Incredibly controversial topic

[prometheus]

It proves that the mechanics don't serve man but that they enslave man.

[musik_man]

It proves that the mechanics don't serve man but that they enslave man.

?

[rimv2]

Uhhh yeah....

[leahcim]

So you think that corporations, one of the foundations of capitalism, cheat all their workers. 

No. How did you reach that conclusion?

The economy isn't full of people who are being cheated, it's largely full of people who have no idea how to utilise the money they have. That someone is writing a letter asking whether to spend it shows that. The less they have, the better and their role is to get rid of what they have. If they find beggars to help them do that, why not?

Indeed, the chances are high she is in debt, fulfilling her role of having as little as possible for years into the future - thus making her less rich than the beggar who only has nothing, or maybe even a fiver. Perhaps the stigma he talks about by being a beggar is the same as that in being rich, you've got more than everyone else?

I think my point was more that how an individual gets the resources / money he/she gets and how an individual utilises them and adapts to whatever changes occur, is more key to the success and future of that individual than some economist's statistical / high level overview about how an economy will work and what good / bad things would happen if you give a beggar money or not. [or do anything with your money or life based upon his hand-waving overview] It's like the "can I make money playing the piano?" questions in the forum. Of course you can't, unless you're one of the people that do.

Or, in other words, just because everyone can't make money begging [or doing anything else] doesn't mean someone can't and just because a lot of people will get a £1 from farming or £1+ from begging, but not both and would stop at that stage forever. There are a few who will do both jobs with an eye on using the extra money to let them do something else, rather than buy a bigger TV or feed another 5 beggars on their next holiday.

In most cases for the role of beggar, we aren't going to worry too much about the fact Tim tells us we can't be one. However, he'll tell you the same thing about running Tescos if you ask him whether you should do that. "If everyone ran Tescos, who would farm?"

Clearly people giving money away are unlikely to do anything of value with it. The fact someone who begs might do was the point of my story. The anti-thesis to his point which is that they might not - albeit he couched it in terms that they would not, and claimed not only that, but they should be doing something else. No one can predict the future, but we've got to get the money from her to someone else somehow.

Albeit, the corporations, with a proven track record, might be a better bet, so if you're unsure about your beggar's future with your money, tell her to buy some shiny things from some other guy that isn't farming either.

Whether I give my money away to beggars, buy a lottery ticket or a buy a piano the money will have gone from me and for those particular cases, although there are small possibilities that I might make more money from them, chances are I won't. It's called disposable income for a reason.

At some point in the future, there may not be an industry in piano building, begging from richer tourists, selling lottery tickets or anything else. Perhaps I shouldn't buy a piano or a lottery ticket, or anything else, in order to avert the situation where piano builders et al get fooled into thinking they can make more money at it with less effort than farming for £1 a week.

Worse, if farmers were to leave the fields and make pianos or sell lottery tickets, we can all see the harm. There'd be more pianos and lottery tickets and no cabbage. Tim is effectively telling her to stop spending money on anything unless it involves farming or unless everyone can do it.

Clearly the future changes and those changes might influence whether what we do works and gets us the money we want in the short, medium or long term. Begging might not be a long term strategy, but neither was working in British industry for a lot of people.

[musik_man]

Leachim, I don't think that Tim wanted his analysis taken outside of begging.  Begging is not like just another job.  It's bad.  It produces abosolutely nothing of value for society.  All it consists of are costs(aesthetics, public health.)  If you subsidize these things, you make them more attractive.  In the US, you could never pull off a good living from 5's and 10's from passergoes, but the US is so much better off, that begging First World tourists in Thrid World countries can be a sustainable job.  This is the problem.  A beggar does nothing to advance these countries as they go through the processes that Western Europe and the US went through hundreds of years ago(and that many Asian countries have gone through recently).  By giving them money, you may help them off in the short term, but you hurt them in the long.

[leahcim]

Leachim, I don't think that Tim wanted his analysis taken outside of begging.  Begging is not like just another job.  It's bad.  It produces abosolutely nothing of value for society.

Well, what Tim wants is neither here nor there. There's lots of jobs that you could argue don't do that either, certainly from different points of view. OTOH, crime is of a huge benefit to some, there are businesses that exist purely because it does, yet I don't think that makes it good per se. If the guy was to hit you over the head and take everything, then you'd have a heap of people benefitting from his endeavours - some of which you'd pay for, whereas if he sits there and you give him the money it's of no value to anyone, except perhaps him mebbe? If the fiver is of use and value when you spend it, it must be the same....irrespective of whether you think you benefitted society when you got the fiver.

Giving money to charity isn't much different. It doesn't have to be an eyesore either, some of those people at the Vatican have fancy gear and they do an act. What about busking? That's not a million miles away from what a concert pianist does to eat. Neither is giving your nephews £5 in their birthday card if giving money away is bad.

It's like I said it's all fakery. In the US I could get lots of debt and then a big TV which would make me wealthy in your eyes. But I see a fair amount of the jobs in some industries in the USA being outsourced to India. So now that guy's left with the debt, he wasn't ever wealthy but he doesn't have any economists to proudly guff over his £1 a week farming martydom nor it seems anyone willing to chuck him a fiver

I guess I take the medical view, where they don't morally judge the person's worth when they're healing them [well, at least not all the time - there are a few], it's what they do with the opportunity they get that matters. If that's more begging, then as I said, that's not much different from what everyone else does with the resources they get.

As for advancing third world economies, I don't think we want another few billion people who all want to power big TVs and cars, do we? Fair trade? Ha. Who is going to make my telly nice and cheaply if they're all advanced? How am I going to keep kidding myself that I can carry on and pay for this debt if they all get advanced? No, it's bad enough that poor people can write computer software and make telephone calls asking if I want double glazing. If begging will keep them where they are and ensure I'll have a big TV, here give them this £5

[musik_man]

Crime does not benefit society.  A criminal takes what someone else has made and uses it for himself.  He creates no new wealth.  He benefits himself and other criminals who he deals with, but society as a whole is worse off for his actions. 

I think you still don't quite understand what Tim was getting at.  It isn't that the beggar isn't better off because of the charity.  It's that when you throw large amounts of money(by third world standards) at beggars, you end up with lots of beggars.  Beggars are bad for society.  It's a degrading almost inhumane activity. 

And I don't see how going into debt is relevant  to whether giving beggars money is a good idea.  And I further fail to see what outsourcing(a scary word for free trade) has to do with any of this.

[leahcim]

Crime does not benefit society.  A criminal takes what someone else has made and uses it for himself.  He creates no new wealth.

Well yes that describes some crime. But say you're employed in a company that makes cars and they sell twice as many because lots of them get stolen and crashed etc, and thus you have a job to pay off your debts...or your "wealth" if you like, then ultimately you benefit from car theft.

Whether in the statistical hand-waving high overview it benefits is neither here nor there - that was my point with my letter. Just because something comes along that will kill 80% of the population then I'm going to worry about where I'm standing when it comes.

Even if Tim is telling everyone who asks that it doesn't matter where I stand because most people will die. In other words, if the penny hasn't dropped f**k society or I'm here for me to take the advantages and opportunities that I can to ensure my success within whatever economy there is, not to follow Tims "advice" to keep me in his status quo. If I was in a country where that meant begging for a while to rise above, so be it, the dire consequences to the economy that he predicts won't happen, no more than you'll be running walmart because that pays more than whatever you do now.

If the economy goes bad, I'd hope to engineer it so that it didn't affect me. Since the future is difficult to predict that's not guaranteed, but no debt and / or lots of money puts you in a better position usually - something our beggar is probably in compared with your average "wealthy" person. You are best to do what Tim says though, of course. I guarantee that there are people in that country that have no need to beg or farm even if they once did.

This is where listening to the "Tims" of this world makes no sense, because he can only tell you one thing - and that is, you are doomed to fail statistically because so few can succeed. The only real difference is the degree of failure - what "failure" actually is. As you note our economies can even trick you into believing you're pretty wealthy, maybe even comfortable, when you have huge debts [not that our economies don't have people who can't get debts that appear worse off]

Similary, there are lots of things that are of no real value [from someone's pov], however you probably consider them to have value in this conversation simply because people will pay for them I guess. Criminals are not just people that take things. They grow and manufacture drugs and many other goods, for example.

There are elements of the economy that rely on spending money as well as earning it. That spending part is just as important and the beggar is presumably going to do that with your money. At which point my earlier points about how you spend your money become valid - especially if, as my hypothetical letter that started this exchange, suggested, the beggar spends it better than you [after all she's poncing about spending her money in a place that's not helping our economy ]

And I don't see how going into debt is relevant

Because you keep talking about people and countries that are "wealthy" whereas I see lots of people and countries in debt....and...

]
 And I further fail to see what outsourcing(a scary word for free trade) has to do with any of this.

....because [continuing from the last point] it was an example of breaking the illusion of "wealth" which is really just "debt" - an example that happens today. There are others that could happen which would hit harder and more people. The current pensions issue for example. If Tim said 20 years ago "get a pension" would you? Wouldn't making a heap of money so you didn't need one be better? "But everyone can't do that"...what happens when you paid in all that money and don't get one after all? As I said, you can't predict the future, not even Tim...although he probably hopes his advice helps engineer his predictions to be true.

Also, you seemed to believe that begging is bad because it will prevent other economies progressing. Presumably so the people there are closer to us in their expectations of lifestyle, jobs and so on i.e you appear to have the moral view that it is good if that happens and thus Tim's advice to not feed the beggars, if true, is also morally the right thing to do?

Whereas not only am I not agreeing with Tim's analysis from the pov of an individual, as I've described, I also don't necessarily see it as particularly good for me if what he says about their economy does happen.