"a commercial for the Super Bowl cost companies 3-4 million dollars, and people are dying of starvation, malnutrition and poverty...and no one cares!"
My guess is that a company wants people to buy their products...a lot of people watch the Super Bowl...it's expensive to get a commercial because...well...a lot of people watch the Super Bowl. If a company wants a lot of people to buy their product...and they think an ad in the Super Bowl is the way to do it....they should probably pay for a commercial during the Super Bowl....even if it costs millions.
And then they'll make a lot of money. And if they make more money selling stuff than they do on buying supplies, paying people to put those supplies together, paying taxes, paying for unemployment and insurance, paying their rent, and paying for the 4 million dollar Super Bowl commercial....then maybe they can try and help people who are starving.
If they take that money that is going to the Super Bowl commercial...and instead, give it to starving people...then nobody will see their ad...nobody will buy their product...they'll have to close down factories and fire people....and then they've just created more poor people.
I sometimes want to ask the people who are crying out at the injustice - "what have you done to make the situation better"? (assuming that crying out doesn't fix every problem)
sponsor a child?
volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen?
How about someone who works 40 hours a week, sleeps for 56 and still has 72 hours left over....how many of those hours are spent watching tv? How about helping others?
It's quite possible that there are those who are rich in time...and they (we) might be just as guilty of ignoring the problems of this world...
just maybe...
Nice post. Most people don't understand the value of efficient markets in creating wealth.
ReplyDeleteMost people mistakenly think that the best way to alleviate poverty is to redistribute existing wealth. In reality, the best long-term solution to alleviate poverty is to create more wealth.
It's like people who get mad that, with all this technology and efficient ways of doing business, we don't work less than we did 50 years ago. They think that, since we have computers and cell phones and email and robots and machines, we should be able to just work a 20 hour week and get everything done.
What they don't realize is that there are more people on the earth than there were 50 years ago, and we have the same resources at our disposal - so we have to be more efficent to create enough wealth to sustain all these people - so the added efficiencies allow us to support more people - not take more time for leisure.
Good post.
People who have surplus wealth buy bigger yachts, go on big vacations and spend their money in resorts and spas owned by other rich people in other countries. Trickle down is a myth. Paris Hilton didn't even know what Walmart was. I don't think her money is helping to create jobs for anyone but rich designers and 10 year old laborers in Haiti.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you (if your point was that Paris Hilton isn't very smart)
ReplyDeleteThe thing I wonder is this - When they cranked up the luxury tax...and made it a lot more expensive for people to buy yachts - they stopped buying them. The numbers dropped to less than 10% of their sales the year prior. So superficially we all think "Serves them right! Why should they get to cruise around in a yacht while people are starving". But the reality is that the companies that sold yachts started laying off the people who make yachts.
It really happened. One rich guy didn't get his yacht. One rich girl had to close her yacht company. A few hundred blue collar workers who made yacht parts and put yachts together had to go find other jobs.
The spas and resorts you mentioned have dozens of hourly wage earners that make their living cleaning, serving meals, and fixing stuff...a lot more workers than owners. For every rich guy that you take down...even if they don't shop at WalMart...they do employ people like me - who do shop at WalMart. If they have to close my factory...then I'm out of a job.
Honestly, that's just what really happens.