Re: How do you feel about people outright asking you for money?
I'm not trying to say it's a mistake to help people, especially the people you love. But, in many cases, it is going to be a mistake to just give them money.
Buy them a house instead. Pay their tuition to college. Now, they're in a spot to help themselves the rest of their lives, even if this money is eventually gone for some reason.
Plus, if you give to your parents, but not your siblings, will they resent you for it? If you give to your siblings also, that problem goes away, but now will your aunts, uncles, nieces, or nephews resent you for not giving to them as well? No matter where you stop, those people on the next level out might be resentful and angry, even though they have no right to be like that.
Even if this example isn't a perfect analogy, I really do believe that those people who have good intentions are sometimes the most harmful. PETA and some of the really fringe eco-warrior groups are a good example. When you hear a story about a group like this breaking into a lab and freeing a bunch of lab animals, and then it turns out that those lab mice have been bred to require specific nutrients in their diet or they die, you realize how silly extremism can be. And it's not most of us who are extreme, it's the true believers who are certain they know what is best for you and me, and will force it upon us to "help" us. Those people scare me a lot more than a criminal-type.
Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)
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