[wiz21c]

I'm really surprised that you consider it a "sacrifice" to help others. Because when "others" are doing well, I'm doing better too.

Give a job or a good life to anybody and you'll see, they'll just be better. Most of the poor/unemployed people are not like that because they choose to but because they had more hurdles to pass and ultimately were more at risk to fail. And it's not because some made it that it proves that the others should have made it too (survivor bias)...

[thegrim33]

You're just being obtuse. The topic is about spending resources in an attempt to achieve a goal. You can't just say "whatever we spend just makes people's lives better so it's worth it". There's a very real cost involved, and a very real effectiveness of spending that cost.

To put it to extremes as an example, if we're spending $1 per person to give them a 99% chance of living a better life, that's a much different situation than if we're spending $1 million per person to give them a 1% chance of living a better life. That million dollars per person could have otherwise funded countless other programs which may have had a better positive affect on the population. You can't just say "well others are doing better when we spend that money so it's worth it" with no other thought given.

[wpietri]

> The topic is about spending resources in an attempt to achieve a goal.

I don't think that's the topic at all.

I grew up in a high-ACE environment. Money was mostly not the problem, and to the extent that it was, relatively small amounts were what made the difference.

If anything, tackling these problems would result in massive savings. One of the core points of this is that Alex's childhood resulted in life-long impairments: lower education, lower economic productivity, higher personal and societal costs. That costs us both directly (lower output, lower taxes) and indirectly.

So the question I'd like everybody to sit with: If it would be cheaper long-term, why aren't we already solving these problems? Who benefits, and how, if we keep creating Alexes?

[feoren]

Almost all of these calculations work out extremely in favor of just giving the poor money. It's expensive to be poor, and not just for them. They cost more in healthcare, crime, and other support systems. Literally just giving all the homeless cheap housing for free is by far the better option if you actually pay attention to the numbers. The same is abundantly clear for free education. But we can't, because we like the suffering. That's it: Americans like it when other people are suffering. We like it so much that we're willing to suffer ourselves just so that those other people can suffer even more.

To a lesser extent, there's also the Boomer Trolley Problem: if you divert a trolley onto a track wherein nobody dies, how is that fair to all the people who it's already killed!?

[spyckie2]

It's not that the US likes suffering. No, the US likes their 7% ROI.

There's a reason why the average S&P500 is still 7% year over year. Why does Coca Cola have a 3% dividend yield? Why does Google still have a 50% yoy ad revenue growth?

Why does health insurance get priced at 10% annual income, no matter how high your income seems to be? Why does mortgage / rent inevitably go up to 28% of income, no matter how high an income you seem to get?

It's because to make the numbers go up for corporations at the ROI they promised to their stakeholders, they have to make it from somewhere, and that somewhere is the consumers.

As long as we hold sacred the 7% ROI dream, that 7% ROI on assets is going to continue to leech all the excess prosperity and wealth our predecessors have enjoyed. You cannot have an infinite wealth printing machine - news flash - that money comes from society. The house that once costed 200k, and now costs 1.6 million? That 1.4 million went into funding the 7% ROI money printer. The 126k/yr Masters degree? It's also funding the 7% ROI money printer.

That's where all the money is going.

[unholythree]

Except inflation, in the US we gave everyone money a couple of years ago (probably had to) and it caused (probably unavoidable) spectacular inflation. We narrowly achieved our soft landing, but that should have taught us that while sometime helicopter money works, it isn’t free.

[smegger001]

Maybe if more of that PPE money had actually been paid to those that need it rather than the employers that pocketed millions instead it would have gone better.

[gowld]

Inflation wasn't caused by the giving, it was caused by the printing. The cure for that is to destroy money (taxation). If you tax the people you just gave to, that's just doing nothing with extra steps. So if you want to help someone by giving them money, you need to take that money from someone else.

Giving without taking is (Keynesian) only useful when it "greases the gears of the economy" enabling productive people to trade with consumer, in which case the inflation is cancelled out by the increased real productivity.

[naasking]

> Except inflation, in the US we gave everyone money a couple of years ago (probably had to) and it caused (probably unavoidable) spectacular inflation

No it didn't.

[matrix87]

> They cost more in healthcare, crime, and other support systems.

Not really sure causality is being poor -> being more expensive

Could go the other way, behaviors that make people more expensive -> being poor

Different hot take: if we took schooling more seriously this would be less of an issue. Which is on the one hand a government problem, on the other hand a cultural problem (compared to, say, Japan)

Just throwing money at a problem without attaching strings or directing how it's used is administrative complacency

[NotMichaelBay]

Here's a grim example where being poor leads to being more expensive. An $80 tooth extraction would have avoided $250,000 in hospital care costs.

https://perspectivesofchange.hms.harvard.edu/node/165

[matrix87]

Maybe for healthcare, in a preventative sense like eating a healthy diet.

But for stuff that requires actual care like your counterexample, yeah it's 100% a government problem

Maybe for crime, diet, civic engagement, it's more of an education problem

[jstummbillig]

If parent is obtuse, so are you. The topic is clearly not entirely contained in "spending resources in an attempt to achieve a goal", if how you do it can either be understood as a "sacrifice" or something else entirely (though, to you, it might, if you don't care about the difference).

There is a cost that can be measured in money. There is an outcome that can be measured in a variety of ways. And then there is also different ways of how we think about something, that definitely informs what we do and how.

[aredox]

You're always "spending resources", even when you decide not to spend time and money: in effect, you decide to expend some people's lives.

Is it effective?

Why is it right for you that the starting point should be "we spend nothing", and then "we spend on one action only if it is proven it is effective", and not "we spend everything to help others", and then "we stop spending only if it is proven it is ineffective"?

(And before anyone makes a reverse Godwin point by shouting "communism!", reminder what the taxation rates in Nordic countries are: Denmark 55.56%, Finland 51.25%, Iceland 46.22%, Norway 47.2% and Sweden 57%. And these are not khmer-rouge hellholes where nobody can be rich and people are beaten into submission by an overwhelming state.)

[anon291]

I dunno as someone who grew up with relatives who have been trapped in these cycles, I do think some of it is a choice. I realize people are affected by all kinds of things, but when things are given to you and you have no interest, it's hard to see that as anything but what it is.

But of course, it's important to help people who are down; but being poor does not absolve you of all self responsibility.

[richardlblair]

I fully agree. OP also ignores the compounded returns. If you lift a person out of poverty you immediately set their children up for better outcomes.

[willmadden]

Interesting. Would you agree that not everyone is the same? How about that not everyone is a "good person" by nature?

[constantcrying]

Why? State funded social programs are funded by taxes, I pay money so these programs exist. How would I feel better in any way? I certainly do not.

>Give a job or a good life to anybod

This is beyond the capacity of almost all people. I don't even have any idea what you are thinking of.

>Most of the poor/unemployed people are not like that because they choose to

Simply not true. Being willing, but unable to work is extremely rare. They just do not like the work they would have to do, which I don't begrudge them for I wouldn't do that work either if the state was paying my rent and my food. But pretending that somehow they can't do basic jobs is simply nonsense.