From: ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer)
Subject: Re: Shouldn't we feed the poor?
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 20:24:11 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services

forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) writes ...
>From article <459n3yr.ray@netcom.com>, by ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer):
>> forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) writes ...
>>>From article <hy4n7rm.ray@netcom.com>, by ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer):

>>>> Wealth is finite; there is not enough wealth in the world to save everybody
>>>> who can be saved.
>>>
>>>In fact, there is.   
>>>
>>>Simple food and water is not expensive unless people like you hoard it.
>> 
>> Pardon me, but you clearly know nothing about the exigencies of living
>> in the real world.  
>
>I know the real world far better than you do!  You live in nothing but 
>a sick fantasy.

Ms. Forgach, you are arrogant in your ignorance.  Not only do you
not know much about economics or my life, you are presumptuous enough
to believe that you know exactly what is best for me and for everyone 
else.  Thus far, I've seen nothing to indicate that you are correct.

>> First off, wealth is finite (wealth is not money).
>
>Garbage.  The creativity of human beings to supply their own needs and
>the needs of others is limitless.

Creativity doesn't dress the kids or feed them.  For that you need 
clothes and food.  It doesn't educate them, for which you need research
(learning) and teachers.  It doesn't heal them, for which you need
medicine.

Wealth (not money) comes from work.  When people take raw stuff and 
turn it into something more valuable, they create wealth.  The more 
wealth created, the better the lifestyle.  The greater the productivity, 
the fewer the number of hours of work needed.  There are only 168 hours 
in a week, and some of them must be spent sleeping.  Since productivity 
is not infinite (one cannot build a 80 story building in five minutes 
singlehanded), wealth is finite.

Your introduction to economics.

>> Second, nobody lives on just food and water 
>
>That certainly seems adequate to me!  That's what _I_ live on.   What
>do _you_ eat, rocks and nails?

What, you sitting in a field with no clothes on typing on a borrowed
computer?  How did you learn to use the machine, osmosis?  Who's paying
for the electricity?  Who's paying for net access? What would you do 
should one of your kids be injured and need attention?  Pray that a 
miracle set the broken bone?  How do you stay dry in the rain and warm in
the winter?

>> (as even a moments reflection
>> would have shown).  Third, medical care is expensive.  
>
>Which is very unnecessary.  It is far more expensive than it
>needs to be.

Well, gee.  An M.D.'s education takes about 12 years _after_ high school.
NMR scanners use computers, large magnets, sensors, and misc other bits
and pieces.  Caring for a premature infant requires a controlled
environment, monitoring equipment, round-the-clock nursing attention,
drugs, and, of course, formula.

But of course, all of this just falls from the sky, so nobody actually
has to _pay_ for it.  And nurses and doctors don't actually deserve
to earn a living for what they do, because after all, they don't need
anything more than food and water either.

>> Fourth, before
>> medical care the life expectancy of the average person was about 35.
>
>No, Ray, that was the average life expectancy before the modern age
>of the wonderous techniques of FARMING.   There is no reason we can't
>share our overabundant crops and farming techniques with the rest
>of the world.

Hmmm.  Today (right now) the life expentancy in some African countries
is a little over 40.  Anthropologists have discovered that people in
hunter-gatherer societies actually spend _less_ time working than do we.

>> Now, if you really think there is enough wealth to save everyone and
>> cure all disease, 
>
>We have the wealth NOW to feed everyone on the planet, AND care for
>babies in neonatal intensive care wards.   The age of AIDS has
>taught us that no matter how many diseases we cure, there will
>always be newly invented ones right behind them.  But that is no
>reason not to feed people NOW.   Unless of course you're hoarding
>resources.

Communism doesn't work.

-- 
Ray Fischer                   "Every improvement in communication
ray@netcom.com                 makes the bore more terrible"  Frank Moore Colby