Item — HN Reader

I met a guy on the streets of Berkeley years ago. I gave him some money and he smiled a warm, effusive smile. He said it was his birthday. We started talking. He had been on the streets for a couple months, the result of discrimination. He was black, but he said it wasn't that -- it was age discrimination. He was in his 50's and as a hospital orderly, he couldn't move as fast as the young competition. He found himself out of work, ran through his savings, and then, once he was on the street, had a big problem giving out an address for a job application, getting cleaned up for the interview, etc.

I ran into him once a week, giving him as much as I could. $20 sometimes. Then I stopped seeing him. About six months later, I ran into him again, but it took me a while to recognize him. He looked great. A guy was reconstructing a house in the Berkeley hills and after meeting him, got him some work on the project. It was all he needed.

The U.S. spends a lot in taxes, and that money goes to such areas as defense, where "throwing money" at a situation is considered the norm, not the exception. Halliburton has gigantic, fat contracts in Iraq, for example.

I would rather we "throw money" at our neighbors when they're down on their luck, and donate money for tanks and B2 bombers. There's Iraq. Iraq is fucked. Go make it not fucked with your own money.

1 comments

> I met a guy on the streets of Berkeley years ago...

That's a really heartwarming story. Unfortunately, it's a single data point. We certainly can't expand that to cover all poor people, right?

After hearing people speak at RU meetings (and others), many of them had a single purpose in life: get high, gambling, etc (whatever said person's vice was). I've never personally heard of a perfectly fine individuals thrown out onto the streets, though I don't doubt it happens. However, where are the family members and friends? That would be the first place I turned - I'm not proud (not implying he was).

Side note: If someone is poor because they blew all their money on drugs, then lost their job and found themselves on the streets, I don't want to "throw" money at that problem. Sure, I'll buy a meal/gift card (or other necessities) as I've done in the past, but I'm not blindly trusting someone in that position. I wouldn't expect anyone to blindly trust me.

> The U.S. spends a lot in taxes, and that money goes to such areas as defense ...

Ok, we realize that number is about 20% - where is the other 80% going? There's a lot to fix other than just getting out of Iraq.

You want to know how to fix the problem of dealing with the poor? Change people's hearts. A caring, loving people will do more than any government sponsored program will. Unfortunately, the average US citizen is so far removed from the everday reality many others face. Their only insight into those struggles are the latest sob story drama of an American Idol contestant (or a Christian Children's Fund commercial). It's pathetic.

>That's a really heartwarming story. Unfortunately, it's a single data point. We certainly can't expand that to cover all poor people

Sit quietly and really ask yourself if you think that was my point. Dan posted something that put the poor into three categories, all of which said, "You can't really help them." And that's a bullshit rationalization. America has little in the way of economic safety nets compared to most western industrialized countries and it shows. America also spends more on defense than every other nation in the world -- combined -- and it shows.

If you change your priorities, you change your results.

Yes. Thank you. You covered everything I wanted to express, but better, and calmer.

Everyone arguing in these threads on HN - a bastion of privilege - should come live in a place like Vienna for a couple months. I've always been an advocate of the idea that a society is only as strong as its weakest member, but you can't know what you're missing in the US until you really experience it.

See the lack of fear in the cashier's eyes. Experience what a society is like when not a single person in it is worrying that he or she might get fired if they miss days of work due to sickness or a child's sickness.

See the total lack of homeless people.

See how it can be when all the sick are cared for, and the poor have good housing -- very nice community housing, that anyone in the country can live in, with a waiting list (poor and needy have priority), keeping them from being slums.

Everything here is better. Everyone here may live with dignity. That makes an enormous difference.

I'm an American a few hours North in Prague. Drop me an email if you come up this way; it's in my profile.