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A Cheap, Race-Neutral Way to Close the Racial Wealth Gap

NWRatCon

NWRatCon

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A Cheap, Race-Neutral Way to Close the Racial Wealth Gap (Atlantic).
What if a single, cheap, easy-to-administer, and race-neutral policy could help close the country’s chasmic racial wealth gap in less than a generation?

Reader, it exists. It is called a baby-bond program. For something like $80 billion a year—roughly 2 percent of the annual federal budget, less than a tenth of the annual cost of Social Security—the United States could not only end its most pernicious forms of poverty, reduce wealth inequality, improve social mobility, foster self-sufficiency among poor families, and increase family net worth en masse, but also put black and white families on more equal footing.
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Sounds promising.
 
AmNat said:
A policy specifically designed to advance one race is not "race neutral".
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I agree with you here. We need to promote equal opportunity, not provide equal capital.
 
I like the idea of baby bonds but it's difficult to figure out who qualifies.

Personally, I think ending the drug war is the single change that would do the most to benefit Black families. '

Maybe baby bonds should go to any child of any race who is born into welfare or what is identified as cyclical poverty.
 
I'm disappointed that NONE of you read the article, yet felt free to post about it. If you had, you'd immediately know that ALL of you missed the point. And this is a "discussion" forum? Sheesh. Shame on all of you. [Sorry, Craig, I exempt you.]
Naomi Zewde of the City University of New York studied a hypothetical baby-bond program that would provide rich babies $200 in assets and poor babies $50,000 in assets, with infants born to middle-class families getting scaled amounts in between. As of 2015, the median white young adult had a net worth of $46,000, versus $2,900 for the median black young adult. Had they been granted baby bonds at birth, white young adults would be worth $79,159 and black young adults $57,845, Zewde found. White kids would be roughly 40 percent wealthier than black kids, not 16 times as wealthy.

Of course, baby bonds are not a magic bullet. Hamilton stressed the importance of considering reparations on their own terms. “I see reparations as a retrospective approach that is more direct, more parsimonious,” and race-specific, he said, whereas baby bonds are prospective, race-neutral, and “in perpetuity moves society toward becoming more egalitarian.”
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lmao

50k for poor black babies and $ 200 for rich white babies given at birth

this is another recipe for disaster and even more abuse of a welfare system that has already made black single moms raise kids by themselves

you need to change the family dynamic....not the asset dynamic

that will allow kids to actually have two parents again....more chances to get out of poverty....teach their kids about money and finances....and stop with the hand outs that dont help....we now have systemic families on generational welfare....with no end in sight

we have to change the family to make that change....not give money away
 
AmNat said:
A policy specifically designed to advance one race is not "race neutral".
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That's true, but if you read the article, even just the first part, it would be designed for "poor people", not "black people". The plan would be based upon some sort of wealth index it appears.

I think it's a good idea and should be discussed.
 
Chomsky said:
I agree with you here. We need to promote equal opportunity, not provide equal capital.
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That's a lot harder than it sounds. Centuries of discrimination aren't erased in their effects by non-discrimination.
 
I think the "baby bonds" concept is a meritorious way to look at our economy differently. We need to fundamentally rethink how our economy works, and reengineer it holistically. I get uproariously amused at people who wax on about the marvels of "capitalism" or the merits of this or that aspect of "the economy" (stock market, GDP, entrepreneurship, social services) but don't realize that, ultimately, all of that is meaningless because in each instance they're blindly looking at only one part of the elephant.

We're all part of the economy, universally, so I think it is time to think about how everyone can participate in it at least more equitably. That's probably too much for just this thread. But I'd like, here, to concentrate in this one idea and how it might begin to shape it in a different mold.
 
Thoreau72 said:
That's true, but if you read the article, even just the first part, it would be designed for "poor people", not "black people". The plan would be based upon some sort of wealth index it appears.

I think it's a good idea and should be discussed.
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Thanks, my friend.
 
Craig234 said:
That's a lot harder than it sounds. Centuries of discrimination aren't erased in their effects by non-discrimination.
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Now we're getting somewhere.
 
What's crazy is that a policy to design the system so nearly all the wealth is funneled into very few hands is FINE, while rules to distribute wealth more evenly are horrible communism injustice theft the end of our country evil wrong. Crazy. How do people expect us to have reasonable levels of inequality?

outofbalance.jpg
 
I don't think "baby bonds" are a panacea, but a baby step (pun intended) in the right direction. Dynastic wealth has a tendency to distort the economy. It creates incentives to manipulate the system and the means to do so. There are ways to level the playing field - taxation, for example - that will also be manipulated for advantage. This is coming at it from a different direction, along the lines of "a rising tide lifts all boats" - as that concept was originally intended.

I also don't think all recipients of the bonds will use them wisely. It's given to human beings after all, who are decidedly not all wise (several of our posting brethren demonstrate that daily). But, what more is the promise of America supposed to be but that of "equal opportunity". It's a floor, not a ceiling.
 
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NWRatCon said:
I also don't think all recipients of the bonds will use them wisely.
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Are the rich judged like that? How about, say, the richest family in the US, the Walton kids? Is plutocracy a good response if poor people don't use the money well?
 
NWRatCon said:
I'm disappointed that NONE of you read the article, yet felt free to post about it. If you had, you'd immediately know that ALL of you missed the point. And this is a "discussion" forum? Sheesh. Shame on all of you. [Sorry, Craig, I exempt you.]
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"As of 2015, the median white young adult had a net worth of $46,000"

How do you think that white young adult came to have that net worth?

What you are proposing is for one man to have to work to accumulate his net worth while the other his net worth is gifted to him.

How would anybody be OK with that?
 
Thoreau72 said:
That's true, but if you read the article, even just the first part, it would be designed for "poor people", not "black people". The plan would be based upon some sort of wealth index it appears.

I think it's a good idea and should be discussed.
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I cannot imagine the failure of reasoning that would make someone think handing large sums of money to random eighteen year olds would be a productive use of taxpayer dollars.

How about this, have flat "baby bonds" but pay them out when the person gets married and has two kids of their own. Pay for it with a tax on unwed pregnancies.
 
Craig234 said:
What's crazy is that a policy to design the system so nearly all the wealth is funneled into very few hands is FINE, while rules to distribute wealth more evenly are horrible communism injustice theft the end of our country evil wrong. Crazy. How do people expect us to have reasonable levels of inequality?
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What do you mean by the word "funneled"?

Do you think white people are standing around doing nothing while money just flows to them?

Please explain your use of this word.
 
NWRatCon said:
I don't think "baby bonds" are a panacea, but a baby step (pun intended) in the right direction. Dynastic wealth has a tendency to distort the economy. It creates incentives to manipulate the system and the means to do so. There are ways to level the playing field - taxation, for example - that will also be manipulated for advantage. This is coming at it from a different direction, along the lines of "a rising tide lifts all boats" - as that concept was originally intended.

I also don't think all recipients of the bonds will use them wisely. It's given to human beings after all, who are decidedly not all wise (several of our posting brethren demonstrate that daily). But, what more is the promise of America supposed to be but that of "equal opportunity". It's a floor, not a ceiling.
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When you die are you going to leave your assets to your family or will you leave them to the government or how will you do that?
 
Craig234 said:
What's crazy is that a policy to design the system so nearly all the wealth is funneled into very few hands is FINE, while rules to distribute wealth more evenly are horrible communism injustice theft the end of our country evil wrong. Crazy. How do people expect us to have reasonable levels of inequality?

]
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what is crazy is that you give any credence of or any kind of credibility to motherjones.
There is nothing that funnels wealth to the hands of a few.

Capitalism doesn't funnel money anywhere but to those that use the system.

If you save invest and work then over time and over the years you can join that 1%.
most people are not taught this. Very few people are taught money management skills.

there is always going to be inequality that is something you can't fix as there will always be people that
perform better than other people in any given system.
 
Mason66 said:
What do you mean by the word "funneled"?

Do you think white people are standing around doing nothing while money just flows to them?

Please explain your use of this word.
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That's exactly what they believe. They despise people who are successful and responsible.
 
Craig234 said:
Are the rich judged like that? How about, say, the richest family in the US, the Walton kids? Is plutocracy a good response if poor people don't use the money well?
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Excellent point! An ancillary benefit of such a program would be to teach more people about the use of assets, and benefits of saving, as well as higher concepts like deferred compensation, compound interest, and time value of money, etc.

By the way, I hope you didn't read that as my saying that only poor people are unwise. Donald Trump is a perfect example of someone who started off with a silver spoon and blew it unwisely. He had to be bailed out repeatedly by his dad, and still managed multiple bankruptcies. He'd be richer, today, if he'd just bought treasury bonds.
 
AmNat said:
I cannot imagine the failure of reasoning that would make someone think handing large sums of money to random eighteen year olds would be a productive use of taxpayer dollars.

How about this, have flat "baby bonds" but pay them out when the person gets married and has two kids of their own. Pay for it with a tax on unwed pregnancies.
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The $ would be held in escrow, according to the article.

Compared to the $23 Trillion + funds missing from Pentagon coffers, this proposal would be pocket change, and spent on a much more worthy cause, especially if you buy into all that crapola in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the USC.
 
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