# How large should the social safety net be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704 "2019-10-30T16:39:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/81 "2019-11-01T04:48:38Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > During the worst of the last recession the estimate was that there were six or more empty foreclosed houses for every homeless person in the country. A conservative estimate is that 40% of all food grown in the country ends up being thrown out and wasted. We don’t have a resource problem, we have an allocation problem. An endless cycle of deciding who “owns” things and who “deserves” things is what we do instead of just taking care of people. Yeah, it’s weird. People don’t want to go do back-breaking work like build houses and grow food unless they’re compensated for it. And that compensation leads to ownership of things. And then someone comes along and wants to take that property that those people worked so hard to acquire and give it to someone else, someone who didn’t do any back-breaking work for it. People get angry when that happens. Weird, right? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/82 "2019-11-01T06:05:35Z")
Yeah, those fuckhead foreclosing bankers are the worst–they don’t build houses or fix houses or do anything tangible and yet they get paid two to three times the initial price of the house in interest for nothing more than allowing someone to use a bit of their money to finance the house. Then when they’re about to go bankrupt because they traded in shady ass loans they get bailed out to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars but the people who lived in the houses ended up living on the streets and the foreclosed houses sit there and rot and bring down the values of every other house in the vicinity. Then those houses get snapped up by the hundreds by hedge funds and are managed as rentals by property management firms–hedge fund brokers and property managers don’t do a fucking thing to build or improve houses either. They just charge exorbitant rents and keep the foreclosed houses from being affordable for regular people who then can’t even afford to rent the houses they used to own. And yet with all this it’s still considered unlawful to drag those parasitic fucks out of their offices and hang them from lamp posts even though when that gets done to Epstein they call it “suicide.” Too bad there isn’t an epidemic of banker “suicides” too, that would sure help the economy a bunch. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/83 "2019-11-01T06:11:54Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Each person picks a primary care physician and the government pays that primary care physician a fixed annual sum; the government pays a hospital a fixed sum for each heart attack… There are several alternatives to the current fee for service method. What would be the incentive for a physician to accept a patient with complex medical issues, versus cherry-picking only healthy younger adults who aren’t likely to need lots of visits and expensive care? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/84 "2019-11-01T07:06:55Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > During the worst of the last recession the estimate was that there were six or more empty foreclosed houses for every homeless person in the country. A conservative estimate is that 40% of all food grown in the country ends up being thrown out and wasted. Do you have cites for any of these estimates? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/85 "2019-11-01T12:13:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > … > I doubt many patients demand anything that a doctor couldn’t dissuade them from. The power balance is still on the doctor’s side. That’s why we have prescription drugs, after all. > … I dunno. ISTR a recent article in The Atlantic, discussing how demanding (some? many?) US patients tend to be, while then failing to follow doctors’ instructions. Many meds and procedures are direct marketed towards patients/consumers, and patients rate their doctors on social media. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/86 "2019-11-01T12:29:16Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do you have cites for any of these estimates? It’s not that hard to look it up yourself rather than demanding others do it for you. Do you trust the [FDA](https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs)? > [@](#): > > How much food waste is there in the United States? > > In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. This amount of waste has far-reaching impacts on society: ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/87 "2019-11-01T12:36:27Z")
[Business insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-we-cant-just-put-homeless-families-in-foreclosed-homes-2012-6) (2012) > [@](#): > > According to some reports, there are now an estimated five vacant properties for every homeless person in the U.S., many left empty as the result of the foreclosure crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/88 "2019-11-01T12:47:59Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > Look i don’t know anything about yang’s proposal and I come at this from a libertarian point of view as it is the way to provide safety net with the least possible government intervention. > > It seems to me that your complaint is that Yang’s UBI proposal isn’t a large enough number you want 48k per year or something. I guess a debate can be had about what the right number is but I don’t think you’re going about it the right way if that’s what you’re trying to argue. > > On the other hand if your complaint is that the person who is not physically or mentally capable of work should be treaded better than the drug addict who was too stoned to go to work or the guys who was too lazy to get off his couch. I’m not sure if i agree with you but that could be a really interesting debate. > > I’m not really sure what you’re talking about so I’ll stop there. Im saying a UBI should go to _everyone_ irrespective of their current job status or any other issue. Disability payments included. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/89 "2019-11-01T13:22:52Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > No one should go without food, housing, educational opportunities, or medical care. There are enough resources to guarantee these things to everyone. Not if we insist on not having control over immigration and our borders. Countries like Denmark had to put up restrictions because they couldnt keep up their massive government safety net and allow in millions of immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/90 "2019-11-01T13:23:57Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > [Business insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-we-cant-just-put-homeless-families-in-foreclosed-homes-2012-6) (2012) So you want to move homeless people into $400,000 homes? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/91 "2019-11-01T13:25:08Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > So you want to move homeless people into $400,000 homes? Show me where I said that or even implied it. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/92 "2019-11-01T15:53:26Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > A conservative estimate is that 40% of all food grown in the country ends up being thrown out and wasted. We don’t have a resource problem, we have an allocation problem. An endless cycle of deciding who “owns” things and who “deserves” things is what we do instead of just taking care of people. So you want the government deciding what you should eat and sending you a food basket each week based on the allocation they’ve decided for you? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/93 "2019-11-01T16:09:46Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Im saying a UBI should go to _everyone_ irrespective of their current job status or any other issue. Disability payments included. Disability payments are part of the existing safety net. Basically UBI will be funded by: 1. Eliminating a huge chunk of existing tax expenditures (exemptions, deductions…) 2. Eliminating a large number of existing safety net programs and 3. Increased taxes If someone gets disability via SSI I expect that program to be removed. If he gets disability via SSDI or Veterans Benefits I expect modifications–such that the person is not getting an extra $1,000/month–but is getting part of that [although as I said previously I am not familiar with the specifics of Yang’s program]. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/94 "2019-11-01T16:30:12Z")
Food waste is not unique to the well off. For example I have a relative who is not at all well off. Yet when she cooks she makes a lot of leftovers. These go into the refrigerator. Frequently after a few weeks these then go into the trash. Another relative has kids who almost always take substantially more food on their plates than they actually eat. The excess food goes to the garbage. Go into a grocery store. Notice how the produce is all close to perfect? Well they throw away the stuff which isn’t. If they didn’t they would get lots of customer complaints. Farmers leave a few percent of their crops on the ground. If it can’t be picked up by the machines it is not economic for the farmer to hire people (or do it himself) to go along and pick up this extra food. [What farmers did a few decades ago was to let the livestock graze in the corn fields. Now with the specialization of agriculture they probably don’t have the livestock.] Thus while there is a great deal of waste in the food system I don’t think the cause is primarily the rich wasting food and the poor can’t afford it. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/95 "2019-11-01T17:39:34Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I thought that too, but I read a few pieces earlier today saying MMT isn’t really into the idea of financing the government with bonds. Bonds are just there to take money out of the banking reserves, and even then I guess MMT economists prefer taxes and direct regulation to combat inflation and interest. > > There’s also an upper limit to the deficit, after which point even MMT proponents must say there will be inflation, which is the point of maximum economic capacity. At that point any increase in money supply must necessarily increase the price instead of quantity of goods. > > I did read through that (second) article, but I’m not sure what you disagree with. Given a static money supply all businesses in an economy _do_ have a combined financial profit of zero. An isolated economy as a whole cannot grow, just as the energy in an isolated thermodynamic system is constant. It’s like if four people were standing in a room with exactly forty dollars between them. No matter how they redistribute the money, there will always be exactly forty dollars distributed among the whole group. The amount one man loses after a round of transactions is exactly equal to the amount the rest of the group gains in aggregate. > > And so, assuming a static money supply, if the government spends $10bn on the private sector then the private sector gains exactly what the government lost: $10bn. > > ~Max The room analogy is simplistic in that it measures wealth purely in terms of money - and existing money at that. If I have $200,000 and pay someone to build a house, then when he’s finished, I have a house and he has $200,000. I haven’t lost anything, and he’s presumably made a profit. The builder is paying his suppliers, who are also paying their suppliers, and all parties involved are paying their employees, so even though there’s a set starting amount of money, it’s moving throughout the economy and generating wealth as it’s being distributed between parties. Also, I believe the whole basis of Modern Monetary Theory is that the money supply is always expanding. Maybe I need to read up again on MMT again, but I believe it relies on the idea that money is not a fixed commodity. Basically, governments are able to issue money to pay for their operations, but have to ensure that their monetary policy is not inflationary. Taxes, rather than being how the government pays for it operations, are a method of preventing inflation. So theoretically, as long as inflation is held in check, the size of the tax deficit doesn’t really matter. Maybe somebody here can provide a better summary of MMT’s tenets. In the meantime, I’m sceptical. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/96 "2019-11-01T17:47:33Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > So you want the government deciding what you should eat and sending you a food basket each week based on the allocation they’ve decided for you? Yes, because that’s the only way to handle the situation. Hallowe’en is over so you can put your scarecrow costume away until next year. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/97 "2019-11-01T17:56:10Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I dunno. ISTR a recent article in The Atlantic, discussing how demanding (some? many?) US patients tend to be, while then failing to follow doctors’ instructions. Many meds and procedures are direct marketed towards patients/consumers, and patients rate their doctors on social media. Good point. In Europe drug companies are not allowed to advertise, which cuts down on the demand for the treatment of whatever disease gets marketed this month. (Nothing new - Lenny Bruce did a bit on this kind of thing.) Since drug companies have bigger marketing budgets than research budgets, this should reduce drug costs by a bit and spur innovation. Anyhow doctors can say no - but if it is profitable for doctors to say yes, (like the small subset of doctors responsible for a lot of opioid prescriptions) it is tougher. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/98 "2019-11-01T18:06:37Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Yes, because that’s the only way to handle the situation. Hallowe’en is over so you can put your scarecrow costume away until next year. Right. Because planned economies and government programs that mandate personal behaviour have such a great history of success. But hey, go ahead and let the government decide how much food you can buy. I’m sure they won’t expand that into other areas of control such as how often you can fly, or whether you can decide to send your kid to a private school. Never mind who you can sleep with, what books you can read, or if the brands you like have been approved by the state consumer oversight committee. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/99 "2019-11-01T18:11:37Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Im saying a UBI should go to _everyone_ irrespective of their current job status or any other issue. Disability payments included. Why? I don’t see a reason the disabled should lead a better life than the lazy. The idea here is to create a floor that gives people an acceptable minimum life. That means that some people, either through their own fault or through no fault of their own, will live at the floor level. After that most people will work to create a better life for themselves than that floor level not everyone will or will want to do that and that is OK. It is a reasonable argument where to set that minimum acceptable living standard. I guess it is also reasonable argument that we should provide a better lifestyle to those who are at the minimum through no fault of there own though once we get to the point of deciding who is there through their own fault or not were back to a higher level of government intervention that I would prefer. On the other hand you seem to want to keep the current saftey net in full force and then add UBI on top of it and that is just silly since it doubles (at least) the expenditures in the system. I guess silly is the wrong term but it does seem you’d be better off arguing that the floor for UBI needs to be raised if it’s enacted since it would accomplish the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2019, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704/100 "2019-11-01T18:16:41Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Right. Because planned economies and government programs that mandate personal behaviour have such a great history of success. But hey, go ahead and let the government decide how much food you can buy. I’m sure they won’t expand that into other areas of control such as how often you can fly, or whether you can decide to send your kid to a private school. Never mind who you can sleep with, what books you can read, or if the brands you like have been approved by the state consumer oversight committee. Not sure why you’re quoting me when your response has literally nothing to do with what I said but if you’re having fun you just keep right on fuckin’ that chicken, good sir or ma’am. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-large-should-the-social-safety-net-be/842704.md?page=6)