Comments on: Bursting The Bubble

By: tornadoes28

tornadoes28 — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:52:05 +0000

If I was homeless, I probably would want to escape my reality through alcohol. Actually, if I was somehow homeless, I would be trying anything in my power to get off the street.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:42:43 +0000

In Vancouver and Toronto there are are lots of people who will give food to the homeless rather than money. By doing this, they prevent someone from buying alcohol rather than something that’ll provide a better return on investment.

This raises the question though, are homeless people irresponsible? Or do they simply wish to escape whatever reality they find themselves in?

By: tornadoes28

tornadoes28 — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:59:13 +0000

As you say, just giving money to the poor really does not do them any service. I agree. On a small scale, I see this everyday in downtown Los Angeles. We have thousands of homeless here. Many people given them money. But I also on many occasions have seen homeless people drinking alcohol and doing illegal drugs. Why don’t people realize that the money they give very likely may be used for things other then food or clothing but for alcohol and drugs.

Just giving money to the poor really is the wrong thing to do.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:05:50 +0000

She didn’t really say anything, because I didn’t go into this kind of detail with her. I have gone into long rants like this with several others, though, and so I’ve taken everything from previous conversations to make this one concise rant.

I really don’t like getting into long arguments with my wife … especially since we’ve been married less than a month

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:09:46 +0000

While it may seem a bit harsh, there is a lot of truth to this post! What did your wife say when you came back with this rebuttal?

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:52:32 +0000

Argh.

It’s a lovely sentiment. Your wife is clearly as wonderful on the inside as she is on the outside. But the math doesn’t work.

All of these numbers are rough. The math is rougher. But it’s good for illustrative purposes.

Phoenix cost the US taxpayers $420 million dollars.

One way to define poverty is the percentage of the population below 50% of the median income. In the US this is 17%. That’s 51 million people (rounding down).

Divide 420 by 51. Each poor person gets $8.25.

For the cost of the Phoenix mission we could buy each officially poor person in the United States a Double Cheeseburger meal at MacDonalds, with a cherry pie for desert.

In the meantime we’ve lost whatever science data the mission will yield. We don’t know the economic benefit of this but in the past such returns have been huge - the way of life that enables me to type and you to read comes from unexpected riches derived from scientific research.

If we buy every poor schmo in America a single meal at a cheap restaurant .. jobs have been lost because we’re not paying tens of thousands of people to build the rocket, the probe, to monitor and direct the mission. They’re not all rocket scientists - no small percentage of the people involved with the mission - NASA, JPL, contractors, sub-contractors - are just people. Some of them are officially poor persons who sweep floors and clean out toilets.

Now they’re really poor because they don’t have a job.

Gah - some people let their big ol’ hearts miss what’s important. Sorry for the rant. I’ll come back and read the rest later. Check my maths and make sure I’m right, please.

By: Yvan

Yvan — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:09:23 +0000

How true.

And it is a lot like the chiken and the egg paradox.
which came first?

When someone is hungry are they willing to learn how to fish for themself or are they expecting the fish before they can learn how to?

To many peoples changes is impossible.
To other when they learn that change IS POSSIBLE then all hopes starts.

Thru changes we better ourselves.
Thru knowledge we make a better world for ourself.