How To Eradicate Poverty

Originally Posted by Ankesh

Today is Blog Action Day - where a few thousand bloggers will post their thoughts on poverty. (http://www.BlogActionDay.org)

What do you think needs to be done to eradicate poverty completely from this world? (Or do you think its an impossible task?)

I just build and maintain websites for a living and doubt I could come up with a global solution to stop poverty. I also live in Canada. We define poverty level as a single person who makes under $27,000 per year, or a family of four who live off $42,000 or less.

I see a lot of the world governments injecting billions of dollars into the financial sector to help bail out the banks and other financial institutes... maybe I don't understand.

I'm not sure what the population is in the US (maybe 560 million?) but if they define poverty similar to Canada, why couldn't the government offer a one time $1,000,000.00 to these families but make it a condition that in order to accept it they must receive counseling on their particular situation so they can be best advised how to spend it or invest it. People who don't abide by these stipulations are ineligible for this assistance program.

For example... I know a single mother of two children who works and makes $27,000 a year. By Canadian standards her family is below the poverty level. If she had the chance to stop working and still be able to maintain her families basic needs while she went back to school to learn how to better support her family, she would become a more productive member of society by earning an income she had to pay taxes on. This helps the country out and helps her out. It also gives the kids a better chance, by Mom having the money to round out their education with extracurricular activities that can improve the knowledge and experiences of the young.

OK, well maybe this is a crazy idea and you guys can all shoot some holes in it. But I can't help but think that if you have more families that are better educated with better jobs, the country is going to have more tax money and these people are going to have more money to spend and help reduce inflation.

Our federal election was yesterday. Last week while our prime minister was handing out billions to financial institutions and millions to corporations, they gave everyone on welfare a $4 per month increase.

I'm sure I don't have all the answers -- but there are some things that need fixin'.

Regards,
Steve MacLellan

..

Don Alm

[Ankesh]

I personally think the US Govt is in a no win situation.

Because they loaned a trillion bux - people are saying its the end of capitalism as we know it.

If they would have done nothing, people would have said - the Govt is useless and spineless and is seeing the economy go to bust without doing anything about it. Its the end of capitalism as we know it.

Its a no-win situation for them.

So do you have a better solution that is win-win?

(Maybe this should have been a separate thread so that it doesn't interfere with the poverty part?)

There was a much better solution than what was done (and there were a few congressmen who actually had the guts to say this plan was horrible). Instead of just saying "we need to do something" the government should have been saying "we need to take some time and think about this thing and do the right thing".

Watch this guy's videos on youtube and take a look at his alternate plan. It wouldn't involve stealing money from US citizens and it would get rid of the problem, which isn't a problem of capital but is rather a problem involving a lack of trust.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kdenninger

Originally Posted by Ankesh

I personally think the US Govt is in a no win situation.

Because they loaned a trillion bux - people are saying its the end of capitalism as we know it.

If they would have done nothing, people would have said - the Govt is useless and spineless and is seeing the economy go to bust without doing anything about it. Its the end of capitalism as we know it.

Its a no-win situation for them.

So do you have a better solution that is win-win?

(Maybe this should have been a separate thread so that it doesn't interfere with the poverty part?)