Whats your idea's to curb poverty?

[hd000]

I believe something one individual can do to make a difference is to have an ethical business and create good jobs. Anyone have any silver bullets or even a good lead one. Thanks

[iNow]

At its core, we simply need to make more jobs available. We currently have three people unemployed for every one job vacancy. We fix that, and the vast majority of other problems go away almost automatically, and there are tons of ways to create more jobs, but it takes investment. We need to change our current mindset from thinking of these things as costs and start recognizing them as investments. I'd advocate strongly for more public works programs and infrastructure investments, especially given how cheaply we're able to borrow right now.

 

In addition? Give tax incentives to companies who hire people who have been out of work fr 18 months or longer. Explore regulations that help ensure gains in productivity and profits are tied in some meaningful way to median employee wages. Reinforce the safety net programs like unemployment insurance and food assistance (data demonstrates this to be one of the single most effective ways of preventing recessions and depressions from worsening). Prevent banks and paycheck loan offices and pawn shops from acting in a predatory manner on those with low income and low education by charging 20-30% interest and other similar practices.

 

Invest heavily in education at all levels and train our future workforce to make money and innovate in the modern world. Change our approach with drug dependence problems from prison to rehabilitation. Guarantee healthcare to all citizens, like Medicare for everyone.

 

Those are a few ideas off the top of my head.

[Stetson]

I have a sliver of an understanding on what is the best way to run an economy, let alone even to curb poverty. There are so many ways to run the system but not enough to be conclusive on the best way to do it. So many new factors pop up that affect everything, for example when the global market arised, or new technologies that replace jobs and make new ones.

 

For now I will ask questions that might help you make a clearer image of how your idea would curb poverty.

 

First, what economic system does this business belong? Capitalist, Communist, Socialist, resource-based economy, etc..

 

Second, what industry does the business belong to? How will it be ethical and retain the same appeal as another business in the same industry? Ask yourself if this ethical business would curb poverty more so than the next business.

 

Third, how will the initial funding be achieved? Government funded, privatized, crowd sourced?

Edited December 14, 2013 by Stetson

[jduff]

As this planets human population grows, poverty grows with it. Currently our food is controlled by money. Or the dictation of banks which control money. You take out the money factor and no longer use scarcity tactics. Which is how food is deployed currently. Then you have a good possibility to stop both starvation and poverty. Until that time, poverty and starvation will continue to grow.

 

Also consider the population bomb. In the next 10 years that point will be reached. The only response will be mass starvation and poor. Loss of life is inevitable.

 

So answers, you may like or you may not. But they are hard decisions!

 

Remove currency from food. Let this resource be a shared resource among everyone in the world. Not just those in a particular country or area. Grow for abundance, not profit!

 

This next answer does not set comfortably with many people. But as long as scarcity tactics are used by the world. We wont have a choice. Depopulation/Eugenics. Keep the population of the world to a manageable population while letting excess die off. Thus keeping population managed for set profitability through scarcity.

 

There are two answers! Reality is you get two choices! Actually three, but then we are not talking how this planet reacts, rather what we can do.

 

Inow,

Putting a bandaid on a large gaping lesion is not going to work!

Edited December 14, 2013 by jduff

[Moontanman]

One thing that might help is stop giving tax breaks to companies who outsource their manufacturing to other countries or set up shell companies in other countries so they don't have to pay taxes here.

[iNow]

Inow,

Putting a bandaid on a large gaping lesion is not going to work!

And you're welcome to your opinion that those well researched and empirically demonstrated ideas I've shared will not work based solely on your own personally preferred ideology, so long as you're clear that's all it is... an ideological opinion.

 

You can equally proclaim that you know who will win the gubernatorial election in Nebraska 10 years hence, but that doesn't mean your assertion has any merit. I'm glad to support any of the comments I've made if you'd like to ask me an actual question instead of just replying, "Nuh uh."

[jduff]

And you're welcome to your opinion that those well researched and empirically demonstrated ideas I've shared will not work based solely on your own personally preferred ideology, so long as you're clear that's all it is... an ideological opinion.

 

 

It is not a ideological view but rather a view that goes a bit past mechanisms that support the scarcity doctrine. Nothing anyone has said so far can stop poverty. As according to scarcity. The mechanism you have demonstrated are nothing more than forces to keep scarcity functioning. As long as food retains a monetary value. Poverty and starvation both will exist. This can be shown both empirically and actual in many locations across the world. It is not opinion, its is unaltered fact. You can also use historical fact to support my premise. As many of the civilizations of our past do not exist because of the same doctrine you are knowingly or unknowingly supporting.

 

And YES, my bandage comment is a "opinion" based on reality. So I will stick to that opinion!

 

Because you are indoctrinated into our current system. I will offer you the opportunity to learn. Something that everyone should do. As such feel free to watch and learn! Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg

Edited December 14, 2013 by jduff

[iNow]

As long as food retains a monetary value. Poverty and starvation both will exist.

Herein, I believe, lies your central confusion. You appear to be conflating currency with value. Food will ALWAYS have inherent value because we need it to survive, and that is true no matter what we use to trade it (green paper bills, bitcoins, shiny gold bullion, protection from aggressors, sex, house keeping or yard services... you name it) and no matter how available or scarce it is to a given population.

 

Your position is IMO tangential to the concept of "value," and more accurately applies to the concept of currency and the concept of resource availability. You can continue to suggest otherwise, but simply taking dollars out of the mix will not somehow make food any less valuable, and this is true even if everyone has access to all the food they could ever need or want.

 

Food will always retain inherent value since without it we can't survive, and no youtube video you can post will alter that. The rest of this discussion is just about the various different methods we use to trade and barter with it, and I stipulate that there may be better ways to do it than we are today, so perhaps we can agree on that component.

 

 

Back to the idea of poverty as raised in the OP, it's about availability of resources. Resources are finite, so will always be divvied up somehow. In our existing system, food is one type of resource and to acquire it we trade in other types of resources (like money, or goods, or skills and crafts, or any other services that can be offered). The issue is making sure everyone has the opportunity to acquire resources to trade for food, however that's ultimately done.

[Phi for All]

Inow,

Putting a bandaid on a large gaping lesion is not going to work!

 

iNow gave a comprehensive list of projects; more jobs, improved infrastructure, better social response, more aggressive banking and lending regulations to prevent further harm, education reform (my personal favorite), prison reform and let's not forget finally acknowledging that American citizen's health is just as important as as those of Canada, the UK, France and other 1st world countries. And you call that a bandaid?!

 

Our education and healthcare systems do need a lot of work. Maybe that's why you don't know what a bandaid looks like.

[jduff]

Herein, I believe, lies your central confusion. You appear to be conflating currency with value. Food will ALWAYS have inherent value because we need it to survive, and that is true no matter what we use to trade it (green paper bills, bitcoins, shiny gold bullion, protection from aggressors, sex, house keeping or yard services... you name it) and no matter how available or scarce it is to a given population.

 

Your position is IMO tangential to the concept of "value," and more accurately applies to the concept of currency and the concept of resource availability. You can continue to suggest otherwise, but simply taking dollars out of the mix will not somehow make food any less valuable, and this is true even if everyone has access to all the food they could ever need or want.

 

Food will always retain inherent value since without it we can't survive, and no youtube video you can post will alter that. The rest of this discussion is just about the various different methods we use to trade and barter with it, and I stipulate that there may be better ways to do it than we are today, so perhaps we can agree on that component.

 

 

Back to the idea of poverty as raised in the OP, it's about availability of resources. Resources are finite, so will always be divvied up somehow. In our existing system, food is one type of resource and to acquire it we trade in other types of resources (like money, or goods, or skills and crafts, or any other services that can be offered). The issue is making sure everyone has the opportunity to acquire resources to trade for food, however that's ultimately done.

Inow,

First, food is not scarce. But because of a money value placed on it. It becomes scarce, some can afford, some cannot. I see you never even looked at the video link I gave. It gives the full answer to the OP in the second half of it. That said, between the current technology and our ability to grow food. There should not be any shortages whatsoever. The value placed on food is artificial. As we have the ability to create a large abundance of food. A overage, with the ability for each and every human on this planet to eat and live comfortably. The value you profess is nothing more than something placed to control(The have and have not's)

 

 

For us in this world to cure poverty and starvation we must remove the monetary system completely. Use a resource system instead.Where everyone shares! We have both the technology and the ability to make this possible. Like I said earlier. Almost everyone has been institutionalized into the scarcity system. Which even your commentary above is once again the support mechanisms to that current system.

 

Every answer you give as to how to rid the world of poverty is limited. Thus really will never work. As the current system takes that into account. What you recommend as a answer is nothing more but a continuation of flow that is already inherent in the current system. Like I said, a bandage over a large wound. Not a fix, rather just a mechanism to a purposefully design that is meant to fail as well as enslave us!

Edited December 14, 2013 by jduff

[iNow]

I see you never even looked at the video link I gave. It gives the full answer to the OP in the second half of it.

I actually did look at it, but when I saw it was more than 2 hours, I found myself hoping you'd be good enough to summarize the argument in few bullet points here.

 

The value placed on food is artificial. <snip> The value you profess is nothing more than something placed to control(The have and have not's)

I suppose we'll just have to disagree. I grasp your point, and am even sypmathetic to it, but I don't feel you've really grasped mine.

 

Almost everyone has been institutionalized into the scarcity system. Which even your commentary above is once again the support mechanisms to that current system.

Also known as "living in the real world" and "being practical." Idealistic black & white purist solutions like you are proposing are so unlikely and impractical and of such an extremely low order of probability as to be IMO reasonably dismissed in discussions of this nature.

[michel123456]

In order to curb poverty the first step is to make it a goal to achieve. At this time I am not aware of any government who's goal is to curb poverty.

On the contrary, many policies are creating poverty where there was none.

And also another point: getting a job is not enough to curb poverty: there are millions (maby billions) of people over the world who have a job and are struggling to survive day by day. The idea that a job will give you enough income to live over the poverty level is an occidental privilege.

(edit)

Even in occident (Europe & USA) the history of the last centuries tells us that you can have a job and be miserable at the same time.

[Craer]

Poverty is an equation of the monetary system which places value on life based off of superfluous factors amidst realist factors. To curb it would change everything we know.

[iNow]

getting a job is not enough to curb poverty: there are millions (maby billions) of people over the world who have a job and are struggling to survive day by day <snip> the history of the last centuries tells us that you can have a job and be miserable at the same time.

This is an important point. Many people already have 2 or even 3 jobs and still find themselves in poverty despite their hard work. This is part of the reason I suggested tying median employee wages to productivity and profitability gains.

[hd000]

Thank you for your post, even considering the current U.S. welfare system you believe currency must be removed from food to cure poverty? I know the welfare system will not cure poverty but it does provide basic necessities to the poor in the U.S. almost essentially eliminating the currency value of food for a large percent of the poor. I'm not saying there is anything on a global scale comparable to this nor would I believe it to be a good solution . Thanks.

[jduff]

This is an important point. Many people already have 2 or even 3 jobs and still find themselves in poverty despite their hard work. This is part of the reason I suggested tying median employee wages to productivity and profitability gains.

Hmmm,, you did not even look at the video I offered. It explains why people are having to have 2-3 jobs and are not getting anywhere. You should not try to offer someone advice with your lack of concerning this subject. All you are doing is offering irrelevant unuseful knowledge. At least if you are going to offer advice, you need to know what you are talking about first.

 

As to the others reading these post's. Want to know why you are working 2-3 jobs and not going anywhere? Want to know why it seems you can never get ahead? I will relink this video just for you! Make sure to watch. As you will learn the reality we really are stuck with. And how many are succumbed into stupidity by the system that binds us. It also gives the answer of how to get out of it as well!

 

Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg

Edited December 14, 2013 by jduff

[hd000]

Thank you for your post, I agree creating jobs is not a perfect cure for poverty. I do believe someone creating good jobs is an effort in the right direction. Thanks.

Edited December 14, 2013 by hd000

[iNow]

You should not try to offer someone advice with your lack of concerning this subject. All you are doing is offering irrelevant unuseful knowledge. At least if you are going to offer advice, you need to know what you are talking about first.

You can continue attacking me personally or trying to paint me as some uninformed ignorant bloviator if it makes you feel better, but doing so really doesn't help your position or argument. Let's recap where we are so perhaps a productive discussion can ultimately take place here:

 

- The OP asked for ideas to decrease poverty.

 

- I shared several including the need for more job vacancies, improved wages and income gains, investments to stimulate growth, focused tax incentives, a reinforced social safety net, enhanced availability of healthcare, a shift in policy pertaining to drug offenses, investments in education, and all of this coupled with protections and regulations against predatory practices that specifically target the more at risk members of our populace.

 

- You blindly replied that none of that would work, dismissed it without argument as some sort of "band-aid," and implied that we should simply make food available for free to everyone on the planet, citing some 2 hour long youtube video as your evidence for why.

 

 

Still with me? That's what's happened thus far in this thread. Now, here's my response: I'm not going to sit here through some 2 hour video trying to sift through it to find whatever gems of wisdom you think it contains. If you have an argument to make, then make it here in this thread. Use your words.

 

 

Now, with that established... Let's briefly look at your idea regarding the provision of food for free as a way to eliminate poverty. Let me acknowledge that the recommendation is not entirely without merit, and I think perhaps that could be an interesting start, but IMO it does seem a bit narrow-minded and to miss the various many other non-food related components of true poverty.

 

For example, how does this idea address housing (or, the lack thereof)? It doesn't. How does this idea address the need for access to healthcare? It doesn't. How does this idea address the need for security and protection and the enforcement of social codes of behavior? It doesn't. How does this idea address the need for energy and oil to heat ones home? It doesn't. How does this idea address the need for access to other goods and resources (like clothing or transportation)? It doesn't.

 

Those are the most obvious flaws I see in your position. Another is the way you've chosen to support it using an obvious bit of propaganda and fluff. I suspect I could find others, but let's start there.

 

Now... How about instead of attacking me personally you try to 1) explain specifically what about any of my ideas you find so lacking, 2) how your idea in any way addresses our other non-food based needs that are also rightly included under the umbrella of "poverty," and 3) do so this time without spamming us again with some 2 hour long youtube video that's basically a collection of lies and conspiracy theories and propaganda?

 

Yes. Let's start there. Where we head next depends on you. Cheers.

Edited December 15, 2013 by iNow

[arc]

There is a substantial naivete of anyone buying into this new version of the same old Marxism being peddled here. There will always be those that manipulate any system of economics, or more accurate, the government that administers it. Don't kid yourself democracies are our best chance. This other economic system suggested requires a new governmental system to administer it. One that will not be accountable as is now possible. Corruption is rampant in closed systems, Russia, China, N. Korea, see a pattern here. Even ones considered democracies such as Greece were unable to prevent corruption from establishing itself in every aspect of their government.

 

Humans are incredibly selfish and will build into any system they can access a subset of mechanisms to enrich themselves, the Mafia and the drug cartels in Mexico and S. America should give you a measure of the degree a system can be corrupted. The irony in this economic system suggested in the video is that the degree of corruption that may be held in check by the transparencies we now have may be able to go unchecked to the levels now seen in Russia and China. Do you think these individuals just disappear? Like they won't be waiting to manipulate the next system?

 

As for the price of food being a new economic player in poverty, I think the graphs below are self explanatory.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-america-spends-money-100-years-in-the-life-of-the-family-budget/255475/

 

"This is our story today: It is a story about how spending on food and clothing went from half the family budget in 1900 to less than a fifth in 2000."

 

This article was derived from information furnished from http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/

 

 

 

I think part of the 39% spent on "other" in 2003 as compared to 13% in 1900 could be our lack of self control in our own personal economic choices. We buy a lot of crap we do not need and the majority of the money seems to go to China and others. You don't suppose that is why we are where we are.

 

Though this would be under the food expenses category, do you ever see someone who is working a low wage job but eats at a fast food restaurant? 5 dollars a day five days a week is 1,200 dollars a year. Throw in the 5 they spent in the morning for coffee and a breakfast burrito and their situation becomes a little more clear. They need to take responsibility for there own financial decisions.

 

Here's another point from the article;

 

So if the typical American family feels squeezed, what's squeezing us?

I have two answers: The first answer is housing and cars. Half of that orange "other" slice is transportation costs: mostly cars, gas, and public transit. A century ago, if you recall, 80% of families were renters and nobody owned a car. Today, more than 60% of families are home owners, and practically everybody owns a car.*

The other answer, which you can't see as clearly in this chart, is health care. Health-care spending makes up more than 16% of the U.S. economy, but only 6% of family spending, according to the CES. One reason for the gap is that most medical spending isn't out of our pockets. Employers pay workers' premiums and government foots the bill for the elderly and the low-income. Government spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has quadrupled since the 1950s in the most meaningful measurement, which is share of GDP.

In short, health care costs are squeezing Americans. But the details of this squeeze elude the color-wheel above. We are paying for health care with taxes, borrowing, and compensation that goes to health benefits, rather than wages.

 

The sentences in red are where the rubber meets the road. 100 years ago if you became sick and maybe died there was little cost incurred as compared today. We have in the last 100 years had a technological and pharmaceutical revolution in medical sciences. Each advancement has possibly allowed a previously fatal condition to be survived, the expense in this is not just related to this one period of treatment. But by surviving the patient will advance in age and be now subject to more frequent and expensive medical care, some life threatening and still survived with great expense only to allow the patient to advance to more medical care and expense. We are at the point now that elderly patients consume the highest levels of health care costs not just in the last years of their lives, but more increasingly the last few months.

 

http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/costs/expriach/index.html

The study used insurance company data on 3.75 million enrollees and data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. It found that 8 percent of health care expenses occurred during childhood (under age 20), 13 percent during young adulthood (20-39 years), 31 percent during middle age (40-64 years), and nearly half (49 percent) occurred after 65 years of age. Among people age 65 and older, three-quarters of expenses (or 37 percent of the lifetime total) occurred among individuals 65-84 and the rest (12 percent of the lifetime total) among people 85 and over. The total per capita lifetime expense was calculated to be $316,600.

Edited December 15, 2013 by arc

[John Cuthber]

For some years now we seem to have tried to reduce poverty by taking money from poor people and giving it to rich people.

It hasn't really worked.

Has there ever been a concerted attempt to do it the other way round?

If so, what happened.

[hd000]

Another contributing factor to expensive health insurance I do not hear discussed often is the excessively popular practice of lifelong treatment of symptoms rather than treatment for the root problems. Which in my opinion is greatly pushed by pharmaceutical company's. This is one area I believe is under regulated/managed.

[CharonY]

I am not sure how pharmaceuticals could push for that. More likely is that they invest little into curing, unless there is a profit to be had. Health insurers on the other hand would love to have cures or support healthy life styles (though depending on system they offer various degrees to achieve this).

I am not terribly sure how one could regulate that other than investing in research.

[Phi for All]

Another contributing factor to expensive health insurance I do not hear discussed often is the excessively popular practice of lifelong treatment of symptoms rather than treatment for the root problems. Which in my opinion is greatly pushed by pharmaceutical company's. This is one area I believe is under regulated/managed.

 

This isn't driven completely by Pharma, though. Our own insistence on convenience has allowed Pharma and the medical profession to treat symptoms instead of root causes. We take the pill instead of the advice to exercise more. We opt for the stomach bypass so we can keep eating crap. And we beg for the antiviral instead of missing work and taking bed rest.

 

I recently had the flu as bad as I've ever had it. I was fortunate enough to have most of my work wrapped up for the year, so I stayed in bed for six days. I spent another couple days with an annoying cough and stuffy head, and then it was gone. I know two other people who had it as bad as I did, but they couldn't take bed rest, and so they're still sick four weeks later.

 

I don't know how much this would help poverty, but our health should always take precedent over our work. US employers have adamantly denied this since the HMO revolution of the early 70s. This needs to be addressed at multiple levels.

[michel123456]

There is a substantial naivete of anyone buying into this new version of the same old Marxism being peddled here. There will always be those that manipulate any system of economics, or more accurate, the government that administers it. Don't kid yourself democracies are our best chance. This other economic system suggested requires a new governmental system to administer it. One that will not be accountable as is now possible. Corruption is rampant in closed systems, Russia, China, N. Korea, see a pattern here. Even ones considered democracies such as Greece were unable to prevent corruption from establishing itself in every aspect of their government.

 

Humans are incredibly selfish and will build into any system they can access a subset of mechanisms to enrich themselves, the Mafia and the drug cartels in Mexico and S. America should give you a measure of the degree a system can be corrupted. The irony in this economic system suggested in the video is that the degree of corruption that may be held in check by the transparencies we now have may be able to go unchecked to the levels now seen in Russia and China. Do you think these individuals just disappear? Like they won't be waiting to manipulate the next system?

 

As for the price of food being a new economic player in poverty, I think the graphs below are self explanatory.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-america-spends-money-100-years-in-the-life-of-the-family-budget/255475/

 

"This is our story today: It is a story about how spending on food and clothing went from half the family budget in 1900 to less than a fifth in 2000."

 

This article was derived from information furnished from http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/

 

1900 1950 2003.png 1900spend.png

 

1950spend.png 2003spend.png

 

I think part of the 39% spent on "other" in 2003 as compared to 13% in 1900 could be our lack of self control in our own personal economic choices. We buy a lot of crap we do not need and the majority of the money seems to go to China and others. You don't suppose that is why we are where we are.

 

Though this would be under the food expenses category, do you ever see someone who is working a low wage job but eats at a fast food restaurant? 5 dollars a day five days a week is 1,200 dollars a year. Throw in the 5 they spent in the morning for coffee and a breakfast burrito and their situation becomes a little more clear. They need to take responsibility for there own financial decisions.

 

Here's another point from the article;

 

So if the typical American family feels squeezed, what's squeezing us?

I have two answers: The first answer is housing and cars. Half of that orange "other" slice is transportation costs: mostly cars, gas, and public transit. A century ago, if you recall, 80% of families were renters and nobody owned a car. Today, more than 60% of families are home owners, and practically everybody owns a car.*

The other answer, which you can't see as clearly in this chart, is health care. Health-care spending makes up more than 16% of the U.S. economy, but only 6% of family spending, according to the CES. One reason for the gap is that most medical spending isn't out of our pockets. Employers pay workers' premiums and government foots the bill for the elderly and the low-income. Government spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has quadrupled since the 1950s in the most meaningful measurement, which is share of GDP.

In short, health care costs are squeezing Americans. But the details of this squeeze elude the color-wheel above. We are paying for health care with taxes, borrowing, and compensation that goes to health benefits, rather than wages.

 

The sentences in red are where the rubber meets the road. 100 years ago if you became sick and maybe died there was little cost incurred as compared today. We have in the last 100 years had a technological and pharmaceutical revolution in medical sciences. Each advancement has possibly allowed a previously fatal condition to be survived, the expense in this is not just related to this one period of treatment. But by surviving the patient will advance in age and be now subject to more frequent and expensive medical care, some life threatening and still survived with great expense only to allow the patient to advance to more medical care and expense. We are at the point now that elderly patients consume the highest levels of health care costs not just in the last years of their lives, but more increasingly the last few months.

 

http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/costs/expriach/index.html

The study used insurance company data on 3.75 million enrollees and data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. It found that 8 percent of health care expenses occurred during childhood (under age 20), 13 percent during young adulthood (20-39 years), 31 percent during middle age (40-64 years), and nearly half (49 percent) occurred after 65 years of age. Among people age 65 and older, three-quarters of expenses (or 37 percent of the lifetime total) occurred among individuals 65-84 and the rest (12 percent of the lifetime total) among people 85 and over. The total per capita lifetime expense was calculated to be $316,600.

Where are the taxes?

If they are in "others" then people are cheating.

If they are not concerned as "expenditures", then the whole picture gives a wrong impression.

[John Cuthber]

I'm flattered that a couple of people marked it up when I posted it (thanks folks) but I'd really like a reply to my earlier question.

"For some years now we seem to have tried to reduce poverty by taking money from poor people and giving it to rich people.

It hasn't really worked.

Has there ever been a concerted attempt to do it the other way round?

If so, what happened."