Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jai571z wrote
-Zipp- t1_jaiba7u wrote
You can use money to buy things
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jailqft wrote
Life changing things for $3k? Sounds like a great investment.
-Zipp- t1_jair8be wrote
Yeah! Like food.
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jaisrwl wrote
You ever hear the one about giving a man $3000 in fish?
-Zipp- t1_jajin22 wrote
Wait do you think the guy is gonna spend all $3000 on just fish? You do know that some people aren't fortunate enough to always have enough money for food aswell as other things like rent, clothes, etc.
(Not assuming the original replier struggles with food security btw)
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jajjf9t wrote
Giving someone $3k to help pay for their bills is the same as giving them a proverbial fish. It isn't life changing, it's a band-aid at best. You aren't making them more capable of paying for future bills once that $3k runs out.
-Zipp- t1_jakb0td wrote
It absolutely can though? If someone is in a very tight financial position, 3k can get them so much. it could give them breathing room on certain bills, pay of debt, secure FOOD that you NEED to LIVE, keep the rent paid, or even just straight up save/invest, all of this allows them to not be under constant stress and worry that can really hurt their day to day life.
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jakd1ik wrote
Right, and all of those benefits last as long as the $3k. Like giving someone a fish, it only is useful until they've eaten the fish.
-Zipp- t1_jakwz8b wrote
Its quite obvious you never actually been in a position where 3k would be life changing. Like, if someone can have a stable home for a moment, they can make steps to keep it a stable home.
[deleted] t1_jakgyas wrote
[removed]
spookyjeff t1_jal5xxj wrote
A first month's rent for an apartment so they have an address with which to apply for a job.
A beater car to transport them to a job outside of range for public transportation.
A class so they can get a better job.
Medicine or food so they can live long enough to find a job.
Mental health services or medications to make them stable enough to not be fired from a job.
Childcare so their kid won't be left alone while they're at their job.
Now, I can't give you financial advice, but I think those are some great investments with a lot of potential to change someone's life.
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jam1hz6 wrote
Those are paying for someone's costs, not an investment in them. It's once again the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish.
spookyjeff t1_jam40i4 wrote
"Paying for costs now to allow for profits later" is literally what investment is.
If you teach a man to fish but don't give him a pole or access to a body of water with fish in it, you've done nothing.
OrangeSundays19 t1_jaib457 wrote
Just with rent and expenses. I'm thankfully pretty healthy and don't have dependents, but things are expensive these days, and wages have not proportionally increased.
That tiny bit of breathing room would reduce my stress substantially.
120$ million on a cop playground doesn't help me at all. We spend so much money on police already, and it doesn't seem to have much effect on making things safer. This budget should be slashed immensely and spent on genuine provable community benefit.
imouttahereta t1_jainh3y wrote
Giving random people money for nothing is the exact opposite of something with "provable community benefit". And the last 3 years have made that clear as day if it wasn't obvious enough without it. "things are expensive these days", so let's print more cash and make it worse, right? This project sounds like a waste of money, but what is actually needed in most of the western world is austerity, not replacing counterproductive mass spending with more mass spending.
OrangeSundays19 t1_jaiq8aj wrote
I'm not really advocating for public policy be 'give me $3,000'. It was more of a comment, really.
I don't know if I'm going to solve America's economy in a reddit post, and I'm not really going to try.
I just know $120 million is too much. That we can seemingly agree on.
imouttahereta t1_jairqp3 wrote
Got it. And government inefficiency (or corruption) has been a constant everywhere I've lived. Unfortunately it's all quickly forgotten and there's hardly ever any accountability.
datcheezeburger1 t1_jajhkjo wrote
Got any research to back up those big ideas or did you come up with them yourself? Because I’ve got plenty of studies on deck that show how direct cash payments help communities. The child tax credit was one of the most transformative policies in the country before it was cancelled and that was from a conservative government of all things lol
imouttahereta t1_jajx2sf wrote
Don't tell me you believe the government propaganda about inflation being caused solely by "supply chains" (which I will point out is a problem that was exacerbated by the government paying a lot of people for not working) and "Putin's war in Ukraine".
When you give most people money unconditionally, the value of money goes down, i.e. you get inflation. That is a tautology. Taken to the extreme, unconditional handouts decrease productivity and labour force participation. Can you guess what direction they have been trending in since 2020?
Temporary handouts may have been necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, but they were given to far too many people (I got some and definitely did not need it) and for far too long, and as a result now we're stagflating. I don't see how implementing such programmes permanently could be positive in any way when we have a perfect example of what it leads to right here, today.
datcheezeburger1 t1_jak1rh8 wrote
I’m much less worried about the money we give to regular Americans than I am about the billions we send to military contractors for endless wars, the $30 billion in foreign aid that goes out to help prop up dictatorships in developing countries, or that our government pays to pharmaceutical companies in subsidies and unbelievable drug prices because they know they’ll get a spot on the board of directors after their terms end. There are plenty of pools to pick from, and if you think all that spending is necessary, let’s take a look at the companies making record profits while they pay poverty wages. My taxes just end up subsidizing their shitty wages with social security, medicare, welfare, food stamps and everything else that even a minimum wage job used to pay for 50 years ago. I don’t need to see extra handouts, I’m plenty happy to just redirect some of the ones I see as useless. It won’t introduce any new dollars to the economy, just take them out of the hedge funds invested in these companies.
imouttahereta t1_jak5f2t wrote
Like I said in another comment, replacing bad spending practices with different ones is not much of an improvement. Entitlements (like social security, food stamps, housing assistance, etc.) are one of the top three expenditures of the federal government if I remember correctly, but there's a difference between having programmes to help people who need support, and disincentivising people from working and lowering the value of money by sending everyone a cheque, which screws the people that this is theoretically helping anyway.
I find it ironic that you mention military funding and pharmaceutical companies even though I generally agree with you, considering the last 3 or so years were spent shunning, demonizing, banning, and in some cases firing whoever was critical of Pfizer, Moderna & co. while they were, like you said, making record profits (from our taxes) while lying left and right and asking for more. And military funding? I am not a big fan either, but I'm willing to bet most Americans are in favour of all the aid we are sending to Ukraine, which wouldn't be possible without those investments. So I feel like people point at the spending in those areas pretty often, but when push comes to shove, whether it's thanks to government and media propaganda or simply from circumstances, the public is actually pretty wishy-washy about it. Who would propose cutting military spending in 2023, with even Zelenskyy seemingly laying out bait for World War III? Who would have said anything about pharmaceutical companies in 2021? Definitely not any politician who wanted to get or stay elected. Once federal debt becomes THE big concern, maybe that will change, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.
datcheezeburger1 t1_jak6zlk wrote
Below this I attached one of the many studies that shows how universal basic income doesn’t raise unemployment, it actually results in more people getting jobs. If you have any research that disputes that point I’m happy to read it but we’re not gonna get very far on just opinions when we’re talking policy.
As for your points about most politicians supporting money for ukraine or for phizer/moderna, I’m firmly against the citizens united decision and think money should be out of politics so those companies can’t own our government in those fields, plus energy, tech, entertainment, etc. Just because they’re corrupt doesn’t give me an excuse to give up on what I think is right
imouttahereta t1_jakbvmo wrote
I'm aware of the small-scale studies on UBI, but firstly I doubt they would be effective at larger scales, and secondly I don't find employment status on its own to be a good measure of productivity. Personally, if I could live reasonably comfortably without investing time and effort into acquiring valuable skills, I probably wouldn't have bothered going to university, let alone migrating to the US for better opportunities. I don't think it's a coincidence that countries with more "socialist" policies tend to stagnate economically, don't innovate as much and fail to remain competitive on the world stage. But of course correlation =/= causation. I would like to see UBI attempted at the scale of a country, but I'd rather see it from a distance than be roped into it.
datcheezeburger1 t1_jalrtd0 wrote
If you have such a problem with stagnation you should be looking towards the ever growing pool of wealth at the top of our economy which doesn’t get spent in communities, it gets shuffled around a dozen hedge funds until we call it part of our GDP. The stagnation has gone on for 50 years now, and it isn’t because of entitlements. Check this out the wages have been flat while productivity is up 250%. They keep our money and then use our taxes to fund our own entitlements. This isn’t even about getting something we “don’t deserve” but getting back our slice of the pie. That money is yours and mine we aren’t doing more than taking it back.
I can accept that you don’t believe in ubi for whatever personal reasons you carry but you won’t convince me for a second that productivity and buying power have ever been related in this country.
burritoace t1_jaqr484 wrote
If you don't think the pandemic fucked up supply chains then you're an idiot
TwinkiePower420 t1_jaklgiq wrote
I owe $3000 to my school, $3000 could help me get a car, $3000 could be a security deposit on a new and better apartment than I currently have, $3000 is a lot of money for some people
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jam2g2i wrote
I understand how somebody can use $3000 but none of those things would change your life.
TwinkiePower420 t1_jamn8ya wrote
I can’t go back to school until I pay off that $3000, so that would change my life by helping me get a degree, thus changing my life dramatically considering I don’t have one. If I have a better car I can get a job at a different place that pays more, cause my current car can’t really make it anywhere so I have to work close to home or within a certain distance by bus. a new and better job with better benefits such as healthcare would change my life. A new car and a better paying job would also let me visit my family more often since they live far away in a town without a train station, leave the country for the first time in my life which would be a life changing experience, and it would generally change my quality of life since rn I’m pouring money into keeping the car running. And my current apartment is poorly built, has mold issues, lead paint, and doesn’t even have enough windows to get sunlight so moving to a new place that wasn’t actively worsening my health would also dramatically change my life. I could also move to a neighborhood closer to the aforementioned better job. Like these are all pretty life changing things, $3000 is a life changing amount of money to most people who make less than say, $20 an hour. Just cause it wouldn’t change your life doesn’t mean it wouldn’t change others
Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_jan96sx wrote
>I can’t go back to school until I pay off that $3000
That's not how student loans work. You can go back to school with outstanding loans.
TwinkiePower420 t1_janyoy4 wrote
They’re not loans big guy it’s money I owe the school itself, can’t get my transcripts transferred till they’re paid off, so if I wanna go back I gotta start from scratch until I get it paid off, but good try anyway. Point is, quit acting like you know more than the lived experiences of the people talking to you
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