I did have an answer. You just didn't like it because it requires more than a simple yes/no answer in an economy polluted with corporate cronyism and regulatory capture.
Your hunger statistics are simple statements, and I'll assume for the sake of argument that they are accurate. However, the fact that problems exist is not evidence that your solutions are correct. If hunger concerns you, you should be promoting free markets and trade. It may sound mercenary to you, but people who have no food want food. People who can produce food want to sell it. Food production and transportation have costs and risks. Profit is the reward for serving needs, and offers an incentive to producers for bearing those costs and risks. It's a decentralized grassroots mechanism requiring no planners or programs. Governments actively intervene in food production and transportation when markets are eager to serve, and destroy the economies of these impoverished nations. We have known for decades that misguided charity stifles local economies and prevents the growth of regional economic self-sufficiency in agriculture.
Your solution seems to be the system that intentionally starved Ukranians by the millions. My solution is the system that is so productive despite political intervention and corporate manipulation that obesity is an epidemic in America.
It's almost like you live in a fantasy world.
So you think throwing out food from fast food places and supermarkets into dumpsters is only a thing because of "lack of free trade"?
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Primarily, yes. Government regulations often explicitly prohibit the distribution of food that is deemed "waste." Do you think hunger is a thing simply because restaurants and grocery stores throw away food that doesn't sell? What fundamental economic system do you think makes this reliable food surplus possible in the first place?
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Yeah, it's not as if grocery stores and restaurants are throwing out food in some conspiracy to starve the poor. They throw it out because any alternative is difficult or impossible because of federal, state and local regulations.
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The federal government actually is less involved than the corporate government in these situations.
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Corporate government is involved in the sense that they set the policies they do in order to avoid lawsuits and prosecution. State health laws are the biggest driving factors in setting those policies. The other thing that is sometimes an issue is the fact that food banks often won't accept such donations for a variety of reasons (logistics, not enough volume, etc.). Again, this isn't because of corporate greed or some sort of conspiracy against the poor. Assuming the law didn't make it difficult or impossible and there was a place to accept such donations, what would be the downside for the corporation? It would be good press and a tax write-off.
There are in fact federal (and in some cases state) laws that protect businesses from liability in the case of donations but these come with strings attached. Certain labeling and food treatment requirements that vary from state to state and may not be practical for a business to follow in the case of leftover food.
Having said that, there are many large corporate restaurants that donate vast amounts of food every year, including Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Panera, Olive Garden, LongHorn, Chipotle, The Cheesecake Factory, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and others. But even in these cases they are often doing this only in limited markets because of the legal and logistics issues already mentioned.
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So you're saying that there being enough food to feed the entire human population several times over isn't a conspiracy against poor people?
Just because a few companies do something good doesn't mean that it makes it okay. Of course our government is complicit, as they are bought and paid for by the rich.
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It isn't a conspiracy against the poor, it's the result of a byzantine legal system, and the fact that often the surplus and the need are not geographically coincident. You can't fix either through legislation or election. Logistics can't be hand-waved away, and there is no incentive for politicians to streamline and clarify the legal system.
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So you're saying that there are no starving people in America? No homeless people begging for sandwiches in a city? Really?
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A government bought and paid for by the rich is what you get when the government is constantly granted more power. But a conspiracy against the poor? No, I don't think there are people sitting in a room somewhere figuring out how they can starve people. And generally speaking, people are NOT starving in this country and I would venture to say that in most cases there are factors involved other than the unavailability of food.
Every year, about a hundred people starve to death in this country. That is a microscopic number of people. Yes, 1 is too many but even this small number includes people like the neglected elderly. It isn't lack of food or affordable food that is usually the problem. It's making sure the food gets to those who need it or those who need it get to the food. Restaurants can donate food all day long but they don't necessarily have the ability to locate the people who need it or serve it to the needy themselves.
No doubt the number of malnourished is much higher that the number that actually starve to death, but again, free food is available in many places often including from churches, homeless shelters, food banks, etc. Making it convenient for those that need food to get it is another problem of course but I venture to say no matter how convenient and plentiful food is, it will be hard to get the number who starve to death each year below the approximate 0.000025% that it is today.
You can't really blame corporations for the laws that decide where and how food for the needy is distributed. Those are more due to individuals who bitch about it being done near their neighborhood. There was a story not too long ago about how a planned project to feed the homeless in a park in Orlando was prevented because the police said so. At the other end of the spectrum you have people shitting all over the streets in San Francisco because they have nowhere to live. Why? Because housing prices are artificially through the roof. Why? Because of stupid government laws and regulations that prevent more housing from being built. Instead, they try ignorant solutions like rent/price controls which of course doesn't solve the problem of shortages. This kind of centralized control of the economy always makes things worse.
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Power is a zero-sum game. When people hoard wealth, using any means neccessary, it fundamentally and definitionaly requires people at the opposite end of the food-chain to suffer.
A conspiracy to rig society to create billionaires is simultaneously a conspiracy to hurt the poorest in our society.
I've been to food banks. It does not nearly come close to alleviating food problems, and most things there are near expiry, and not remotely healthy.
Malnourishment leads to death, and leads to suffering. You do not need to die before things are a problem.
Googling the term yields the following result:
So, tell me again how poor people are all doing things wrong and how things aren't ungodly difficult on purpose. Please, go on about how stupid and dumb the poor are and how smart and hard-working the rich are!
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Having been inside managerial places, it's not because of "free trade" or "government". It's because the corporations force them to because they don't want "free-loaders" (homeless people) "taking advantage of them".
The federal government, on the other hand, could pass a law that demands food surplus be sent to those who need it, though.
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Laws vary from state to state in the US and from country to country, but it's not like my argument is made up. The US is very litigious, and businesses can't afford the risk of lawsuits. They rely on byzantine laws as interpreted by many layers of bureaucrats and lawyers. They err on the side of not being destroyed by lawsuits.
The federal government can pass all manner of laws, but their focus is primarily on gaining and entrenching more power, not actually caring for people. And if they did pass such a law, I guarantee it would become an expensive burden, not a blessing, because governments have no measurement tool against which they can balance their opinions. They pay no penalty for being wrong. They always claim virtue regardless of the unintended consequences.
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If this were 2016 or 2017, you'd be right. But we are in a world post-2018 where there are clearly signs (AOC, Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders' campaign) that your way of thinking isn't dominant anymore, and that's the first stepping stone to fixing the problems you and I discuss. You just need to stop living Online, and try going outside and talking to real people about their material needs.
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I deeply disagree with the principles and methodology of AOC, Sanders, et. al. They still suffer the same moral hazard, economic calculation problem, and public choice pitfalls of a central monopoly funded by extortion. They cannot create cooperation, peace, and justice when using the means of the State, because the means of the State are fundamentally coercion, war, and injustice. We need voluntary, grassroots solutions instead, many of which exist already despite the State.
You only see what I do online. Why must you assume it is the extent of my interaction and activism? Set aside your prejudices.
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Thats exactly what their campaigns are about. You can pretend to disagree with them to keep up with your fantasy land meme philosophy, but they are NOT bought out by ANY special interests, and that is the point of my post.
Go on.
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