Poverty

[Minimalist]

If not all classes of a country cooperate by simply seeing through the "class mechanism" and realize that they are a single nation under a single banner, what can really cure the jealousy and distress?

Cure?

Who said there is a cure?


Never forget the wise words of Napoleon:

“I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get”

There's no cure but there is lots of human bullshit.

[paintpooper]

Increase education. Decrease luxury items. Eliminate religion to a point where (one cant artificially "feel" superior to another human, especially because of something they believe)
Invest in more sustainable resources.

50-100 years of oil I do not call sustainable. What about the human race in 100 years, lets not fuck them in the ass too hard. Lets use our minds and find real solutions not drill baby drill, fucking idiots(SP).

Economic growth is a farce, as we can see in things like wall street, making money off of money only enriches a few. I can print more money but that doesn't create a product.

Economic STABILITY is the only real solution, growth is not infinite, it can't be, on a planet of finite size. Growth = resources. All we have are natural resources. "Money" comes from the harvesting of earths resources. All of it. If we deplete these resources before we find something sustainable we are allllll fucked.
Sit down and think one day what it would be like, if jet fuel ran out(not economically feasible) by this weekend, think about that hard, and don't say it can't happen, cause we have never been in a remotely similar circumstances any time in human history. 7 billion people and counting.

[bozo]

as communism obviously doesn't work.

But was communism ever tried?

Marx envisioned the industrial proletariat rising up to seize the means of production from the bourgeois. What happened was a rising of agricultural peasants in Russia which led to immediate civil war and instead of the state withering away a massive bureaucracy developed.

Lenin argued the Theory of Imperialism which held: In Lenin’s developing Marxism for Russian application, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) explains a development which Marx predicted: capitalism’s becoming a global system wherein advanced capitalist industrial nations export financial capital to colonial countries to exploit their resources and labour.

Marx may have simply been ahead of his time. The republicolibertarianeo-conazis may ultimately be the best thing that ever happened to communism. Marx may make a comeback.

I say Marx was ahead of his time. His ideas and theories have never completely gone away, it's just that right-wing orthodoxy has held sway from the 1980's onwards and Marxism is not as out there as it was. And I expect his ideas will make a big comeback as the world financial crises continue apace.

---

Personally, I'm going to go all Robin Hood to do my bit

One of my all-time heroes...a socialist in green tights

[bozo]

200 years ago, 90% of the world lived in extreme poverty, as defined by the UN. Today that equates to living on the equivalent of under 2 dollars a day. Today, about 14% of the world's population is at that level of poverty. It was at 40% just 20 years ago. There's only one thing that has ever made billions of people better off economically: economic growth. I was hoping it would last long enough to get that percentage to (effectively) zero, but we're currently stalled, so I doubt it will improve much more in the near future. Still, it's not really true that things aren't getting better, although we would certainly like to see faster improvement. Remember, prosperity is not the natural order of humanity's lot, historically. Poverty is not what needs to be explained: prosperity is.

So: now you know what works (economic growth). Africa is finally poised to have some. If you want to help, I recommend Camfed (educate girls in Africa). A $25 donation will pay for a child's education for a semester. Girls who finish school are less likely to contract AIDS, more likely to have fewer children, more likely to marry later, and more likely to start a small business.

Sorry but I disagree. Poverty today needs to be understood. There is plenty of prosperity in the world, but it is not shared out evenly:

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

[Autumnlicious]

I'm feeling insulted because you called me an idiot, you fucking moron.

Whoah whoah there Princess! I said 'rest of you idiots.' Not 'edk'. Not every insult written is meant for you. To think you chose to choose offence after I specified to whom I mean my insults implies that either you did decide to include yourself in the group of which I specified, or simply chose to take offence.

In case of that latter, I offer a kind Stephen Fry "So you're offended. So fucking what?"

Me figuring out I was included in "you idiots" and offering "garbage ideology and penis measuring contests" aren't related; to work out the first, I just had to understand English, whereas for the second to be true I would actually have had to offer an ideology.

Nu-uh. You ain't getting away with this one. I clarified to whom should take offence. Not my fault you're valuing your own emotions over the context given.

But I expect you weren't trying to construct a sentence so much as be as much of an asshole as possible.

It is a gift, I admit.

I'm not offering an ideology and I haven't commented on what I think except to say that communism doesn't work. Don't jump to conclusions about what I think about stuff.

Not terribly constructive. How kind of you to think I singled you out -- I was, stated and still am speaking to the general thread at hand. You are merely one poster among many, some of which who've delved into sloganeering and ideology pokemon naming contests.

Also, talking about penises is like calling someone Hitler; it makes me (and I doubt I'm the only one) think you have nothing more useful to say, which is so far supported by the evidence.

Sweet. I look forward to your posterboard presentation at the "I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-Con".

I can sling insults around too, but I'm not arguing with your point, only in the dickish way you're making it.

Penile-lly.

Cheers,
Syn

[edk]

Sweet. I look forward to your posterboard presentation at the "I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-Con".

I'll be there! Can you make it between the Symposium of Not Giving It A Fucking Rest and the Dragging Out Dead Arguments As Long As Possible Festival?

Seriously though, you did call me out for having a "garbage ideology" which I object to because you don't know what my ideology is. Other than that though, I apologise for this needless conflict. But I can't let you have the last word, so could you admit that you are an asshole anyway?

[Autumnlicious]

But I can't let you have the last word, so could you admit that you are an asshole anyway?

Sure.

[Mister Agenda]

Sorry but I disagree. Poverty today needs to be understood. There is plenty of prosperity in the world, but it is not shared out evenly:

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

It is very unlikely that you are not among the top 10% of income earners in the world. If you make $30,000 American, 10% of your income would double or triple the income of about 1500 people in the bottom 10% globally and lift them out of that level of poverty (extreme).

That's amazing power to change the lives of over a thousand people. And ordinary people in the developed world can do that. I leave the details to you, picking 1.500 people on the edge of starvation might not be the best long-term strategy, but it would still be more significant than anything the vast majority of people in developed countries do.

We always want to redistribute what the top 10% have, but we're in the top 10%. If we believe in it, we should lead by example.

[Mister Agenda]

Correction: In my post 49, from memory, I claimed that extreme poverty as defined by the UN is living on less than the equivalent of $2 a day. I was mistaken, extreme poverty is currently defined as less than $1.50 US a day in equivalent purchasing power. Also note that most of the gains in reducing this level of poverty since 1990 have been in Asia, Africa, for the most part, has not benefited from this trend.

[Jay1982]

I definitely agree with whoever said that one of the major problems is the lack of buying power on the parts of the poorest nations. I also agree that the monetary system is inherantly flawed and set up as to ensure poverty among common people and the poor. here is a small video i found last week that explains fiat money and it's flaws in 4 mins.

http://www.realnews24.com/gab_gallery/fi...4-minutes/