winner as in "used to finance housing or education for those children"? Why not demand a savings account for iphones to make apple rich? The fundamental problem is housing and (excessive) education is a non-productive activity. I don't see any benefit for society as a whole, in a supply/demand situation, to make relators and school administrators wealthy, while making it financially much more difficult / impossible for kids from small families to compete. What philosophical reasoning behind a kid with only one bro/sis has to live in the poor ghetto or be unable to afford college, in comparison a kid with ten bro/sis will have far more money in his account and be better off for his/her entire life merely because his parents were more fertile? There's an obvious financial reason under this system for college admins and housing builders to encourage huge families, because they'll be able to suck more money out of them. Another interesting effect of inflating higher ed prices would be the elimination via unaffordability for adult education. No more going back to school to learn X if the tuition for X has been exploded such that only children with 18 years of savings and 10 siblings can afford it. I'm not sure as a cultural trend that using the hammer of .gov policy to discourage lifetime learning (insert cliche about the economy being faster than ever, blah blah) is a wise social goal.

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Whoa whoa okay, let's put it in some savings account that is divided to all children equally once they're 18. They are then free to spend it as they want. This is to avoid inheritance problem: One- or two-kids families usually can conjure more help for grown-up children than big families, while big families receive more financial help but tend to eat thru it saving nothing. We need to defer some of that financial help till children grow up.
- westicle 13y ago
  Why exactly does an 18-year old with a guaranteed income need 18 years' worth of savings invested for them? I don't think you really understand the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. The idea is that you can live and eat without the rigamarole of food stamps/qualifying for a benefit program etc. Introducing complexity such as investment programs and sliding scales for families is not productive and, in my view, counter to the underlying principle.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    It wouldn't be 18 years' worth of savings, more like 5 years of savings. That would let the child buy some home or attend so college. That's a bonus. the main thing that we get by this is discourage child farms by withholding some of BIG. And we can't just take some part of BIG because that would be, like, human rights violation.
    - westicle 13y ago
      I have a better way to discourage child farms: only pay BIG to adults.
      - lutusp 13y ago
        But then those adults will have children and complain that the state is anti-child. I know this because people already do that, on less evidence.
      - guard-of-terra 13y ago
        You'll have no children then. Having children is a crushing expense, magnified by the fact that most benefits will be scraped in the favour of BI. So, nobody have children and they accept a consumerist lifestyle and then bitch about their misspent life when it's too late, and birth rate plummets, and then your economy tanks.
        westicle 13y ago

westicle 13y ago

Not sure if you read all of the linked article but it proposes a basic income for adults only. This makes sense to me; children don't have a clue about money. Although if a child were say, emancipated from her family (living independently) perhaps she should receive a basic income?

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Pay it to the family. They have their parents' rights yet, don't they.
- westicle 13y ago
  I think there are many, many problems with this concept. Children have vastly lower living expenses than adults (or more correctly - the basic marginal cost of adding a child to a household is negligible). There is no reliable way to ensure that income is actually spent on that child. It is apparent that some parents (for want of a better word) already see children as a benefits-magnet. This gives a viable alternative to working a productive job and earning a good wage: pump out 9 kids by the age of 21 and enjoy a sweet $100k salary until they come of age themselves. You may safely neglect them in the meantime and pass any costs thereof, such as incarceration or hospitalisation, onto the state. I think a much better approach is to limit a basic income to adults (or those financially independent of guardians) and give every child a Finnish-style baby box. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 Limits the financial impact of a child, and has very minimal opportunity for abuse.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    Everybody have vastly different living expenses. Accounting for that expenses is the thing we're trying to avoid when replacing every kind of pension and benefit with one BIG. Why would we want to revert it 180 degrees when talking about children? The whole point of what I wrote is avoiding the use of children as benefits-magnet by withhelding part of their BIG into savings. Pumping out 9 kids won't work because you'll get just 3 BIGs for them - the rest will go into savings. Then, having a child or two will actually be very financially rewarding because it's what is good for society.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

We might get to the point someday where we want to encourage a higher birthdate, like say much of Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore. This could be a decent way of doing that.