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Give me a man a fish vs teach a man to fish. The system in the US is broken, the Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless is only a flimsy bandaid, and the real re

• isoskeles 7y ago
  What's pernicious is the attitude that helping people and treating them likes humans, in the real world, can be turned into some act of malice where we can assume the worst about the intentions of the people doing it. That said, I do think it's silly and pointless to "help" on Thanksgiving. These places are overrun with volunteers on Thanksgiving but not at other times of the year.
• chii 7y ago
  >"There! Now I've done my part". they indeed have done their part. The problem isn't caused by these people.
  • fatbird 7y ago
    It’s also not solved by them, despite the warm glow they get from dishing out mashed potatoes once a year.
  • onion2k 7y ago
    There's a very strong argument that wealth inequality does in fact cause problems like systemic homelessness. One person hoarding massive amounts of wealth generates a much smaller number of jobs and opportunities than many people having a moderate amount of wealth. So, maybe they do cause these problems.
    • chii 7y ago
      the thing is, these rich people aren't storing their wealth under their mattress or burying their gold. their wealth is tied in stocks, so a lot of it is on paper. They also would invest their wealth (as inflation would erode it). Investment means more jobs, more work opportunities for those who don't have any. the problem lies in policy. Things like stock buy back schemes and tax "loopholes". But these have nothing to do with the rich, and everything to do with government.
      • onion2k 7y ago
        Investment means more jobs, more work opportunities for those who don't have any. The point I was making is that having lots of small investors usually leads to more job creation than one big one because small investors tend to invest in smaller, less efficient companies. That inefficiency is actually good if you want more jobs. Also, a billionaire buying a $100m yacht from a Korean shipbuilder is great for creating jobs in Korea, but it doesn't help much at home. Having a bigger middle class means more of the money goes in to the local economy. Another reason against individuals hoarding huge amounts of money.
        • WalterBright 7y ago
          > That inefficiency is actually good if you want more jobs. Inefficiency does not create jobs. It means you can't compete and you spent the money and went out of business. > a billionaire buying a $100m yacht from a Korean shipbuilder is great for creating jobs in Korea, but it doesn't help much at home Because of the way trade works, equal value flows both ways.
          • onion2k 7y ago
            Inefficiency does not create jobs. Of course it does, otherwise jobs would never be made redundant when companies merge.
            • chii 7y ago
              then why don't you start breaking all the windows of the neighbourhood? that surely creates jobs for the window makers?
            • zozbot234 7y ago
              The value that's created by making those jobs "redundant" flows back to investors, and is immediately put into other productive opportunities. Except that the companies are now doing more with less which is typically good for consumers, monopoly concerns aside.
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      > One person hoarding massive amounts of wealth generates a much smaller number of jobs and opportunities than many people having a moderate amount of wealth. Wealthy people do not store money in Scrooge McDuck cash vaults. It's all invested, which creates jobs and opportunities.
      • disgruntledphd2 7y ago
        Like, this seems to be empirically false. We can see this from the changes around 1980 (Reagan/Thatcher). We have seen that wealth concentration has increased, as have asset prices, whereas entreprenuership has not, and neither has small business creation.
        • WalterBright 7y ago
          Where do you think the wealthy hoard their cash?
          • disgruntledphd2 7y ago
            It doesn't matter, as they spend less of it than the poor do, and hence the same amount of money will circulate less, causing the economy to grow less.
            • WalterBright 7y ago
              > It doesn't matter So you don't know. I'll help. The money is invested. Even money in a bank account gets invested, as that's what banks do with deposits - they loan the money out to people who spend it. The only idle cash would be the reserve requirement put on the banks by the government. Wealthy people tend to be good with managing their money, which means they "put it to work", i.e. invest it in economically productive endeavors, which is how it grows.
  • distant_hat 7y ago
    It in some part is, they vote for politicians' who cut the safety nets and criminalize poverty.
  • zozbot234 7y ago
    Nope, they really haven't. They're basically wasting their effort on largely pointless labor, whereas they could be achieving a lot more simply by donating an equivalent fraction of the income they earn via what work they've actually specialized for. But that wouldn't be as visible or salient, and thus rewarding from a pure virtue-signalling POV.
• oh_sigh 7y ago
  Should you let a man starve while he is learning to fish?