The National Debt

[NAHTMMM]

My point is, we don't have to go through national-level bureaucracies to start to fix this problem. The U.S. government is "of the people, by the people, for the people" (and an awful lot of other countries are democracies or republics too, of course), so we have the ultimate power ourselves, on the individual level, right? Going through a humongous, diffuse bureaucracy to handle a problem that is MUCH better to deal with (IMHO) on the individual level seems to me like trying to eat peas with a crocheting needle. One of those big, blunt crocheting needles.

But that requires enough non-poor people in a wide-enough area of influence caring enough about the impoverished to help them enough that they are no longer impoverished (or if they are still impoverished, it's their own faults). And you can't legislate caring any more than you can legislate morality, so you never hear about this on Capitol Hill or talk shows.

[Nate the Great]

We don't have to? And why would corporations or individuals sign over double-digit percentages of their income to charity and social reform for any sort of voluntary reason? Riddle me that, Boy Wonder.

[NAHTMMM]

Because they want to.

That probably seems absurd, but the ethos ( at the puzzle book I was working on earlier ) of various human societies has changed radically in this direction and that over time. Besides which, a lot of corporations already have their own charities and foundations and donation schedules and such-not in place. Now, what percentage of their respective incomes is that? I don't know. Are they doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the publicity, or for tax purposes? I don't know, and it seems likely that the cause varies from one case to the next, but the dollar bills don't care why they're being handed around.

The gas station nearest our home (and possibly others) has a plastic bottle for customers to drop change in, to help pay for the medical expenses of one child or another (it changes every so often). When I went to the car dealership a few days ago for quasi-routine maintenance, they had a box of several varieties of fund-raiser candy bars on the counter in the cashier's office. Maybe someone's child's Boy Scout troop was raising money, I don't know. But I'm sure that neither business had to do that, and I'm sure there are some people--the sort who genuinely believe Bill Gates loses out if he stops to pick up a $100 bill from the sidewalk--who would argue that they shouldn't reserve six or twelve square inches of valuable counter space for such inane things. But they did, and hopefully the customers can make a meaningful difference for the better in each case. Such activities probably don't even register on annual estimates of nationwide charitable giving and tax deductions and so on, but if the child's parents manage to keep their apartment while getting their girl the life-saving operation she needs, well then, I'm not going to complain about the results .

[Nate the Great]

Uh, yeah...

I hate to break it to you, but for every child who gets a small fraction of their hospital bills paid for by such an endeavor, there must be dozens, if not hundreds, that don't, and a lot of them die. Thems the breaks. We may want to switch to a lighter topic now.

Egads! Marshmallow Gerbils!

[Burt]

So the Bubonic Plague?! Thats gotta suck, eh?

[Nate the Great]

Har har.

As for a "lighter topic," anyone else a fan of Juggling for the Complete Klutz and all of the other fine books by Klutz Press?

[Nate the Great]

Sorry, but I have to pick at this scab some more.

1. Will the National Debt EVER get any smaller? All I'm seeing is the rate of increase being SLIGHTLY slowed down. And by "slightly," I mean down from "really insanely large percentages annually" to "moderately insanely large percentages annually."
2. How come people actual buy into bonds? Giving up perfectly good money NOW in exchange for slightly more (but less valuable via inflation) money LATER?
3. How in the world did they get away with spending Social Security money for something OTHER than Social Security purposes? Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?