Should government correct inequality?

Stop with the fibs. Post-compulsory education is never free. I know you're a plant, but at least get the basics!

 

Well, I don't know what to say. Of course if you have family, the food bank doesn't know you exist. You don't go there first. But there are some elderly people (that's mostly who goes to Food Banks) who have nobody, and they don't have much to offer the world in terms of energy and talent. And if there is local charity, like a church, you never hear about be applicants.

Remember too these people by and large go to food banks episodically, like after losing everything on a natural disaster or paying for the kids' medical care. It's not a soup kitchen for bums to just hang out in every day. It's a stopgap, like calling on your brother for a hundred bucks when the chips are down. They may be down because you didn't save enough for a rainy day, I concede that, but the answer to that is for you to be obligated to pay your brother back. Not "I can't help." And again, not every one has a brother.

 

We are primarily talking elderly, but men out of work due to automation etc. And women with kids are good contenders.

I guess you can say "we don't need food banks because there are food banks," and that's true. It seems a little circular.

 

A plant, eh? Rhododendron? Azalea? Ficus? Cycad? It's got to be Old Fashioned Rose, surely

Meantime, post compulsory education is effectively 'free' upon attainment of a full scholarship. Failing that, if one takes a degree guaranteeing high returns and plenty of jobs (thereby great ease in repaying loans), then anyonce can afford it.

 

Not to mention compulsory education isn't free either.

 

Odd wording, but I'll have a crack at the gist. Yes, everyone has a 'brother'. If you aren't fortunate enough to have blood brothers, then you make it your business in life to establish a solid family via marriage and children, or marriage at the very least. And if you have even the remotest interest in self-preservation in your golden years - not to mention your mental health throughout life - you also establish solid friendships that last a lifetime.

It's on us to choose good friends and partners, protect our relationships, and be worthy of the same in return. It's an essential part of the bigger picture of personal responsibility. Saving for our old age is another of those essentials.

 

Not entirely, no. But public education does not charge fees in the usual sense. And families in poverty are exempt from the small costs anyway.

 

Why would a poor woman have children? And again, the elderly should be cared for by family/friends.

 

I didn't say they were geniuses.

 

Yes, of course I stipulate that many are victims of bad choices. You and I have avoided those and have a network to help. Some don't. Maybe they are schizophrenic, maybe they were abused. Maybe they are crime victims or hurricane victims.

We all need to squirrel away as much as we can. But you never know who your real friends are until you get really out on the edge. Or tough breaks put you there.

You remember the song God Bless the Child?
By Billy Holiday, but Blood Sweatand Tears made it famous:

Rich relations may give you,
A crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much ....

Now in some cases, the ne'er do well cousin at your door has sort of asked for it, but not always. I hope your friends and family are always there for you. They are not always there for everbody.

Anyway we are not in dispute but that your own social network is the place to turn in hard times, not the federal government.

 

30 years ago today, China's govt corrected inequality.

Some citizens wanted to speak their minds.

10K killed off camera.

 

Given that First World women living in modern democracies have absolutely no compunction to breed, and have a myriad of options available to avoid breeding, then we can know they're choosing to have kids. A genuinely poor person with all of those options would not have kids, therefore we know they're not poor.

 

Let's be honest, people who fail to nurture and protect relationships, and fail to squirrel away money for their old age, have chosen the life they ended up with. No need to make excuses for them.

PS: I don't think it serves your argument to include schizophrenics and hurricane victims

 

Always an easy answer isn’t there?

 

So what are we arguing about?

 

Yes.

 

What's the high bar ?? Obesity ?? That's a much more prevalent issue than too little to eat.

 

And this is the point that support of the Chinese communist totalitarian government assuming that they would become a democracy if granted membership in the World Trade Association should have ended.

 

I think we are arguing about several different things here: 1) are people starving due to insufficiency? (No); are there too many hungry people? (Yes, in my opinion.)

2) are people to blame for their scarcity problems (some are, some aren't);

3) should government intervene to insure that everyone has enough to eat? (I don't think so, other than cooperating with local food banks)

4) should we sympathize with hungry people, or leave them to their just desserts?
Get it? Desserts? Anyway, the good book doesn't teach us to "love your neighbor unless he screws up." You never know what's at the bottom of a particular person's drug addiction that landed him on the streets. Usually you can, sure, but generalizations are dangerous.

 

Yes, I can understand someone having that opinion that you just stated, but that is not setting 'not starving' as a bar.
Those benefits that you mention are much more significant than "not starving" But I disagree that even expecting more is outrageous. It is outrageous that we spent 6 trillion dollars in the mid east over the last 15 years and just made the area worse and killed almost 100,000 people while we were at it, never mind thousands of our best.

 

They were patriots as are those who subscribe to their principles, unlike right wingers.

 

​

Well clearly not everyone is endowed with that ability, that's why there are McDonalds and Wal Marts

 

And who was the one leader who stood up for the repressive government of China?


George HW Bush. To this day he is revered in commie land:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dip...h-foreign-policy-realist-and-old-friend-china

 

It didn't work out and Clinton gave them state secrets.

Just after he also allowed North Korea to nuke up.

Democrats are bad for state security.

 

Now that really is the pot calling the kettle black.