Free Market and Saving the Poor

If you want to attempt to speak over my head... be my guest... i own a dictionary.

If you want to have an open discussion please expand.

BTW... what type of taxation plan would recommend? Are you a fan of Forbe's modified flat tax?

[tylerdurden]

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BTW... what type of taxation plan would recommend?

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None.

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Are you a fan of Forbe's modified flat tax?

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It's better than the current system, but not as good as mine.

[ptmusic]

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Yes, the government is doing *something* - but would private chairities with the funding that the government has be more or less effective?

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You are making a HUGE assumption here that I don't think holds water (pun definitely unintended). You are assuming that private charities would raise as much money as the government is currently getting if there were no government.

A true comparison is even more unlikely than that. To match the overall money currently put towards life-saving missions, charities would have to raise all the money government currently uses for that purpose PLUS all the money the charities currently raise.

-ptmusic

[tylerdurden]

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A true comparison is even more unlikely than that. To match the overall money currently put towards life-saving missions, charities would have to raise all the money government currently uses for that purpose PLUS all the money the charities currently raise.

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No, they wouldn't. Chairities are more efficient than the government. Orders of magnitude so.

[ptmusic]

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A true comparison is even more unlikely than that. To match the overall money currently put towards life-saving missions, charities would have to raise all the money government currently uses for that purpose PLUS all the money the charities currently raise.

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No, they wouldn't. Chairities are more efficient than the government. Orders of magnitude so.

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Efficiency is a different topic than fund-raising, which is the assumption of yours I was contesting. And while it's true that charities are more efficient than government, it would be very difficult to outperform the power of all the funds that government raises, as unfairly as it raises money, and as inefficiently as it uses it.

One also needs to account for the likelihood that any institution's efficiency would likely suffer if it grew exponentially, as would be the case in your charities-have-all-the-government's-money scenario.

-ptmusic

[Il_Mostro]

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One also needs to account for the likelihood that any institution's efficiency would likely suffer if it grew exponentially

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A classic case of the law of diminishing returns.

[natedogg]

A situation like this is one of the few things that government SHOULD be involved in. Their main role is provide us protection when we can't do it ourselves.

It's too bad the Bush administration appointed an incompetent ex-estate lawyer as head of FEMA and ignored all kinds of warnings about the risks of this happening.

natedogg

[tylerdurden]

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it would be very difficult to outperform the power of all the funds that government raises, as unfairly as it raises money, and as inefficiently as it uses it.

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Really? Have you been watching TV?

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How does the free market handle poor people dying in a natural disaster?

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Private charities. Millions are already being raised from private charity to help the sufferers. Something disastrous like this could be assuaged by government intervention also. Market economies have much less government intervention, but some is still required for enforcing laws and such.