As a kid, there used to be commercials on TV in Australia for "dollar a day" charity sponsorship of starving children in Ethiopia, though I am not sure those commercials still exist. I have always had a mixed relationship with charities, because I think we should have set up society in a way not to rely on the donations of individuals to keep the system going. And also, because there tends to be a hue misappropriation of funds, from warlords taking the benefits, to administration costs eating over 90% of the donations. Yet, there are still some charities out there that are trying and may even be succeeding in doing some good, but overall, it is an inefficient process.
When I say that we shouldn't need charity, it is because most of what we spend our resources on isn't necessary for really anyone and the vast amounts of wealth that are being generated, go to making more wealth from non-value-adding activity for humans. For instance, there are 3,028 billionaires in the world. One billion dollars is "a dollar a day" for 2,739,726 children. That is to say that if each of them gave ~330K, that many children would apparently be saved from starvation and have a better life. However, taxing the rich is not the answer, as that is just more forced charity.
The thing is that while we might look at the extremely wealthy and their billions, in order to have that amount of value, there is a consumer machine that is churning trillions upon trillions, and the majority of that trade is rather useless for humanity. It is largely consumer goods and services that are designed to entertain and then be disposed of rapidly. And the majority of the supply chain from the design of the machines to work the mines, to the information management systems that facilitate administration and the practical people to make it all happen, are in service to these disposable, useless, industries.
Yet, we can no longer imagine a world without all this crap, where we have a belief that we are doing better for having it. We convince ourselves that what we do in life is important, even though nearly all of us are just part of that same consumer machine in the jobs we do, the things we buy, and the behaviours we keep. This means that a lack of resources are not the problem, nor is there a lack of wealth. What there is however, is a lack of importance placed on the things that actually matter to our existence, subsistence, and wellbeing.
Of course though, there is a balance point somewhere that tells us as humans that we can't just do everything in service to resource efficiency, we also have to have "a good time" too, otherwise life becomes meaningless. Yet, that line is far from balanced today, where the things of importance to our survival, are being replaced by the irrelevancies for consumption.
This makes economic sense.
Because taking people's minds off of important things makes far more money than focusing their attention on what needs to be done, because what needs to be done is more difficult than feigning ignorance and avoiding the hardship of responsibility and the work required for positive change. Which takes us back to the economic machinery that churns trillions to make an increasingly smaller portion of society, wealthier, while the rest fall further and further behind.
Just like many of those African countries were stripped of resources by colonialism, the world population is being stripped by corporate globalism. We are all being mined, but instead of just oil and diamonds, it is of our humanity itself, where we are increasingly being disconnected and separated from each other, to become isolated and oppressed. Our health is fading, our mind is fading. The only thing not fading away, is our waist.
And our waste.
If we could break down the average life by consumer behaviour based on country, and factor in the entire supply chain, I wonder what portion would be considered positive for humanity, or negative for humanity. I would assume that for most people, including myself, far more would fall into the negative bucket than we would like to admit. Still, we aren't going to change are we, because we have bought into this notion that being entertained is the most important thing we can do with our time.
At the moment, governments the world over are providing charity to corporations through tax loopholes. Rather than looking to "tax the rich" (or anyone more), the first order should be to close the major loophole and have corporations pay the tax on what they have earned, where it was earned. None of this moving it to another country for a lower tax rate, none of these P.O. Box head offices. Yet - they keep avoiding this, because the disruption and change in society is immense.
The stock market as we know it today collapses.
Evaluations are made on earnings, and "earnings" are inflated through these tax loopholes, which can see a corporation strip wealth from people in a country, and pay nothing into building the infrastructure required for that same country. The big corporations are the clearest examples, but all corporations are doing it. This gives them overinflated ratings, subsided by the populations of countries they are stripping. It also makes it infinitely harder for local small and medium enterprises that are paying their taxes locally, to compete.
This would significantly decrease the profit margins of corporations, meaning their evaluations would fall and so would their profit distribution to shareholders. The ROI on all of the largest companies in the world would collapse, and that means that people would shift their investments to where profit is highest, or more stable - elsewhere.
Tax doesn't disappear overnight, so there is not going to be some flip the switch change to a no tax system in our lifetimes, but major overhauls are required to start shifting the distribution of wealth to not only more people, but to more important areas of society. We need to reallocate resources, but it has to be done through economic incentive, otherwise, it isn't going to happen.
Tax makes the world go round.
But as the majority, we need to pushback on this forced charity where we are constantly subsidising corporations to mint more billionaires, while more people fall into needing the charity of strangers. To rebuild our local communities, we have to ensure that more financial resources are applied locally to improve conditions for an increasing amount of people. To do this, we don't need to tax billionaires, we need to close the financial loopholes that helped them become billionaires in the first place. And of course, it wouldn't hurt to spend locally on what is important, than globally on what is not.
A dollar a day is irrelevant, in a healthy economy.
Taraz
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US corporations are really good at this as they control all of our politicians via their donations and in return the laws are structured in a way to protect them and there are whole industries making it on taxpayer subsidies such as electric cars, solar, satellite launching business, farmers, etc...
The subsidies are the cherry on top, aren't they?
Oh, and the bailouts.
Helping people in poor countries is possible, but it's better to do so not through one-time charitable donations, but by building needed factories there.
Take Hive, for example: don't donate to people or like them using whale accounts. Instead, delegate HP (project shares) to people, which cannot be sold; they can profit from this capital for decades.
The factories are only really useful if the people are paid adequately, and the wealth isn't stripped out to another country.
Yes, factories producing low-cost products for local consumers.
Frankly, I'm against donations. Donations shouldn't be made except to people experiencing major natural disasters. In fact, donating and helping others is a disservice to those people. It's not right to help someone who doesn't have a physical or mental illness. Nowadays, I see people helping very healthy people. The more they help them, the lazier they become. Receiving help and becoming lazy become part of their lives.
It is the same argument I have with all of the tools that make things easier for us. We are becoming so lazy, we can do nothing at all.
I remember about five years ago, our government imposed high taxes on large businesses without any economic incentives. Many companies opposed it, but the government's tax policy did not change. As a result, many companies went out of business and many employees lost their jobs. Unemployment increased rapidly throughout the country. The government increased the tax rate to increase donations due to the Covid pandemic. The collection of donations led to a serious economic collapse. Many rich people and large businessmen still allocate money for charitable activities because of the tax-free policy. That is why I am against charitable activities.
There should be a flat tax for everyone and all corporations. 20% for all.
I have always maintained that there are more than enough resources in our planet to serve everyone. But a few greedy men have taken all the resources for themselves. The solution to this problem would be electing leaders of integrity who will help create a healthy and efficient economy. But then, good leaders are rare and even if they make it to positions of power, they would still be manipulated by the so called cabal. Maybe what we need is a revolution by the masses.
I don't think it will come through good leaders either. There has to be economic incentive to do the right thing. But in an economy where wealth maximisation is the only metric for doing well, it isn't going to happen.
I say.. instead of doing a feel-good charity act.. such as giving free meals to bums on the street.. instead build something , like a farm, where ppl can share it and work to produce something to help themselves.
give a man a fish.. :P
Most people would have no idea what to do at even a basic level on a farm. But, everyone should know something, right?
true. 👩🌾
If we focused our energy on creating jobs and supporting local economies, we would witness much more significant change than just a dollar a day could ever bring.
For sure. Job creation should come through wellbeing creation though.
They do still have those commercials. At least in the US. Most of them though are for like Shriners Children's hospital or helping animals that have been abused. You don't see the ones exploiting folks in Africa like they used to.
That point about taxing profits where they are earned hits me, transfer pricing and hollow P.O. boxes distort the books and push local SMEs off the field.
From my led;ger view, a tiny tweak in those rules and the ROI mirage vanishes, which means less forced charity to corporations and more for real work that keeps people well.
We do not need bigger sticks or slogans, just close the doors they walk through and make profit match place so the stock market math looks honest even if the line go down :)