Poverty and Hunger
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
Greed, selfishness and overpopulation.
Could you expand on that?
Overpopulation is the main reason for poverty because there's not enough work to be had for everyone everywhere. That means many humans aren't getting paid and they only exist in poverty.
greed. I don't think overpopulation has a thing to do with it. We have more than enough food to feed the hungry. Its just getting it to them. That's where power hungry rulers step in and cause famine and disease.
Zimbabwe comes to mind. And there is no reason anyone should starve in India.
Zimbabwe comes to mind. And there is no reason anyone should starve in India.
I was speaking about POVERTY not HUNGER>
and I don't care!
I typed my post before yours popped up. You just beat me to posting.
:shrug:
The root of poverty is government corruption, oppression, and interference with the economy. How many free nations do you hear of with famines? Third world kleptocracies keep their people in poverty so that they can keep themselves in power.
Greed and selfishness, sure, but the world is most certainly not so overpopulated that it can't feed all the inhabitants.
Hell we could feed several starving countries just with the food we waste here in the US.
The US has no poor?
Hell we could feed several starving countries just with the food we waste here in the US.
The US has no poor?
Absurd.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Thank you. I was waiting for someone else to point that out. These days the primary cause of poverty and hunger in almost all cases is DESPOTISM. Religious intolerance sometimes plays a role, but where there's religious intolerance there's usually a despot or two stirring it up.
What an odd philosophy, eh? Wouldn't people be more likely to keep leaders in power if those leaders were leading them to prosperity instead? Kleptocrats are like all other criminals: Just not very bright.
And we frequently try to do that. I personally collected money to send food to Ethiopia back during their big famine about 25 years ago. We sent a lot of food. Most of it ended up being sold on the black market so the people in power could buy more champagne, hookers, and machine guns. Hunger is not a food production problem, it is a food distribution problem.
By the standards of this planet as a whole: no, not really. Our official definition of "poverty" is a family with an annual income below $17,000! Do you understand how "poor" people live in America? They don't just have roofs over their head, clothes to wear, free education for their children and free medical care for everybody. Not just the minimal set of household appliances like stoves and refrigerators. Not just enough heat to avoid freezing to death and enough food to avoid starving to death. They have microwave ovens, color TV sets with 100 channels, telephones, and CARS. If you wonder where to find America's poor people, go to McDonalds at dinnertime! The biggest nutritional problem among our poor people is obesity!
Yes, there actually are some people in America living outdoors, begging for money. They fall into two categories: They're mentally ill but just smart enough to avoid being intercepted by social workers and placed in institutions where they'd be cared for; or they're alcoholics and they spend the money people give them on wine or liquor. And heck, a large percentage of those people are astute enough to find their way to California. We Californians are notoriously generous, and the weather is so mild most of the time that it's not unpleasant to sleep outdoors.
For all our faults, we Americans are one of the most generous people on earth. Much of that generosity is unfortunately filtered through the government, so a lot of our "charity" goes to cheaters, but nevertheless we do not allow our sick people, our unlucky people, our stupid people, our unpopular people--or even our damn lazy people--to live the way they do in the Third World.
More than ten percent of the human beings on this planet "live" on less than one dollar a day. You could spend a year trying to find one of them in America.
Dude, you need a refresher course in Econ 101. Capitalism requires consumers. Poor people are not very good consumers. Rich people don't get rich and stay rich by buying and selling caviar and Lamborghinis to each other. Somebody out there has to be buying bread and Chevrolets.
Then why are there more poor people in China, Cuba, Congo, and Venezuela? China and Cuba being Communist and Venezuela being run by a dictator. All those countries aren't Capitalistic so why is it they have more poor than America?
But perhaps those governments are dictatorial because people are too busy starving to care about something as abstract as "freedom."
Not quite.
Depending on the good, poor people make better consumers than rich people because they don't save money.
Incorrect. Most poor people do not, relatively speaking, have a lot of money to spend. Even homeless people have money that they spend. Being that they generally do not have money to save, the poor are in some ways the ultimate consumers.
What do you think happens to the money that they get? They spend it, they don't invest in bonds.
Try and get a clue before acting smug about your poor reasoning.