$15 is a roughly a single meal. Are we suggesting that $15 spent towards entertainment is exceptional or excessive for anyone below middle-class, ? If that's true, than surely we're worse off than we're all aware of.
In large parts of America, $15 is a lot more than a single meal. I grew up in relative poverty, $15 for entertainment would seem like a very poor choice in my household.
Your comment makes me think we really are worse off than many people are aware of.
When everything is going to shit, people are in the hospital and you barely have enough food stamps to feed your kids ...
You can go to a movie. Are you going to really fault someone for that, or taking their partner to a restaurant, using what little they have, to just try and forget how bad things are for a few hours?!
I don't begrudge anybody their small pleasures in life. I also think they can do what they want with their money.
But, when the topic of wealth redistribution comes up I do start to have a lot more questions about what people want to do with the money. After all, it's not their money. They didn't earn it. Somebody else did. I think it's pretty fair to at least have the conversation. I absolutely hate the "helpless poor people" trope and the idea that if they just had more money everything would be better. How often do good and well meaning ideas have horrible and long lasting consequences that were not intended.
There's actually a mounting volume of convincing evidence that cash grants to poor people are much more effective than random charity programs of equivalent value. Because poor people often know what they need more than some paper pusher in a faraway city.
I wonder whether there is a difference in attitudes or money usage for poor people in Kenya or other developing nations, vs those who are poor in developed nations like the US.
Although you did say 'very' poor people, this was the thought that popped into my mind.
I wonder the same thing. I think there is a study being done now in the US on cash grants, so there may be some data. But not nearly as much as there is from Africa.
And what exactly does Zuckerburge do earn the millions he makes every year? Personally, nothing. Everything him and Gates et. al. did was leverage the capital of people they convinced to work for them.
When I worked in an office in Seattle where a 1/bdr was $1800/month, I would watch a janitor come around each day and empty my trash can. I'm sure he made a fraction of what I did, but honestly, I'm sure he did more work .. or at least the same amount. What I do is more difficult, and I was lucky to be raised in a family that had the means to send me to college and I was lucky to pick a career field that earned me that money.
So much of what we have isn't earned. It's more by chance. The major determining factor in your succeeding (school, career, etc.) is determined before you are born. If you're born into poverty, it is very very difficult to get out.
To quote George Carlin, it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it.
If $1000 is life changing money for you, you have no business spending $15 on a lottery ticket, unless you are terrible at managing money, which might have something more to do with their situation more than living in the richest nation on Earth.
You're casting so much judgement here. Anyone can spend money on whatever they choose, just like the recipients can spend the $1000 however they like. We have no business criticizing these people.
If Cards Against Humanity is going to demand wealth redistribution to support these people, you're goddamn right I can judge the financial choices of their champions.
The "wealth distribution" is entirely at CAH's expense. They only surfaced that language because they made a point of communicating to the non-recipients that they wouldn't be receiving anything on top of their original contract (of getting the game for cash, which they totally got).
I realize I didn't clarify explicitly. While I'd agree that a one-time $15 gamble would be an irrationally exorbitant expense if it was in place of a family meal, I think we're talking about different things.
Even if "poor people" were <$1000 away from financial ruin, $15 towards a reusable entertainment asset is quite different than $15 towards one-off lottery tickets.
Your comment makes me think we really are worse off than many people are aware of.