Sunday, November 18, 2007

For my next blog post, I am going to attempt to define the ethos unbiasedly. To do this, I will have to make my topic more specific, so I am going to examine the different ways to end fix poverty and homelessness.

What are the different ways to eliminate poverty?

1. Redistribution through taxes (not necessarily governmental): World Bank Site

I had a hard time understanding this site and the World Bank's purpose. I will continue reading, however, I think the the World Bank thinks that the "Global Wealthy" (This term was not defined on the World Bank site) should be taxed. The money from this taxation would then be given to the "Global Poor" in cash.

2. Lowering Tax rates The Christian Science Monitor site

Explains how (with statistics) that lowered tax rates lead to increased economic activity which leads to a decrease in poverty levels.

3. Assistance through welfare:
Research in progress

4. Privatized Assistance through contributions.

In this line of though, private organizations are held responsible for providing assistance to poor people. Divisions arise when the type of assistance is considered. Types of assistance include direct cash contributions, contributions to organizations.

5. Privatized Assistance through services.

This camp supports the idea that giving someone money, food or clothes will not fix poverty. These organization try to point poor people to services or provide services such as housing, health maintenance, employment, education etc.

6. Government work programs.
This camp supports the idea that the government should create programs that would create jobs. Examples from the past include the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration.

Please comment with suggestions about other camps or schools of thought on ways to fix poverty.

1 comment:

Tarheel199 said...

Another idea that I think could be used as a method to lessen poverty would be government work programs. The Great Depression caused unemployment rates to fall, homeless, and overall poverty. However, the government's initiation of work programs worked to help the problem. In the economics course that I am currently taking, it is argued that if the government were to initiate these programs, unemployment would be solved because anyone "willing" to work would work. This is just another idea or theory that I thought might be useful.