8 ms·

It prevents the fuel pump in the engine from working (I had to add an electric fuel pump because the original one isn't doing very well). Yes on the hot meal.

It prevents the fuel pump in the engine from working (I had to add an electric fuel pump because the original one isn't doing very well). Yes on the hot meal. I've been homeless and it stinks.

ineedasername 6y ago
It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement. I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. I think homelessness due to other causes-- mental health for example-- are more complex but similarly demonstrate fundamental flaws in the framework of society. Only once was I able to give a homeless person a meal... I'd just bought my lunch, driving a few blocks away I saw someone with as sign asking for $$ for food... I go cashless, so I stopped and ran my lunch over to them. It was Chipotle, so I hope I didn't do any lasting damage. As for giving money to homeless on the street... I don't know. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, if it will be used for food/shelter etc. or something more self-destructive. I've stopped caring about that possibility. I've decided I can't not do something that might help someone simply because it also might not help. I also figure addicts have to eat too, and absent enough money to do both, they might decide not to eat.
- loyukfai 6y ago
  A free market has no morals, it's up to the participants to instill some.
  - Skunkleton 6y ago
    That is much easier to do when there is real competition and transparency. Unfortunately my only high speed ISP is Comcast and I had no idea that parts of my phone were made by slaves until just recently. Until business has less power, we cannot instill morals in a meaningful way.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      I'm sitting here on my couch looking around my living room, and it occurs to me that a significant % of my belongings could have been made under labor conditions illegal within the US. It's a bit chilling to consider that.
      - bluGill 6y ago
        this is tricky. Most of those workers don't have better options. Work in conditions that are illegal, or for much less pay elsewhere, and probably still illegal. Safety standards are not as high, but they get better as the companies learn from us. (Even at the least flattering look, cleaning up body parts and training a replacement takes time. Most people are better than that ) But I still avoid slave labor. The workers need to be free to leave for a better option if there is one.
        ineedasername 6y ago
        I guess my point about looking around my living room was that I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to avoid slave labor. I mean, I think it's safe to assume that Apple isn't the Big Bad here in terms of overseas labor practices: It seems highly likely that a very large % of technological devices around me involved either 1) child labor 2) some form of forced labor 3) unsafe labor conditions 4) starvation wages 5) 14 hour workdays 7 days a week It goes far beyond electronics too: I just grabbed one of my kid's favorite little plush puppy: made in China. It seems reasonable to doubt the quality of the work conditions in the factory it came from, but I just don't know. I think about something like "Organic Food" and there are at least labelling requirements for things like that. People do, with some effort, manage to eat completely organic, even if there are some problems with labelling consistency. There's nothing equivalent for "no kid/slave labor/fair wages" etc. You could buy only things made in the US, or other countries with fair labor practices, but the supply chains for components & materials to build those things are will be opaque & frequently have roots into the labor practices you want to avoid. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to avoid products like that: If possible for a given product? Sure, go for it. But otherwise I'm saying that is seems like a virtually impossible task to accomplish
  - uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
    A free market also has no senses for lost potential. It only sees the local optimum. External Events and competition between systems enable societys with free markets to move to larger local optimums, but the free market is incapable of doing so by itself. Proof - the mountains of cash at mountainview going nowhere.
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    Actually, a market instills morals - although not the ones I'd like: * Never give, only sell. * Produce in accordance to the interests of those with money, not people in general or those with need. * Everything, and perhaps every one, can be bought for the right price. * Debt must be repaid. etc.
- dominotw 6y ago
  they are Homeless by choice. my cousin was one.
  - ASalazarMX 6y ago
    there are Homeless by choice FTFY
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      And on r/homeless I learned the wonderful expression "I didn't choose the choice." Many people who are "homeless by choice" are making choices like "Do I keep living with my abusive spouse/relative or do I go sleep in my car?" In most cases, if they had a better option than homelessness, they would be all over it in a heartbeat. They just don't happen to have that and have chosen homelessness as the lesser evil in comparison to some other major problem. Edit: Something I wrote, if anyone wants to read up more: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family-safety-net-fails.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family...
  - elmomle 6y ago
    Speaking as someone who has closely known struggling and recovering addicts, that's a callous and haughty simplification. Don't let addicts drag you down, but to judge them as if they simply choose worse than other people is radically unkind to a fellow human who is struggling.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      It is a throwback to the Prosperity Gospel and, before that, the Protestant concept of predestination-- unfortunately prevalent ideas in the early settlers & founders of the US. Basically it says that God favors the faithful & devout with prosperity. Therefore prosperity is a sign of God's favor, and anyone who is not prosperous is therefore immoral/bad/lesser etc. Such things are more complicated than a simple analysis, but it's one of the root causes behind the idea that "poor people are poor by choice" Perhaps more perniciously, since this doctrine says that the prosperous are those blessed by God, then becoming prosperous is the main goal: the means by which that happens are irrelevant. Cheat/Lie/Con etc., but become prosperous? It must be okay, because the prosperous are blessed by God.
- betenoire 6y ago
  > It was Chipotle, so I hope I didn't do any lasting damage. You are killing me, too funny! I also have given money to people, not knowing how they would use it. I figure if there is a chance it will do them good, who am I to say how they use the gift
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lexh 6y ago
    I too appreciate the humor. That said, homelessness often means limited or no restroom access. I’ve had someone turn down food on the basis that it would cause them GI distress. What an awful balancing act.
- Lammy 6y ago
  This is only my American perspective and wouldn't pertain to all wealthy countries, but I don't think it would be fair to categorize the US as having a free market. We have a market that has been increasingly weaponized to continue the old traditions of Jim Crow and segregation. Lots of people will ask "WTF happened in 1971?" ( https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ ), but I find it impossible to do that without considering its implications around the Fair Housing Act of 1968 or the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. Modern America uses the economy to make the population segregate itself.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    You can however go back in our history to times with lesser and lesser regulation of markets-- 100 years ago, 150... And you'll still see similar problems.
    - earthboundkid 6y ago
      There have always been crazy people and the indolent, but there was a qualitative change in the number of urban homeless in the 1980s. It didn’t used to be like this.
      - thwarted 6y ago
        Isn't this usually attributed to the Reagan administration's repeal of Mental Health Systems Act? Not that the situtation was necessarily all that great before it was repealed, but my understanding is that the federal government making this change ended up putting a lot of people on the street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
        KLexpat 6y ago
        Yeah they did, we have had similar problems in Australia The thing is, it's still a lot better than the mid-century horror stories of institutions; electrotherapy, lobotomy, people being drugged into a permanent fugue state, sexual abuse, etc. Those concerns are what drove these changes to the system.
- everyone 6y ago
  Why would you need evidence to refute the idea that 'a free market can solve all problems' That would be an insane thing to assume in the 1st place. Where would you even get that notion from?
  - calt 6y ago
    I know many people who hold onto the idea of free market like it's a religion. They call their religion libertarianism (I don't know if this is accurate of libertarian thought leaders) I do have to refute that idea. I'm not sure how much their opinions matter and if my time is well spent trying to change them, but they're in my life so I collect the evidence.
    - mindcrime 6y ago
      To a first approximation, zero Libertarians believe that "the free market can solve all problems." Many of us do believe that - on balance - free markets deliver better outcomes than other approaches, but that is not a claim of perfection. Other Libertarians believe that free market approaches are simply morally superior, since any non-free-market approach seems to necessitate the use of force/violence to prevent people from simply trading freely as they would in the absence of said force/violence. And, of course, some Libertarians hold both beliefs - that free markets are the moral approach AND that the create better outcomes more often than not. But other than maybe a few n00bs who just discovered Libertarianism from a pamphlet or something, almost nobody is going around claiming that free markets fix everything.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        Since no purely free market system has every existed at the scale of a nation in human history and therefore no coercion free one either at what point does it become acceptable to arrange your society around coercive arrangements. If you construe some tipping point like for example chance of existential or utilitarian failure that does justify coercion how do you differentiate between a society in which minimizing coercion is the goal and one in which whatever you construe as justifying coercion is actually the guiding principal.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  As others have said the USA is far from a free market. Instead the wealthy use the state to manipulate markets for their benefit, and the rest of us suffer as a result. I've come to see "free markets" as the economic fabric on top of which we can build structures to support one another. For example we could form large healthcare collectives in a free market, as an alternative to state controlled health care (or insurance companies). I think a big factor is collective control versus minority control of the institutions that provide services like that. As far as what a person without housing will do with the money - I'd rather offer the help than assume they don't know whats best for them. Even if they use it for drugs or alcohol as is often the source of much hand-wringing - then maybe it will help them get through the day. Of course, giving money to shelters is a good use of money too. And food banks.
  - leafmeal 6y ago
    > As others have said the USA is far from a free market. Instead the wealthy use the state to manipulate markets for their benefit, and the rest of us suffer as a result. Some might still call that a free market.
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Well it’s not the libertarian conception of a free market. I’m not that kind of libertarian but as I learn more about their theory, a major complaint is that right now the wealthy use their money to influence the state to influence markets. The libertarians theorists would prefer the wealthy use their wealth to compete in the market, not use the state to force things to the benefit of one firm. That’s why they want a weaker state. So it can’t be influenced by the wealthy. However lots of people misunderstand that theory and think the wealthy influencing the state is what libertarians want. I’ve not found any libertarian theoretician who advocates for that.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        There are more make believe libertarians than there are libertarian theorists and they like virtually everyone else want the board tilted to benefit them. The people that are most likely not to want the board tilted are however those who already substantially benefited by the current state of affairs. It's trivial to forget that their isn't much in the way of ground truth underneath society what people think of as the government not meddling much with society actually usually means leaving alone the current result of centuries of meddling if if the current distribution of tokens and things were the result of natural law and any change or redistribution is the only coercive act. If you imagine a board with certain positions privileged above others and spaces pre parceled out to certain players all the existing restrictions on players movements and actions are all coercive its just coercive in the ways that is presently expected as normal.
- progman32 6y ago
  I've brought over a bagged lunch to a homeless person specifically asking for food, only to be roundly rejected without comment or inquiry. Guy begged for food daily. I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out. I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair. I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner. This makes it all the sweeter when, despite the insults, scammers, and jerks, you manage to actually help someone. Learn to see through the initial presentation.
  - fao_ 6y ago
    > I've brought over a bagged lunch to a homeless person specifically asking for food, only to be roundly rejected without comment or inquiry. Guy begged for food daily. I imagine that this isn't the norm, though. > I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out. How much do hospitals cost where you live? I'm not saying that this person wasn't an asshole, but for many people, they see no point going to the hospital if it's going to leave them in the red. > I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair. What were they going to do with the others? Where do you think they could store them in a place they wouldn't get mouldy, wet, damaged, etc.? > I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner. Why is this the fault of the homeless person?
    - coremoff 6y ago
      > How much do hospitals cost where you live? I'm not saying that this person wasn't an asshole, but for many people, they see no point going to the hospital if it's going to leave them in the red. This happens even in countries with universal healthcare - the "needing money for a cab to get to the hospital" is a well known scam; the dedicated ones learn how to keep a wound open and bleeding constantly. (There was a notorious one near where I live, who managed to keep a bone exposed, allegedly - never seen him, so can't comment further on that). In London, at least, my understanding is that most homelessness is a mental health issue; support is available, but not necessarily wanted.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  I give out any singles I have. I don't care if it goes to drugs/alcohol. withdrawal from some can be deadly, others torture. The homeless population here in Denver is scary.
  - ARandomerDude 6y ago
    > I give out any singles I have. How much Kraft cheese do you keep on hand?
    - dillondoyle 6y ago
      lol. provolone only my friend
- ralusek 6y ago
  Literally nobody says that free markets solve all problems. Also, nothing does. Lastly, homelessness is WAAAAAY more complicated than markets simply having failed these people. It's also way more complicated than saying that our social safety nets lack the resources to help these people.
  - serverholic 6y ago
    Heh, you should look into Libertarianism.
- lwansbrough 6y ago
  > I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. Free market capitalism and social welfare are not mutually exclusive concepts.
- audiometry 6y ago
  Yeah the preoccupation with “how will the person use this money” I’ve done away with. I donate money to people. If it’s a scam or they use it for “unhealthy” ends, then I consider that is on them, not me. I gave the money with good intentions. I’m not tied to the outcome.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    Assuming your donations are limited, a dollar given to a junkie or a scammer is a dollar not given to a hungry man.
    - treve 6y ago
      99% of the time I've heard this argument, that dollar ends up going to neither. Instead of trying to decide who is worthy of your dollar, perhaps consider what that dollar is worth to you vs. what it is worth to them. If you give them a dollar and it's spent on something you don't approve of or you think they are not deserving that on them. If you don't give them anything because you assume they might not be worthy, that's on you.
    - ARandomerDude 6y ago
      A post on HN is an educational comment not passed on to an underprivileged child. A dollar spent a moderately expensive restaurant is a dollar not spent on rice and beans, with the surplus donated to charity. If good deeds (or even neutral deeds) are scrutinized and discouraged, there will be no end of other, theoretical good deeds that might have been done, and no simple good deed will be done.
      - jojobas 6y ago
        Well if one doesn't care if their donations are used for good purposes they can as well send them to me.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      How do you determine which of the three men you pass on the street is a scammer, junkie, or hungry man? Maybe you give to a food pantry instead-- what about the people that use them for the free food but don't really need it? How do you define scammer? If a person is homeless, but holds up a gas can with a sign that says "ran out of gas please help!" then they're lying about why they need the money, but they aren't scamming in terms of not actually being homeless. What about junkies too-- they still need to eat. Absent enough money to do both, they might choose just to get high, deteriorate more, have even less chance of recovery. There's no easy litmus test here. No easy way to ensure the money you give is going to be used in the best possible way to improve someone's life.
- kbutler 6y ago
  I asked a panhandler what meal to order for him from the restaurant where he was begging. He ate one bite, asked me again for cash, and threw it away. Begging on the streets is unsafe for the homeless and for the public - giving that way promotes the activity. It's generally much better to give to public service organizations that can coordinate broader care. That said, if you feel you should give to someone, do it. (And I don't think anyone with even introductory economics knowledge thinks free markets solve everything.)
  - fulafel 6y ago
    Of the basic needs for a person to live non-homelessly in western countries, food is probably the cheapest and easiest to come by from charity sources after water. But people unfamiliar with the life find it easiest to think about food, and if a panhandler mentions food it's often an advertising strategy. For acquiring money for living, there's a parallel to selling your services as a software developer, solving stupid programming games in the interview, even though 90% of your time is spent on things other than writing code :)
  - ljf 6y ago
    To be generous to that person - it may have been that they were begging for money too eat - but to eat at a time and place of their choosing.
- tiziniano 6y ago
  Of course free markets cannot solve all problems. And neither can socialism or communism or any -ism. A lot of pain would be avoided if people just minded their own problems and their immediate environment's. Alas, never the case
- LilBytes 6y ago
  Chipotle! You animal! You're awesome. I wish people like you were more prevalent in society.
- sgt 6y ago
  General advice: do not give money to the homeless, just give them food. There are of course exceptions in life like with anything, but if your city has a homelessness problem then you and others will only gradually make it worse by giving money.
  - justinator 6y ago
    Have you ever gotten free money in your life? Was your housing status critical in that decision?
  - memetherapy 6y ago
    As someone who's been homeless (and didn't have a drink or drug problem thanks) please fuck off. A night in a shelter costs money. Clothes which regularly get stolen cost money. Going to the bathroom costs money. Having a shower costs money. Travel to find jobs costs money. Medication costs money. Toothpaste costs money.
    - saiya-jin 6y ago
      I presume you guys are in the US. In Europe, at least the parts where I live(d), most homeless indeed have drugs problems. There are social places where they can sleep, get clean, they help them with first steps of integration back, but its often tied to being clean from drugs. Many choose not to accept this. Then for those who reject there is free drug dispensary & usage place, we talk about proper opiates like heroin, not some weak substitutes. In our situation and location, the money isn't a solution for a beggar. Meal can be, ideally hot in the cold. Also, since we talk about Switzerland, people come from rest of Europe seasonally to beg and then go home to live off social services. Again, no reason to give money.
      - memetherapy 6y ago
        Nope I'm from the UK but we have a system that is closer to the American then the Swiss. There are services out there but they're incredibly poorly funded.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  They may be wealthy countries, but they're also capitalist countries; that mindset optimizes for profits, for return on investment, for getting the most out of a workforce for the lowest cost. Currently, and I'm not an economist so this is an armchair thing, I think two big factors are wage vs cost of living. Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation or cost of living. Job security has spiraled downwards, with employers preferring temporary, part-time or 0-hour/on-call contracts, or doing away with employees entirely and having temps or contractors instead (also looking at the gig economy here). And cost of living has skyrocketed up, it was steadily increasing in the 2000's, and after recovering from the 2008 crisis they've gone up crazily. Additional factors in that are low interest rates, meaning that on the one side mortgages have record low interest rates and on the other low risk savings accounts have no interest anymore, so people are looking to invest. Given how the prices of housing have gone up because of these factors, people see buying a house as a great investment. Anyway, all of these factors combined mean that fewer people can afford to live in a house, there's much more of the "working poor", etc etc etc.
- b0rsuk 6y ago
  In capitalist countries, you blame the victims - the poor - for lazyness, lack of initiative, being stupid. The problem is neatly swept away. You're not supposed to feel pity, but contempt for the poor. If you're poor, you're supposed to be ashamed or git gud. Either way you're not concerned with the conditions others live in.
- imtringued 6y ago
  > It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement. I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. That's wrong. The vast majority of problems with capitalism are caused by wrong policies and abuse of power. The free market is a powerful tool that can solve a lot of problems within the context of an existing system. Obviously, USA isn't known for good policies. Lots of self destructive political ideas are floating around or are already implemented. For some reason a certain group of people gets their blood pumping once there is government intervention of any kind. For them there is always too much government intervention. Except that is the wrong mode of thinking. Government intervention is not like a soup where adding too much salt makes things worse. It's not about the quantity, it's about quality. No intervention is just as bad because the free market is a machine with no human values, you have to give it human values to obtain the desired effects. Now here is where the weird things start to happen. What human values did Americans encode in their political system? Let's take California as an example. Homeownership for old residents at all costs, even when it hurts others and themselves. California has an extremely weird desire for pain. You introduce property taxes and then take them back by freezing them. What purpose does that serve? The tax money is gone but the psychological effect is still there. People will refuse to sell their house or move unless they absolutely must. They are forced to stay in a small home even when their life circumstances change and they end up with more or less room than they actually need. Children stay at home because they cannot afford to rent or to buy property with current tax rates. You even built a legacy system that lets children inherit their parent's property tax status. It's absurd. None of this has anything to do with the free market. None of it. The free market doesn't tell you to grab a knife and stab yourself. The government can tell you to stab yourself but it can also stop you. Again, the problem is extremely poor leadership, not the fact that leadership exists. Do you know what a free market solution to high housing prices is? The solution is to respond to market signals. If housing is expensive then just build more housing. It's highly profitable to do so. It doesn't matter what housing you build as long as it meets demand. People hate on luxury apartments but what they don't understand is that luxury apartments are wealth traps. They aren't entirely meant to provide housing. The unoccupied luxury apartments act as a sink for excess capital to pour into. Imagine a Chinese millionaire trying to get $10 million out of China. He could spend that money on one very expensive luxury apartment and displace nobody or he could spend it on 10 apartments and displace 10 people and drive up rents. What's your pick? If you want housing for everyone then the solution is not to ban housing via rent control. That's just plain insane. The solution is for the government to enter the housing market and provide housing at cost or for a very small margin below <10%. Providing housing at cost is not the same thing as a subsidy because the profit margins in mature industries get closer and closer to 0%. Don't subsidize housing because it restricts the amount of government housing you can provide. The government as a market participant can cut out middlemen that want their own cut and thus allows easier access to housing. Serving a basic need like housing is very easy for the government to do. The demand is easy to predict. One unit of housing can provide for x people. We have y people. Okay, so why does the government not just build more housing and let private companies build more housing? Because pain. You cannot maximize pain if you avoid harming yourself. People consider housing an investment which is just plain wrong. I'm in a 50 year old apartment and the building codes back then were just bad when it comes to electrical wiring. Why does anyone want to stay in old housing? Because it is cheap? Fine, except that goes against the idea of housing being an investment. Why would you invest into something that is losing its utility over time? If you invest into housing because of scarcity aren't you just going to create even more scarcity to further improve the value of your home? Scarce housing? Why should that even exist? Oh right. It's because commercial real estate is the only thing that actually brings in tax money. So SF has lots of commercial construction and the commutes grow longer and longer. When you consider that there is a national shift from low skilled work to high skilled work in the US this is absolutely disgusting. People have the skills to work at a good job, but they are prevented to do so by the selfish desire of a few individuals. When times are bad and people's hometown declines they are forced to move and for a lot of them their best bet is the bay area or the rest of California. All the new good jobs are in California. When you put a brake on success in urban centers you just end up with even more pain in rural places. Everyone cries gentrification when things are good but when things are truly bad nobody gives a crap except that angry billionaire with blonde hair who got his twitter account banned.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > I think homelessness due to other causes-- mental health for example- While this is not a uniquely USA thing, it is much worse in the USA: Your search terms are "Reagan mental hospital homeless" (although President Reagan doesn't actually personally carry all the blame for this) https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/ https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_leg...
- mdekkers 6y ago
  > It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement I was shocked and disgusted to learn that my country of birth, The Netherlands, which is the 6th most prosperous country in the world[1], has this concept of "economic homelessness". This means that an individual or family has work and steady income, but are unable to afford rent due to a combination of politically created circumstances: lack of affordable housing, liberalisation of previously rent-controlled/social housing, and private rents running wild. This isn't just for minimum wage workers, many people at the lower end of the middle class are either unable to afford current rent, or rent takes up the vast majority of income. [1] https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=NLD&filter= https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=NLD&filter= [2] https://vng.nl/artikelen/economisch-daklozen-vallen-tussen-wal-en-schip https://vng.nl/artikelen/economisch-daklozen-vallen-tussen-w... (in Dutch)

It prevents the fuel pump in the engine from working (I had to add an electric fuel pump because the original one isn't doing very well). Yes on the hot meal. I've been homeless and it stinks.

ineedasername 6y ago

It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement. I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. I think homelessness due to other causes-- mental health for example-- are more complex but similarly demonstrate fundamental flaws in the framework of society. Only once was I able to give a homeless person a meal... I'd just bought my lunch, driving a few blocks away I saw someone with as sign asking for $$ for food... I go cashless, so I stopped and ran my lunch over to them. It was Chipotle, so I hope I didn't do any lasting damage. As for giving money to homeless on the street... I don't know. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, if it will be used for food/shelter etc. or something more self-destructive. I've stopped caring about that possibility. I've decided I can't not do something that might help someone simply because it also might not help. I also figure addicts have to eat too, and absent enough money to do both, they might decide not to eat.

loyukfai 6y ago
A free market has no morals, it's up to the participants to instill some.
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  That is much easier to do when there is real competition and transparency. Unfortunately my only high speed ISP is Comcast and I had no idea that parts of my phone were made by slaves until just recently. Until business has less power, we cannot instill morals in a meaningful way.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    I'm sitting here on my couch looking around my living room, and it occurs to me that a significant % of my belongings could have been made under labor conditions illegal within the US. It's a bit chilling to consider that.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      this is tricky. Most of those workers don't have better options. Work in conditions that are illegal, or for much less pay elsewhere, and probably still illegal. Safety standards are not as high, but they get better as the companies learn from us. (Even at the least flattering look, cleaning up body parts and training a replacement takes time. Most people are better than that ) But I still avoid slave labor. The workers need to be free to leave for a better option if there is one.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        I guess my point about looking around my living room was that I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to avoid slave labor. I mean, I think it's safe to assume that Apple isn't the Big Bad here in terms of overseas labor practices: It seems highly likely that a very large % of technological devices around me involved either 1) child labor 2) some form of forced labor 3) unsafe labor conditions 4) starvation wages 5) 14 hour workdays 7 days a week It goes far beyond electronics too: I just grabbed one of my kid's favorite little plush puppy: made in China. It seems reasonable to doubt the quality of the work conditions in the factory it came from, but I just don't know. I think about something like "Organic Food" and there are at least labelling requirements for things like that. People do, with some effort, manage to eat completely organic, even if there are some problems with labelling consistency. There's nothing equivalent for "no kid/slave labor/fair wages" etc. You could buy only things made in the US, or other countries with fair labor practices, but the supply chains for components & materials to build those things are will be opaque & frequently have roots into the labor practices you want to avoid. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to avoid products like that: If possible for a given product? Sure, go for it. But otherwise I'm saying that is seems like a virtually impossible task to accomplish
- uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
  A free market also has no senses for lost potential. It only sees the local optimum. External Events and competition between systems enable societys with free markets to move to larger local optimums, but the free market is incapable of doing so by itself. Proof - the mountains of cash at mountainview going nowhere.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  Actually, a market instills morals - although not the ones I'd like: * Never give, only sell. * Produce in accordance to the interests of those with money, not people in general or those with need. * Everything, and perhaps every one, can be bought for the right price. * Debt must be repaid. etc.
dominotw 6y ago
they are Homeless by choice. my cousin was one.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  there are Homeless by choice FTFY
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    And on r/homeless I learned the wonderful expression "I didn't choose the choice." Many people who are "homeless by choice" are making choices like "Do I keep living with my abusive spouse/relative or do I go sleep in my car?" In most cases, if they had a better option than homelessness, they would be all over it in a heartbeat. They just don't happen to have that and have chosen homelessness as the lesser evil in comparison to some other major problem. Edit: Something I wrote, if anyone wants to read up more: https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family-safety-net-fails.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family...
- elmomle 6y ago
  Speaking as someone who has closely known struggling and recovering addicts, that's a callous and haughty simplification. Don't let addicts drag you down, but to judge them as if they simply choose worse than other people is radically unkind to a fellow human who is struggling.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It is a throwback to the Prosperity Gospel and, before that, the Protestant concept of predestination-- unfortunately prevalent ideas in the early settlers & founders of the US. Basically it says that God favors the faithful & devout with prosperity. Therefore prosperity is a sign of God's favor, and anyone who is not prosperous is therefore immoral/bad/lesser etc. Such things are more complicated than a simple analysis, but it's one of the root causes behind the idea that "poor people are poor by choice" Perhaps more perniciously, since this doctrine says that the prosperous are those blessed by God, then becoming prosperous is the main goal: the means by which that happens are irrelevant. Cheat/Lie/Con etc., but become prosperous? It must be okay, because the prosperous are blessed by God.
betenoire 6y ago
> It was Chipotle, so I hope I didn't do any lasting damage. You are killing me, too funny! I also have given money to people, not knowing how they would use it. I figure if there is a chance it will do them good, who am I to say how they use the gift
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lexh 6y ago
  I too appreciate the humor. That said, homelessness often means limited or no restroom access. I’ve had someone turn down food on the basis that it would cause them GI distress. What an awful balancing act.
Lammy 6y ago
This is only my American perspective and wouldn't pertain to all wealthy countries, but I don't think it would be fair to categorize the US as having a free market. We have a market that has been increasingly weaponized to continue the old traditions of Jim Crow and segregation. Lots of people will ask "WTF happened in 1971?" ( https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ ), but I find it impossible to do that without considering its implications around the Fair Housing Act of 1968 or the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. Modern America uses the economy to make the population segregate itself.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  You can however go back in our history to times with lesser and lesser regulation of markets-- 100 years ago, 150... And you'll still see similar problems.
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    There have always been crazy people and the indolent, but there was a qualitative change in the number of urban homeless in the 1980s. It didn’t used to be like this.
    - thwarted 6y ago
      Isn't this usually attributed to the Reagan administration's repeal of Mental Health Systems Act? Not that the situtation was necessarily all that great before it was repealed, but my understanding is that the federal government making this change ended up putting a lot of people on the street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
      - KLexpat 6y ago
        Yeah they did, we have had similar problems in Australia The thing is, it's still a lot better than the mid-century horror stories of institutions; electrotherapy, lobotomy, people being drugged into a permanent fugue state, sexual abuse, etc. Those concerns are what drove these changes to the system.
everyone 6y ago
Why would you need evidence to refute the idea that 'a free market can solve all problems' That would be an insane thing to assume in the 1st place. Where would you even get that notion from?
- calt 6y ago
  I know many people who hold onto the idea of free market like it's a religion. They call their religion libertarianism (I don't know if this is accurate of libertarian thought leaders) I do have to refute that idea. I'm not sure how much their opinions matter and if my time is well spent trying to change them, but they're in my life so I collect the evidence.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    To a first approximation, zero Libertarians believe that "the free market can solve all problems." Many of us do believe that - on balance - free markets deliver better outcomes than other approaches, but that is not a claim of perfection. Other Libertarians believe that free market approaches are simply morally superior, since any non-free-market approach seems to necessitate the use of force/violence to prevent people from simply trading freely as they would in the absence of said force/violence. And, of course, some Libertarians hold both beliefs - that free markets are the moral approach AND that the create better outcomes more often than not. But other than maybe a few n00bs who just discovered Libertarianism from a pamphlet or something, almost nobody is going around claiming that free markets fix everything.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Since no purely free market system has every existed at the scale of a nation in human history and therefore no coercion free one either at what point does it become acceptable to arrange your society around coercive arrangements. If you construe some tipping point like for example chance of existential or utilitarian failure that does justify coercion how do you differentiate between a society in which minimizing coercion is the goal and one in which whatever you construe as justifying coercion is actually the guiding principal.
TaylorAlexander 6y ago
As others have said the USA is far from a free market. Instead the wealthy use the state to manipulate markets for their benefit, and the rest of us suffer as a result. I've come to see "free markets" as the economic fabric on top of which we can build structures to support one another. For example we could form large healthcare collectives in a free market, as an alternative to state controlled health care (or insurance companies). I think a big factor is collective control versus minority control of the institutions that provide services like that. As far as what a person without housing will do with the money - I'd rather offer the help than assume they don't know whats best for them. Even if they use it for drugs or alcohol as is often the source of much hand-wringing - then maybe it will help them get through the day. Of course, giving money to shelters is a good use of money too. And food banks.
- leafmeal 6y ago
  > As others have said the USA is far from a free market. Instead the wealthy use the state to manipulate markets for their benefit, and the rest of us suffer as a result. Some might still call that a free market.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Well it’s not the libertarian conception of a free market. I’m not that kind of libertarian but as I learn more about their theory, a major complaint is that right now the wealthy use their money to influence the state to influence markets. The libertarians theorists would prefer the wealthy use their wealth to compete in the market, not use the state to force things to the benefit of one firm. That’s why they want a weaker state. So it can’t be influenced by the wealthy. However lots of people misunderstand that theory and think the wealthy influencing the state is what libertarians want. I’ve not found any libertarian theoretician who advocates for that.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      There are more make believe libertarians than there are libertarian theorists and they like virtually everyone else want the board tilted to benefit them. The people that are most likely not to want the board tilted are however those who already substantially benefited by the current state of affairs. It's trivial to forget that their isn't much in the way of ground truth underneath society what people think of as the government not meddling much with society actually usually means leaving alone the current result of centuries of meddling if if the current distribution of tokens and things were the result of natural law and any change or redistribution is the only coercive act. If you imagine a board with certain positions privileged above others and spaces pre parceled out to certain players all the existing restrictions on players movements and actions are all coercive its just coercive in the ways that is presently expected as normal.
progman32 6y ago
I've brought over a bagged lunch to a homeless person specifically asking for food, only to be roundly rejected without comment or inquiry. Guy begged for food daily. I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out. I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair. I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner. This makes it all the sweeter when, despite the insults, scammers, and jerks, you manage to actually help someone. Learn to see through the initial presentation.
- fao_ 6y ago
  > I've brought over a bagged lunch to a homeless person specifically asking for food, only to be roundly rejected without comment or inquiry. Guy begged for food daily. I imagine that this isn't the norm, though. > I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out. How much do hospitals cost where you live? I'm not saying that this person wasn't an asshole, but for many people, they see no point going to the hospital if it's going to leave them in the red. > I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair. What were they going to do with the others? Where do you think they could store them in a place they wouldn't get mouldy, wet, damaged, etc.? > I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner. Why is this the fault of the homeless person?
  - coremoff 6y ago
    > How much do hospitals cost where you live? I'm not saying that this person wasn't an asshole, but for many people, they see no point going to the hospital if it's going to leave them in the red. This happens even in countries with universal healthcare - the "needing money for a cab to get to the hospital" is a well known scam; the dedicated ones learn how to keep a wound open and bleeding constantly. (There was a notorious one near where I live, who managed to keep a bone exposed, allegedly - never seen him, so can't comment further on that). In London, at least, my understanding is that most homelessness is a mental health issue; support is available, but not necessarily wanted.
dillondoyle 6y ago
I give out any singles I have. I don't care if it goes to drugs/alcohol. withdrawal from some can be deadly, others torture. The homeless population here in Denver is scary.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  > I give out any singles I have. How much Kraft cheese do you keep on hand?
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    lol. provolone only my friend
ralusek 6y ago
Literally nobody says that free markets solve all problems. Also, nothing does. Lastly, homelessness is WAAAAAY more complicated than markets simply having failed these people. It's also way more complicated than saying that our social safety nets lack the resources to help these people.
- serverholic 6y ago
  Heh, you should look into Libertarianism.
lwansbrough 6y ago
> I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. Free market capitalism and social welfare are not mutually exclusive concepts.
audiometry 6y ago
Yeah the preoccupation with “how will the person use this money” I’ve done away with. I donate money to people. If it’s a scam or they use it for “unhealthy” ends, then I consider that is on them, not me. I gave the money with good intentions. I’m not tied to the outcome.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Assuming your donations are limited, a dollar given to a junkie or a scammer is a dollar not given to a hungry man.
  - treve 6y ago
    99% of the time I've heard this argument, that dollar ends up going to neither. Instead of trying to decide who is worthy of your dollar, perhaps consider what that dollar is worth to you vs. what it is worth to them. If you give them a dollar and it's spent on something you don't approve of or you think they are not deserving that on them. If you don't give them anything because you assume they might not be worthy, that's on you.
  - ARandomerDude 6y ago
    A post on HN is an educational comment not passed on to an underprivileged child. A dollar spent a moderately expensive restaurant is a dollar not spent on rice and beans, with the surplus donated to charity. If good deeds (or even neutral deeds) are scrutinized and discouraged, there will be no end of other, theoretical good deeds that might have been done, and no simple good deed will be done.
    - jojobas 6y ago
      Well if one doesn't care if their donations are used for good purposes they can as well send them to me.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    How do you determine which of the three men you pass on the street is a scammer, junkie, or hungry man? Maybe you give to a food pantry instead-- what about the people that use them for the free food but don't really need it? How do you define scammer? If a person is homeless, but holds up a gas can with a sign that says "ran out of gas please help!" then they're lying about why they need the money, but they aren't scamming in terms of not actually being homeless. What about junkies too-- they still need to eat. Absent enough money to do both, they might choose just to get high, deteriorate more, have even less chance of recovery. There's no easy litmus test here. No easy way to ensure the money you give is going to be used in the best possible way to improve someone's life.
kbutler 6y ago
I asked a panhandler what meal to order for him from the restaurant where he was begging. He ate one bite, asked me again for cash, and threw it away. Begging on the streets is unsafe for the homeless and for the public - giving that way promotes the activity. It's generally much better to give to public service organizations that can coordinate broader care. That said, if you feel you should give to someone, do it. (And I don't think anyone with even introductory economics knowledge thinks free markets solve everything.)
- fulafel 6y ago
  Of the basic needs for a person to live non-homelessly in western countries, food is probably the cheapest and easiest to come by from charity sources after water. But people unfamiliar with the life find it easiest to think about food, and if a panhandler mentions food it's often an advertising strategy. For acquiring money for living, there's a parallel to selling your services as a software developer, solving stupid programming games in the interview, even though 90% of your time is spent on things other than writing code :)
- ljf 6y ago
  To be generous to that person - it may have been that they were begging for money too eat - but to eat at a time and place of their choosing.
tiziniano 6y ago
Of course free markets cannot solve all problems. And neither can socialism or communism or any -ism. A lot of pain would be avoided if people just minded their own problems and their immediate environment's. Alas, never the case
LilBytes 6y ago
Chipotle! You animal! You're awesome. I wish people like you were more prevalent in society.
sgt 6y ago
General advice: do not give money to the homeless, just give them food. There are of course exceptions in life like with anything, but if your city has a homelessness problem then you and others will only gradually make it worse by giving money.
- justinator 6y ago
  Have you ever gotten free money in your life? Was your housing status critical in that decision?
- memetherapy 6y ago
  As someone who's been homeless (and didn't have a drink or drug problem thanks) please fuck off. A night in a shelter costs money. Clothes which regularly get stolen cost money. Going to the bathroom costs money. Having a shower costs money. Travel to find jobs costs money. Medication costs money. Toothpaste costs money.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    I presume you guys are in the US. In Europe, at least the parts where I live(d), most homeless indeed have drugs problems. There are social places where they can sleep, get clean, they help them with first steps of integration back, but its often tied to being clean from drugs. Many choose not to accept this. Then for those who reject there is free drug dispensary & usage place, we talk about proper opiates like heroin, not some weak substitutes. In our situation and location, the money isn't a solution for a beggar. Meal can be, ideally hot in the cold. Also, since we talk about Switzerland, people come from rest of Europe seasonally to beg and then go home to live off social services. Again, no reason to give money.
    - memetherapy 6y ago
      Nope I'm from the UK but we have a system that is closer to the American then the Swiss. There are services out there but they're incredibly poorly funded.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
They may be wealthy countries, but they're also capitalist countries; that mindset optimizes for profits, for return on investment, for getting the most out of a workforce for the lowest cost. Currently, and I'm not an economist so this is an armchair thing, I think two big factors are wage vs cost of living. Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation or cost of living. Job security has spiraled downwards, with employers preferring temporary, part-time or 0-hour/on-call contracts, or doing away with employees entirely and having temps or contractors instead (also looking at the gig economy here). And cost of living has skyrocketed up, it was steadily increasing in the 2000's, and after recovering from the 2008 crisis they've gone up crazily. Additional factors in that are low interest rates, meaning that on the one side mortgages have record low interest rates and on the other low risk savings accounts have no interest anymore, so people are looking to invest. Given how the prices of housing have gone up because of these factors, people see buying a house as a great investment. Anyway, all of these factors combined mean that fewer people can afford to live in a house, there's much more of the "working poor", etc etc etc.
b0rsuk 6y ago
In capitalist countries, you blame the victims - the poor - for lazyness, lack of initiative, being stupid. The problem is neatly swept away. You're not supposed to feel pity, but contempt for the poor. If you're poor, you're supposed to be ashamed or git gud. Either way you're not concerned with the conditions others live in.
imtringued 6y ago
> It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement. I consider it an existence-proof of the idea that a free market cannot solve all problems. That's wrong. The vast majority of problems with capitalism are caused by wrong policies and abuse of power. The free market is a powerful tool that can solve a lot of problems within the context of an existing system. Obviously, USA isn't known for good policies. Lots of self destructive political ideas are floating around or are already implemented. For some reason a certain group of people gets their blood pumping once there is government intervention of any kind. For them there is always too much government intervention. Except that is the wrong mode of thinking. Government intervention is not like a soup where adding too much salt makes things worse. It's not about the quantity, it's about quality. No intervention is just as bad because the free market is a machine with no human values, you have to give it human values to obtain the desired effects. Now here is where the weird things start to happen. What human values did Americans encode in their political system? Let's take California as an example. Homeownership for old residents at all costs, even when it hurts others and themselves. California has an extremely weird desire for pain. You introduce property taxes and then take them back by freezing them. What purpose does that serve? The tax money is gone but the psychological effect is still there. People will refuse to sell their house or move unless they absolutely must. They are forced to stay in a small home even when their life circumstances change and they end up with more or less room than they actually need. Children stay at home because they cannot afford to rent or to buy property with current tax rates. You even built a legacy system that lets children inherit their parent's property tax status. It's absurd. None of this has anything to do with the free market. None of it. The free market doesn't tell you to grab a knife and stab yourself. The government can tell you to stab yourself but it can also stop you. Again, the problem is extremely poor leadership, not the fact that leadership exists. Do you know what a free market solution to high housing prices is? The solution is to respond to market signals. If housing is expensive then just build more housing. It's highly profitable to do so. It doesn't matter what housing you build as long as it meets demand. People hate on luxury apartments but what they don't understand is that luxury apartments are wealth traps. They aren't entirely meant to provide housing. The unoccupied luxury apartments act as a sink for excess capital to pour into. Imagine a Chinese millionaire trying to get $10 million out of China. He could spend that money on one very expensive luxury apartment and displace nobody or he could spend it on 10 apartments and displace 10 people and drive up rents. What's your pick? If you want housing for everyone then the solution is not to ban housing via rent control. That's just plain insane. The solution is for the government to enter the housing market and provide housing at cost or for a very small margin below <10%. Providing housing at cost is not the same thing as a subsidy because the profit margins in mature industries get closer and closer to 0%. Don't subsidize housing because it restricts the amount of government housing you can provide. The government as a market participant can cut out middlemen that want their own cut and thus allows easier access to housing. Serving a basic need like housing is very easy for the government to do. The demand is easy to predict. One unit of housing can provide for x people. We have y people. Okay, so why does the government not just build more housing and let private companies build more housing? Because pain. You cannot maximize pain if you avoid harming yourself. People consider housing an investment which is just plain wrong. I'm in a 50 year old apartment and the building codes back then were just bad when it comes to electrical wiring. Why does anyone want to stay in old housing? Because it is cheap? Fine, except that goes against the idea of housing being an investment. Why would you invest into something that is losing its utility over time? If you invest into housing because of scarcity aren't you just going to create even more scarcity to further improve the value of your home? Scarce housing? Why should that even exist? Oh right. It's because commercial real estate is the only thing that actually brings in tax money. So SF has lots of commercial construction and the commutes grow longer and longer. When you consider that there is a national shift from low skilled work to high skilled work in the US this is absolutely disgusting. People have the skills to work at a good job, but they are prevented to do so by the selfish desire of a few individuals. When times are bad and people's hometown declines they are forced to move and for a lot of them their best bet is the bay area or the rest of California. All the new good jobs are in California. When you put a brake on success in urban centers you just end up with even more pain in rural places. Everyone cries gentrification when things are good but when things are truly bad nobody gives a crap except that angry billionaire with blonde hair who got his twitter account banned.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> I think homelessness due to other causes-- mental health for example- While this is not a uniquely USA thing, it is much worse in the USA: Your search terms are "Reagan mental hospital homeless" (although President Reagan doesn't actually personally carry all the blame for this) https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/ https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_leg...
mdekkers 6y ago
> It amazes me that, in wealthy countries, there are significant homelessness problems due to economic displacement I was shocked and disgusted to learn that my country of birth, The Netherlands, which is the 6th most prosperous country in the world[1], has this concept of "economic homelessness". This means that an individual or family has work and steady income, but are unable to afford rent due to a combination of politically created circumstances: lack of affordable housing, liberalisation of previously rent-controlled/social housing, and private rents running wild. This isn't just for minimum wage workers, many people at the lower end of the middle class are either unable to afford current rent, or rent takes up the vast majority of income. [1] https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=NLD&filter= https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=NLD&filter= [2] https://vng.nl/artikelen/economisch-daklozen-vallen-tussen-wal-en-schip https://vng.nl/artikelen/economisch-daklozen-vallen-tussen-w... (in Dutch)