Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

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> Paying down debts in the optimal order to get on the path of long term savings is not something you can easily bootstrap yourself into without help. These people need mentors.

UBI, to a significant degree, keeps you from falling into debt in the first place.

> The state of Maryland provides free housing via HOC and free food via SNAP, yet the recipients of such programs I have worked with still frivolously spent cash on toys and luxuries (not to mention booze, cigs, and lotto) as soon as they got it and were in no way on a path to self-reliance. If free food and housing doesn't provide stability, I fail to see how UBI would (especially considering most UBI checks would be eaten as rent which is largely equivalent to HOC)

Means tests. The free food and housing isn't actually stability. It's only there temporarily, and only if you're poor enough. If you at some point attain "success", you lose the thing that made you stable. For SNAP that might be okay, but knowing that you'll need to move if your income goes up isn't stability, it's the opposite.

> When I helped them get their accounts in order, we found they were paying Comcast for cable despite not owning a TV, they were paying for all sorts of extraneous insurance and warranties they didn't need because the letters in the mail had predatory "amount due" stamps in red on disguising them as bills, etc.

Indeed, these things are bad. I'm claiming they're a symptom.

> That's largely just a roundabout way of stealing (if you consider defaulting on debts stealing, which I do in many cases). "If I frivolously spend my money before paying my debts, then I don't have to pay my debts!"

Sure, whatever floats your boat. I'm not applying value judgements, I'm offering solutions.

> UBI, to a significant degree, keeps you from falling into debt in the first place.

So you are saying the current poor already in debt are screwed, but the rising generation can use UBI to prevent themselves from getting into debt?

Plausible, but again, I doubt it. Like I mentioned earlier, a big chunk of the middle class are living above their means. If you suddenly have more money, for a lot of people it just means you can go into bigger debts for better housing, better cars, etc.

If middle class people with dual incomes are living life on the knife's edge, with little savings and big debts, why wouldn't the poor do the same if they suddenly had more money?

Where does the voice of frugality come from? You act like it's an instinct people naturally develop when things are stable, but it's not. I was taught frugality by my parents. I have many middle class friends who were not taught frugality by their parents and guess what? They have much nicer cars and bigger houses than me (but also deeper debt and less savings).

> Indeed, these things are bad. I'm claiming they're a symptom.

Predatory insurance/warranty companies are a symptom of what? I claim they exist as a consequence of exploiting ignorance. A $1k monthly check won't make that exploitable ignorance go away, and indeed it will continue to be exploited, perhaps to an even greater degree. Then what? UBI proponents will have to argue for a bigger and bigger monthly check until we are practically a communistic society.

> Like I mentioned earlier, a big chunk of the middle class are living above their means.

The middle class aren't the people who are on SNAP today, you keep changing the groups you're talking about.

> You act like it's an instinct people naturally develop when things are stable, but it's not.

I'm not talking about frugality. I'm talking about long-term planning. Which is aided by stability.

> Predatory insurance/warranty companies are a symptom of what?

A symptom of poor people who are in debt and don't have the time or energy to actually understand how or why. They're overwhelmed. If you aren't in debt or know the extent to which you are actually in debt, predatory "amount due" stamps don't work.

As far as I can tell, you seem to be arguing that because scammers exist, we shouldn't implement UBI, because scammers will just get all the money. So what about all the people who are poor but wouldn't be scammed?

> The middle class aren't the people who are on SNAP today, you keep changing the groups you're talking about.

My point is that even if you have a steady income (or two!), that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a long-term planner. Thus, UBI will not automatically make the poor into long term planners, thus UBI will not automatically grant long-term stability.

> A symptom of poor people who are in debt and don't have the time or energy to actually understand how or why. They're overwhelmed.

If you have experience in this area I apologize, but it seems to me you haven't really worked with any actual poor people. A huge chunk of poor people I've worked with in Maryland have nothing but time. What's your excuse for them? Sure, there's the "single mom working 3 jobs with 4 kids" stereotype, but actually a lot of the poor African American women I've worked with have no job and are home all day (esp. during covid) and are totally reliant on government.

> If you aren't in debt or know the extent to which you are actually in debt, predatory "amount due" stamps don't work.

Not getting into debt in modern America is tricky, even more so for the poor. Knowing the extent which you are in debt and the optimal way to pay it off requires financial literacy, which the vast majority of poor I've worked with don't have and don't know how to get. And as I've said I don't think "stability" will magically result in increased financial literacy. So we are just arguing in circles now. It's fine if you disagree with me. I personally don't think UBI will make any measurable dent in poverty at all, unless you torture UBI statistics to confess. Happy to be proven wrong, but would like to see another country with more favorable conditions go all-in and prove it works first before the USA.

I really can't be bothered to argue in depth but in the backdrop of record high wealth inequality in the US, your idea that the poor just need to spend less is beyond ridiculous.

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