4 ms·

It's hard to understand how you can take this point of view if you've ever met an average poor person. (The "poor who cannot take care of themselves" are a mino

It's hard to understand how you can take this point of view if you've ever met an average poor person. (The "poor who cannot take care of themselves" are a minority who require different support) One definition of poor is that people do not have access to enough money to meet their needs. And, poor people cannot meet the needs of getting more money: tasks such as education, job search, etc, are limited by an immediate need to get rent, food, and warmth. If the government "gets out of the way", the safety net of being near-guaranteed to cover rent, food and warmth, will also quickly get out of the way, exacerbating poor peoples' problems.

bluGill 6y ago
As Adam Smith observed, excess money tends to go into rent. The poor in India sleep on a sidewalk. The poor in the US have a 2 bedroom apartment with running water and a TV. Both sets struggle to make ends meet (I struggle to make ends meet sometimes, and I'm clearly well above average in the upper middle class with 6 months of emergency savings that I dare not touch), so struggle to make ends meet is NOT what it means to be poor. Everybody will try to make their lives better. Anyone who isn't careful will end up spending so much on little things that they can't afford the basics at the end of the month. I've been poor (for the US - a much higher standard than poor elsewhere!), and I have no desire to go back. I will agree the poor who cannot take care of themselves are a minority. However I maintain that given money to the rest won't help because they will spend it on things like a nicer apartment. Worse I fear that their attempt to get a nicer apartment will make rent go up and in the end they spend more money on the same apartment - thus making that extra money an indirect handout to the rich.
- redwall_hp 6y ago
  > excess money tends to go into rent Rent-seekers will attempt to extract the maximum they can get away with. The solution is controls to prevent that. Anything that is essential (rent, utilities, food) should not be subject to the whims and greed of private interests.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Are you proposing to repeal the law of supply and demand?
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      It's unimaginative to say "we cannot do anything about this so let's do nothing". Plenty of countries' and cities' policies are successfully curbing rents and landlordism - why are you ignoring empirical evidence to make your point?
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > The poor in India sleep on a sidewalk. The poor in the US have a 2 bedroom apartment... And yet... the USA ranks higher than India in homeless people per capita, and also for street children. > However I maintain that given money to the rest won't help because they will spend it on things like a nicer apartment. And an appropriate level of heating, and healthier food, maybe. What's wrong with that?

bluGill 6y ago

As Adam Smith observed, excess money tends to go into rent. The poor in India sleep on a sidewalk. The poor in the US have a 2 bedroom apartment with running water and a TV. Both sets struggle to make ends meet (I struggle to make ends meet sometimes, and I'm clearly well above average in the upper middle class with 6 months of emergency savings that I dare not touch), so struggle to make ends meet is NOT what it means to be poor. Everybody will try to make their lives better. Anyone who isn't careful will end up spending so much on little things that they can't afford the basics at the end of the month. I've been poor (for the US - a much higher standard than poor elsewhere!), and I have no desire to go back. I will agree the poor who cannot take care of themselves are a minority. However I maintain that given money to the rest won't help because they will spend it on things like a nicer apartment. Worse I fear that their attempt to get a nicer apartment will make rent go up and in the end they spend more money on the same apartment - thus making that extra money an indirect handout to the rich.

redwall_hp 6y ago
> excess money tends to go into rent Rent-seekers will attempt to extract the maximum they can get away with. The solution is controls to prevent that. Anything that is essential (rent, utilities, food) should not be subject to the whims and greed of private interests.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Are you proposing to repeal the law of supply and demand?
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    It's unimaginative to say "we cannot do anything about this so let's do nothing". Plenty of countries' and cities' policies are successfully curbing rents and landlordism - why are you ignoring empirical evidence to make your point?
throwaway2245 6y ago
> The poor in India sleep on a sidewalk. The poor in the US have a 2 bedroom apartment... And yet... the USA ranks higher than India in homeless people per capita, and also for street children. > However I maintain that given money to the rest won't help because they will spend it on things like a nicer apartment. And an appropriate level of heating, and healthier food, maybe. What's wrong with that?