4 ms·

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

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
        Take a look at world demographics for a second. The top 10 countries by birthrate are poor-as-dirt African nations. Surprise, they didn't sit down and say "I'm not having any more children until the government guarantees me $10,000/year for each baby". Yes, maybe you won't have children born purely as a cynical money-grabbing exercise. But people who actually want children (aka the people you want having children) will have them regardless. They may have to budget for them or, I don't know, get a job.
        guard-of-terra 13y ago
        Why do you assume people want children so much that they will sink into poverty just to have them while working their ass off thus never getting to actually see these children? What if only 10% of people actually want children in post-job society? What if birth rate plummets to .5? What's your plan? I politely bring your africa argument down because neither of us live there and you don't want me raising martian examples.
        zanny 13y ago
        First, note that the world population is still exploding, and the us still has a 2.2 birthrate. If basic income only for adults did drive people not to have kids (where you don't get as much welfare as a child costs now, so it is still a net negative today, yet parents have kids anyway) then you would have to then conflate with cultrual and societal rejection of those who don't procreate. Even if you got into a situation where you had a sub 2 natural birthrate and were concerned about your long term population sustainability, you are looking post 2050 at the earliest. Why not just use genetic engineering to create human templates and just grow generations in labs, a la Brave New World? Why not raise them in some collectively researched and agreed upon environment to try to grow them into creatively thinking intellectual socially capable human beings? Do you really need to organize your social reproductive structure around random pair bonding that gets funky and creates amalgams of the parents, who said parents then raise, with 13 years of state funded daycare in a factory environment? It is worth noting, though, that African birth rates are still high for a competitive advantage reason - without state elderly welfare programs, you heavily depend on having children that reach adulthood with enough productivity to care for you when you can no longer work fields. It is really modern where some countries don't have children as their retirement account. It is also worth noting that female empowerment and education more directly correlate with lower birthrates than any amount of fiscal policy. US birthrates haven't changed much between 80s monthly check per baby welfare and modern unemployment programs, but European birthrates tanked when women were getting state guaranteed higher education.
VLM 13y ago
WRT the Whoa Whoa thing, the biggest problem with social engineering is most people think we're at a space age era of it, whereas its virtually impossible to evaluate fully but we're probably closer at social engineering tasks to the invention of the wheel than the invention of the starship. A reasonable conclusion is making things as simple as humanly possible seems to be reasonable. The longer and more complicated the regs, the more likely to be gamed and screwed up and unintended consequences. Given that, I'd stick with "Were you breathing this month? Yes, you say? OK here's your basic income... good luck see ya next time". More or less. There are still ways to game it, just much harder.

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
      Take a look at world demographics for a second. The top 10 countries by birthrate are poor-as-dirt African nations. Surprise, they didn't sit down and say "I'm not having any more children until the government guarantees me $10,000/year for each baby". Yes, maybe you won't have children born purely as a cynical money-grabbing exercise. But people who actually want children (aka the people you want having children) will have them regardless. They may have to budget for them or, I don't know, get a job.
      - guard-of-terra 13y ago
        Why do you assume people want children so much that they will sink into poverty just to have them while working their ass off thus never getting to actually see these children? What if only 10% of people actually want children in post-job society? What if birth rate plummets to .5? What's your plan? I politely bring your africa argument down because neither of us live there and you don't want me raising martian examples.
        zanny 13y ago
        First, note that the world population is still exploding, and the us still has a 2.2 birthrate. If basic income only for adults did drive people not to have kids (where you don't get as much welfare as a child costs now, so it is still a net negative today, yet parents have kids anyway) then you would have to then conflate with cultrual and societal rejection of those who don't procreate. Even if you got into a situation where you had a sub 2 natural birthrate and were concerned about your long term population sustainability, you are looking post 2050 at the earliest. Why not just use genetic engineering to create human templates and just grow generations in labs, a la Brave New World? Why not raise them in some collectively researched and agreed upon environment to try to grow them into creatively thinking intellectual socially capable human beings? Do you really need to organize your social reproductive structure around random pair bonding that gets funky and creates amalgams of the parents, who said parents then raise, with 13 years of state funded daycare in a factory environment? It is worth noting, though, that African birth rates are still high for a competitive advantage reason - without state elderly welfare programs, you heavily depend on having children that reach adulthood with enough productivity to care for you when you can no longer work fields. It is really modern where some countries don't have children as their retirement account. It is also worth noting that female empowerment and education more directly correlate with lower birthrates than any amount of fiscal policy. US birthrates haven't changed much between 80s monthly check per baby welfare and modern unemployment programs, but European birthrates tanked when women were getting state guaranteed higher education.

VLM 13y ago

WRT the Whoa Whoa thing, the biggest problem with social engineering is most people think we're at a space age era of it, whereas its virtually impossible to evaluate fully but we're probably closer at social engineering tasks to the invention of the wheel than the invention of the starship. A reasonable conclusion is making things as simple as humanly possible seems to be reasonable. The longer and more complicated the regs, the more likely to be gamed and screwed up and unintended consequences. Given that, I'd stick with "Were you breathing this month? Yes, you say? OK here's your basic income... good luck see ya next time". More or less. There are still ways to game it, just much harder.