Sounds plausible
Free money might be the best way to end poverty
Apart from some quibbling over the definitions of "free" and "money," this sounds like it just might work.
posted by ColumbusGuy @ 6:00 AM
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Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Apart from some quibbling over the definitions of "free" and "money," this sounds like it just might work.
2 Comments:
With just 13 test subjects, this might be hardly more than anecdotal evidence. I'd like to know whether they picked the first 13 people the found on the streets, or 13 who seemed not to be hustlers. Because if there was a general program for giving 3,000 punds to homeless people, you know it would be abused by "Fagin" like characters who would enlist fakes.
Still I like the idea of public assistance involving far less public management. Forced "one size fits all" job training programs, drug abuse counseling, etc. are bureaucratic nightmares, that people will sit through just to get their checks. Plus, the experiment underestimates the hold addictions have on some people - and some would no doubt take the 3000 and kill themselves with a splurge of heroin or drink.
Have you ever ready anything by Maurice McTigue? Pretty interesting stuff on accountability. Personally, I'd be willing to kill (hey TSA, that means "stop spending on") all the administration and start passing out cash. I might even be willing to pass it out without any accountability whatever, but probably that would turn out to be impractical. The tire would go flat.
Of course, better that it go flat quickly than over decades, as it's doing.
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