Oh hey, also the same thing with environmental issues
Edit 3: one last edit that I’m putting at the top because I’m not sure if people are only reading part of what I’ve written, jumping to conclusions and then putting words into my mouth; or if I’ve just been very bad at conveying what I’m trying to say.
Firstly: I’m arguing from an American perspective, something I failed to specify.
Secondly: money is great, however, many people need more than money. By all means, give them money, but make sure they have other resources in case they need it. If nothing else, there are a lot of people in homelessness or poverty with serious mental health needs. Money isn’t going to help if they can’t afford healthcare.
Thirdly: I also failed to give examples of what I meant by, do something else too. I meant, cap rent, build public housing, ensure that people have access to food even when CEOs are renting out pineapples, etc.
Finally: the US runs on greed. Prices in the US are outstripping wages dramatically because CEOs realized they could charge more. I think the reason why giving money works in studies is because CEOs don’t know who’s getting the handouts; if they did, they’d absolutely try to fleece them for the assistance money. That’s why doing it universally, so that CEOs know that a lot of people are getting additional money, without any other form of assistance, will just lead to people being priced out of life again.
Not sure how much I’ll contribute or respond after this. I’m feeling kinda discouraged due to how many people are putting words in my mouth (it may be a misunderstanding, but it’s still demoralizing).
Oh my god, I’m using fish as a metaphor for money, and teaching someone to fish as a metaphor for ensuring their ability to provide for themselves. That’s what the metaphor is about. Ensuring people’s ability to provide for themselves. Is that really what y’all are confused about? If you see me referring to “fish” then I’m talking about money, not food.
I’m not convinced that just cash will solve homelessness or poverty. It may help, but it seems like a “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” kinda situation. Give people the fish so they can eat, but if you want them to actually be independent, then you gotta make sure they have the tools they need to do so.
And you know what, maybe they just are that way, maybe they’re just cursed to always be a dependent on someone. However, if that’s the case then they’re going to need way more help than just fish. In the meantime though, maybe treat them like human beings that are down on their luck but otherwise capable of supporting themselves. Yeah, make sure they have food, a roof over their head, water, toilets and so on, but don’t stop there. That’s why I’m saying this, there may be people who see your post and think that just throwing money at the problem will make it go away. It’ll help, but it’s not gonna fix it 100%.
Edit: I’m not sure why it’s controversial to say that people need more help than just money. Personally? If I was homeless or in poverty, I’d want more than just money. Like, I’m not saying to not give people who are homeless or in poverty money, but what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t stop there.
Edit 2: I don’t understand why people are so confused here. I’m not saying it won’t work for some people, but there are people that it won’t work for. To repeat something I said further along, in my experience, there are people who take these things literally. In my experience, there are people who would look at this meme, say, “sounds good, let’s do that” and then get mad when it doesn’t work for everyone.
I’m not saying that money won’t help a lot of people; it would. It’s just that there are people who will take this literally and believe it’s the only thing you have to do.
I’m not convinced that just cash will solve homelessness or poverty. It may help, but it seems like a “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” kinda situation. Give people the fish so they can eat, but if you want them to actually be independent, then you gotta make sure they have the tools they need to do so.
I think the reason you’ve taken so much flak is that money isn’t fish. Money can be converted into tools. Yes, of course you’re right that some people won’t use the money in a way which will end their homelessness, and may benefit from ‘other programs’. But the meme was specifically about people objecting to the idea of giving poor people money so that they can solve their own problems. Rolling out ‘other programs’ is great, but the ‘other programs’ will be much more effective if they’re not clogged with people that can solve their own problems with a bit of cash.
Right… But they gotta be able to afford to continually afford those tools. Rich people try to suck at much money out of people as possible. The moment they hear that poor people are receiving money is the moment they smell blood in the water. They’ll just hike up prices in response. That’s why I’m not convinced that throwing money at poor people will work.
It’s not their fault.
They didn’t do anything wrong.
It’s the rich people who are the problem.
Get rid of the rich people or their ability to price people out of life and boom! Now the money you give poor people will remain effective. Otherwise they might be able to buy tools today, but the money might not be enough to buy tools again tomorrow.
Most people who are homeless were a paycheck or two away from homelessness.
It’s easier for the housed to become homeless, than for the homeless to become housed. It’s systemic, and a good chunk of it is employers mistreating employees.
Okay, and? Again, some people are gonna need more than just money. Furthermore, money doesn’t help the fact that they’re being overcharged for rent, food, healthcare, whatever. Give them money and the prices will just go up. You have to address the cause too.
The cause is doofuses saying crap like “don’t raise the minimum wage, it’s inflationary” so that the corporations get away with hunger wages. Countries with significantly higher minimum wages famously don’t have significantly more expensive burgers.
That’s because they go the extra mile and do things like cap rent and shit. If you want to solve poverty, that’s the kind of thing you have to do. The US is run on greed, which is why prices are rising faster than inflation, but wages aren’t even keeping up with inflation.
So what on earth made you think that giving money to poor people would be the cause of inflation?! I’ll tell you what, it’s corporations spending a lot of money and time buying politicians who will parrot their line that raising the minimum wage will make inflation get out of control, whereas the main thing they’re worried about is not making quite such astronomical profits. MW has barely changed in the USA over decades but has risen much more elsewhere. If the theory were right, USA would have been largely free of inflation and the rest of western democracies would be far worse, but I’m fact inflation is bad everywhere. Why? Corporate greed. Poor regulation. International tax avoidance.
US dollars make up nearly 60% of the world’s reserve currency. I could be mistaken here, but my understanding is that means a significant chunk of the world is using the USD as a significant part of their currency standard (#2 is the euro with just under 20%). As such, if I understand correctly that means that if the US dollar undergoes inflation, then the rest of the world will experience at least some inflation as well.
MW has barely changed in the USA over decades but has risen much more elsewhere. If the theory were right, USA would have been largely free of inflation…
This is only true if you look at federal minimum wage. Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, but most US cities have an official or unofficial minimum wage of $15/hr. I think that shift happened about 10yrs ago, and afaik nothing’s changed since then.
Why? Corporate greed. Poor regulation. International tax avoidance.
Exactly. They knew they could charge more, and so they did. That’s what inflation is. Everyone realized they could charge more, so they did. The dollar decreased in value because prices went up across the board.
Inflation.
Seriously? You went from giving some homeless people enough money to get accommodation and food to a global inflation crisis?
I mean ,that’s some really absurd fear mongering right there.
You’ve got to be a Republican if you can swallow or invent nonsense like that. No, global inflation crises are caused by corporate reactions to war and stock market scares, not by charity projects.
Who the f*** ever heard of the global RedCross inflation crisis of 1987?! There wasn’t one!
The World Food Programme guacamole price hike of 2014?! There wasn’t one!
The International Rescue Committee credit crunch of 2018? There wasn’t one!
The The World Health Organization cancer treatment rising expense scandal of 2023? There wasn’t one!Why didn’t these things happen?
Because giving people in dire straights enough to get them back on their feet IS NOT a cause of any kind of inflation. Stop making out that your crazy catastrophe theories are even slightly plausible,
Charitable crisis solving is safe. It’s unequivocally good for the economy. Keeping people on the streets and hence out of work is bad for the economy. Alleviating abject poverty is unequivocally GOOD.
Research seems to show that a lot of people just need a small step up to get back on track.
So you basically just did the meme.
What about the people that don’t? That’s what I’m saying. Yes, it’ll help significantly, but the meme is presenting it as if it’s the only solution.
No, it’s presenting as the “primary” solution, which it is.
So start by throwing money at the problem, then see what’s left.
The meme literally says,
“How do we solve poverty”
Research: give poor people money
“Maybe with cheap canned food?”
Research: no, just give them money
“I have old clothes I hate now. I bet giving them away would help!”
Research: No…
“Budget lessons!”
Research: fuck you guys.
It literally says, “no, just give them money.”
The reason why I’m hung up on this is because the meme is trying to be informative and funny at the same time but imo it misses the mark because it oversimplifies the issue. It’s literally saying that you just give money to poor people and poverty goes away; but that’s not how that works. It may help reduce poverty, but capitalists will just raise prices again and now you’re back at square one.
Edit: expanded a sentence (in bold).
So it’s best to leave the money where it is then?!? WTF? You think that corporations raise prices in order to prevent homeless people from buying their products? What kind of crazy logic is that?
Your solution is literally just “give money”? That only works in some instances, where a person is struggling because of bad luck or whatever, but has a desire to improve their situation. But if they are a substance abuser or are mentally ill, money isn’t going to help like housing would, since they either don’t know what to do with it, or they prioritize drugs over shelter.
And most cases of substance abuse come from people living in a society with no community and no safety nets. Even if you give everyone a thousand bucks a month but society is stil hell, it solves very little.
