[akira2501]

When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall.

In relation to the case in the article, I wonder if we couldn't subsidize certain items and allow parents to receive a one month supply at low to no cost? Why should we give disadvantaged people $180 a month just to let several middlemen take a cut via the corner drugstore?

[MereInterest]

The main idea behind UBI is that the government doesn't know exactly what each individual needs at any given time, but does know that those things can probably be bought for money. One person might need diapers, another socks, and yet another a car payment to take their child to school. Given money increases flexibility, as opposed to a fixed list of items that may or may not be needed.

[eesmith]

How is the package distributed? If the parents are homeless, where is it sent? If the package is stolen or damaged, how do they get a new one?

What is the basis if your concern? Over and over again studies show that poor people are no worse at managing money than non-poor people. Probably better, since they have so little to waste.

In this weird present where Gawker now has decent journalism, I'll quote from http://gawker.com/poor-people-do-not-just-blow-any-money-the... :

> The popular image of the "Welfare Queen" is one that is seared in the mind of many Americans. No big surprise, since countless millions of political advertising dollars were used to put it there. Nevertheless, evidence shows that the welfare state in the US, to the extent that we have one, works—that giving poor people tax breaks, and social welfare, and, yes, cash aid helps to bring people out of poverty and allows them to lead more bearable lives. ...

> I will politely refrain from addressing the racist overtones of the "poor people are lazy and stupid" position because they should not need lengthy explanations to debunk.

> Poor people are not perfect. Nor are middle class people, or rich people. Wasting money is a possibility, among humans.

[linkregister]

This has been done in the past, e.g. government cheese.

It turns out that letting the market deliver necessities based off of demand is far more efficient than the alternative. That would be a government anticipates how much a community will use, what styles of diapers they'll want, etc.

[eesmith]

Really? Do tell me more about the benefits of water system privatization in the US.

Story upon story like https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/risks-costs-private-water-lea... doesn't make me conclude that letting the market deliver water is "far more efficient than" a public water system.

[linkregister]

Calm down. Assuming bad faith is for Reddit, not here.

Your argument is making a straw man. You are the first commenter to bring up public utilities. Everybody needs water. Systems that are accountable to local government are the most effective way to get it. Usually that is with a publicly-owned water corporation.

A basket of goods is far different. Back to the subject actually at hand: some people will need cloth diapers. Others disposable. A government employee would need to administer the program in that town or district.

The inflexibility of the program would mean that some parents would not use all their diapers and would dispose of them. Other unfortunate parents would need way more. Also, what size diapers? Benchmark this against weight? A physical bottom measurement? Not all children use diapers at the same rate.

Hopefully this example gives you an idea of the complexities involved in centralized management. Empirically, baskets of goods are less efficient and more costly when centrally administered.

[eesmith]

And tone policing is its own uncharitable rhetorical style.

You said "letting the market deliver necessities". Water is a necessity.

I'm also for single-payer government run state-wide/national health systems. Somehow those work and are more cost-effective for overall public health, despite a variability of need which is far higher than that of diapers.

Now, I agree that akira2501's proposal isn't tenable, and in a parallel thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16763183 ) you see I list some of my objections.

What I disagree with is your broad and non-nuanced statement regarding the supposed efficiency of letting the market deliver necessities.

[linkregister]

I disagree you have parsed my response correctly. I do not know why you or the previous poster choose to mischaracterize a narrow statement as a broad and universal one.

If you re-read my comment, you will see that I provide a counterexample to the "all markets for everything" narrative.

Your response indicates that you think I'm a member of the opposing intellectual "team" and you need to defend yours. Not only do I acknowledge that single-payer is effective in several countries, I believe that it is one of many possible solutions to the U.S. healthcare problem.

My comment was narrowly disputing the effectiveness of a centralized planning system for market commodities. Even the NHS has considerable decentralized aspects.

[zeth___]

[[citation needed]]

And I mean a comparison between governments of equally developed nations. That means that you compare the USSR to Brazil and not the USA. Since the difference in HDI between the USSR and Brazil was smaller than that of the USSR to the USA.

[zeth___]

Because those same middlemen are the ones who would benefit the most from UBI.

Of course subsidizing goods and services means we will have to stop pretending that all choices are equally good and start acting like adults again, where just because you really, really want to do drugs and have 8 kids doesn't mean you will get to do that regardless of how much money you have.

[Broken_Hippo]

How exactly does subsidizing goods mean someone won't do drugs or have 8 kids? Do you think the folks addicted to drugs want to be?

Most folks don't do drugs excessively. But if it is OK for a middle class person to drink once a month, I'm OK with poor folks drinking once every few months. Or other drugs infrequently (i'm pro-legalization of many things). If you don't want folks to do drugs all that often, the only tool available with subsidies is to subsidize rehab and/or medical care and the family care that might come with inpatient rehab programs.

8 kids? How the heck do you expect to combat that with subsidies except though making sure birth control is nearly free (including the doctor's visit for women to get it, and actually offering low-cost sterilization). This completely glosses over the need for fact-based sex education (rather than the abstinence-only sort popular in some areas), for instance, and does nothing to deter folks that want 8 children.

[zeth___]

>Most folks don't do drugs excessively. But if it is OK for a middle class person to drink once a month, I'm OK with poor folks drinking once every few months. Or other drugs infrequently (i'm pro-legalization of many things). If you don't want folks to do drugs all that often, the only tool available with subsidies is to subsidize rehab and/or medical care and the family care that might come with inpatient rehab programs.

You don't subsidize alcohol, you tax it. Then you borrow a leaf from the Australian playbook and add a puke green coloring to it and force it to be sold in brown cartons with pictures of dissected livers.

>8 kids? How the heck do you expect to combat that with subsidies except though making sure birth control is nearly free (including the doctor's visit for women to get it, and actually offering low-cost sterilization). This completely glosses over the need for fact-based sex education (rather than the abstinence-only sort popular in some areas), for instance, and does nothing to deter folks that want 8 children.

You force sterilize people after the second child. And pay people to get sterilized with one or no children.

Unpleasant but when we are hitting the limits of what the planet can sustain and the best hope is 'we will go to Mars', doing unpleasant things so we survive is the better alternative to the cannibal holocaust we are setting ourselves up with.

[SolaceQuantum]

Sterilization in first world countries isn’t useful to solve world population as a whole because most/all first world counties actually have negative birth rates and are only bolstered by immigration. Furthermore, birth rates globally are slowing down as it is. There’s no need to go down to forced sterilization or other barbaric methods.

[xienze]

> When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall.

Irresponsible spending is precisely what will happen with UBI. When you cut a check not earmarked for a specific purpose (food, rent, clothing, etc.) you will inevitably end up with people mismanaging their money and coming back for more ("but I'm broke through absolutely no fault of my own, how will I afford to eat?"). This will lead to backstops beyond UBI for people facing emergencies, which will lead to a small but significant portion of people gaming the system by, well, having "emergencies" every month that leave them unable to afford necessities.

The fatal flaw of UBI is assuming that there will be no abuse.

[alistairSH]

There is abuse of earmarked assistance. UBI isn't unique in that regard.

Trading food stamps (or food purchased with them) for drugs. Etc. The drug addict is going to get drugs one way or another; we may as well reduce the friction (and use the savings to pay for rehab).

Regardless, most of the poor are just trying to get by and not prone to abusing whatever assistance is available.

[dsfyu404ed]

Right but each step required to convert a food stamp dollar to something you arne't supposed to buy with foods stamps adds friction and inefficacy.

By handing out food stamps that can be used for X you make X the default for that thing and require user to go out of their way to use the food stamp money for something else.

If people are using food stamps to buy food to sell to a bodega at 50% value and then using that to buy beer you've effectively doubles the price of beer (or diapers) for people buying it with food stamps.

It's mind-boggling that a bunch of tech people who are well versed in the various tricks employed to get users to do things don't understand this.

It's not like anyone who's on welfare/ebt/food stamps doesn't know exactly how to convert those dollars to cash if they want to. It's just not an efficient use of those dollars compared to buying what you're expected.

Replacing all those with UBI just removed the extra steps and cost penalty for using welfare/ebt/food stamps on things you're not supposed to.

[alistairSH]

I think we're making the same point, but I see removing that friction as a good thing, while you don't.

In your example, the bodega is getting a 50% cut of the aid that it shouldn't. Instead, we can give the recipient 50% of the current amount in cash, and let them buy the drugs directly. The extra 50% can be used in several ways... pumped into rehab or education, reducing tax burden on others, whatever we decide.

In both cases, the drug addict uses all their aid for the same amount of drugs. In my scenario, society spends less for that outcome.

[dsfyu404ed]

In the current scenario there's an incentive to not spend your welfare money (taxpayer money) on drugs. I think that's worth letting the middle man take a cut of.

You seem to be under the assumption that welfare is supposed to be income. It's not. It's aid, financial assistance for near-necessities. If you want drug money without hurting your eligibility it's not that hard to work under the table.

[alistairSH]

In the case of the drug abuser, I'm not sure that incentive to spend appropriately applies. They're a drug addict after all - they really don't have a choice (other than rehab, but that also costs money).

Regardless, I'm much more concerned about the average recipient, who may need more gas than bread some weeks, or some other completely reasonable situation. As noted in a sibling, it's been proven that the poor aren't any worse at budgeting/spending than the not-poor.