That makes sense. You only really need to get on the ground and deliver food when the supply chain in an area isn't able to provide. When the supply chain is working, and you give away free food, you risk destabilizing that supply chain leading to more reliance on you. Instead, by providing money, you help feed the people and allow the supply chain to stay afloat and have people get paid.<p>A good example of how giving free items out can have unintended consequences <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/second-hand-clothing-donations-kenya" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/second-hand-cl...</a>
I have often wondered about corruption in these programs? Not so much of the poor people, but how do you secure the transfer and avoid making the poor people a target of abuse? (eg: people with guns lie in wait right after payday).<p>What's stopping a corrupt government from making up a bunch of fake people to capture the money. Or giving each person 2-3 identities and allow them to get 2-3x the distribution?<p>Anyone know the details on corruption?<p>And to use a line from the article<p>>“I think we often end up holding the poor, the recipients of aid, to a higher bar than we hold ourselves to, and that shows up when you hear the question, ‘Why cash?’ I think we should start with recipient empowerment and choice and ask, ‘Why not cash?’”<p>People can only eat a certain amount of food before it's kinda a waste, whereas cash can be infinitely consumed/transferred. Yes food can be stolen and resold, but at a fraction of it's value -- decreasing the incentive to steal/resell
The problem with poor people is they don't have any money.<p>--<p>Government loans money to society, which is repaid thru taxes.<p>Loaning money to the lower quintiles is Keynesian demand-side policy, to the upper quintiles is supply-side Reaganomics policy.<p>There isn't an ideal single strategy. We simply need to target and adjust these loans and taxes, as needed, to nudge the economy in the desired direction.<p>Short term, we need thresholds for triggering automatic actions, so the economy can be managed something closer to real-time. For instance, start sending out stimulus (give poor people cash) whenever there's X number of consecutive quarters in recession.