Question 2: Imbalance of Wealth

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AuthorTopic: Question 2: Imbalance of Wealth
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I wasn't thinking you meant inflation, I was taking it to be increasing the available resources by X%, and increasing what everyone has by the same factor. If it was possible, I'd say it was a good thing. It sounds like you'd be against a (hypothetical) scheme that would give everyone enough to live on if it meant that the richest 5% became twice as rich.

I don't think having an imbalance is an intrinsically good thing, but I do think "everyone has X except for 5% who have 10X" is better than "everyone has X".

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I'm pretty sure that he's not against that, Khoth. He's just pointing out how ridiculous it is that some people buy countries while others starve.

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Posts: 420 | Registered: Sunday, January 8 2006 08:00
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There will always be "imbalance," because different people have different levels of ambition, diffierent incentives to pursue material wealth. A lot of people rant on this site about the vices of the capitalist system, but problems with "imbalance" have been around long since before formal "capitalism" was replaced. I think the real problem isn't imbalance so much as poverty

A lot of people on this board would promote some form of communism as the cure. I don't know all that much about communism, but I'm pretty certain that every time it has been implemented in the world, it has failed, despite looking good on paper. Why has it failed? Because (a) it was quickly overwhelmed by corrupt, ambitious leaders, and (b) it reduced incentives to work hard because it rewarded all members the same no matter how much they contribute.

It's a sad world view, but I think the reality of our natures is that we operate on a system of incentives, and are inclined to free ride when able - i.e., no one will choose to do something if they think it's likely someone else will do it for them, or pay for something they can get for free. Some might be quick to point out that their are societies where the good of the many outweigh the few, but even there, the strength of that view fluctuates based on how much a member values that aspect of society.

The problem with foreign aid then is that it reduces its recipients' incentives to take steps to extract themselves out of their situations and improve their lot. If you're receiving free food, why bother to go out and try to grow it. In addition, foreign aid suffers from a terrible lack of oversight, and as such, is frequently intercepted by corrupt, ambitious government officials in countries where the aid is needed. As such, it may well be the case that our aid is some ways strangling these countries that we're trying to help. Anyway, William Easterly says it all much better than I can in his recent book, "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good."

I think that the solution, in so far as there is one, is to create incentives for people in poverty to improve their lives. One thing we can do is foster women's rights in countries where women are treated as chattel. When women are empowered, increased financial growth occurs amongst those stricken with poverty.

Second, we can create an incentive for developing nations to produce exports by eliminating tarriffs on products they produce, but more importantly, eliminate agricultural subsidies, which not only are an incredibly economically inefficient use of tax dollars, but also severly limit developing nations' ability to compete. I'm afraid we're spitting into the wind on this one though. What it would probably take is a Michael Moore-style documentary on the vast sums of agricultural subsidies/tax dollars used with corresponding profiles of the people/corporations the money is going to, and even then, the message of the movie couldn't be that this money should be used for aid; rather, that it's being "stolen" from taxpayers' pockets. The only way we'll get big ag to change is by villifying them. Until then, the outlook is "our fellow citizens" v. "undeserving third world people," and in that case the fellow citizens will always win.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 04:33: Message edited by: Drew ]
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I think the first step is to reduce greatly the amount of poverty in the world, which can be done right now. I'd like to start, as far as the U.S.'s policies go, with reducing the amount of poverty in the U.S. We talk about people starving in Africa, but there are people starving here, and we often don't notice.

As always, there isn't going to be any one answer to poverty in the United States. Part of the answer is a renewed investment in our schools in order to give people more general skills and an ability to do work that requires literacy and basic mathematical skills, because an overwhelming number of professions do.

Part of the answer, at least in California, is re-opening the mental institutions that Reagan shut down forty years ago: he just tossed these people out on the street, and they (and those like them) have been homeless and dirt-poor ever since.

Part of the answer is better advertisement in schools of the broad range of professions out there. Vocational school is somewhat stigmatized compared to university education, but a career in the trades is often as worthwhile as anything else (and pays pretty well, too), and there's a large shortage in apprentices right now.

Part of the answer, I think, is a better social safety net. Social welfare of any kind is not popular in the U.S., but we need to look to various European models and design something new: the simple fact of the present-day economy is that people will change jobs several times in their lives, and we need to have a better system of getting unemployed people back to work. I know less about this than other issues, so I can't specify exactly what (and, to be honest, it's likely that this would require something complicated), but I know that we can do more.

I may be missing vital pieces of the puzzle, but I really think that our aim has to be, at first, to end destitution in our own country. Foreign aid is important, too, and I'm not saying that we should stop; I'm just saying that we can have an immediate positive impact here.

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For stop the poverty, I think we should stop to only donate huge/little admount of money at poor states. I think the main problem of poor states are not the lack of money and resources, but the education of the people. I mean, corrupted leader are bad too, but the people, some ways, simply "accept" them, only because they, sadly, don't know how much their life can be better without them. So, instead to the simply method of give, again and again, money that will assure a relative "happyness" for a little time, we should teach at the poor peoples the human rights, how to grow food themselves, how much the democratic government is better than an alone leader... Simply, give them awareness, make them see the world.

I hope that I'm not saying stupid things.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 11:20: Message edited by: MagmaDragoon ]

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To stop Poverty, we need to be able to generate far more resources than we currently do (or consume less), so that there are enough for everyone. Donating a small amount of money (through taxes maybe) can then be used to help some of the critically poor countries.

As mentioned, the problem of a corrupt leadership is a hard one, but that is why lots of aid Organisations these days give the money and education to the poorer people, so as to make the money seep into the country's economy bottom-up. This reduces the chance of a corrupt leader taking and spending all of the aid money for themselves.

We also have to decide which countries to help, systematically. Quite frankly, while it may seem more humane, pouring small amounts of money into 50 different countries thorugh 500 different aid agencies will not really help those 50 different countries significantly onto their feet, as it were. If all of the aid money were to be co-ordinated and poured into say one or two countries to help them, and then a few years later into a different one or two, these countries would have a far larger chance of surviving without further help.

Another help to stop poverty would be to scrap all latin-american debts, as the poorer countries have paid their debt many times over by now.
quote:
"By the end of 1972, the debt totalled 75 billion dollars and annual servicing was more than seven billion dollars. Debt servicing rose by 18 per cent in 1970 and by 20 per cent in 1971. The average rate of increase of the debt since the 1960s has been almost twice as high as the rate of increase in the export revenues that these countries must use to service the debt. This situation cannot continue indefinitely."
After all, what we did was invade their countries, enslave them, and then demand that they pay us for that now that we've left. That is hardly fair.

There is obviously more that we can do, but the thing is that more people have to be made aware of this. It needs to be brought "closer to home". Many more would willingly pay to help people like this if they actually saw that it can happen in their own little worlds. Awareness is the way forwards.

- Archmagus Micael

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Drew: A number of people in Darfur might disagree.

I understand and mostly agree with your philosophy that we should 'teach a man to fish, rather than give him a fish'. However, you can't blindly apply this to every single situation. People in the Sudan aren't going to care about incentives; they're in the midst of a famine.

Perhaps I'm reading these posts wrong, but I see a lot of them proposing a single, 'nutshell' way of viewing domestic and foreign aid. You've got to assess each situation separately. You wouldn't continue giving a group of uneducated people free supplies, just as you wouldn't tell a group of people after a disaster to pick themselves up and get back to work.

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quote:
Originally written by Archmagus Micael:

To stop Poverty, we need to be able to generate far more resources than we currently do (or consume less), so that there are enough for everyone.
Um, we are already able to generate FAR MORE resources than we need to consume.

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quote:
Originally written by i v. I:

quote:
Originally written by Archmagus Micael:

To stop Poverty, we need to be able to generate far more resources than we currently do (or consume less), so that there are enough for everyone.
Um, we are already able to generate FAR MORE resources than we need to consume.

Okay then: rephrase it:

What we need to do is ensure that our resources are spread out to those that need them, rather than to the over-weight Americans and British and other people in the world which waste all of the food resources, and other natural resources. Starving people should get first priority, not whether you live in one country or another.

- Archmagus Micael

P.S. I am not insulting Americans or British in general (I live in england so hey). I am merely using them as an example.

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quote:
Originally written by Khoth:

I wasn't thinking you meant inflation, I was taking it to be increasing the available resources by X%, and increasing what everyone has by the same factor. If it was possible, I'd say it was a good thing. It sounds like you'd be against a (hypothetical) scheme that would give everyone enough to live on if it meant that the richest 5% became twice as rich.

I don't think having an imbalance is an intrinsically good thing, but I do think "everyone has X except for 5% who have 10X" is better than "everyone has X".

I wouldn't have a problem with it at all, but the point of exercise was demonstrating that in the current system, it would take the richest 5% being richer than God to actually bring most of the world up to a decent standard of living.

System needs to be changed is all.

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

I may be missing vital pieces of the puzzle, but I really think that our aim has to be, at first, to end destitution in our own country. Foreign aid is important, too, and I'm not saying that we should stop; I'm just saying that we can have an immediate positive impact here.
Quoted because the rest of your post collapses into it.

Problem here is this: even if the entire First World had a more responsible attitude towards the workings of society - like, say, Norway or Sweden - the third world would remain desperately poor. And countries with a good, strong welfare system are as exploitative abroad as anywhere else. (Plenty of those little semi-sweatshop industries in Southeast Asia are run by Scandinavian entrepreneurs.)

The only thing a stronger welfare net will do here is prevent America from getting any worse.

And I thoroughly agree that we need better schools - but large regions of the world don't have any schools at all. That should be our first priority. In the grand scheme of things we've got little more than a mote in our eye.

quote:
Drew:A lot of people on this board would promote some form of communism as the cure. I don't know all that much about communism, but I'm pretty certain that every time it has been implemented in the world, it has failed, despite looking good on paper. Why has it failed? Because (a) it was quickly overwhelmed by corrupt, ambitious leaders, and (b) it reduced incentives to work hard because it rewarded all members the same no matter how much they contribute.
1) Every system suffers from corrupt, ambitious leaders, especially systems in the economic regions where communism tends to arise. Had China or Vietnam or North Korea been capitalist instead of communist, they'd just look like their neighbors: vibrantly corrupt 'democracies' without much going for them. The plucky, transparent third-world democracies we hear so much about - India, Botswana, etc. - are truly bizzare exceptions with next to nothing in common save their dire circumstances.

2) Consider Cuba. The economy has certainly suffered due to one ambitious man micromanaging the system. But people are surprisingly happy there; there's maldistribution of wealth, but on an order unheard of in the third world in general. There are poor people in Cuba, but that's because the country itself is remarkably poor and always has been. And the poor people in Cuba are better off than the poor people anywhere else in Latin America, in spite of their economy being in the toilet. In Cuba, a lot of those 'incentives' you consider so very necessary are immaterial - honors or dignities with no material force or weight, but socially important. This proves surprisingly satisfying to a lot of people. (And yeah, you've probably met people who don't like how things work there, but they chose to come here. That'd be like asking an emigrant to Norway how well America's system works.)

Would I advocate communism? No. I think big-C communism is the product of 19th-century tomfoolery, rather like the modern empire. But I think it's closer to the right track than capitalism is.

Yes, people need rewards; I have no problem with an attorney or physician or engineer making more than a day laborer, because the former requires more skill and education than the latter and someone needs an incentive to pursue that skill and education. But that 'incentive' has no business being six or seven times what the day laborer makes.

And there's no excuse for the Fortune 500 richest making *as much* as they do. No human being has any concievable use for more than, say, $100 million or so; having two orders of magnitude more money than that is nothing short of insane.

Consider that a human being can live for their entire lives, comfortably, on around $2 million. (I have no source for that statistic, but my understanding of the matter is that - even by Western standards - it's probably fairly *high*.)

How many people does that work out to for the personal fortune of the world's richest man? 25,000 - a modest-sized town's worth of people. A CEO at a good-sized company might make enough money to set 50 or 60 people up for life every year.

No service that CEO provides is worth that much - if for no other reason simply because he has no earthly use for that much.

Capitalism is inequitous. Period.

Although I'm unsure as to why I'm arguing this one with you:

quote:
Originally written by Drew:

The problem with foreign aid then is that it reduces its recipients' incentives to take steps to extract themselves out of their situations and improve their lot.
Right, just like public firehouses reduce residents' incentives not to have their Goddamn houses burn down.

quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:

Perhaps I'm reading these posts wrong, but I see a lot of them proposing a single, 'nutshell' way of viewing domestic and foreign aid. You've got to assess each situation separately. You wouldn't continue giving a group of uneducated people free supplies, just as you wouldn't tell a group of people after a disaster to pick themselves up and get back to work.
I understand your point, but please do note that when we discuss undereducated people and free supplies, a lot of people neglect to mention that those people don't have a lot of choice in being undereducated.
The Bushies' condescending attitude on education is a perfect example of that common misconception. Even in America, a lot of people will drop out of school or refuse to pursue higher education because of a keen grasp of the opportunity costs involved. In some areas of even this country, you have a choice between graduating high school - and doing what, exactly? - and going to work and making enough money to actually live a good life.

In the third world, that's not just opportunity costs; education, where it exists, costs money that the average person will never scrape together in their lives.

So to some extent, you need to dole out free stuff to the undereducated. How is someone going to learn on an empty stomach?

If you want to educate someone, you need to make sure they don't have any other pressing obligations. The average person in the marginal areas of the world lives a very difficult live on the bare margins of survival, and is not going to have the time or energy to pursue education even if it's free.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 13:43: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ]
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Alec - Is this your personal cross? The very idea that the entire world should have standard of living that is "First World" is horrible. The environmental costs would be staggering, and the globe would quickly become fubar.

The ideal, to me, is to have a sustainable community where the potential income matches the cost of living. Crazy Struthers is always on the television crying over how a buck a day will feed, clothe, and hydrate an African village for a day. Or something along those lines. I know for a fact that I couldn't get that much value from my dollar in this country, so it stands to reason that the average indigent from a 3rd world country isn't going to need thousands of dollars a year to survive. Most African nations (surprisingly, given all the negative press) have responsible government and are working towards raising the poverty line, which is exactly the point of the question.

As far as the parable goes, I say with 6 billion people on the planet we can afford to lose a few. Save up those euros until you have enough to go out to dinner. Wow, just think, that 60 euro meal cost enough to feed one subcontinental village for 3 years. Bleagh.

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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

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Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
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One factor people in this thread haven't been talking much about: population. Allowing for decreases in inequality and increases in our ability to cleanly produce resources to support a larger number of people, what kind of world would be better in, say, 2100: a world with 10 billion people all living at current First World standards or better, or a world with 30 billion people who all have enough to keep alive from day to day and know where their next meal is coming from but not a whole lot more? Is a world with many people who all just have enough to be comfortable better or worse than a world with fewer people who are all very well off?

If your answer is "the important thing is the average happiness of the people who do exist, and the total number of people is irrelevant", then the obvious next step is to reduce the total human population as much as possible so that there are more resources to go around -- proving once again that there's no political problem that can't be solved by killing enough people.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 16:46: Message edited by: Thuryl ]

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Am I detecting a hint of Ishmael? Do we focus too much on food today and birth control tomorrow? That seems like a good question, because while I disagree with a number of points in that book, I think we've already seen that increasing the amount of food increases the number of people, not the standard of living.

—Alorael, who has no solution. Letting a lot of people die is rather morally and politically untenable. Feeding a lot of people may not solve problems. Educating people is a great solution, except you can't do it without feeding them. Does that mean a food for oil^H^H^Heducation program?
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[quote=The Worst Man Ever]

quote:
Originally written by Cairo Jim:
As far as I can see, the only imbalance is the initial people who recieve wealth, such as a fwe leaders who'd rather spend the money on their own militairy and the original problem is still there.
What the hell is your problem? Seriously, does your understanding of the world come principally from bumper stickers? The most transparent, democratic government on Earth is surprisingly unhelpful when a man is counted rich in your country if he owns a telephone.

Further, 'foreign aid' isn't just a piss-off grant of money. It generally goes directly to certain programs or commodities, directly supervised by the aiding party.

It takes a genuine lunatic to violate the trust of the beneficiaries - especially considering, from a dictator's perspective, that money foreign powers give to your people is money you don't have to divert from your absurd defense budget.

...

Maybe I watch too many movies? That doesn't mean it doesn't happen though. These stories have to have some truth with a little background.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 19:06: Message edited by: Cairo Jim ]

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Cairo Jim -- No need to be snotty, it's past 5 pm by my clock. :P At any rate, calm down or action may need to be taken regarding your membership privledges.

On topic: Unfortunately, corruption is rampant and oversight is very difficult. The tsnumani repair efforts are significantly by unscrupulous contractors overcharging and pocketing excesses. The Iraq situation has been less than honest. Heck, the US government is even ripped off in the New Orleans area reconstruction project.

Corruption is a massive problem, more so than one might think. The problems we're trying to solve are so massive that it's difficult to keep track of every single dollar. If a contractor chronically over charges for fuel by skimming small amounts off the top, it's very difficult to track because it could even be insiders in the programs themselves.

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I think I may have messed up a little in the my last post here, it's all supposed to be a quote until I mention the movies bit.

*i-it's only 2 in the arvo on my clock, and I've been sitting around bored as anything.

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quote:
Originally written by Ohe, vo stetto.:

Am I detecting a hint of Ishmael? Do we focus too much on food today and birth control tomorrow? That seems like a good question, because while I disagree with a number of points in that book, I think we've already seen that increasing the amount of food increases the number of people, not the standard of living.
The problem with that book is that it stems from demographic knowledge up to about fifty or a hundred years ago. There's a far better understanding of the demographic transition now. If we could just get the whole world through the bottleneck — to stage four — rising population would not be an issue.

The natural growth rate in developed countries is negative. That's what Daniel Quinn fails to notice.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 19:24: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Fortunately, the latest data shows the rate of change of the growth rate is decreasing. This means population appears to be stabilizing. Hopefully, these trends continue or else we will be in for massive problems.

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I was not addressing the potential issue of "overpopulation" so much as the concept itself. That is, what's the ideal global population in order to maximise utility? At what point does adding more people to the world do more harm than good? If in the future an extra billion people could be added to the world with only a negligible decline in living standards, would that be an underpopulation problem?

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According to a vaguely insane interpretation of Genesis, the ideal population is two. Actually, it was one, but the one asked for another, so it became two. Everything else is overkill, and direct evidence of humankind rubbing the apple in His celestial face.

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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

Well, I'm at least pretty sure that Salmon is losing.


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My point is that there is mixed evidence for throwing food into the stage two world leading to stage three. Throwing education in would make more sense, but people need to eat before they can learn. Eating leads to babies.

—Alorael, who is sure anyone who discovered the secret of attaining stage 3 would be a modern-day prophet for the third world. Well, probably not, the world being as difficult as it tends to be, bt that someone would deserve prophethood.
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So. What I read until now was very interesting, and I agree with many people about specific things. I read about causes, I read about solutions. However, I can't remember reading about what the poverty is, and why its there.

What we have talked about until now, is mainly this:

"I think we should so it this way. That is because of this and this and that."

"No, I think this would be a better way, namely..."

"I agree, but..."

Now lets do it differently. lets start with these two basic questions:

1) Why are these specific people poor?
2) In what way are they poor?

Before we answer the questions however, we need to know what we are talking about. The questions will have different answers when we are talking about different countries. I say its best, like kelandon, to start with our own countries. I'll take Holland again as an example:

1) These people are poor for the simple reason that they have no work, and therefor no money. In the long run these people get thrown out of there houses, relying on charity.

2) These people have money problems. That is the only reason for them being poor, most of the time. Of course, if their parents were poor, then there is a big chance that the children will be poor too, and than the parents re at fault. However, this still boils down to one thing: money.

Now specifically the second qustion is of importance. Why? because different people have different needs. Indians in South America, whi live from hunting. Are they poor? No. The are not. Thy have water, food, and the rest they don't need. They will probably even reject money the west would give to them. Same goes for tribes in Africa, by the way.

After that we have answered these questions, then comes the time to start thinking of solutions:

3) These people are poor because of their money problems. They get thrown out of their house. This is the first step to being a tramp and living from charity. Conclusion: don't let them get thrown out of their houses. Instead, they must find themselves a good job. This brings us to a problem: most poor people have low education, as they, again, have no money to pay for it. Solution (Sovjet union had this): make schools free for the poor people, let the state pay at least a part of the sum needed for the children to go to school. that way they will have education, and thus a better chance for a good job.

I think this is the best way to start discussing the problem.

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quote:
Originally written by Mc 'mini' Thralni:

So. What I read until now was very interesting, and I agree with many people about specific things. I read about causes, I read about solutions. However, I can't remember reading about what the poverty is, and why its there.

What we have talked about until now, is mainly this:

"I think we should so it this way. That is because of this and this and that."

"No, I think this would be a better way, namely..."

"I agree, but..."

Now lets do it differently. lets start with these two basic questions:

1) Why are these specific people poor?
2) In what way are they poor?

Before we answer the questions however, we need to know what we are talking about. The questions will have different answers when we are talking about different countries. I say its best, like kelandon, to start with our own countries. I'll take Holland again as an example:

1) These people are poor for the simple reason that they have no work, and therefor no money. In the long run these people get thrown out of there houses, relying on charity.

2) These people have money problems. That is the only reason for them being poor, most of the time. Of course, if their parents were poor, then there is a big chance that the children will be poor too, and than the parents re at fault. However, this still boils down to one thing: money.

Now specifically the second qustion is of importance. Why? because different people have different needs. Indians in South America, whi live from hunting. Are they poor? No. The are not. Thy have water, food, and the rest they don't need. They will probably even reject money the west would give to them. Same goes for tribes in Africa, by the way.

After that we have answered these questions, then comes the time to start thinking of solutions:

3) These people are poor because of their money problems. They get thrown out of their house. This is the first step to being a tramp and living from charity. Conclusion: don't let them get thrown out of their houses. Instead, they must find themselves a good job. This brings us to a problem: most poor people have low education, as they, again, have no money to pay for it. Solution (Sovjet union had this): make schools free for the poor people, let the state pay at least a part of the sum needed for the children to go to school. that way they will have education, and thus a better chance for a good job.

I think this is the best way to start discussing the problem.

Thralni, you mean well, but you don't get it. You aren't even within artillery range of 'it' here.

The delightful caricatures you discuss don't exist any more; they haven't existed for centuries, if they ever did. The 'tribesmen' you think of as dancing around little boiling pots of missionaries? They're farmers and herdsmen; they don't have food or water - they depend on untenably large families to maintain the labor necessary to grow food in their harsh, barren homelands, and their water, *if* they have it, is tainted with natural bacteria and (often) industrial chemicals.

Which is to say nothing of basic medical care. It's not only possible but more common than not to die of diseases that are all but extinct in the developed world there.

As I said, the cost of school is prohibitive even when it's free. There are no 'good jobs' in the Gambia, at least none that you need an education for. What's more, sending children off to be educated deprives the family of an important source of labor.

And no, they aren't poor because they lost their houses, or because they have no work, or any other because. They're poor because when you live in the Gambia, the only 'work' available - and trust me, it is AVAILABLE - involves prostitution or back-breaking labor, and the only 'housing' available are urban tenements or Sahel farms.

You're applying a perversely Western and economic perspective to an entirely non-Western and non-economic problem. It doesn't work.

And it's incredibly patronizing, but what else is new. I'm certain you'd be surprised to learn they don't eat each other in Africa, let alone any of this.

[ Saturday, April 29, 2006 22:12: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ]
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #48
quote:
Originally written by Mc 'mini' Thralni:

So. I'm ignorant of the historical problems of poverty, and being from a wealthy family don't have to concern myself with money.

I think this is the best way to start discussing the problem.

Edited for length.

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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

Well, I'm at least pretty sure that Salmon is losing.


Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Master
Member # 5977
Profile Homepage #49
Okay, for people who didn't notice it: the Holland example was a totally NOT carefully thought out example, and I certainly didn't intend to really think about that. You guys, i think, missed my point completely. The steps was what I wanted to point out. If you have critisisme about that, go ahead, but please leave tht example alone, as it has no basis, my conclusions were stupid and unrealsistic, and I know that. No need to say it time and time again.

Now continue with the discussion. please.

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