Re:Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food
by brudgers on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @01:54PM
(#14403452)
The reasons that people might prefer universal basic income over receiving a food pack are the same reasons that people tend to prefer a paycheck from their employer in lieu of employer provided food and shelter. My mentor, the late David Crane FAIA, described it as "poor people wanting the same things I do." Employer provided food and shelter in lieu of cash wages would also be cheaper.
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Yes and I agree, but it would be easier to get people behind something like Universal Basic Nutrition. I mean who doesn't want to keep kids healthy and well fed? and if it only costs few cents per kid?
But use this program to get some data point on how universal program like that would work, what problems would we need to solve, and what's the ROI.
It's probably even easier to get people behind not doing much and acting as if it is significant. The problem that universal basic income is attacking is a larger one than childhood nutrition and produces less feel good public relations. It is also possible to have both universal basic income and provide an independent infrastructure for providing food security...which is also a much less sexy idea problem than feeding malnourished children.
Or to put it another way, the ceiling can be set by considering what the people on the receiving end actually want rather than by people on the giving end.