Just give poor people money | Hacker News Reader

Just give poor people money

bostonglobe.com

31 pointsakbarnama5 comments

That makes sense. You only really need to get on the ground and deliver food when the supply chain in an area isn't able to provide. When the supply chain is working, and you give away free food, you risk destabilizing that supply chain leading to more reliance on you. Instead, by providing money, you help feed the people and allow the supply chain to stay afloat and have people get paid.

A good example of how giving free items out can have unintended consequences https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/second-hand-cl...

I think part of it is the images and stories used to "explain" hunger.

Hunger is usually framed as a supply failure, not as a distribution failure. The picture is swollen bellies and the story in people's minds is "crop failure" or "civil or natural disaster", to which the logical solution would be "send food".

... because the natural next question to ask if it is a distribution failure and food is just sitting in warehouses and people are starving is: "why doesn't their government sort it out?".

If the solution is to give people cash, there are awkward questions like "who are the importers and suppliers who will be collecting all this cash?" and the inevitable conclusion that "this is just government corruption with extra steps".

To be clear, I think if one is to "give well" then doing it in an evidence-based way that will provide the most benefit is best. But I think it sets off a chain of questions that makes giving more morally complicated for many donors.

I have often wondered about corruption in these programs? Not so much of the poor people, but how do you secure the transfer and avoid making the poor people a target of abuse? (eg: people with guns lie in wait right after payday).

What's stopping a corrupt government from making up a bunch of fake people to capture the money. Or giving each person 2-3 identities and allow them to get 2-3x the distribution?

Anyone know the details on corruption?

And to use a line from the article

>“I think we often end up holding the poor, the recipients of aid, to a higher bar than we hold ourselves to, and that shows up when you hear the question, ‘Why cash?’ I think we should start with recipient empowerment and choice and ask, ‘Why not cash?’”

People can only eat a certain amount of food before it's kinda a waste, whereas cash can be infinitely consumed/transferred. Yes food can be stolen and resold, but at a fraction of it's value -- decreasing the incentive to steal/resell

The problem with poor people is they don't have any money.

Government loans money to society, which is repaid thru taxes.

Loaning money to the lower quintiles is Keynesian demand-side policy, to the upper quintiles is supply-side Reaganomics policy.

There isn't an ideal single strategy. We simply need to target and adjust these loans and taxes, as needed, to nudge the economy in the desired direction.

Short term, we need thresholds for triggering automatic actions, so the economy can be managed something closer to real-time. For instance, start sending out stimulus (give poor people cash) whenever there's X number of consecutive quarters in recession.

> Loaning money to the lower quintiles is Keynesian demand-side policy, to the upper quintiles is supply-side Reaganomics policy.

How does "supply-side Reaganomics policy" support "loaning money"? In the figurative sense I suppose you could mean that lower taxes are loans to the rich, but in the literal sense Reaganomics supports austerity - fewer loans for everybody.

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