To most americans, Danes would be considered raging alcoholics , yet nothing make them less rational than their american counterparts.
But more importantly, what exactly is the alternative? Do you think alcoholics are going to magically get better when we take their money away? They need treatment.
No shit. I think maybe you imagined I was saying something that I was not. My comment was very specific and narrow. Drinking away your money is not a rational decision, period, full stop, end of point. If you think that's a pretty obvious point, then I agree, too. I felt it was the appropriate response to the comment I was responding to.
Nonetheless, I don't think the post you originally replied to was suggesting that spending your entire income on booze is rational, just some of it.
Of course, I've seen this evidence in a different context that might be somewhat biased: GiveDirectly[1] provides some credible research and are supported by Effective Altruist organizations like GiveWell[2]. There have also been experiments specific to basic income with similar conclusions[3].
To be fair, none of these studies are remotely bulletproof. Further research would help significantly, as is almost always true in the social sciences. But, in this light, the default position should be that the poor largely wouldn't waste their money—I'd put even shaky studies up against "common sense" any day.
[1]: https://www.givedirectly.org/research-on-cash-transfers
[2]: http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
[3]: Unfortunately, I can't find the summary I was thinking of. The Canadian Mincome study[4] is one such experiment and the conclusions, tentative as they may be, are worth a look.
Source: http://nypost.com/2013/07/28/nyc-welfare-food-is-shipped-in-...
Where does this attitude towards how someone spends their income come from? Is it the assumption that someone who receives aid is incompetent? Is it the assumption that you can handle someone else's finances better?
How does disability, illness or losing your job warrant being micromanaged by the state?
UBI proposes to do away with monitoring/restrictions on recipients of such income because it's inefficient and based on the assumption that someone else knows how to allot another's limited funds better than that person.
You are caring hard about how someone spends their pennies and it leaves me here wondering, why? Aren't there bigger fish to fry?
No one is claiming 100% perfect solution but unless you are claiming people choose to be poor you are basically saying that the current situation is better which I find quite unsubstantiated.
Most UBI implementations I've seen require gutting existing welfare systems - okay, fine, but what happens to the person who inevitably squanders their money?
I'm curious how this is of any real value or concern outside the usual "Well because it's MY tax dollars so I should have a say."
Why focus on poor people spending their social welfare when the result will be far less harmful to humanity as a whole than how the rich spend their social welfare?
The superfluous resource consumption by the wealthy, and I include not just the uber wealthy, but also those that can afford to fly around fairly regularly, buy new iPhones every 12-24 months, lease new vehicles ad naseum, is a much more dangerous situation.
If anyone is about to say well they earned their money and the right to spend it how they see fit, come on. It's social welfare that allows their wealth in the first place. It's government subsidized hand me downs from generation to generation. It's not at all acquired by the creation of novel goods and services.
But hey, let's focus on the cost of giving away money to people that will spend it on liquor.
Not on how giving away money to support our wholesale destruction of the environment is going to wreck the species as a whole. There are more immediate impacts to my own pocket book to consider, vis-à-vis the negligible increase to my tax bill!
If someone blows their UBI due to, not just drugs/alcohol, but just plain old poor finanical management skills, what happens to them?
They've got nowhere to turn for two weeks or more because we tore all that shit up.
The very point is that less people will be in this situation because getting your basic needs met is shown to make your more responsible. Se further up in thread for some of the studies.
Okay, now that stuff goes away, and you just get the one (significantly increased, but still, just the one) payout every so often. There is no safety net under the safety net anymore.
Those two stories I see linked reference other countries with radically different cultures. How many studies have been done with families that live in the USA and are subject to its cultural norms? Culture drives spending and expectations.
I say this as someone that thinks UBI is a Great Idea, but this is a question that from what I can tell remains unanswered.
So We are all going to be poorer so to speak UBI tries to make sure we somehow deal with that.
So We are all going to be poorer so to speak UBI tries to make sure we somehow deal with that.
These are contradictory statements.
Any any case, even if true, it just makes my question that much more urgent. You cannot suggest a system that dismantles the existing welfare system without answering the question of what replaces it and if the cracks people will necessarily fall through become bigger or smaller.
The assumption most make about UBI is that it's for the poor, meaning someone else than themselves.
The reality is that it's for all of us because we are all going to be poor.
So not it's not contradictory it's showing the different between two ways to understand UBI.
If people use up all their safety nets then they fall, just like they do now. I'm not sure what you think we can do about that?
Everyone relies on it. It's an equal amount of cash in pocket for every person.
If you want to talk about restrictions on borrowing- well, what idiot is lending this money to a person with minimum income without checking into their background ? I think we can leave that one up to the banks.
The point of UBI is to do away with those restrictions, because people usually know how to allocate their available funds towards their needs.
Its like "I would never use my UBI on alcohol"...well you're not "most people"