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Loads of proposals, all missing the obvious: solve poverty. Portugal and south Europe in general suffer greatly from it. Stats make the region look good on pape

Loads of proposals, all missing the obvious: solve poverty. Portugal and south Europe in general suffer greatly from it. Stats make the region look good on paper but reality is very different.

mandelbrotwurst 3y ago
> solve poverty How?
- pxue 3y ago
  First, solve housing.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    So to solve one incredibly hard problem humanity has never solved... you need to first solve another incredibly hard problem? Well shit, get on it Portugal! /s
    - KerrAvon 3y ago
      indeed, link hands everybody, and chant with me the centrist anthem: better things aren't possible and we should just give up! better things aren't possible and we should just give up! better things aren't possible and we should just give up!
      - EA-3167 3y ago
        I think there's a vast gulf between abject pessimism, and the sort of useless optimism encapsulated in the casual statement, "Solve poverty" don't you? If someone asked you how people could live longer, you wouldn't be helpfully engaging if the response was, "Solve death."
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - jimmygrapes 3y ago
    I disagree: first, solve culture
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    Finland has solved it. In fact, you can subsidize housing costs from all the savings on healthcare costs.
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  give people money so they can buy food, clothing, and shelter. there are solutions that have worked in the past. the problem is the US center-right doesn't like them because they can be abused, and it's far worse for one person in a million to have something given to them that they don't deserve than for a million people to be helped.
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "the problem is the US center-right doesn't like them because they can be abused" What does the US center-right have to do with Portugal?
  - slashdev 3y ago
    Who’s going to pay for that? Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? There are serious problems with welfare programs. They’ve been the downfall of entire countries. Look at Argentina where the bloated government payroll can be viewed as a sort of work for welfare program. The country can’t afford it and its currency blows up on a regular basis as a result. That’s not saying you should have no welfare programs, but there’s a balance to be maintained. Probably it should be time limited so people are given a sort of “financial rehab”, but not disincentivized to work. And it shouldn’t stop if you get a job, why, just why would you want an incentive against that. Some people seem to think there can be consumption without production or life without work, but that’s logically incoherent.
    - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
      > Who’s going to pay for that? Anyone who wants to live in a better society, who realises this policy would help achieve that. > Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.
      - joiqj 3y ago
        >Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life. You'd be surprised.
- palata 3y ago
  Maybe a first step would be to prevent the ultra rich to get even richer.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Preventing the rich from getting richer does nothing in and of itself to help the poor. You might do things to help the poor that as a side effect make it harder to accrue absurd amounts of wealth, but if your goal from the outset is simply to eliminate all billionaires, there are lots of ways to do that that will only end up hurting the poor as well.
    - palata 3y ago
      Can we reasonably assume that in the idea of "looking at the ultra rich to help solving poverty", there is fundamentally an idea that... well... it should be done in a way that will help poverty? Or was it that unclear that I was talking about solving poverty, with the idea that all the money that goes for ultra rich could actually be distributed better?
      - lolinder 3y ago
        Rhetoric matters, and you didn't say "looking at the ultra rich to help solve poverty", you said "prevent the ultra rich [from] get[ting] even richer". If you had said the former, I wouldn't have objected. What you actually said felt more like class warfare than a serious proposal to help poor people.
        palata 3y ago
        It goes, literally, like this: > Solve poverty > How? > Maybe a first step would be to prevent the ultra rich to get even richer. If you can't understand the similarity between this and "looking at the ultra rich to help solve poverty", honestly I don't know what I can do.
        seventhtiger 3y ago
zoky 3y ago
The link between drug use and poverty is far from clear. While there is a correlation between drug addiction and poverty, there has not been a causal relationship shown between the two. In many cases, poverty may be a result of drug addiction rather than a cause. Consider the much talked about opioid epidemic, for example. The people getting these prescriptions tend towards middle rather than lower class. When the pill supply runs out, either because they can’t afford them anymore or can’t find a doctor to prescribe them, they turn to much cheaper and readily available street drugs like heroin, and at that point they’re more or less locked into a downward spiral into poverty. All of this is to say that if we were to somehow “solve poverty” (even putting aside the vast oversimplification made by such a statement), while it might reduce rates of drug addiction, it by no means would be an overall solution to the problem. Addiction respects no socioeconomic boundaries.
- siffin 3y ago
  The link between drug use and poverty is not relevant. It's only addiction and unhealthy drug use that are problematic. Alcohol being the number 1 problematic drug by far. You jumped through a lot of hoops to explain that there is an avenue from middle class to poverty through drugs, but any avenue from drug use to poverty pales in comparison to the avenues from poverty to drug addiction. People who have no place in society, because they have nothing worth contributing, or for whatever other reason they end up in poverty, they find good feelings and usefulness in drugs, in the participation with others in a similar position. The link between poverty and drug use is very very clear.
outworlder 3y ago
Note that Portugal has a pretty extensive safety net. Be it housing, unemployment, health care, and social assistance in general. The country has been suffering from wage stagnation, unemployment and an aging population and that's definitely reflected in stats.
Kretinsky 3y ago
Thanks, but the poor are not necessarily drug abusers. Drug abusers may fall into poverty, but not the way around. There's a wealth of drug abuse in rich societies - the fact that SF, one of the richest city on the earth, became a drug hot spot is an example.

Loads of proposals, all missing the obvious: solve poverty. Portugal and south Europe in general suffer greatly from it. Stats make the region look good on paper but reality is very different.

mandelbrotwurst 3y ago

> solve poverty How?

pxue 3y ago
First, solve housing.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  So to solve one incredibly hard problem humanity has never solved... you need to first solve another incredibly hard problem? Well shit, get on it Portugal! /s
  - KerrAvon 3y ago
    indeed, link hands everybody, and chant with me the centrist anthem: better things aren't possible and we should just give up! better things aren't possible and we should just give up! better things aren't possible and we should just give up!
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      I think there's a vast gulf between abject pessimism, and the sort of useless optimism encapsulated in the casual statement, "Solve poverty" don't you? If someone asked you how people could live longer, you wouldn't be helpfully engaging if the response was, "Solve death."
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- jimmygrapes 3y ago
  I disagree: first, solve culture
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  Finland has solved it. In fact, you can subsidize housing costs from all the savings on healthcare costs.
KerrAvon 3y ago
give people money so they can buy food, clothing, and shelter. there are solutions that have worked in the past. the problem is the US center-right doesn't like them because they can be abused, and it's far worse for one person in a million to have something given to them that they don't deserve than for a million people to be helped.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "the problem is the US center-right doesn't like them because they can be abused" What does the US center-right have to do with Portugal?
- slashdev 3y ago
  Who’s going to pay for that? Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? There are serious problems with welfare programs. They’ve been the downfall of entire countries. Look at Argentina where the bloated government payroll can be viewed as a sort of work for welfare program. The country can’t afford it and its currency blows up on a regular basis as a result. That’s not saying you should have no welfare programs, but there’s a balance to be maintained. Probably it should be time limited so people are given a sort of “financial rehab”, but not disincentivized to work. And it shouldn’t stop if you get a job, why, just why would you want an incentive against that. Some people seem to think there can be consumption without production or life without work, but that’s logically incoherent.
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    > Who’s going to pay for that? Anyone who wants to live in a better society, who realises this policy would help achieve that. > Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.
    - joiqj 3y ago
      >Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life. You'd be surprised.
palata 3y ago
Maybe a first step would be to prevent the ultra rich to get even richer.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Preventing the rich from getting richer does nothing in and of itself to help the poor. You might do things to help the poor that as a side effect make it harder to accrue absurd amounts of wealth, but if your goal from the outset is simply to eliminate all billionaires, there are lots of ways to do that that will only end up hurting the poor as well.
  - palata 3y ago
    Can we reasonably assume that in the idea of "looking at the ultra rich to help solving poverty", there is fundamentally an idea that... well... it should be done in a way that will help poverty? Or was it that unclear that I was talking about solving poverty, with the idea that all the money that goes for ultra rich could actually be distributed better?
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Rhetoric matters, and you didn't say "looking at the ultra rich to help solve poverty", you said "prevent the ultra rich [from] get[ting] even richer". If you had said the former, I wouldn't have objected. What you actually said felt more like class warfare than a serious proposal to help poor people.
      - palata 3y ago
        It goes, literally, like this: > Solve poverty > How? > Maybe a first step would be to prevent the ultra rich to get even richer. If you can't understand the similarity between this and "looking at the ultra rich to help solve poverty", honestly I don't know what I can do.
        seventhtiger 3y ago

zoky 3y ago

The link between drug use and poverty is far from clear. While there is a correlation between drug addiction and poverty, there has not been a causal relationship shown between the two. In many cases, poverty may be a result of drug addiction rather than a cause. Consider the much talked about opioid epidemic, for example. The people getting these prescriptions tend towards middle rather than lower class. When the pill supply runs out, either because they can’t afford them anymore or can’t find a doctor to prescribe them, they turn to much cheaper and readily available street drugs like heroin, and at that point they’re more or less locked into a downward spiral into poverty. All of this is to say that if we were to somehow “solve poverty” (even putting aside the vast oversimplification made by such a statement), while it might reduce rates of drug addiction, it by no means would be an overall solution to the problem. Addiction respects no socioeconomic boundaries.

siffin 3y ago
The link between drug use and poverty is not relevant. It's only addiction and unhealthy drug use that are problematic. Alcohol being the number 1 problematic drug by far. You jumped through a lot of hoops to explain that there is an avenue from middle class to poverty through drugs, but any avenue from drug use to poverty pales in comparison to the avenues from poverty to drug addiction. People who have no place in society, because they have nothing worth contributing, or for whatever other reason they end up in poverty, they find good feelings and usefulness in drugs, in the participation with others in a similar position. The link between poverty and drug use is very very clear.

outworlder 3y ago

Note that Portugal has a pretty extensive safety net. Be it housing, unemployment, health care, and social assistance in general. The country has been suffering from wage stagnation, unemployment and an aging population and that's definitely reflected in stats.

Kretinsky 3y ago

Thanks, but the poor are not necessarily drug abusers. Drug abusers may fall into poverty, but not the way around. There's a wealth of drug abuse in rich societies - the fact that SF, one of the richest city on the earth, became a drug hot spot is an example.