Live Below the Line is an awareness and fundraising campaign to fight poverty. It asks people to eat on less than $1.75 for five days, and several of my friends are doing it right now.

I think it has good intentions, but I won't be taking part. I spent much of my childhood below the poverty line and have no desire to experience any part of that again.

What are your thoughts on it?

   

Good intentions, but not much else. Fund raising for what? It certainly would be a drop in the bucket to actually reduce global poverty or even US poverty with the money raised. Use the money for further awareness campaigns? OK, but it has to do more than say people are poor. Why are they poor, and how can it be changed? Doubt they have the answer to the second part, not sure anybody does.

   

In about 45 minutes I'm leaving work to spend an afternoon with some friends at a nice place called "The Broiler" where I'll be dining on an awesome rib-eye and enjoying a charming 18-year-old single malt Scotch.

That's my thought on this.

http://thebroilersteakhouse.com/

   

$1.75 is about 2 apples...

   

In countries where people actually live on that amount, it would buy a lot more basic food. But they have to provide for everything else with that amount too - housing, clothing, etc.

The greatest incidence of malnutrition is in India. Read about a woman raising two children. Hubby works and spends half his daily income on cigarettes. That leaves enough money to buy the ingredients for 5 chappatis, ie flour. Hubby takes two, she and the kids get the other three. That's all they eat. She's 25 and looks like 60. That's the sort of thing that great income inequality brings.

   

But see, even if they somehow had more income, how would we know they would not be in the same situation if the husband is so irresponsible to spend so much of their very limited income on cigarettes?

That situation still plays out here in North America, where I've seen tenants at my building pay for massive cigarette habits while cutting back on their food, which, quite honestly, is their two biggest expenses (the city of Windsor pays for the apartment+utilities)

I know this scenario can't apply to all the poor, and no doubt many are doing their best to support their families on such limited income. There's no easy answer. Even creating a better standard of living will still have situations where people make the wrong choices, and yet, trying to restrict or ban those wrong choices makes things a bit more totalitarian, especially if only the poor are affected.

   

That's the sort of thing living in a country that's ruled by a massive nanny state brings. If that husband dares to start a business he'll find himself confronting a Byzantine and corrupt bureaucracy that will stymie him at every step of the way especially if he's of a lower caste.

Income inequality has f*ck all to do with why this man is not going to be able to succeed financially or socially. A 6,000 year old culture that represses people into permanent underclasses is the principal problem.

If that man manages to get himself into North America he's likely to become upper middle class to wealthy within ten years of arrival because of the opportunities here that people like him take advantage of and people like you spurn all while kvetching about what someone else is earning.

Someone else's income has nothing at all to do with opportunity.

The problem in India is a deliberate lack of opportunity.

   

I focus more on Canadian poverty, because there at least I think there are some answers. Including that alleviating poverty actually reduces behaviors that are self harming because there's more hope. I think you come from the pov that they are poor because they smoke, I come from the pov that they smoke because they are poor. I think both pieces are part of the puzzle. Even in Canada, it's not about just giving money to people, at least not in the long term, but having jobs with decent pay, education that actually helps people move along etc. There will always be the relatively poorer in Canada, but we can make it so they still have a reasonable income and opportunities - as the Scandinavian countries do.

I'd rather focus on that than world poverty, because that seems like too large a question. One start for us tho would be to not contribute to world poverty in how we trade and do business with other countries.

   

Fair enough. It's probably a vicious cycle, really. I don't think they're solely poor because they smoke (they have other problems beyond that, but I don't want to get too personal) but even if somebody smokes to take the edge off the stresses of being poor, in reality it's just a cycle that helps keep them in poverty. If, say, they smoke half a pack a day, and a pack is $7 (I honestly have no idea how much cigarettes cost, ), in an average 30 day month, they just spent $105 on cigarettes, when that money could have been better spent on food or whatever else.

Certainly having a good education system, and good jobs available (I live in Windsor, I wish there were more good jobs) is critical for the health and prosperity of every country, and I certainly do think some safety net needs to exist, even being an eviiillllll conservative, but at the same time, I don't think everybody can be saved, even if we have a perfect system. My family owns a business (rental properties, mostly low/middle class apartments) where we see people doing their best in an iffy situation, and others who just mooch off the system, without trying to change their habits. It probably makes me a bit cynical, I guess.

   

My tax dollars, against my will in certain aspects, are already being used for both for domestic and foreign poverty relief programs. As such I feel no moral obligation to take part in this $1.75 per day/30 Hour Famine/ or any other such similar stunt. I don't give to UNICEF at Halloween either, as I refuse to voluntarily give any money to any department of an entity like the United Nations.

   

just spending money on food instead of cigs will just make them better fed poor people. As Jesus said, man does not live on bread alone, he needs a brew and a smoke to go with that. People will spend food money on pleasure, and you can't blame them.

As for the moochers, there are answers like workfare. I don't really want people on welfare but getting decent jobs. But if they can't or won't work at a regular job, then they can put in time at some sort of workfare job, even if that costs the govt more to implement it. Gets people off their duffs, maybe teaches them some job skills, and if they have to work anyway to get their welfare, maybe they'll just take a regular job. I understand Switzerland has a system like that, where welfare rates are high but you have to work for it if you are able.

   

A good campaign of awareness but ultimately slacktivism. $1.75 can't buy anything in North America. The time, money and effort could be better projected other ways.

   

I spent 7 years living on a couple of dollars per day while I was a student. It was a conscious choice to do without when I was young so I (and my family) wouldn't have to do without now. So, yes, it's a well-intentioned idea but, like Bart, I'll be chewing on steak.