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Re:A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic incom... by JamesBarney on Thursday July 02, 2015 @05:29PM (#9821784)
"Besides that, asking any government to take money from the people, run it through the giant bureaucracy machine, and magically produce a net benefit to the people is both logically impossible and naturally never going to happen."

It doesn't matter if redistribution is inefficient in terms of dollars if it's efficient in terms of utility.

The idea that a rich person gets less from money than a poor person does is called diminishing marginal utility. An example of this is $3,340 can buy a very rich person a purse, or it can buy a very poor person the life of their daughter.[0]

Now suppose that this government bureaucracy is terrifyingly inefficient and burns one dollar for every dollar that makes it to the malarial foundation. This would mean that a rich person has to give up 2 purses to save one life. In most people's books this is a huge gain in utility, and is why even if redistribution is inefficient[1] financially, it is very efficient when measured by utility.

[0] - Give well estimates that the malarial foundation saves 1 life per $3,433 [1] - The latest papers by the IMF actually argue that redistribution does not reduce growth.

Re:A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic incom... by ryanx435 on Thursday July 02, 2015 @06:07PM (#9822044)
good choice of examples: purchase a purse that costs as much as a used car or save a daughter (not a son).

I am seriously impressed: you've hit all the proper buttons to evoke the proper emotions in people reading your comment to take your side. How can anyone argue that a purse provides more value than someone's daughter? they can't, and so you've provided no room for any one to disagree with you.

congratulations! you are fluent in propaganda and argument framing!

how about using a different example, since the money would be taken from everyone, not just the rich:

3,433 is about 6 months rent for me. that does provide me a lot of utility.

or its about 8 months rent for someone else. that also provides them a lot of utility.

so why should I pay for them to be sheltered for 8 months instead of sheltering myself for 6? especially considering that the inefficiency of the government bureaucracy means that they will likely only be sheltered for 6 months: the exact same utility as if I had just kept my money for my own rent.

Re:A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic incom... by sliverstorm on Thursday July 02, 2015 @06:29PM (#9822154)
At which point we rapidly approach the theory of the "utility monster".