Feed the hungry or feed political ads?

[The Grand Nudger]

 An informed electorate is important, if for no other reason than that the hungry are less likely to be fed by leaders who are responding to less rational impulses of the electorate.

I'd check that assumption.  It might be an irrational act to tackle this problem to our moral or practical satisfaction.  I'll note that the people chiefly involved at present are more true believer than rational observer.  

Let's take it ground level again - why do the producers starve and impoverish themselves and their neighbors?  Briefly, because it's the rational decision.  They don't have a good option, they have nothing but bad options...rationally speaking.

(as far as the above, I get it - The Wife and I do all the same stuff for equally personal reasons, even stuff we know doesn't work or exacerbates the larger issue even as it provides temporary relief. It's like handing out aspirin when teeth need to be pulled - but if we aren't going to pull the teeth we could at least keep handing out the aspirin. A bunch of impoverished people distributing their limited supply of aspirin -is- what we're doing, and why that doesn't work and can't work should out to jump out at us, but it generally doesn't. I'm using "us" in the widest possible sense - not personal.)