Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Riggerjack wrote:Paul has written several times of how grad school is an ideal life, if it weren't for the dissertation.

LOL. I think it depends. I like to define grad school the following way:

Year 1) Confusion/Clueless.
Year 2) Desperation/Despair.
Year 3) Hope/Potential.
Year 4) Productivity.

I've known talented individuals, as judged by their ability to get perfect grades in undergrad, who didn't make it through the second year because they lacked "frustration tolerance". Year four is definitely the best year!(*) of grad school. Year five (to nine )is post doc at which point you're getting into sales, that is, selling some proposition that's only really interesting to five other people in the world. I failed at that because due to the Peter Principle.

(*) This is why the best approach is to get your PhD and then leave for industry. See Disciplined Minds.

Finland is starting an experiment given $590/month to 2000 jobless Finns for two years. No constraints.

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland- ... nt-2016-12
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall ... or-people/

Yeah, I think they are right. BI works well in 3rd world countries. I think it could work here as well, but it would be slower, like generations slower. Poverty in America is cultural, and you can't fix that with money.

You can fix it with enough success, but there will always be someone unable or unwilling to compete.

I just don't see this gaining traction in my lifetime, there are too many interests served by the existing CF of social services.

Riggerjack wrote:Poverty in America is cultural, and you can't fix that with money.

Not to hijack the thread, but I'm curious about your definition of this.

Funny, I saw an interview of Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan) recently where he suggested this as an option in the form of a "negative income tax".

the math probably doesn't work out. entire federal budget divided by number of citizens ~= $10,000/year/person.

Not to hijack the thread, but I'm curious about your definition of this.

I thought I had covered this in other threads, but in a nutshell:

Poverty in America is not a lack of money, and usually not a lack of opportunity. Now of course there are exceptions, health or other extraordinary factors.

But when you look at the bottom of America, where welfare, crime and working under the table are the main sources of income, success is rare. Like fairy tale rare. Adults, armed with their excuses and justifications for why they couldn't get ahead, raising kids to KNOW that the American dream doesn't apply to them. Day in, day out, programming for failure. And this has been going on for generations. Here, there is a culture of failure.

Basic income won't fix this. Or at least not for a very long time.

if it's statistically unlikely for a certain human population to act in a certain way, is that way really possible? and if so, for what definition of possible?

maybe an analogy is dropping a human in the middle of the ocean, on an island, about as far a swim away from the coast as possible - but not telling him which direction the coast is in. it's theoretically possible for him to reach land, but how many humans out of 100 would make it?

Riggerjack wrote:

Not to hijack the thread, but I'm curious about your definition of this.

I thought I had covered this in other threads, but in a nutshell:

Poverty in America is not a lack of money, and usually not a lack of opportunity. Now of course there are exceptions, health or other extraordinary factors.

But when you look at the bottom of America, where welfare, crime and working under the table are the main sources of income, success is rare. Like fairy tale rare. Adults, armed with their excuses and justifications for why they couldn't get ahead, raising kids to KNOW that the American dream doesn't apply to them. Day in, day out, programming for failure. And this has been going on for generations. Here, there is a culture of failure.

Basic income won't fix this. Or at least not for a very long time.

Thanks. I was curious about your definition of that.

Riggerjack wrote:Day in, day out, programming for failure. And this has been going on for generations. Here, there is a culture of failure.

Basic income won't fix this. Or at least not for a very long time.

I am a fan of some implementations of "basic income" and I do think any human with a basic income will prioritize certain spending (i.e. w/ basic income we should see a decrease in homelessness, hopeless traps). I think it is more efficient than other welfare solutions.

Though I think your point is well taken. I have a friend living in poverty for a few years but her programming is by way of an upper-middle class family/education and I (and she) feels that she will do just fine (for sure relatively better than others at the same income level) unless she falls into some trap like drugs. She has the mental boot she can bootstrap her future life with. It's reasonable that someone with poor programming might exhibit the opposite behaviour. Will the assurance of a basic income be a boot?

Well, I think drugs make homelessness unfixable. When you give an addict enough to buy his fix, all other problems pale in comparison.

Unless BI is high enough to cover drugs and living costs. That would take a lot of money, AND legalized drugs. (Homebrew style rather than WA style.)

I just don't see that happening.

Personally, I don't need the poor to suffer to justify the sacrifices I have made to get where I am. But I don't think the majority of the middle class would agree with me. If there were enough surplus to create this level of BI( maybe, decades in the future), I just can't see it getting the traction to get going.