How can we convince the poor to solve poverty themselves?

Question

TWO SIMPLE ACTIONS COULD SOLVE WORLDWIDE POVERTY FOREVER:

1. If you can't afford to feed & care for kids, DO NOT HAVE THEM.
2. If you want to be able to buy nice things, STUDY HARD IN SCHOOL AND GET A GOOD JOB.

Remember the ancient eastern adage: "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."

So, how do we "teach the poor how to fish" instead of constantly throwing free fish at them, which teaches them nothing and perpetuates the mentality of victimhood?

Please don't try to challenge my stance by citing rare exceptions. Plus, remember, nobody is forcing anyone to have kids. DON'T HAVE KIDS IF YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF THEM. PERIOD. It's in the best interest of THE KIDS (imagine that!).

Answer 1

Make books on financial literacy more available and better advertised, while doing away with welfare programs and replacing them with workfare. Also, making it a requirement to get ones tubes tied before getting government aid.

Answer 2

This is the true story of a family I know. This is why attitudes like yours burn me up:

Despite mental illness, "Mona" put herself through school and earned her RN (making her a nurse). She worked hard for quite a few years before it became clear that her ever-more-frequent mental breakdowns were being caused by the stress of her job. She resisted going on disability for another couple of years because it distressed her to put aside her hard-won education and experience and go on the public dole. Eventually, for the sake of her sanity and that of her family, she caved in and accepted public assistance. She receives an amount that just about pays her utility bills with a little left over. She is hardly getting rich. She occasionally talks about going back to work, but the rest of us, remembering the nightmare her breakdowns caused all of us, encourage her not to.

"Ken," her husband, is a good man. He takes care of Mona and her child from her first marriage without complaint. Out of high school, he got a job in a food preparation factory, and has been working there 20+ years, still earning, today, under $10 an hour. Ken's benefits do not very well cover the family's health care needs. Trust me when I tell you, Ken is working to the best of his ability. He is doing absolutely the most he is capable of. More schooling would be a waste of everybody's time and money. He would struggle with it, and in the end, he would be no better equipped to do anything more than what he is doing now.

Ken and Mona live just about at the poverty line here in the USA. Ken makes $200 too much a YEAR to qualify for additional public assistance. It is all they can do to keep a roof over their heads, food in their pantry, and a car running to get Ken to work every day. They have had no additional children. They have few frills--no internet, no Tivo or the like, etc. They still have to borrow money once in a while to make ends meet.

Ken and Mona ARE fishing, and they are barely making it. They do NOT have a victimhood mentality. It would be nice if this country could cough up just a little bit more for people like them.

Answer 3

A very good solution would be to make everyone take a mandatory accounting class just teaching life skills. You don't know how many people I know that buy buy buy with credit cards and then don't understand why they have to pay so much back. And to your first point, my sister got pregnant on 3 different kinds of birth control. Sometimes not matter what, you can't prevent pregnancy. They have 6 total and just worked harder to make ends meet. Poverty will never go away until we can all support one another and that will never happen.

Answer 4

I think we should implement a plan wherin we make homeless people into astronauts free of charge. It gives them a job, but it also gets them off the streets and into a warm place. We could gradually ship all of them to the moon. It would solve the overpopulation problem here, and it would really in effect stop them from reproducing so much. Sure it would cost money, but we are sending real astronauts now, and they aren't accomplishing anything.

Answer 5

I don't think you should be so quick to judge poor people. Not all of them are uneducated people who keep popping out babies one after the other. Some are educated people who may have had a good job at one time but have fallen on hard times due to any number of reasons, mainly due to unforseen accidents or illnesses. Poverty is a struggle to overcome once you are in it. Its not as easy as you seem to think.

Answer 6

The blind appear to be handicapped. But Almighty gives
them some extra sensitivity in some other perception
organ like ear or touch. Have you not observed this?

Property separates people and poverty joins people.
People of poverty enjoy more close personal
relationships which are highly heartening.
It is we who are poor in such relationships.

Answer 7

You tell them that it is for the best interest which it is. If someone were to go hungry for a week I bet it would not take too long for them to learn how fish.

Answer 8

I don't really have an answer, but I do say you have quite the question there. So many people don't even think about this side of the debate, it's funny. I'm going to star your question I think it's so good.

Answer 9

No, teach a poor man to fish, and he will expect you to pay for his beer, and row the boat for him.

Don't forget, they all have "rights", not responsibilities.

Answer 10

So what do you do with unemployed college students with good greades?? Call me back when you find me a job!!