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A comment on GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to East Africa. Parent comment

Re:GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to Eas... by jlg23 on Friday May 06, 2016 @06:52PM (#11647277)
Wouldn't a basic income reduce the dependency on NGOs? If the situation in Kenya is similar to what humanitarian aid workers tell me about Haiti it's basically people joining NGO programs to make a livelihood but not planning on using learned skills or connections made to make a living independently when the project ends but rather looking for the next program.

This is a sincere question, I'm fully aware that a lot of NGOs intend to do good but do more harm :(

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Re:GiveDirectly Planning to Give $30M in Basic Income to Eas... by mwambua on Friday May 06, 2016 @07:11PM (#11647368)
You and @skunkworks both raise interesting points. I'll have to think through this some more... I have more experience with code than economic policies; but here's a first go:

I have a problem with neither paying taxes, nor helping raise up the underprivileged. However, I believe that the former should facilitate the latter, rather than feeding some official's offshore account.

I think that if external funding were withdrawn, then we'd see a lot more done to fairly distribute government revenue and our government would be motivated to increase that revenue by improving our balance of trade.

I'm a little biased towards capitalism... so I believe in equal and opposite reactions. The developed world deserves to eat what it's worked for too. Maybe we need a little negative pressure to see that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-DgV2vixSo

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