(April 11, 2012 at 4:50 pm)JohnDG Wrote:(April 11, 2012 at 4:25 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: I have yet to see any real application of physics to economics (other than the Black-Scholes equation) that is justified.
You see it everyday, you just refuse to beleive it. Sorry but for you to have money, somebody must not. For you to have allot of money, well thats when it starts to get comical.
Wealth doesn't come from a bakery with only one pie so that if anyone gets a bigger slice it must mean someone else got a smaller one. A cabinet is worth more than a pile of wood, a carpenter doesn't steal from anyone else to make his living and there is more wealth in the world after he's done a day's work than there was before. And a million dollars invested only generates a middle class income for one smallish family, although that may be considered rich where Mehm is.
(April 11, 2012 at 4:50 pm)JohnDG Wrote: I live in Lancaster California and my little town is doing ok on the outside. But a few miles away there is a large population of homless families growing and im talking about entire families. I don't have very much money, infact I don't even own a computer or a phone. But I still go out and give these people food because their children should not be growing up in a tent like its fu**ing normal.
I commend you for that. Please PM me if you're interested in more that you can do that might let you help them better their lives more in the long run. Assuming the growth isn't from homeless coming to the area because there is something attractive about it for them, I take it that these are employable people down on their luck: you can be their luck.
(April 11, 2012 at 4:50 pm)JohnDG Wrote: There is a underclass here in america, shanty towns are illegal but if you do a little research. America is the only country that does not have shanty towns and thats because we refuse to let the homeless (people) have homes.
Maybe you can get Habitat for Humanity involved. The homes they build aren't shanties, and all a family has to do to pay for it is to help build it. The only thing between a homeless family capable of work and a home is a lack of willing volunteers.
(April 11, 2012 at 4:50 pm)JohnDG Wrote: By the way, they are still people.
Of course they are. I wasn't aware that was in dispute.
Mehm is being compensated for the use of property his family should have been paid for in the first place. Rather than pre-emptively guilting him, perhaps you should start a separate thread on poverty.
And before you become complacent with how much you give compared to your own wealth level, consider how many people in absolute poverty could be raised to severe poverty (small enough improvement, but could be the difference between life and death) by half of what you make. About $300 per person per year would do the trick.
Just being an American with a job puts you in the top 1% of income, globally speaking. You're rich. I grant that it's hard to make your money go that far with poor Americans: when explaining homelessness to a Somali Bantu girl I know, I was asked why we don't just build them houses. She was envisioning a village project that would put someone in a shanty sort of house: no electricity or plumbing, maybe no windows or floor. In America we have housing codes that JohnDG rightly points out keeps us from erecting shanty towns, so we have to step up more to put families that need and want and are capable of maintaining homes (as opposed to people with challenges that prevent them from being capable of that, who need other kinds of assistance) in homes.
No particular pressure on you to do more than you already are, JohnDG, just using your post as a step up to my soapbox.
