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Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

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Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#151

Post by leot »

Shenglong wrote: post #31

Drawing a parallel to the Canadian healthcare system: I haven't been sick in 12 years. Yet, every year, I pay taxes to keep the public healthcare system running. Even though it's not something I use, undoubtedly, there are people who need it, and wouldn't be able to pay for it if it wasn't public. About a month ago, I exhibited the symptoms of some kind of ventricular tachycardia (heart arrhythmia). As advised by a f…

As a Canadian in the U.S., believe me when I say that in America you would be paying more to get even less.

The amount of inefficiency, conflicts of interest, hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and redundancy in the U.S. system beggars belief.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#152

Post by snowy909 »

melling wrote: post #12

I skimmed the article and got to the first comment complaining that Larry Ellison spends millions on the America's Cup and he doesn't give a crap ... Basically, the problem is that for years CA, and America in general, spent money that it didn't have and now it's going to get painful. There's no point in whining and complaining. Americans are doing it to themselves. Sit down and decide what we can afford to pay for a…

RTFOP

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#153

Post by jahmed »

celoyd wrote: post #14
AlexMuir wrote: post #5

I wonder if big, successful tech companies should be dipping into their pockets to fund internet training- not as charity, but as an investment. eBay, Facebook, Netflix and Google, for instance. Between those four, there must easily be an annual $100 in revenue from having an extra US person online. So for them to invest $15 each in free classes for someone seems like a no-brainer. Plus it buys good PR and goodwill.…

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem . This is what governments are for .

Just because government can or does provide a service does not mean you cant as well.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#154

Post by lbotos »

tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

A friend of Mine just graduated with a Degree in Literature and we talk about the futures of libraries all the time. We often ask what would happen if libraries opened up a small coffee shop/stand inside of them? With enough "marketing" would people go to libraries instead?

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#155

Post by anamax »

rmason wrote: post #143

The situation in Detroit is dire with the most frequently used libraries being closed. There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke. http://michigancitizen.com/neighbors-refuse-to-give-up-east-... The Detroit library houses the second greatest collection in the world of baseball memorabilia which was given to them by the late Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell. Access is limited, item…

> There's strong community support to keep the libraries open but the city is broke.

Not quite. The city is spending its money on other things.

I'll bet that Detroit is cutting library spending while continuing to spend money on things that are less important than libraries.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#156

Post by scarmig »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #35

I'm going to reject one of the premises of the article, namely the premise that he is helping people who are "barely surviving". Let's consider people who are receiving cash or non-cash benefits, as the article described. Among these people, 67% have cable or satellite TV. 38% have a playstation. 47% own a computer. 23% have a big screen TV. Only 14% of people receiving government benefits lacked all of these luxurie…

Totally agree. The poor are lazy entitled pricks. Lucky duckies, as the WSJ aptly coined a couple years back. How dare they get some form of entertainment?

If they really need to find some way to amuse themselves besides staring at the wall all day, they can walk their fat asses two blocks down the street to borrow a book and improve themselves at this place called the...

Oh, right.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#157

Post by rrreese »

snprbob86 wrote: post #41

This is a very well written story that takes what I already kinda of assumed to be true and made it feel very real. It's quite sad, really. I don't want to trivialize the plight of the poor, but I'm also concerned with the impact on the world's intellectuals. A somewhat relevant rant follows.... We were down in the bay area meeting investors a few weeks ago, and I took some time to walk around Standford's campus. It'…

Interestingly the original coffee houses of London where used in somewhat simler ways, as places that merchants would meet and conduct buisness (not exclusively of course).

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#159

Post by celoyd »

jahmed wrote: post #153
celoyd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem . This is what governments are for .

Just because government can or does provide a service does not mean you cant as well.

Absolutely. But the idea of a collective action problem is that sometimes it isn’t in anyone’s interests to provide the service by themselves.

This can interact badly with some of the (contingent) ways we’ve come to practice capitalism.

Ideally, a government can act as an internalizing force that allows economic actors to step out of local maxima – bad Nash equilibriums where everyone knows how to fix problems but gets punished by the market/shareholders for taking initiative to fix them.

It doesn’t have to be a government that solves a CAP – it can be an industry standards body, for example – but when they deal with things like individuals and libraries, we tend to call them governments.

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