Sunjay Kapur, friend of Prince William and ex-husband of Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor, reportedly died of anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee during a polo match in Windsor, England.
Kids don’t go hungry because of money, they go hungry because of politics. Famines are the product of conflict, especially war. And hunger in countries that are not at war is a product of social inequality. Sure a billionaire could help but that’s just a temp fix.
I disagree. I believe that billionaires control the world. It is their attitude that is pervasive throughout government that allows the hunger to continue. Not to mention the number of uber rich people in the various governments, riding around in limousines while their people starve.
Also capitalism requires a large body of poor people to support it. Those cheap T-shirts aren’t made by highly paid labor. And who benefits most from capitalism?
I can probably come up with numerous other connections between the ultra rich and the state of poverty.
My [sister/brother/other] in [insert deity] have you forgotten that in almost every place on the globe food is purchased with money? And that money is also how you buy politicians? One billionaire absolutely could solve hunger through a combination of direct donation and political spending.
While money is used to by goods and services, it isn’t those goods and services. It’s essentially a measure of resource allocation. More money means you get more resources.
People don’t go hungry due to lack of money, they go hungry due to lack of food. In an area undergoing famine, you can give people money and they’ll buy food. This means people who were eating before are now going hungry. If you keep giving out money, the price of food starts to rise. Keep going, and eventually it’s cheaper to leave the country than it is to buy food.
The systemic causes of hunger are complex. The complexity is sufficient that fixing them would take more money than any billionaire has.
In the US for example, we keep production high and costs low by subsidizing agriculture to the tune of $30-60 billion a year. We give individuals about $115 billion a year in money to buy food. Another $3 billion for emergency food aid. Another $25 billion for lunch for school children. Then there’s intangibles, like a side effect of food subsidies being the government owning millions of tons of milk, cheese and produce that it just gives to people. Not cheap, but difficult to quantify exactly.
This all has side effects and weird consequences. Like agricultural subsidies driving down costs of grain for the entire world, making it unprofitable to be a farmer in areas with borderline arable land and causing communities to depend on imports for food, making global food market fluctuations another source of famine risk. There’s also some obesity and other health impacts, as well as things like improved academic performance, but those aren’t relevant to this.
To actually solve the issue, you need to invest in agricultural development. The US government spends another $200 billion a year on this. Basically, instead of just buying food or paying people to grow it, you need to invest in the tools to do so, and to manage pests and everything. Roads, water, tractors, bulldozers, powerplants, education, and all the things that support those things.
All told, the US government spends about $500 billion a year on this, and it’s given us a consistently high ranking in food security indexes, with food being generally affordable and safe, and slightly less available, depending on the economy. All that, and only about 50 million people are in food insecure positions in the country.
This is before we get to the costs of doing foreign food aid.
There are billions of food insecure people on earth, and 700 million hungry.
Elon musk liquidating all his assets at face value couldn’t cover the bill for one year in the country that needs the least assistance.
That being said, while they can’t solve it they’re certainly part of the cause. The systemic failures that have led to hunger are embodied in them. If we decided to not allow billionaires to exist, we’d be making changes to society that would actually allow us to make those expensive and overwhelming changes to solve the problems above.
One person doesn’t have the resources to build roads and infrastructure needed to build the infrastructure needed to support modern farming in areas that can only scrape by, teach people the new methods needed, teach the people needed to support those people, and all of that again for getting the food to the people who need it. But if society decided people like that shouldn’t exist, the resources spent so that some portion of the resources end up in their pocket would be enough to do that.
I think it’s like a mixture of both. There’s like a relationship between the two, you know? I feel like your contribution is necessary though. Like, what is money? But the physical representation of our collective endeavors. The state takes away our autonomy and gets us the chase after money. When money can no longer buy things, the state uses its monopoly of violence to keep us all in order. It’s all just like a control structure.
I think it’s like a mixture of both. There’s like a relationship between the two, you know? I feel like your contribution is necessary though. Like, what is money? But the physical representation of our collective endeavors. The state takes away our autonomy and gets us the chase after money. When money can no longer buy things, the state uses its monopoly of violence to keep us all in order. It’s all just like a control structure.
Why only 11?
Apparently there’s thousands of billionaires. Which completely baffles. Just one of them could make sure kids never had to go hungry ever again.
Kids don’t go hungry because of money, they go hungry because of politics. Famines are the product of conflict, especially war. And hunger in countries that are not at war is a product of social inequality. Sure a billionaire could help but that’s just a temp fix.
I disagree. I believe that billionaires control the world. It is their attitude that is pervasive throughout government that allows the hunger to continue. Not to mention the number of uber rich people in the various governments, riding around in limousines while their people starve.
Also capitalism requires a large body of poor people to support it. Those cheap T-shirts aren’t made by highly paid labor. And who benefits most from capitalism?
I can probably come up with numerous other connections between the ultra rich and the state of poverty.
My [sister/brother/other] in [insert deity] have you forgotten that in almost every place on the globe food is purchased with money? And that money is also how you buy politicians? One billionaire absolutely could solve hunger through a combination of direct donation and political spending.
While money is used to by goods and services, it isn’t those goods and services. It’s essentially a measure of resource allocation. More money means you get more resources.
People don’t go hungry due to lack of money, they go hungry due to lack of food. In an area undergoing famine, you can give people money and they’ll buy food. This means people who were eating before are now going hungry. If you keep giving out money, the price of food starts to rise. Keep going, and eventually it’s cheaper to leave the country than it is to buy food.
The systemic causes of hunger are complex. The complexity is sufficient that fixing them would take more money than any billionaire has.
In the US for example, we keep production high and costs low by subsidizing agriculture to the tune of $30-60 billion a year. We give individuals about $115 billion a year in money to buy food. Another $3 billion for emergency food aid. Another $25 billion for lunch for school children. Then there’s intangibles, like a side effect of food subsidies being the government owning millions of tons of milk, cheese and produce that it just gives to people. Not cheap, but difficult to quantify exactly.
This all has side effects and weird consequences. Like agricultural subsidies driving down costs of grain for the entire world, making it unprofitable to be a farmer in areas with borderline arable land and causing communities to depend on imports for food, making global food market fluctuations another source of famine risk. There’s also some obesity and other health impacts, as well as things like improved academic performance, but those aren’t relevant to this.
To actually solve the issue, you need to invest in agricultural development. The US government spends another $200 billion a year on this. Basically, instead of just buying food or paying people to grow it, you need to invest in the tools to do so, and to manage pests and everything. Roads, water, tractors, bulldozers, powerplants, education, and all the things that support those things.
All told, the US government spends about $500 billion a year on this, and it’s given us a consistently high ranking in food security indexes, with food being generally affordable and safe, and slightly less available, depending on the economy. All that, and only about 50 million people are in food insecure positions in the country.
This is before we get to the costs of doing foreign food aid.
There are billions of food insecure people on earth, and 700 million hungry.
Elon musk liquidating all his assets at face value couldn’t cover the bill for one year in the country that needs the least assistance.
That being said, while they can’t solve it they’re certainly part of the cause. The systemic failures that have led to hunger are embodied in them. If we decided to not allow billionaires to exist, we’d be making changes to society that would actually allow us to make those expensive and overwhelming changes to solve the problems above.
One person doesn’t have the resources to build roads and infrastructure needed to build the infrastructure needed to support modern farming in areas that can only scrape by, teach people the new methods needed, teach the people needed to support those people, and all of that again for getting the food to the people who need it. But if society decided people like that shouldn’t exist, the resources spent so that some portion of the resources end up in their pocket would be enough to do that.
I think it’s like a mixture of both. There’s like a relationship between the two, you know? I feel like your contribution is necessary though. Like, what is money? But the physical representation of our collective endeavors. The state takes away our autonomy and gets us the chase after money. When money can no longer buy things, the state uses its monopoly of violence to keep us all in order. It’s all just like a control structure.
I think it’s like a mixture of both. There’s like a relationship between the two, you know? I feel like your contribution is necessary though. Like, what is money? But the physical representation of our collective endeavors. The state takes away our autonomy and gets us the chase after money. When money can no longer buy things, the state uses its monopoly of violence to keep us all in order. It’s all just like a control structure.