Should the Poor Always Be With Us?

[jones jones]

According to what I have read on the internet there are approximately 842 million earthlings on our planet who do not have enough to eat. This computes to about one in eight earthlings in the world who are basically starving.

On the flip side about $36 billion is spent on sports sponsorship every year.

According to the internet it costs about $1370.00 per annum to feed one earthling.

So I ask: “Couldn’t this sponsorship or a portion of it be channelled to the starving masses for maybe even a month or two every year? And if so would it help?"

I suck at math so I could never work out what $36 billion divided by 842 million would be, but I’m sure my good buddy LarsMac will help me out.

Thanks Lars ... (Sorry) :-5

[LarsMac]

jones jones;1450659 wrote: According to what I have read on the internet there are approximately 842 million earthlings on our planet who do not have enough to eat. This computes to about one in eight earthlings in the world who are basically starving.

On the flip side about $36 billion is spent on sports sponsorship every year.

According to the internet it costs about $1370.00 per annum to feed one earthling.

So I ask: �Couldn�t this sponsorship or a portion of it be channelled to the starving masses for maybe even a month or two every year? And if so would it help?"

I suck at math so I could never work out what $36 billion divided by 842 million would be, but I�m sure my good buddy LarsMac will help me out.

Thanks Lars ... (Sorry) :-5


Not a problem, Brother.

Gave me something to think about as I am waking up for the day.

Dividing up the entire sports sponsorship spending among all of those hungry people would net them each about 42 dollars a year.

about 3 % of what they would need to eat for a year. In other words, that would at best feed all those people for a little over a week.

The cost to feed all of those people for a year (approximately 1.2 trillion dollars) would nearly equal the military budget of all of the major powers in the world today (approximately 1.7 trillion).



so it looks like we have a choice to make.

[Oscar Namechange]

Although not the same subject, I feel similar to an argument I was having with my revolting neighbour a couple of nights ago.

There was a thing to raise funds for cancer which was women who use Facebook taking a selfie wearing no make-up and post It on Facebook which each time raised £3. I said ' how about you all donate just £1 a month for the rest of your lives? Oh dear !!!!!

Unfortunately, I believe the world and It's occupants are basically selfish. You will see people out campaigning for cancer research but only after their loved one has suffered. Likewise with Stroke research etc etc. That sounds harsh but most people don't have any awareness or even give a toss until It affects them.

Same with the starving nations... forget the high profile crap by Z list celebs desperate to revive a flagging career and give something. If we all did that modestly and quietly, we could make a difference... not wait until something affects you.

[Bruv]

Sport Relief

[LarsMac]

The only real way to end hunger on the planet is for each of the nations to make it a priority.

A nation like India must make local efforts to end the overcrowding and hunger within its borders.

There is water to be had in Africa, but all of the regional, tribal, and national conflicts must be set aside. Cooperation to develop the resources and make the land arable. If that were done, Africa could not only feed its own hungry, but provide abundant food resources for the rest of the world.

So, at least for the foreseeable future, the answer to your question, JJ, is 'Yes.' The poor shall always be with us. At least until we evolve into a more cooperative species.

[Oscar Namechange]

LarsMac;1450694 wrote: The only real way to end hunger on the planet is for each of the nations to make it a priority.

A nation like India must make local efforts to end the overcrowding and hunger within its borders.

There is water to be had in Africa, but all of the regional, tribal, and national conflicts must be set aside. Cooperation to develop the resources and make the land arable. If that were done, Africa could not only feed its own hungry, but provide abundant food resources for the rest of the world.

So, at least for the foreseeable future, the answer to your question, JJ, is 'Yes.' The poor shall always be with us. At least until we evolve into a more cooperative species.


Well said

[AnneBoleyn]

"There will be poor always, pathetically struggling, look at the good things you've got" JC Superstar

also: Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, Deuteronomy 15:11

Not only do we have too many citizens of the planet, we now have medicines to cure them from dying from AIDS, malaria, smallpox, etc. etc.

Breathing out all that CO2

[AnneBoleyn]

McOscar!! You're a riot!

[recovering conservative]

AnneBoleyn;1450721 wrote: "There will be poor always, pathetically struggling, look at the good things you've got" JC Superstar
Did I miss anything? I couldn't get motivated to watch more than 2 minutes of the Jesus Christ Superstar movie back in the day....and I passed up the chance to see the stage show back then also. Seems like the fundies were right, that they got everything wrong in the effort to sell J.C. to pot-smoking hippies of the day.

also: Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7, Deuteronomy 15:11


That's more like it! At least these verses provide some context on how the poor and poverty were viewed in New and Old Testament times.

The verse in Deuteronomy indicates that Jesus was paraphrasing this Talmudic verse:

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land. kjv

Over and over again, I can never find the Republican Christian verses in the Bible that condemn "The Takers" and "blessed be the Job Creators." I'm sure they're in there somewhere!

Not only do we have too many citizens of the planet, we now have medicines to cure them from dying from AIDS, malaria, smallpox, etc. etc.

Breathing out all that CO2
I notice these days, whenever I see any discussion of the global warming crisis, or whenever subjects like poverty and the wealth gap crop up, that it's sometimes mentioned that the modern economies of the world can produce more than enough food and essentials to feed and clothe and shelter everyone in the world....even with our 7 billion+ population. But, what never gets mentioned is that our world works under an economic system that does the exact opposite of distributing wealth evenly! Capitalism provides too many incentives for people to buy and consume on impulse, and rewards those who take more than they will ever need in a thousand lifetimes, while following the 'middle path' and only taking what we need and avoiding all extreme behaviour....well, that's bad for economic growth! And our system will collapse unless enough there are enough selfish, greedy people who take on more debt so they can die in a bigger house or have a more expensive car out in the driveway!

Hate to be a pessimist all the time, but 40 years ago, there were some radical voices on the left...even during the dark days of the Cold War, who got on TV and radio, and were selling their books in the bookstores. Now, the most radical thing available is the overhyped reworking of Keynsian modified capitalism advanced by Thomas Picketty, because...as he says himself in interviews, capitalism is essential, and must only be modified....not abolished.

[AnneBoleyn]

"Did I miss anything? I couldn't get motivated to watch more than 2 minutes of the Jesus Christ Superstar movie back in the day....and I passed up the chance to see the stage show back then also. Seems like the fundies were right, that they got everything wrong in the effort to sell J.C. to pot-smoking hippies of the day."

Yes, you did miss something , & as usual, I disagree with many fundies, though certainly not all. I think JC Superstar captured the moment superbly! Maybe you should have dropped some acid. Of course, IMO, even that could not save "2001: A Space Odyssey" from being as boring as "Barry Lyndon", but I digress.

Seriously, a Lutheran minister of my acquaintance at the time explained to me that JCSuperstar captured much of the spirit of the Gospels from the Apostle viewpoint & helped with understanding certain motivations.

That was a very long time ago, wasn't it? At least 40 years. I can still sing every song by heart.

[recovering conservative]

AnneBoleyn;1459163 wrote: "Did I miss anything? I couldn't get motivated to watch more than 2 minutes of the Jesus Christ Superstar movie back in the day....and I passed up the chance to see the stage show back then also. Seems like the fundies were right, that they got everything wrong in the effort to sell J.C. to pot-smoking hippies of the day."

Yes, you did miss something , & as usual, I disagree with many fundies, though certainly not all. I think JC Superstar captured the moment superbly! Maybe you should have dropped some acid. Of course, IMO, even that could not save "2001: A Space Odyssey" from being as boring as "Barry Lyndon", but I digress.

Seriously, a Lutheran minister of my acquaintance at the time explained to me that JCSuperstar captured much of the spirit of the Gospels from the Apostle viewpoint & helped with understanding certain motivations.

That was a very long time ago, wasn't it? At least 40 years. I can still sing every song by heart.


Okay, maybe I gave Jesus Christ Superstar the brush off without giving it any consideration. Back then, I wasn't in to listening to anything about Jesus, or the bible or Christianity whatever! I had to leave home to escape our fundamentalist cult, and now that it's all a distant memory, I can give a more unbiased perspective I suppose.

Barry Lyndon...forget it! I saw one clip on the old Mike Douglas show back when it was being promoted in the theaters, and knew instantly this wasn't for me!

But, 2001....I wasn't doing any mind-altering substances....not even alcohol, and I kept going back to the theater to see it over and over again.* I guess I was a space nerd or something! I expected that we would have colonies in space, on the moon and on mars by now....but then again, so did NASA! The problem with appreciating 2001 without being a substance abuser, was that Kubrick...like always...never allows for any narration, something that was an essential to understand the meaning of the three part story. What was "moon-watcher" - the alpha male of that group of proconsul hominids thinking when he was mesmerized by that monolith that got dropped into their backyard from space? Well, he did learn how to apply the learning he was getting from the monolith towards making weapons! Jump to the year 2001, what's the significance of that monolith on the moon dropped in the crater - Tycho Brahe? And why was it pointing towards Jupiter and what the hell is going on with the "star child" at the end of the movie? Much of what was going on only made sense when I dashed off to the book store after the first viewing to buy Arthur C. Clarke's accompanying book that the screenplay was based on. But all of this is about a different kind of religion that's described in the Bible...a humanist religion of enlightenment and finally complete transformation through progress in knowledge.



*Any youngsters here, might not be aware that there were fewer movie releases in the theaters back in the days before computers, DVD and even VCR's; so when movies were playing that you wanted to see again, you had to plunk down a few coins and watch them on the big screen. And it wasn't just the new releases also. Even the holiday favourites like It's a Wonderful Life, or The Wizard Of Oz...I didn't go to see it, but every halloween at least through the 70's, it was playing on the big screen...and Gone With the Wind...I remember that one playing also over and over again!

[FourPart]

Andrew Lloyd Webber may be an arrogant, conceited git, but it has to be said that he writes some fantastic music. Same as with Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

As for the poor always being there, this is the reason why Communism can never work. It may be fine in theory, but in practice as soon anyone wants to better themselves the whole system collapses, and that is the nature of the Beast we call Human.

Under Communism the wealth of each individual is Total Wealth / Population.

Under a Capitalist system the formula works in the same way to produce the Average Wealth of everyone. The difference being that when the minority of the population hold the vast majority of the shares of that wealth, everyone else loses out - although even then, by no means equally. Therefore there will always be those at the top end of the scale & those at the bottom end. Such is the way of life.

[LarsMac]

Communism does work, but only on a relatively small scale. Capitalism works better on larger scale, but must be regulated to avoid the kind of massive wealth divisions we are seeing.

Either system will only work well when all members of the society are working towards a common goal.

Humans being a fairly greedy species, though, both systems, left to their own devices will eventually fail and require some sort of restart.

The problem is really defining what is 'poor'.

Many people in this country think of themselves as poor while they fair better than 60% or more of the rest of the world.

[AnneBoleyn]

"Many people in this country think of themselves as poor while they fair better than 60% or more of the rest of the world."

They are comparing themselves with other Americans, not the Third World. In that sense, they are right.

[Saint_]

AnneBoleyn;1450721 wrote: "There will be poor always, pathetically struggling, look at the good things you've got" JC Superstar


Hahaha...that's exactly the quote I thought of! =^..^=

[FourPart]

To answer the original question...

Should the poor always be with us? No!!

WILL the poor always be with us? Regrettably, yes!!

[recovering conservative]

FourPart;1459175 wrote: Andrew Lloyd Webber may be an arrogant, conceited git, but it has to be said that he writes some fantastic music. Same as with Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
I'll have to take your word on it.

As for the poor always being there, this is the reason why Communism can never work. It may be fine in theory, but in practice as soon anyone wants to better themselves the whole system collapses, and that is the nature of the Beast we call Human.
No, this is part of the biggest fraud foisted on the public in recent decades: that we are innately violent, innately hierarchical, innately patriarchal and misogynistic, and innately selfish and greedy. There are a lot of rich and powerful people who like things just as they are now, but keeping it that way means convincing the multitude that all of these facets of capitalist economics are part of human nature, and all we can do is make a few tweaks and adjustments, but NEVER challenge the system itself....bollocks! As the English would say!

I won't get into all of the theory here about how to set up socialist systems now, but when you talk about human nature, you have to be talking about behavioural traits that have been part of our heritage throughout the majority of time that we have been developing as modern humans.

Now, at best, we don't have any evidence of full time farming societies before 10,000 years ago*, without agriculture and fixed settlements, we don't have entrenched hierarchies, since (immediate return) hunter-gatherers do not have chiefs or alpha males etc.. These traveling family bands require(d) such a high degree of cooperation that consensus, sharing food is so important that the men of the tribe usually engage in "status leveling"....where they literally deliberately knock down a particularly gifted tribe member...an exceptional hunter for example. No meritocracies in most of human history, as keeping everyone on an even footing outweighed rewarding excellence.

And, it's not until about 5,000 years ago....in the Middle East and Central Asia, that we find the first signs of patriarchal societies. We only think that history begins with male-dominated warlike tribes with men buying and selling wives, because that's where our religious origins begin...and for some reason, patriarchy coincides with the development of livestock or animal agriculture. We really don't see patriarchal societies among horticultural societies that continued hunting for their supply of meat. Another factor that likely led towards patriarchy was the realization that only one man fathers a child. You wouldn't know it from the accepted wisdom of most academics, but most cultures believed in a concept of "partible paternity," meaning simply that the common belief in our early history was that each man who had sex with a woman prior to her showing signs of pregnancy, had a share in fatherhood. Obviously the switch to sole fatherhood fed the drive to possess women for personal dynasties.

Anyway, all of these things that you have described as being part of human nature are not! The competitive societies, violence and warfare, gender inequality, hierarchies etc. are all adaptive behaviours that have arisen in recent human history, and could be changed! If there was enough desire to do so.





*late neolithic hunter/gatherers made a gradual transition for several thousand years, by gathering and saving favourite seeds as they traveled, and even hybridizing certain grain seeds at least as far back as 18,000 years ago

[recovering conservative]

AnneBoleyn;1459189 wrote: "Many people in this country think of themselves as poor while they fair better than 60% or more of the rest of the world."

They are comparing themselves with other Americans, not the Third World. In that sense, they are right.


You just reminded me of this story I noticed on John Michael Greer's - Archdruid Report, which is based on a now dated investigative report on children living from the streets to emergency shelters in Miami: The Broken Thread of Culture

This isn’t the sort of worldview you’d expect from people living in a prosperous, scientifically literate industrial society, but then the children in Dade County’s homeless shelters don’t fit that description in any meaningful sense. They live in conditions indistinguishable from the worst end of the Third World; their lives are defined by poverty, hunger, substance abuse, shattered families, constant uncertainty, and lethal violence dispensed at random. If, as Bruce Sterling suggested, the future is already here, just not evenly distributed yet, they’re the involuntary early adopters of a future very few people want to think about just now, but many of us will experience in the decades ahead, and most of humanity will face in the centuries that follow: a future we may as well call by the time-honored label "dark age."