Monday, January 06, 2014



Today's must read

Why we should give free money to everyone by Rutger Bregman: Short version: the empirical evidence shows its more effective and cheaper than current methods of making assistance contingent on intrusive supervision. if you give homeless people a pile of cash, they don't spend it (as the right would have you imagine) on booze and drugs, but instead spend it on finding long-term solutions to their problems. If you give money direct to villagers in poor countries, they use it to improve their situation far more efficiently than top-down aid does. And if you give everyone a Universal Basic Income, they don't stop working, but do take time off when they get sick, and invest more in education, resulting in a healthier, more educated and more economically productive community.

Left wing policy: not just more moral, but also empirically more effective!