Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth(cardsagainsthumanityredistributesyourwealth.com) |
Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth(cardsagainsthumanityredistributesyourwealth.com) |
A lot of hardworking people don't want handouts from the government. Though some do, but I believe they are a minority. I generally hate the mindset of wanting money from the government. I want off of the government if I can help it.
The fact is that most Americans pay virtually no federal income tax, and get money back during their returns. When I was starting out and made the median income level for the state I was living in at the time, I still paid no tax (outside of SALT) and got a return larger than what I paid in. People don't realize the government already heavily subsidizes the poor and as well as people well above the poverty line.
This is not really true. Especially when you also look at payroll taxes which are, for all intents and purposes, income taxes.
When I...made the median income level for the state I was living in at the time, I still paid no tax (outside of SALT) and got a return larger than what I paid in.
This is highly unlikely to be true. I'm sure you remember it this way but without supporting data it is very hard to believe.
I won't dismiss the fact that this is good PR for CAH, but it is still morally-motivated positive impact for some fixed number of people. A company took some profit they had and exceptionally distributed to some of their less fortunate customers.
Don't immediately react and reply that this is gameable. Don't immediately react and reply that this isn't scalable.
Pause for a second and think about why this is necessarily coming from a game company that's small and makes a crude product. Think about why something like this shouldn't be coming from an entity with much more power to effect positive social or economical change.
And if you're part of one of those powers, can you do something?
I agree that positivity is important. Certainly, let us take a moment to genuinely appreciate what they’ve done here to help 100 people!
Now, since this is such a good thing they’ve done on a small scale, let’s scale this kind of help to EVERYONE who is in need! That would be truly awesome.
Oh wait, sorry — it looks like we can’t actually have that problem-solving discussion here, because you shut down the dialog by banning the topic. What you did there — see, that is “objectively a bad thing”.
Seriously though, you cannot really expect people to shut down productive problem-solving discussion, on a forum meant for exactly that. In fact, I believe inspiring discussion and problem solving towards scaling this concept is exactly what Cards Against Humanity wants to happen as a result of this!
I'll admit I was dismissive in my attempt at brevity so thank you for challenging me.
I didn't intend to shut down discussion. I was countering the flood of commentary around what I perceived as issues ancillary to the actual topic.
On the topic of scalability, I might been too dismissive, but I'd rather focus on the positivity of the topic as a whole, lamoon its impact, even if localized, and then secondarily bring up the topic of scalability.
I was intentionally stark because I recognize HN as being highly volatile. Top-level commentary often controls the conversation and I'd rather validate the topic than waste nuance in pessimistic challenges.
Could you please defend this assertion? They themselves admit that their redistribution method is flawed (see the FAQ).
I see this as an empty publicity stunt and something that doesn't help in the least.
First, I chose the word "objectively" in the sense that win/wins are still possible in consumeristic markets. I think most businesses would have taken a flexible $100k USD and spent it on marketing or expansion or something. The fact that this was distributed freely to people who self-identified as having use of it is good.
Second, flawed/unfair/biased/imperfect does not mean that something can't have net gains. Just because a company recognizes and discloses their faults, that shouldn't dismiss them from credibility. I'd rather a service that promises 99.5% availability than no service at all (or worse, a service that doesn't disclose their reliability).
Third, I think that the public, publicized, monetary actions of a trendy business have an additional non-material benefit. On top of any fiscal commentary about this bit, CAH is quite popular, and they have enough financial leeway to make a statement. This statements is "we are a business. we have knowledge that some of our customers have a greater need than others. we are making a decision to help those people with greater need".
Their statement is no more prescriptive than that. But damn if it doesn't make me question every other wildly profitable business, including the corp I work for.
You spoke to the 100 people and found it didn't help them?
I think this is a good thing that a private company is doing. They're benefitting from PR, but they're also using their stance on the capital and renown front to make a statement that it's cool to help out people who need help. Oh and also they're using their own cash to do that.
They didn't say fuck anyone and they didn't say fuck capitalism.
If anything, they're optimizing for capitalism: "people who care about the emotional plight of individuals in need would probably react positively to us publicly helping them out... and be more likely to buy our product."
To those seeking to criticize, it was not meant to be a perfect example of anything. It is also very relevant that this was done by a company who could have kept that money and sent a Christmas card with something snarky, and it would not have hurt their bottom line.
One of the coolest things I've read in a long time.
+1 this
I feel like we tend to demonize incremental progress in favor of easy criticism.
Let's maybe ask: "Is this a Good Thing? Is it better than nothing? Is it better than than yesterday's suggestion?"
If you answer no to any of those, shut the fuck up with your criticism and start working on the next iteration.
And i don't in any way mean this as a criticism. There's a lot of benefit to be had in experimenting with non-perfect ways to help the poor, but way too often those projects are criticized harshly for being imperfect. I love that CaH is able to do this.
Yikes. I certainly got a laugh out of that, then an overly reflective period of what I'm grateful for, especially the benefits afforded from being north of the border.
The short-term impact of unconditional cash transfers to the poor< https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/publications/Haushofer_Shapi... >
> We find that treatment households increased both consumption and savings (in the form of durable good purchases and investment in their self-employment activities). In particular, we observe increases in food expenditures and food security, but not spending on temptation goods. Households invest in livestock and durable assets (notably metal roofs), and we show that these investments lead to increases in revenue from agricultural and business activities, although we find no significant effect on profits at this short time horizon. We also observe no evidence of conflict resulting from the transfers; on the contrary, we report large increases in psychological wellbeing, and an increase in female empowerment with a large spillover effect on non-recipient households in treatment villages. Thus, these findings suggest that simple cash transfers may not have the perverse effects that some policymakers feel they would have, which has led to a clear policy preference for in-kind or skills transfers [...] and conditional transfers.
EDIT: Added link to GD.
They've been on GiveWell's list of recommended charities for 6 years now: https://www.givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=434250678224991586...
I particularly like their commitment to producing evidence on the effectiveness of direct cash transfers. They see direct cash transfers as an important benchmark against which other charities should compare.
Full disclosure: I'm one of the UK trustees.
Donate here (US, tax deductible): https://www.givedirectly.org/give-now
Donate here (UK, with Giftaid): https://www.givedirectly.org/uk
$0.91 of every $1.00 dollar ends up in the hands of the poor.
I noticed something worrying about myself when reading these stories. A small voice in the back of my head judged a lot of these people. Those who say they will use it for gifts, travel or other things I apparently deem frivolous. It is not okay of me to think these things. These people deserve happiness, and these people can make their own choices. This disdain is something I really wanna work on. :(
And then I realized that these are the things they’re stressing about. It’s nice to think those will be one less stressor in a life full of stressful things. Which I think is good - if only for the mental win of not having to worry about X.
Way to go CAH - you got me thinking. And this time it wasn’t about something I had to go look up on urban dictionary.
Before you judge, ask yourself how you would spend the $15.
The biggest 3 points were census information from addresses (median income/percentage below poverty line), race/gender/education plus BLS statistics, and occupation (combined with median income for that job from BLS.)
I'm glad this year they're not literally throwing money into a hole...err..dig a hole.
Does this give insight into the fact that under certain circumstances, we are post-dotcom (as a critical tool for branding)?
Their regular domain is quite long too: https://www.cardsagainsthumanity.com/
(and is definitely not as friendly to the eyes as something like: cah.[trendy-extension])
It's one of the 5 pillars of Islam. One has to give 2.5% of their wealth to poor. It's compulsory unlike Sadaqah - Charity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaqah ).
I guess if everyone followed just this 2.5% rule, there wouldn't be any poor left in the world (I didn't do the math though).
P.S. When I say poor, I'm not referring to people who cannot afford the new iPhone.
http://www.cameroncad.org/cadclientdb/propertymap.aspx
Tarpon Haven Subdivision
Edit: There's also two huge tracts of land above that subdivision that are also owned by the US. I'm not sure they even need to go through that subdivision if they wanted to just build a wall through the land the government already owns.
That's rather... ineffective.
Sometimes work just seems like random people fighting tooth and nail to earn millions. It would be interesting to see everyone's reasons for acting that way. I bet it usually boils down to "it's for my family". But the real truth there is, having a happy family does not require millions.
What if $15 means something different to people with fungible assets* vs. those where money is tight.
*: HN population
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that all pictures of the $1000 winners have women.
Plus, while Pedro and Ian have women on the pictures, it sounds like those were sent after receiving the gifts, so that couldn't have been part of the selection process.
Plus the trans individuals, whose identity or desired direction of transition I won't guess.
At the end of the day, who even gives a shit who they're helping? It's a private, for profit company sacrificing profits and trying to do "good", as seen through their own lens. Power to them.
On another note, I can understand why single moms would have more expenses. But why would a woman who is not a mom have more expenses?
As far as the border property, I wish more people of consequential power/capital would follow their lead and buy up border property. The wall is preposterous and any form of resistance is credible in my eyes.
Why? This site is obviously biased, but it presents a case for the wall saving us money: https://cis.org/Report/Cost-Border-Wall-vs-Cost-Illegal-Immi...
I'd rather spend money on dumb, long-term tech like that instead of our ridiculous military budget.
The wall was certainly a success for San Diego: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxhhjfiSy2Y
I'm amazed this isn't a bigger issue politically. Nutrition is a huge driver of health inequality. In 50 years the obesity rate has quadrupled. A return to the eating habits of the 1960s is perhaps the greatest possible welfare achievement right now (in the US), with impact far larger than universal healthcare. And it doesn't need to cost anything.
Nice sentiment though, and that counts for something.
The average American is incomparable wealthy compared to the average African, and you can on average save a life for only a few $thousand to one of Givewell's top recommended charities.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cards-against-humanity...
I've been concealing cancer symptoms for years, mostly because I can't afford to get a colonoscopy. Even the cheapest clinics run well over $1k, which is totally out of reach.
The secondary reason is an unhealthy fear of needles and a desire to live without a colostomy bag.
I know I need to see a psychiatrist or a therapist to help me get over these irrational fears, but you guessed it: I can't afford to. I make just enough not to be covered by any of the ACA's tiers, which means it'd be $400/mo for health insurance. It's like.. $400/mo? Do you have any idea what I could buy with $400/mo? I'd be able to afford to eat as much meat as I want to, let alone health insurance.
So yeah, just barely treading water down here in the good ol' USA. Cheers from down south.
(I'm not jealous, to be clear. Hopefully we'll get our stuff sorted out someday.)
I realise this isn't the only problem, but with a fear of needles you will be more likely to make bad decisions for your health than you would otherwise make.
I know because I resisted life changing medication for several years because it required regular blood tests.
About 18 months ago I decided I didn't want to do that anymore and sought help for my phobia. I was at the stage that one of my biggest fears was having an accident and waking up attached to IVs. I would likely have hit someone who would come at me with a needle. I would leave the room if someone had a fake needle pen (trigger warning: https://cdn.thisiswhyimbroke.com/images/syringe-pens1-640x53...). I would cover the backs of my hands involuntarily just having a conversation about needles.
I saw a therapist (on the NHS, free) for 8 sessions over the course of about 3 months, who guided me through a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), in my last session I held a needle (with it's cap on). Afterwards I was able to continue applying the techniques I learnt in therapy, and got better to the point where I started having blood tests in July. I've since had 7 blood tests and have been noticeably more able to cope with each one.
This is a fixable problem. This isn't part of you, it's just a bug in your brain, and CBT is a technique that you can learn to train your brain to work around the bug. There's a ton of evidence behind it, we know it works, it really is just this "one weird trick".
I highly recommend trying it, and while I was taught it by a trained professional, I suspect you'd be able to get significant value out of reading online. Find someone who can learn with you and have them keep you on track.
I say all this as someone who is skeptical of "therapy" and as someone who has seen very clear progress from CBT. It works, it's supported in research. Don't let a phobia be the reason you don't get medical help. If there are other reasons then tackle them, but a phobia will give you a reason not to even try so fix it.
Feel free to email me if you want to chat.
If you haven't gone to see any doctor at all (and presuming one visit won't bankrupt you), you really should. They don't have to perform any procedure or examination you don't want them to and they're very understanding of people's phobias.
If you have gone and you know for sure you need a colonoscopy then yeah, I'm not sure what to say. It's an awful situation to be in choosing between debt and healthcare. I hope things work out for you and you can get some help.
You want to die? Because this is how you die. Even if you can be saved, the longer you wait, the more expensive the fix. You know, ounce of prevention, pound of cure.
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/congrats-canadians-youre-worl...
America has truly failed these people.
1) Healthy food where I live is much more expensive than unhealthy food. I get that in SF and NYC, it's possible to buy such food at Asian grocers for a reasonable cost, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have an Asian grocer on their corner. So they'll need more money.
2) On a related note, many poor neighborhoods don't even have a grocery store within walking distance, and many poor Americans own no car.
3) Unless somehow the food is pre-cooked (unlikely), they'll need the time to prepare it. Many poor people work 2 jobs, and I know of some single mothers working 2 FT minimum-wage jobs. These are investment banker hours. They don't have time to cook.
4) Many poor people also don't have working stoves/ranges, just microwaves or hot plates. It's much harder to cook healthy food in microwaves, although it can be done.
5) The also need to learn how to cook new healthy foods, which isn't always easy.
6) Finally, and this is a big one, but it's very stressful to live life as a poor American. Many people both rich and poor stress eat, so that is another factor here.
Anyway, not sure what you're suggesting, but if it's just that someone needs to tell those poor people to eat better, it's not always so easy. But I do agree with you it would be great if it were possible to work on some of the challenges above. 3)
96.6% of US households below the poverty level have a working stove.
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/censu...
You are talking about so called food deserts. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this hypothesis. Here is a good academic article that is representative:
http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2015/10/26/if-you-build-it-th...
You are comparing a concrete policy with a policy outcome for which there is no even remote concept of a policy mechanism that would achieve it.
> And it doesn't need to cost anything.
Massive changes to behavior are not free; the changes in eating habits that happened since the 1969s were driven by a number of economic and other factors, and counteracting all those factors to drive people back to 1960s eating habits would not be cheap.
But there's a large distance between that and having enough money to fund every level on Maslow's hierarchy, and there's a larger distance between even that and not noticing a $15 expenditure at all. Maybe they have a budget for things that make life worth living, things other than ramen and a cardboard box, and they spent $15 out of that.
Anyway, my point was that I don't think "lack of money" is a very instructive way of looking at poverty. If these people are so poor yet have $15 for an impulse buy do you think giving them $1000 is going to change their life? Probably not. Education and building better habits would really help them a lot more. They could save $1000 or probably a lot more and really turn their life around.
It's a "complicated promotion" and in this phase they are redistributing wealth to the poorest of the group who paid -- not to the poorest people in the country. I had originally thought that people were signing up with the hopes of getting a payback -- some kind of horrible poorest person wins the pot kind of game. But this is literally, "Pay us $15 and we will do something crazy with it". So far the other things they have done is bought up land to try to interfere with Trump's wall between the US and Mexico (and built a trebuchet), and set up a "good news only podcast" (and sent out stickers).
Most people in the US have discretionary spending even if they are poor. $15 to participate in crazy stunts to "save America"? Certainly there are people who can not afford that, but I don't think that was ever the point.
Edit: Is $1000 potentially life changing for people who are not in abject poverty. I think point is: yes. They point out that half of Americans do not have any emergency money at all. So you don't even need to be in poverty to be living hand to mouth. Will $1000 realistically change that? Clearly not. But the whole thing is a bit tongue in cheek.
I blame this lack of financial education on our failing high schools and bad parenting. And a stigma against judging others for poor financial choices (I see people in this thread lauding the gifts the charity recipients plan to buy).
Your comment makes me think we really are worse off than many people are aware of.
1: https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
It's incredible how humans do this.
Doing something for some people and is better than the status quo but instead we lambast them for not doing even more.
Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10367855
Actually, it's an emergent phenomenon!
A poor person can spare little, a comfortably off person can spare more. If you really want to increase the charitable givings of a population, decreasing wealth disparity and making more people feel comfortable about their finances (ie. redistributing wealth), is a pragmatic way to do it.
The more I have, the more I give. The more the general population has, the more they will give.
Everyone ultimately has to focus on themselves in hard times. Want to increase charitable givings? Make it easy to be charitable.
If there is an overpopulation of deer, we don't put big buckets of feed in the forest to support them. But for the human animal, that is exactly what we do.
I know this is a taboo subject, but I think that we may be creating more misery by giving charity, then by doing nothing.
Using the absolute population size? If so, is America far more "overpopulated" compared to every other developed nation? If China were to split up into 20 sovereign nations, would it suddenly stop being overpopulated?
Or perhaps you're using population density? If so, Taiwan, South-Korea and Netherlands must be absolute cesspools to live in, since they all have population densities higher than India's.
Or more likely, you think that a country is overpopulated because it has a lot of poor people? If so, that sounds like a mighty fine circular reasoning. "Why is XYZ so poor? Because they are overpopulated." "What makes you say they are overpopulated? Because they are so poor."
Charity is very much better than doing nothing.
they found a good thing to do. The fact that there are other good things they could have done doesn't make this less good.
There are a lot of things, like civil defense and firefighting and road building, that historically started working more reliably when they became government-run instead of depending on volunteers or private industry. What makes charity different?
I interpreted GPs comment as an indictment of NH's policy of banning political news items, not as blaming you for shutting down the current discussion.
I didn't say there weren't.
I said that there was no policy mechanism identified to acheive the goal of returning to 1960s eating habits.
> Further, allow insurers, medicaid, etc surcharge for the obese
Especially in the case of Medicaid, which is a safety net program for the medically indigent, this is nothing short of murderous.
- regulate advertisements for unhealthy foods, especially ads targeted at children
- ban vending machines (and candy sales) on school campuses
- implement sugar taxes similar to cigarette taxes
Like you, I wish they taught a lot of these skills in high school, but just like the math they teach in high school -- it will be out of reach for a lot of people. Those are the people who need the skills the most. We could stand in judgement over those people, but to what purpose? The solution is far more complex than it appears.
As I get older, though, I am confronted with the spectre of real poverty. What happens when you get ill and you can't afford the treatment? What happens if you live in a country where there is no social net to fall back upon? And as I've watched friends that I grew up with start to suffer from mental illness, what happens when your own brain betrays you?
No amount of skills will save you from these plagues. Unless you are mercifully run over by a number 72 bus while you are in your prime, eventually you too will succumb. When you are beyond your ability; have reached the ends of your wits and don't know what to do; how do you want others to act?
If you have ideas, I'm all ears, believe me.
If you haven't already, I highly suggest you look into these clinics.
'First, I chose the word "objectively" in the sense that win/wins are still possible in consumeristic markets.'
Well, I think most economists will tell you that almost every non-forced transaction in a consumeristic market is a win-win. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen! You have $x, but you want to have whatever I'm selling more than you want to have those $x, therefore we make the trade. I, alternatively, prefer the money. If there's no win-win here, then the transaction wouldn't happen in the first place.
"This statements is "we are a business. we have knowledge that some of our customers have a greater need than others. we are making a decision to help those people with greater need". Their statement is no more prescriptive than that. But damn if it doesn't make me question every other wildly profitable business, including the corp I work for."
That's sincerely very nice of them. It really is. They're giving up some of their own hard-earned money in order to give to others, and I applaud them for it.
However, don't give up on all corporations just yet. Corporations are in a very different position, at least large, public ones, because they're not wholly owned by a few people who can decide to give some of their money to charity. They're owned by huge numbers of shareholders. (A lot of which are members of the public, investing through pensions funds and the like).
Who exactly should be making the decision to e.g. donate money to charity, instead of making more money? The individual shareholders are completely free to do this with their own money, and many do - but why should the company itself do it? If I were a shareholder, I'd want the company to mostly maximize profit, then decide in private how I'd like to donate to charity. For many reasons, not least of which is that I'd probably donate to GiveWell or something similar, rather than to a few random people who happen to like CAH.
Anyway, I really can't say it better than Milton Friedman, so if you're interested, I suggest you read his words on the subjcet: https://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/f...
Better said here [0]: “Economics is plagued by the spurious exactness of mathematics. It neglects human behaviour and grovels before its paymasters in government and commerce. Its forecasting is as much use as Mystic Meg and the astrologers.”
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/06/econom...
Maybe economics, like most science, doesn't get everything right, and there are certainly still tons open questions. But how far would such an attitude take me for other disciplines?
But, what about the rest of it? Do you agree that people breed themselves to the natural edge of starvation? Would it be better to give them the means to have even more kids, perpetuating the cycle, or let them be?
Nicholas Kristof actually had a great article on this very topic, which will restore your faith in humanity: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/opinion/sunday/good-news-...
Before I switched diets a month ago, I had blood about 80% of the time. It's ... Mixed in, and dark, as opposed to bright red and on the surface. Meaning whatever it is, it's deep inside my intestinal tract.
Since a month ago I've seen it only once. I'm holding out hope it's just a stomach ulcer or some weird thing involving sugar. Cutting that crap completely seemed to help.
But that's homeopathy, not medicine. I need to get scoped out to figure out what's up.
Those needles though...
https://scottgriddle.com/blog/dealing-with-my-needle-make-th...
https://medium.com/@sgriddle/im-35-and-i-may-suddenly-have-l...
I read that and think "I'd rather die of cancer," but then I read about what it's like and realize it's just a mental hangup. Pretty powerful one though. I think the author probably delayed getting checked for similar reasons.
Go to a doctor immediately. There is no way that old blood mixed with stool is from a stomach ulcer. In fact, that’s not how it works anyway (upper gastrointestinal bleeds are modified by stomach acid and enzymes and have a characteristic effect on stool that we call Malena). You may have one of many different things, the most serious of which is, as you fear, a cancer, but the differentials run through benign polyps and vascular malformations.
I understand that you live in a country where you have to make practical choices about your engagement with healthcare VS putting food on the table but if you play your game slightly further out (ie add in the future value of the rest of your life VS the opportunity cost of a colonoscopy soon) it doesn’t make sense. You have a pressing and urgent need to attend to a doctor for referral for colonoscopy
What do I do? Show up and say "There's no way I can ever pay for this, but see me anyway"? I literally have no idea, and I'd feel like a complete scumbag for doing that.
I know it's pressing and urgent, there's just... It's societal pressure. Am I really going to stare at the receptionist and say "No, I won't give you my debit card info; yes, I want you to see me anyway"? They'll tell me to GTFO.
Would it be ok if I send you an email?
On costs: have you investigated going to an emergency room to be seen for blood in stool? Under Federal law, you have the right to screening, emergency care, and transfer to appropriate followup facilities regardless of ability to pay. It's possible you could at least get a diagnosis at an ER, and perhaps a full colonoscopy as part of that.
On needles: I don't have fear of needles, so I have no 'been there, done that' recommendations. However, there are effective oral anxiolytics that would probably reduce your anxiety enough to get past needle insertion. These might be combined with oral sedatives as well.
On the actual colonoscopy: I've had three. They've all been completely routine and painless. The first time, my doc asked me if I wanted to stay awake and follow the colono-tour on a video monitor, which I did. It was fascinating. For the others, I decided I'd seen it before and chose to not be a tourist, so I was sedated (Versed, I think).
My brother had intestinal cancer. He had a short bowel resection over 40 years ago and he's been fine since. No colostomy bag, no hassles, just 4 more decades of good life. Good outcomes do happen.
I hope you can get care very soon. Best of luck.
But no, other than my personal experience, I have no data to support my claim. Just as you have none to support your counter-claim.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/about-40-economics-ex...
But in any case, among all the factors I listed, I agree that it's probably the smallest factors. In fact, I didn't even initially list that factor, and only came back and inserted it after my initial post. So the fact that it's a small factor doesn't refute any of the other ones.
Last comment from me. You go ahead and rebut all you want. But if you think getting poor people to eat better is just a matter of educating them and instilling a sense of self-discipline, you're quite wrong. Like many difficult problems, this one has multiple causal factors.
Oh, hmm.. How about hamburger then? Same story.
$1k would absolutely be a lifechanger. I'd be able to go get my colonoscopy that I desperately need, or be able to at least go to a therapist to help get over my fear of needles in preparation for that.
You bet I'll drop $15 on CAH. I'm not going to deny myself entertainment just because there are other things I need.
Look at it this way: $15 is a one-time expense. Health insurance is $400/mo.
And I'm not even that poor. I'd rather the $1k go to someone who needs it more than me.
The "wealth distribution" is entirely at CAH's expense. They only surfaced that language because they made a point of communicating to the non-recipients that they wouldn't be receiving anything on top of their original contract (of getting the game for cash, which they totally got).
They "Deserve To Taste Something Other Than Shame", by Ijeoma Oluo: https://theestablishment.co/poor-people-deserve-to-taste-som...
I realize I didn't clarify explicitly. While I'd agree that a one-time $15 gamble would be an irrationally exorbitant expense if it was in place of a family meal, I think we're talking about different things.
Even if "poor people" were <$1000 away from financial ruin, $15 towards a reusable entertainment asset is quite different than $15 towards one-off lottery tickets.
I don't refute your points. they may be valid. they may not. I merely urge reflection that actual human behavior that directly contradicts economic models.
As to Friedman: > "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
How's that going for the planet? While he dismisses social issues as "catchwords" we are now living with the very real repercussions.
>"The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. "
This implies that organization doesn't add any multiplier and is merely a sum of its funds. Even the market sees beyond that argument by valuing companies at multiples of its cash and assets. So he's ignoring or discounting the disproportionate impact that an organization can have far exceeding the sum of the individual actors.
> "civil servants ... must be elected through a political process.
I wonder what Mr. Friedman would think of the influence of corporate funds in the US political decision of late. Seems to blur his lines quite a bit.
>"the great virtue of private competitive enterprise–it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to "exploit" other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes."
When I was 17 I read Atlas Shrugged, too, and thought every individual could succeed on their own actions and effort. Then I lived in reality.
EDIT: typos and formatting
You can go to a movie. Are you going to really fault someone for that, or taking their partner to a restaurant, using what little they have, to just try and forget how bad things are for a few hours?!
It's not like they can just stop being poor.
But, when the topic of wealth redistribution comes up I do start to have a lot more questions about what people want to do with the money. After all, it's not their money. They didn't earn it. Somebody else did. I think it's pretty fair to at least have the conversation. I absolutely hate the "helpless poor people" trope and the idea that if they just had more money everything would be better. How often do good and well meaning ideas have horrible and long lasting consequences that were not intended.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/08/23/214210692/the-...
There's actually a mounting volume of convincing evidence that cash grants to poor people are much more effective than random charity programs of equivalent value. Because poor people often know what they need more than some paper pusher in a faraway city.
And what exactly does Zuckerburge do earn the millions he makes every year? Personally, nothing. Everything him and Gates et. al. did was leverage the capital of people they convinced to work for them.
When I worked in an office in Seattle where a 1/bdr was $1800/month, I would watch a janitor come around each day and empty my trash can. I'm sure he made a fraction of what I did, but honestly, I'm sure he did more work .. or at least the same amount. What I do is more difficult, and I was lucky to be raised in a family that had the means to send me to college and I was lucky to pick a career field that earned me that money.
So much of what we have isn't earned. It's more by chance. The major determining factor in your succeeding (school, career, etc.) is determined before you are born. If you're born into poverty, it is very very difficult to get out.
To quote George Carlin, it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it.
This is why government is best left to handle things that cannot be adequately done without a central command, like keeping the military forces, or collecting taxes. It can also step in where private or public efforts fail, but don't expect it to be as efficient.
I think that's the big difference with things like defense at scale. You don't need war to be cheap, or to optimize dead enemies per dollar; you just need a guarantee that if someone attacks you anywhere and in any manner, there will always be some sort of armed force to defend you. Central command is nice but not necessary. Same with roads; central command is certainly unnecessary, but having reliable nationwide roads is better for a society than intermittent roads where they're profitable.
Do you believe that govermment-run charity will be less reliable than the status quo; that is, do you believe it will help less people? Why?
(I'm not asking about whether it's moral, just whether it works.)
The expense is not always monetary. While US clinics ask exorbitant amounts of money, clinics in certain countries with universal healthcare ask for large amounts of time. You need a surgery? Please wait 4-6 months. (E.g. https://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/global-patient-wait-...)
and? I never said capitalism didn't require any guardrails. Stop straw-manning other people.
> The US is wealthy because it extracted it's wealth from the suffering of others worldwide.
Why is Japan wealthy? South Korea? European countries? Is this the social justice theory of economics? There's not much evidence for that theory. It's pretty clear that capitalism (with appropriate guardrails and the rule of law) is wildly more successful than its alternatives. I think you're trying to argue that capitalism is beside the point and it's war and oppression that creates wealth. That's obviously nonsense.
The US has spent trillions of dollars over the years trying to convince everyone that socialism can't work by making sure it doesn't work. It seems absolutely unscientific to ignore that.
In any case, I am not asking about the abolition of private property, just about government-mandated charity at scale. Let's say you get a marginal tax of 100% on salaries over $200K, and on wealth over $10M. That's more private property than most Americans will ever have in their life. Is tbat proven to fail? Where and how?
Except for Leninism and it's descendents, where has socialism of any kind been tried and failed?
Although you did say 'very' poor people, this was the thought that popped into my mind.
If you won't get insurance, apply for financial aid in the healthcare system you use. They'll cover most or all of the cost based on hardship if your situation is that bad. Once you're received financial aid, it will probably apply for most of your medical expenses for several months to a year. Call various healthcare systems in your area to see what charity/financial aid programs they offer.
If you don't want to do that, at least call for quotes. $3-4k is possible to pay, but too high. It's worth driving a bit to save a few thousand dollars. Yes, you can get a quote for a colonoscopy; it's a standard procedure. Here is an example of a nationwide program that will do it for around $1,100 and that has several options in CA. It is not the only one. https://www.colonoscopyassist.com/After_Colonoscopy.html
For the sake of your health, please don't assume you have fully researched your options yet.
You checked? For a single adult? Most states don't even cove Medicaid for a single adult with no kids, regardless of income. And for those that do, I'd be surprised if $18,000 qualifies him in most of them.
> If you won't get insurance, apply for financial aid in the healthcare system you use
Healthcare system he uses? You realize he's in the US, right? What healthcare system are you referring to?
I'd recommend that the poster go to the ER and tell them his symptoms. I'd say they'll almost certainly do tests on you. Ask to talk with a social worker if needed, and ask them about payment plans, and then if you can't pay, don't worry about it. With you income, it's highly likely they'll be willing to write most of the cost off. It's our fucked up system that's left necessary medical care unaffordable to you. If you were in a reasonable country, either:
a) there would be universal health care or single-payer insurance and you'd not have to worry about paying, or
b) care would be much, much more affordable and you could afford it. In Mexico, a colonoscopy would be a few hundred dollars, and a fecal occult blood test maybe 20-30 dollars.
Because of the corruption of our political officials, and the greed of our insurance companies, pharma companies, hospitals, and doctors, you're left without the recourse that 90% of the world has. So go to the ER and get it taken care of. Even if you have cancer (and it doesn't necessarily mean you do), you won't always end up with a colostomy bag. But the longer you wait, the more likely that becomes.
Healthcare system meaning “St Jude” or “OSF” or “Kaiser.” These Are medium-to-large organizations in the US that many doctors and hospitals fit into to provide service. These orgs are large enough to provide charity if you do a little paperwork.
If you cannot find someone, Talk to a social worker at your local hospital.
DON'T. Other people with less urgent medical matters are "cutting in line" before you because they don't have as much of a problem with it.
It might be our life on the scales, and maybe that's worth nudging your principles a little.
I sincerely hope you will get out of this better and more healthy.
(Your moral system might also find that better, but morality is hard to argue.)
Japan, South Korea, and side swathes of Europe are wealthy because of their positions as client states in the American Capitalist Imperium.
That said, I agree that it would be good to check with any nearby large hospital to ask about their charity programs. Better yet, just show up at the ER of a large hospital and tell them the symptoms he's got. Given the urgency of the situation, I think they'd be obligated to treat, regardless of ability to pay. Then, once you're in the system, check on their charity programs.
