DNC Restructuring

[Deftscythe]

I don't doubt what you say, but do you happen to have any sources that speak to block grants specifically as a state-created inefficiency? I'm always interested in federalism literature.

In a similar vein, do you have any sources on what you said about free housing?

[Byrthnoth]

Well, here's the setup: https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...f-block-grant/

Article is old, and notable things from it:
* TANF funding has never been increased from 1996 levels
* The requirements placed on states as far as how they spend the money are incredibly lax and no state has ever been found in violation.


I can't find a counterfactual study where they imagine that TANF wasn't done, but I can find websites explaining how states are spending (or not spending) their money:
https://www.cbpp.org/research/family...in-most-states
https://www.cbpp.org/research/family...the-tanf-block


I will say that if TANF's goal was to reduce poverty, we can crudely evaluate TANF (a state program)'s relative efficacy compared to AFDC (the federal welfare program that preceded it) by looking at the US poverty rate and noting the 1996 bill did nothing to it, unlike the general 1960s war on poverty which included expanding potential AFDC welfare recipients.

[Gredival]

In a similar vein, do you have any sources on what you said about free housing?

It's only been done stateside in Utah, that I know of.

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/45910...cent-heres-how

It has been done in many European countries as part of dirty "socialism" though if you would like more lit.

The basic premise is that you just have to accept some sunken costs and be done with it, rather than pushing all these restrictions to "deserve" it because there are people who will inevitably get kicked off. And those people will end up costing the state more in health care and other costs by being homeless than if you just give them a free room.

[Byrthnoth]

Those countries also likely don't push the mentally ill into homelessness, which is what makes our homelessness problem a lot more difficult to deal with than a lot of other developed nations.

[Gredival]

Those countries also likely don't push the mentally ill into homelessness, which is what makes our homelessness problem a lot more difficult to deal with than a lot of other developed nations.

[Deftscythe]

It's only been done stateside in Utah, that I know of.

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/45910...cent-heres-how

It has been done in many European countries as part of dirty "socialism" though if you would like more lit.

The basic premise is that you just have to accept some sunken costs and be done with it, rather than pushing all these restrictions to "deserve" it because there are people who will inevitably get kicked off. And those people will end up costing the state more in health care and other costs by being homeless than if you just give them a free room.

That was an interesting read, though a little depressing to hear that the head of Utah's Housing First effort only abandoned his "bootstraps" philosophy when he found out that Housing First would save money. This from a man in charge of humanitarian services for the Mormon church. I feel like every day I find some new piece of evidence that the only universal characteristic among self-described conservatives is a total lack of empathy.

[Gredival]

That was an interesting read, though a little depressing to hear that the head of Utah's Housing First effort only abandoned his "bootstraps" philosophy when he found out that Housing First would save money. This from a man in charge of humanitarian services for the Mormon church. I feel like every day I find some new piece of evidence that the only universal characteristic among self-described conservatives is a total lack of empathy.

The sadder thing is that even with proof it saves money, a lot of conservatives will refuse to back this sort of plan because they are just against "handouts"

[Andalusian girls]

re the impact of tax reform from a couple pages ago

i've noticed both here and abroad many pointing to individual economic markers, bonuses here a raise there factories being shuttered also there, as the result of the recent tax reform and it vexes me. i'm terribly vexed. though these early markers are, obviously, all we have the go on at the moment they're both forest for treesy and more premature than a 17 year old boy on prom night.

critics are both right to point out the dispersal of one time bonuses is primarily a public relations move and wrong to assume that is the sum total or the aim of the plan's benefits, a plan that will not even be fully implemented until April 2019. economic growth is notoriously difficult to track and its causes are infuriatingly difficult to disentangle from all other relevant variables, but the primary thrust is that it is far too early to tell what effect the plan shall have. moreover pointing to the operations of an individual business as evidence of the legislation's efficacy or lack thereof is a bit like pointing to the fate of an individual cell when determining the health of an organism. anecdote should not be treated as data.

[Salodin]

Can't we just compare it to previous tax cuts to see what kind of results we could expect? I feel like you're arguing that we should just let it go for a few years and see what happens, when we already have metrics we can compare similar cuts to.

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[Marootsoobutsu]

Can't we just compare it to previous tax cuts to see what kind of results we could expect? I feel like you're arguing that we should just let it go for a few years and see what happens, when we already have metrics we can compare similar cuts to.

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Economics is called the dismal science for a reason. And when you're talking about a force as incomprehensibly massive as the American economy, identifying the moving parts is hard enough; identifying their effects has proven almost impossible. You mostly end up having people attempting to reverse-test things to justify their own predisposed beliefs about how economy does or should work.

Realistically, there's no opportunity to really test economic theory in the world right now. America simply wields too much influence on the world, and we lack any clear sense as a nation of what we really want, or how we want to go about it. Economic impacts in the world take years *at least* to really present themselves, and identifying which parts of what decisions had what impact where is profoundly impossible to assess, because... well, we don't actually understand economics as well as our loudest voices would claim.

We don't even have the ability to realistically test economic theory: population, weather, innovation, competition, and too many millions of other factors can't be isolated effectively. We can make broad, sweeping guesses by looking at history, but there are very, very few things we've been able to really point at with a causality likelihood, and most of those aren't economics so much as applied psychology. We can examine, to a degree, how people respond to events, but mostly on broad, conglomerate strokes, and we can't (to Asimov it up), account for Mules, the individuals who have impacts irrespective of the greater events around them, or who tap into a previously unexplored or unexposed element in the extant world.

Many economists also approach the question with an historicity perspective-- economics is evolving to or advancing to a conclusion, and X leads inexorably to Y. Not only is this horrible historic analysis (and my primary problem with Marxist historians), it's scripting purpose into events that are simply events and, frankly, don't have any purpose. They are just things that happened, that had consequences.

That's not all to say that economics shouldn't be studied. It's arguably the most powerful driving force of events in the world, and a cause for both more destruction and benevolence than any other "single" factor. But it's faced with so many obstacles to examine with objectivity that pretending the science is anything but in its unmitigated infancy is not only laughable, it's dangerous.

[Salodin]

People are literally hand waving trickle down economics like it hasn't reared its ugly head many a times before.

We have models for how this will affect americans. I end up paying more in taxes about 7 years from now. That's how this affects me. Will it afford my employer the ability to give me better raises to compensate? By your admission who knows, economics is a large beast with many variables. What I do know is they won't volunteer one for me or anyone else in America, even if their profits increase because of the cut. This has been proven time and again. This is shown in stagnated wages over how many decades now?

I do know that historically these types of cuts and adjustments do not positively affect me. That's where I'm at, that's where all current evidence as far as I have seen tells me I'll be at the end of this. I don't need to worry about how this affects companies, because companies aren't worried how this affects me. The average American got fucked, the evidence says so, and any booms from this cut are not necessarily going to trickle down to me because history has shown that increased profits does not mean increased wages.

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[Zetanio]

Whole lotta old academia in this economics discussion.

Y'all need to go learn about agent-based computational economics.

[Yuri-G]

Whole lotta old academia in this economics discussion.

Y'all need to go learn about agent-based computational economics.

No.

[Zetanio]

I guess everyone learned about it.

[Talint]

Poll: GOP gains on generic ballot, Trump approval ticks upward

Fully 39 percent of registered voters say they would support the GOP candidate for Congress in their district, while 38 percent would back the Democratic candidate. Nearly a quarter of voters, 23 percent, are undecided.

Voters are split almost evenly along party lines. Democratic voters break for their party, 85 percent to 5 percent, while Republicans similarly favor the GOP, 84 percent to 8 percent. Among independent voters, 26 percent would vote for the Democrat, 25 percent for the Republican and nearly half, 49 percent, are undecided.

Blue wave comin' y'all!

[Day]

They wavin' goodbye?

[Salodin]

Those numbers looked different before the stupid shutdown...fucking Schumer.

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[archibaldcrane]

Love too cherry-pick outlier polls

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...-ballot-polls/

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[Talint]

The GOP’s 1-point advantage comes after three months of tracking in which Democrats maintained a lead ranging between 2 and 10 points on the generic ballot. That has been generally smaller than the party’s lead in other public surveys: The most recent RealClearPolitics average shows Democrats ahead by 7 points on the generic ballot, though that’s down from a high of 13 points late last year.

Love too ignore polls that might be concerning.

But don't worry guys Hillary has this in the bag.

[Zealot]

Another R state seat flipped to Democrat in a special election, Margaret Good will take a state seat in Florida in a district Trump won by 5.

Word is that polls were pushed by high Democratic women turnout and an automated phone blast by Joe Biden.

This is the 17th special election since Trump won office that has resulted in a Republican-held seat being flipped.