[bashmelek]

I live comfortably in the United States. I consider myself middle class. I worry about my job and increasing costs. But I’m okay.

I do feel like that we really could end global poverty if we tried, and that people like me ought to contribute.

[expedition32]

Everyone worries about losing their job I think. Nowadays employment is a lot more unstable. Hell a large percentage of the workforce doesn't even have permanent employment. Flexibility is great for companies but humans need stability.

There is nothing worse than the economy going South, corporations starting to cut jobs en masse and you finding out that there are 50 other people who show up for that job interview.

[pigpag]

Not all poverty is created equal.

Some people had good financial discipline and still fell into poverty due to business catastrophes, accidents or health problems. We need better systems to provide shields for those people, be it bankruptcy laws, universal insurance or healthcare.

Others live in unhabitable environments that can never sustain a viable economy. Until humanity finds technologies to address those environmental issues, they can never get out of poverty.

Then there are always people who are reckless and irresponsible. They are black holes of resources. Some can be educated while others do deserve to be poor. It's based their own decisions and I don't see a moral issue to leave them alone.

[throwaway173738]

I’d say 99% of the poor are in the first two categories. So I don’t really care if the third category gets some stuff too if it means we help everyone else.

[terminalshort]

I sure see a lot of people in category 3

[bccdee]

Oh really? Where? How can you tell they're reckless or lazy and not (e.g.) disabled?

[terminalshort]

It's pretty easy to see when someone spends money like an idiot

[bccdee]

The spectre of the "wasteful welfare recipient" is invoked constantly, but I've never seen any of these people. The poor people I've known are, by necessity, quite careful with money.

[abnercoimbre]

Agreed. I was nodding along with the GP right up until their ending statement, yikes.

[badpun]

Poverty is usually (always?) result of politics. I.e. in poor countries you have a highly dysfunctional system and elites which profiting off it. So the only way to to help is to instigate some kind of coup, eliminate warlords etc. But then how do you guarantee that whoever replaces them would be better?

[xg15]

Our own countries could stop actively funding, supporting and even creating that corrupt elite, for a start. See e.g. the Françafrique system in Africa.