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I know this is a cause celebre among some libertarians, but dang if it makes any sense to me. I'd love to see it applied, though. It's a good thing to be proven

I know this is a cause celebre among some libertarians, but dang if it makes any sense to me. I'd love to see it applied, though. It's a good thing to be proven wrong :) I see two lines of inquiry here. First, does this work on a small scale? Many HNers have lots of disposable income. I see lots of people buying expensive electric cars or talking stock options. So put your money where your mouth is. Go find 10 people who are poor and give them each 15K. I'd offer three stipulations. 1) It has to be anonymous, 2) It has to be one-time, and 3) you should anonymously follow-up after 6 months. I suspect at the end of six months you'll just find the same poor people, even though technically you've offered them half a year's salary at 30K. But this is very easy to prove one way or another. Somebody like Zucerberg could probably run a sample of 100 or 500 without much problem. I'd love toe see the results. My second line of inquiry is: does this work at scale? In other words, is the political system capable of simply giving out money? I seriously doubt it. From what I've seen, a simple program, especially involving lots of money, will grow in complexity very quickly. Yes, technically you should be able to direct-credit anybody with a bank account within seconds. I have deep reservations that anything like that would actually happen, though. If you got 50% of the money to the poor you'd be doing well, and I wouldn't bet on that much traction. The larger point is that literally trillions have been spent over the decades on poverty. Programs have been created and executed by some of the smartest people in the world. People who have managed empires of tens of billions of dollars have went down this road. And poverty still abides. I'm not saying it's intractable. I'm simply saying that caution is in order here. "Prove it" is the correct response when offered really simple solutions to problems that have stumped thousands of others. Don't write a flashy article, don't persuade me in an opinion column, don't show me some economic study. Prove it.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>I suspect at the end of six months you'll just find the same poor people, even though technically you've offered them half a year's salary at 30K. // Isn't this rather like complaining that a hungry person will be hungry next meal-time even if you give them a meal now?
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  To clarify: The hypothesis on the table is that you can only measure by poverty by income. That is, if you gave a person making 0 per year 30K per year they would suddenly have an apartment, healthcare, transportation, and all those other things that most other people who make 30K per year have. A certain amount of money over a certain amount of time is the thing to be adjusted (maximized?) To test this, use a substantial amount of money and a non-trivial time period. 15K and six months come to mind because the sum of money is large enough to do quite a few things and the time period is long enough to allow various random things in life to occur. I'd think you could also test at greater income levels. In fact, to do it right you'd use 15K, 30K, and 45K and time periods of 6, 9, and 12 months. So when you come back, you're not looking for poverty to be "solved", whatever that means. You're looking on the previous time period to see if that person lived the same as somebody who was making a similar amount from a job. Did they have access to shelter? Food? Did the money last? And so on. I'm by no means suggesting that poor people are going to blow it all on booze and cocaine (of course, some will), but that you're measuring the wrong thing. This is a classic example of managing to whatever the metrics are, instead of the underlying condition. Put a different way, we shouldn't care how much money anybody makes, but whether they live a comfortable, happy life and have access to opportunity. But whatever my personal bias, an experiment like this would put in sharp relief whether or not the hypothesis had legs or not.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    >if you gave a person making 0 per year 30K per year they would suddenly have an apartment, healthcare, transportation, and all those other things that most other people who make 30K per year have // It's a poor premise. There's a wearing down effect that poverty has. Over time one can rely quite a bit on past wealth - for example clothing starts wearing out after a year (shoes) but can last decades depending on wear. [estimated periods:] A house needs re-roofing in 20 years, a boiler needs replacing in 10 years, a car needs replacing when it's 15 years old, et cetera. It's quite easy to live on a low income for a shorter period. In 6 months you're still using all the things you had when you were better off - probably you still have some foodstuffs. Coming the other direction in 6 months of higher income you'd still be spending on those things that have worn out. The $15k for 6 months would make a dramatic change, IMO, but not necessarily one that a casual observer would notice. As an example, I would probably still be wearing worn out clothes but the house would be in a good state of repair, we'd have a fully working cooker and washing machine, etc.. >we shouldn't care how much money anybody makes, but whether they live a comfortable, happy life and have access to opportunity // Yes, amen.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

>I suspect at the end of six months you'll just find the same poor people, even though technically you've offered them half a year's salary at 30K. // Isn't this rather like complaining that a hungry person will be hungry next meal-time even if you give them a meal now?

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
To clarify: The hypothesis on the table is that you can only measure by poverty by income. That is, if you gave a person making 0 per year 30K per year they would suddenly have an apartment, healthcare, transportation, and all those other things that most other people who make 30K per year have. A certain amount of money over a certain amount of time is the thing to be adjusted (maximized?) To test this, use a substantial amount of money and a non-trivial time period. 15K and six months come to mind because the sum of money is large enough to do quite a few things and the time period is long enough to allow various random things in life to occur. I'd think you could also test at greater income levels. In fact, to do it right you'd use 15K, 30K, and 45K and time periods of 6, 9, and 12 months. So when you come back, you're not looking for poverty to be "solved", whatever that means. You're looking on the previous time period to see if that person lived the same as somebody who was making a similar amount from a job. Did they have access to shelter? Food? Did the money last? And so on. I'm by no means suggesting that poor people are going to blow it all on booze and cocaine (of course, some will), but that you're measuring the wrong thing. This is a classic example of managing to whatever the metrics are, instead of the underlying condition. Put a different way, we shouldn't care how much money anybody makes, but whether they live a comfortable, happy life and have access to opportunity. But whatever my personal bias, an experiment like this would put in sharp relief whether or not the hypothesis had legs or not.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >if you gave a person making 0 per year 30K per year they would suddenly have an apartment, healthcare, transportation, and all those other things that most other people who make 30K per year have // It's a poor premise. There's a wearing down effect that poverty has. Over time one can rely quite a bit on past wealth - for example clothing starts wearing out after a year (shoes) but can last decades depending on wear. [estimated periods:] A house needs re-roofing in 20 years, a boiler needs replacing in 10 years, a car needs replacing when it's 15 years old, et cetera. It's quite easy to live on a low income for a shorter period. In 6 months you're still using all the things you had when you were better off - probably you still have some foodstuffs. Coming the other direction in 6 months of higher income you'd still be spending on those things that have worn out. The $15k for 6 months would make a dramatic change, IMO, but not necessarily one that a casual observer would notice. As an example, I would probably still be wearing worn out clothes but the house would be in a good state of repair, we'd have a fully working cooker and washing machine, etc.. >we shouldn't care how much money anybody makes, but whether they live a comfortable, happy life and have access to opportunity // Yes, amen.