Make Poverty History

12:00pm yesturday i saw nelson mandela speak at trafalgar sguare for the "make poverty history" worldwide campaign. isnt that cool

who else was there

No ones replied to this thread yet? Why? Get over here people!

Anyway, I didn't. But I may go here.

As cool as it may sound, you didn't really start a thread... Maybe is you were exposing some of his thoughts you'd get some reactions

When I saw the thread title, I thought this would be about a contest to see who could be the poorest person of all.

more here

poverty can only end when the other extreme is eded. As long as there are extremely wealthy people there will always be extremely poor people.
It takes hundreds or thousands of very poor people to sustain one very wealthy person.

It takes only very few wealthy persons to house and feed many poor. Who do you think creates and provides rental properties, or creates low income grocery stores, retail chains, and charity stores.

Uh, you haven't disproven anything. If you follow the mercantilism belief that there is only a certain amount of wealth in world, then whoever has a lot of it keeps others from attaining that same level (i.e. that wealth is built on the backs of the proletariat). And still, poverty has yet to be really defined. If you define it as not being able to survive by yourself, then okay, but that's cold. You're a low-standard having person if that's what you believe. Hell, I consider it poor when you only make minimum wage (here it's $5 an hour, it's $15 in Australia, for comparison's sake). Lets get people healthcare, a decent wage and the opportunity for education and let them do with it as they will. Equality of opportunity, not outcome should be our goal.

Raising minium wage would only create unemployment

But CEOs can still give themselves massive wages. Why don't they outsource those jobs?

They have the right to set their own wage. The government only creates unemployment when they raise minium wage. Companies can pay whatever they want to their employees, or themselves when they are the owners.

Do you have any proof for this tired old statement?

Take a really simple definition of poverty: do you have drinkable water?

All issues of zero-sum games regarding wealth aside, that criterion alone is pretty much the lowest common denominator. That, at the very least, can be done in our lifetimes, and really *should*, I don't care what your political beliefs are.

Little footsteps though, eh? When there are millins of people dying because they don't have access to clean water and who live on less than $1USD per *day* I'm not going to be too bothered about people who can afford to eat.

Because employers can't reallocate resources fast enough to compensate all their workers, they will have to have lay offs. Raising minium wage only benefits new hires, and creates a dead weight loss for others. Take an intro microecon class.

Ah, yes, an intro class. I suggest you take an advanced class, where there is more exploration of the subject and less simplistic platitudes.

A good alternative for the moment is the Wikipedia entry on the topic, which has a nicely balanced view of both sides of the issue.

Edited to add: I still don't see any proof. C'mon, you can do better than "because I think so, that's why"

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by Stiles]

Here it is, if you can't find it. Pay special attention to the "debate" section.

False.

Poverty is a state of mind. There have been many studies done on lottery winners and many are actually worse off 5 years later than before their million $ windfall.

Being broke or having no money is a condition. Being poor is a state of mind. True that billions live with little or no money but just giving them money without raising their understanding of money will not permanently solve anything.

Nor will hating on the wealthy. When this country put a luxury tax on power boats and sailboats over $100k in the late 80's, many small boatbuilders went out of business and many jobs were lost. Who builds the Maybach mega luxury auto? Working-class schlubs. Hate the rich and they are on the street.

Education is the real key to solving poverty.

i kind of agree with what you are saying. although i do have some problems.

1) Governments are the real key to solving the problem but with all their promises and bravado they dont do shit (unfortunately i did not use a reference for this statement)

2) That is because govenments only listen to the wealty (a very broad statement i know). therefore i feel it healthy to dislike the wealthy. (unless its because of jealousy)

3) I cant believe you compared lottery winners to people living on less than dollar a day



[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by ActionHeroEd]

In the real world, when you live in a house with no heat, with active water leaks everywhere, fleas, roaches, rats, garbage strewn everywhere, with holes in the walls and ceilings, with exposed electrical wiring, with only one bathroom for 8 people, broken windows, holes in the floors, staircases in danger of collapse, with peeling lead paint on the walls... you live in poverty. It ain't no motherfucking state of mind... the only state of mind that takes you out of that is being high on something.

Okay, very nice... poverty is a state of mind... blah blah blah... don't be a hater... blah blah blah. Back on planet EARTH people live in real, honest to god poverty and thinking warm fuzzy thoughts is not going to keep them from getting TB or typhoid, is it? Jesus christ.

How so? I agree that Akrasia's post is an exageration but I do agree with the idea that for one person to have the levels of wealth we see that there must be a lot of people doing without. There are only so many goods produced in a country and when they are not being distributed equally among everyone that makes up that society then it creates an imbalance of wealth.

Like I said before, Australia's minimum wage is $15 USD an hour, they offer public healthcare and free tertiary education if you're not within the top 5-25% of income earners in the country. And when I was down there, all I saw was small businesses thriving. Don't give me that bullshit about companies having to lay off workers: they wouldn't have to if they just reduced the executives' salaries.

While I do believe in the economic principle that government intervention and raising minimum wage will hurt the economy and create unemplyment, I believe that Truman said the best thing I have ever heard. When asked how much unemployment he thought was too much, he replied (paraphrased) "Well the answer to how much unemployment is too much depends on whether you are unemployed or not.".

As for being poor, I believe that eliminating poverty is impossible at this point. There will always be people who do not have as much, as long as people exist. Communism doesn't work, and I see no other viable ways of enforcing economic equality.

Oh, and about Minimum wage: I see no reason to increase it in the US< because a lot of teenagers work. They don't have to support themselves, so a living wage would only hurt those jobs and be of little use.

[Edited on Feb 06, 2005 by skankzor]

Bullshit, no freaking way is it that high. Can't be.

This site states it's A$11.35 an hour. That's about $8.72 in the US.