Re:Moving Forward on Basic Income
by RangerScience on Thursday June 02, 2016 @01:26PM
(#11824340)
I see what you're saying, although... Based on that explanation, I'd expect to see a much more diminished frequency / intensity of the PayDay loan issue, but...
...if Something Happens and you run out of cash this month, why would you expect to a) not have Something Happen next month or b) have enough surplus next month to repay the "loan"?
Well, I guess you'd want to peg the BI at "average cost of living plus buffer", so that the person always has enough liquidity to cover, say, a standard deviation of Oh Shit over the course of N months. Or, keep safety nets as nets (rather than traps) so that Oh Shit, Something Happened events don't cause this issue.
Hmmm.
For the small percent of people who have serial problems managing their capital, giving them capital is the worst thing you can do. This causes people to get trapped in a cycle.
The key difference here is you replace future-capital with the goods or services directly. It's much harder to turn food and/or rent back into capital, and then mismanage it.