The government can't do anything right

[johannhowitzer]

Hm, I should amend something; where I use the "law of averages," I have actually been meaning the Law of Large Numbers - the idea in mathematics that the same process performed a large number of times will even out toward the expected result, given various weights.  BP's pizza tips are one example of this - because some people do tip, you can take the average tip per delivery and use it to predict future tips.

Biased or not, the population of the United States already shows a specific trend regarding donations - and due to the Law of Large Numbers, when speculating about increased disposable income, we can postulate a specific donation level with a fairly small margin of error.  This is what I meant.

The Law of Large Numbers works better the larger the sample size gets - 300 million is overkill, and it works even with people involved.

[russianspy1234]

the crux of my disagreement is that i do not think the average will lie where you think it will.

[BluePriest]

the crux of my disagreement is that i do not think the average will lie where you think it will.

I get the largest amount of tip after tax time. I usually get about double during that season. Happened 2 tears straight.

The amount of money people have is directly correlated to how much they will tip.
Your response may be that they wont give as much as what they save from welfare ect, or that not as many people will give, however, there will also be people who give more (a good %. I get tip from people who dont normally during tax time) and then charitible organazations are able to do more with less than the government.

[russianspy1234]

the crux of my disagreement is that i do not think the average will lie where you think it will.

I get the largest amount of tip after tax time. I usually get about double during that season. Happened 2 tears straight.

The amount of money people have is directly correlated to how much they will tip.
Your response may be that they wont give as much as what they save from welfare ect, or that not as many people will give, however, there will also be people who give more (a good %. I get tip from people who dont normally during tax time) and then charitible organazations are able to do more with less than the government.

so then why charge for your pizza at all?  if you dont, people will have more money and tip more and some people will tip more than they would have initially been charged.

[Belthus]

I found an interesting essay (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfarecharity.htm) that is critical of the argument that charity can replace government social programs. It seems to have been written a long time ago (mid-1990s perhaps), but I think the points still hold true. Here is the summary:

Americans would have to make at least 10 times the donations they currently give to charity to fully replace government social spending. And there is no reason to believe that people who so bitterly hate paying taxes would gladly surrender an equal amount to charity. Arguments that charities can do the job better than government are naïve - most charities are small, highly localized and ill-suited to responding to national disasters or shifting economic trends. About 90 percent of charity funds are both collected and spent locally, which means that rich communities tend to have well-funded charities, and poor communities tend to have poorly funded ones. For this reason, only 10 percent of all charitable donations are directed to the poor. Re-allocating charity donations to the communities that need them most will incur intense political opposition from the communities that fund them.

[johannhowitzer]

so then why charge for your pizza at all?  if you dont, people will have more money and tip more and some people will tip more than they would have initially been charged.

Because the purchase price of the pizza is a discouraging factor for a lot of people who would like pizza right now but know they shouldn't spend the money.  If pizza were free, a huge number of people would just send for free pizza every night, and greatly overwhelm the increase in tips.  The reason charities' services can be rendered free is because they're careful about providing those services only to those who truly need them, and then in controlled quantity.

[russianspy1234]

so then why charge for your pizza at all?  if you dont, people will have more money and tip more and some people will tip more than they would have initially been charged.

Because the purchase price of the pizza is a discouraging factor for a lot of people who would like pizza right now but know they shouldn't spend the money.  If pizza were free, a huge number of people would just send for free pizza every night, and greatly overwhelm the increase in tips.  The reason charities' services can be rendered free is because they're careful about providing those services only to those who truly need them, and then in controlled quantity.

i didnt say make all pizza free, i suggested just he does it, when he shows up at the door and people ask how much they owe, he says "nothing" some people would tip more and it would even out and hed make more money right?  well there is no reason to think that it would, just like there is no reason to assume people would suddenly be filled with generosity and tip more than they were being taxed, especially when so many people (though i dont think i have seen any in this thread) are against welfare for the reason that they dont want people benifiting off of their hard work without having done anything, and these people would be against charity as well.  and since the split is currently pretty close to 50/50, those that are for helping people who cant help themselves would on average have to be donating double, and thats ignoring Belthus's point which i havent read the full article for.

also, a large number of people dont actually know what their taxes pay for.  a poll was done asking people how they would fix the budget, the majority of people checked off cutting foreign aid, and little to nothing else.  foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget.  if social programs were cut, some people would still think they were paying taxes for them.

[OldTrees]

so then why charge for your pizza at all?  if you dont, people will have more money and tip more and some people will tip more than they would have initially been charged.

Because the purchase price of the pizza is a discouraging factor for a lot of people who would like pizza right now but know they shouldn't spend the money.  If pizza were free, a huge number of people would just send for free pizza every night, and greatly overwhelm the increase in tips.  The reason charities' services can be rendered free is because they're careful about providing those services only to those who truly need them, and then in controlled quantity.

i didnt say make all pizza free, i suggested just he does it, when he shows up at the door and people ask how much they owe, he says "nothing" some people would tip more and it would even out and hed make more money right?  well there is no reason to think that it would, just like there is no reason to assume people would suddenly be filled with generosity and tip more than they were being taxed, especially when so many people (though i dont think i have seen any in this thread) are against welfare for the reason that they dont want people benifiting off of their hard work without having done anything, and these people would be against charity as well.  and since the split is currently pretty close to 50/50, those that are for helping people who cant help themselves would on average have to be donating double, and thats ignoring Belthus's point which i havent read the full article for.

also, a large number of people dont actually know what their taxes pay for.  a poll was done asking people how they would fix the budget, the majority of people checked off cutting foreign aid, and little to nothing else.  foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget.  if social programs were cut, some people would still think they were paying taxes for them.

Indeed, on average only 1/30th of a tax reduction will go to charity based solely on the varying desires of people to donate based on income.
This would also come with the feature that those that value donating more would donate more and vice versa.
The other 29/30ths would be spent/invested as normal.

[BluePriest]

the crux of my disagreement is that i do not think the average will lie where you think it will.

I get the largest amount of tip after tax time. I usually get about double during that season. Happened 2 tears straight.

The amount of money people have is directly correlated to how much they will tip.
Your response may be that they wont give as much as what they save from welfare ect, or that not as many people will give, however, there will also be people who give more (a good %. I get tip from people who dont normally during tax time) and then charitible organazations are able to do more with less than the government.

so then why charge for your pizza at all?  if you dont, people will have more money and tip more and some people will tip more than they would have initially been charged.

Because I dont own pizza hut? I think thats a pretty good reason.

[johannhowitzer]

I think the primary difference actually lies in the perception of the person delivering the pizza.  In the case of charity, you know your money is going to help someone who'd otherwise go hungry, while for all you know your pizza delivery man is holding the job part-time and makes a decent salary at another job - he's just trying to add a little income to buy something he wants.

That means that if BP made the pizza free, people would think, "he must be able to afford it.  Sweet, I'll tip him a little more, but I'm not going to snub his generosity by tipping the price of the pizza and then some."  I know a lot of people who, if they saw less government withholding on their W-2 form, would go out and donate a large part of it to the local food pantry.  Maybe the whole thing.  But the primary savings going from welfare to charity is not in the amount of resources being shuffled around, but the percentage of those resources that gets applied to the destination.  As OT went over, welfare programs see a small percentage of the money actually get to people who need it - versus charities, where the rate is nearly 100%.  It's hard to beat that.

[OldTrees]

I think the primary difference actually lies in the perception of the person delivering the pizza.  In the case of charity, you know your money is going to help someone who'd otherwise go hungry, while for all you know your pizza delivery man is holding the job part-time and makes a decent salary at another job - he's just trying to add a little income to buy something he wants.

That means that if BP made the pizza free, people would think, "he must be able to afford it.  Sweet, I'll tip him a little more, but I'm not going to snub his generosity by tipping the price of the pizza and then some."  I know a lot of people who, if they saw less government withholding on their W-2 form, would go out and donate a large part of it to the local food pantry.  Maybe the whole thing.  But the primary savings going from welfare to charity is not in the amount of resources being shuffled around, but the percentage of those resources that gets applied to the destination.  As OT went over, welfare programs see a small percentage of the money actually get to people who need it - versus charities, where the rate is nearly 100%.  It's hard to beat that.

Government Welfare: 23.6% of the wealth is fraud leaving 76.4% going to the poor.
Normal increased Income donations: 3.3% of the wealth is donated and thus goes to the poor, 96.7% goes into consumption and savings.
The charity would need to be 23x as efficient to equal.
However this is discounting several factors:
1) The responsibility some people would feel to replace Welfare with private donations above and beyond those from a simple income increase.
2) The difference in the economic impact between 23.6% fraudulent wealth and 96.7% consumption/investment wealth.
3) If the taxes were reduced on only low income people (not the same as low income bracket) then the donation percentage increases to 4.5%

[Essence]

Long story short: we all agree that charity can't actually do the job that government does.

You're wasting your breath talking about it.

The only real question is: should we even accept the notion that poor people deserve to live?  OldTrees thinks he has a good reason why not.  Anyone else?