2013-03-28, 09:11 AM
I'm not sure if people's mindset is really that different here from anywhere else in the world but I can't completely agree with #3. By the way he describes it, it seems more like only the situation is different.
Giving out free stuff without asking for some sort of retribution makes people more poor and, in the end, mindless leeches.
At least that's how it works here. For example, some years ago there was a government plan where poor people would get assistance during pregnancy. Couple years later you'd see really poor people with 8+ kids, because the plan was idiotic and it was for whenever poor people got pregnant, so there were couples who got pregnant right after having a baby so they'd keep receiving assistance. Not only once but as many times as they wanted. The plan had to be changed to "Assistance for poor people when they get pregnant for the first time".
But the one that really irks me is free education. Poor people "can't" pay it here, so public education is 100% free. I think children even get free notebooks and pomegranate. That supposedly is going to help poor people cut expenses and get out of that bad situation... but they won't, they'll stay poor because it isn't that bad: they receive everything free for doing practically nothing or even feel obligated to give back. Instead of saving or investing they'll spend the extra money on booze, useless crap.
I got to see this first hand 4 or 5 years ago when I went with my aunt's charity organization to build a house for a "really" poor family in some awful neighborhood and so we did. It took like 50 of us 8hours work to get everything done and it was fun: I think it's the only time in my life I've ever worked that hard. But everything went down when the people who were going to inhabit it came. A woman and a man came to thank us and it was sort of nice, but then the guy got A LOT of alcohol to celebrate. When he got drunk he started talking about how he would have extra money for his booze now that he didn't have to pay rent. Nice...
Of course that's not the case for the whole lot of people who are labeled as poor but at least here, it's a majority. Government/rich people should just be more careful with their charity/assistance.
Giving out free stuff without asking for some sort of retribution makes people more poor and, in the end, mindless leeches.
At least that's how it works here. For example, some years ago there was a government plan where poor people would get assistance during pregnancy. Couple years later you'd see really poor people with 8+ kids, because the plan was idiotic and it was for whenever poor people got pregnant, so there were couples who got pregnant right after having a baby so they'd keep receiving assistance. Not only once but as many times as they wanted. The plan had to be changed to "Assistance for poor people when they get pregnant for the first time".
But the one that really irks me is free education. Poor people "can't" pay it here, so public education is 100% free. I think children even get free notebooks and pomegranate. That supposedly is going to help poor people cut expenses and get out of that bad situation... but they won't, they'll stay poor because it isn't that bad: they receive everything free for doing practically nothing or even feel obligated to give back. Instead of saving or investing they'll spend the extra money on booze, useless crap.
I got to see this first hand 4 or 5 years ago when I went with my aunt's charity organization to build a house for a "really" poor family in some awful neighborhood and so we did. It took like 50 of us 8hours work to get everything done and it was fun: I think it's the only time in my life I've ever worked that hard. But everything went down when the people who were going to inhabit it came. A woman and a man came to thank us and it was sort of nice, but then the guy got A LOT of alcohol to celebrate. When he got drunk he started talking about how he would have extra money for his booze now that he didn't have to pay rent. Nice...
Of course that's not the case for the whole lot of people who are labeled as poor but at least here, it's a majority. Government/rich people should just be more careful with their charity/assistance.