Would you eliminate world hunger if you could?

abiG

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Check this out. I've been doing the math.

The average American will spend $700 on holiday gifts and goodies this year, totaling more than $465 billion, the National Retail Federation estimates.
How much money is spent on Christmas in America?

"The UN estimates ending world hunger each year would cost $30 billion.
How much does it cost to feed the world for 1 year?

Based on that alone (465 billion/30 billion), we could feed the world for 15 1/2 years for every year we take off buying Christmas presents... in America alone.

But, it gets better:
Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth was 71.5 years
What is the worldwide average life expectancy?

So, if we each took 4.6 years off (71.5/15.5) from buying Christmas presents across our lifetimes, we could end world hunger completely.


Amiright?
 
The logic of sacrificing money for our family and friends who earned it, sometimes with generations to create free and prosperous societies, should sacrifice that for foreign strangers seemingly with their own responsibilities is baffling for any number of reasons.

However, if I buy into this holiday cash for the hungry exchange, will Kim Jong-un, African warlords, Chinese technocrats, Russian oligarchs, and any number of impoverished and uneducated-by-design people play into this?

How much of that food or cash will end up into the hands of all their people and not into the pockets of their forever-corrupt clan or tribe?


Short answer: Yes I would love to end world hunger.

End world hunger with a sustainable plan for financing food aide past the tyrants, developing high energy/protein food stuffs that are simple to produce and anyone can eat anytime for the proper nutrition, and raising consciousness for the poor and deserving who can be helped right now.

No pie in the sky.
 
The logic of sacrificing money for our family and friends for foreign strangers with their own responsibilities is baffling for any number of reasons.

However, if I buy into this holiday cash for the hungry exchange, will Kim Jong-un, African warlords, Chinese technocrats, Russian oligarchs, and any number of impoverished and uneducated-by-design people play into this?

How much of that food or cash will end up into the hands of all their people and not into the pockets of their forever-corrupt clan or tribe?
I wasn't arguing any of that; I was just doing the math

Merry X-mas
 
Hard to predict what would happen in this hypothetical scenario where the money was redirected away from consumer goods and towards food for global distribution. Undoubtedly complicated and full of difficulties, from food production and distribution, dependency issues and crushing local markets with cheap imports, from crippling business that make or break themselves on Christmas sales.

And then would that be sustainable.. Probably not. It's one of those things where I think you have to approach it very carefully to mitigate unintended downstream consequence.
 
I wasn't arguing any of that; I was just doing the math

Merry X-mas

All right, so this is a math thread now?

What are your thoughts on the current data collection and optimization of the results in regards to world hunger?

And a Happy New Year to come.
 
Hard to predict what would happen in this hypothetical scenario where the money was redirected away from consumer goods and towards food for global distribution. Undoubtedly complicated and full of difficulties, from food production and distribution, dependency issues and crushing local markets with cheap imports, from crippling business that make or break themselves on Christmas sales.

And then would that be sustainable.. Probably not. It's one of those things where I think you have to approach it very carefully to mitigate unintended downstream consequence.

That is a very economics-oriented answer.

I highly approve.

That makes me wonder.

What about the social implications of canceling Christmas? Is the holiday now solely a buy/sell event or is there a lot of genuine good will and love expressed in families, among people, and the "Christmas Spirit" that can not be well quantified?

I'm now curious in both respects.

Good job, T.S.
 
That is a very economics-oriented answer.

I highly approve.

That makes me wonder.

What about the social implications of canceling Christmas? Is the holiday now solely a buy/sell event or is there a lot of genuine good will and love expressed in families, among people, and the "Christmas Spirit" that can not be well quantified?

I'm now curious in both respects.

Good job, T.S.

It would only be canceling the commercial aspect of Christmas, where I think most people would agree that it is over commercialized now.

Maybe people would 'rediscover the meaning of Christmas', but hah, that's kind of an optimistic view.
 
It would only be canceling the commercial aspect of Christmas, where I think most people would agree that it is over commercialized now.

Maybe people would 'redescover the meaning of Christmas', but hah, that's kind of an optimistic view.

"Gift of the Magi" played out on every street corner?

Wonderful, but, like you I imagine everyone would just pick up their I-Phone 12 or whatever and tweet how much they love Busta Bananas new album "Tonight's the Only Night."
 
Is the holiday now solely a buy/sell event or is there a lot of genuine good will and love expressed in families, among people, and the "Christmas Spirit" that can not be well quantified?
That, I believe, is ultimately the thing.

Those ideas are NOT mutually exclusive. In other words, we can have a lot of genuine good will and love expressed in families, among people, and the "Christmas Spirit," while at the same time, it does not have to be about buying and selling.
 
That, I believe, is ultimately the thing.

Those ideas are NOT mutually exclusive. In other words, we can have a lot of genuine good will and love expressed in families, among people, and the "Christmas Spirit," while at the same time, it does not have to be about buying and selling.

Sure.

I humbly suggest we all tell someone we love them, not in the "I love your hot buns" type of way but in the, "I love who you are" kind of way.

Many might agree, but I hope even more will do so.
 
I find it hard to imagine we haven't handled world hunger if the amount is that low. Governments easily could pick up that shortfall.
 
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ATM world hunger and absolute poverty is being diminished at a faster pace than any time in human history.
 
Not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them.
 
How does $30 billion end world hunger? Isn't that like $40 for a year per person? Even with third world food prices that isn't anywhere near enough.

Plus refrigeration/transportation is where the real costs lie.

People in Africa have all the agricultural land they need (and more) at their disposal. They have the largest untapped source of resources at their fingertips. They need to start using and leveraging those facts.
 
We need less poor people.
 
No. The world is overpopulated and I'm not willing to sacrifice myself to feed parasites who can't take care of themselves.
 
Check this out. I've been doing the math.

The average American will spend $700 on holiday gifts and goodies this year, totaling more than $465 billion, the National Retail Federation estimates.
How much money is spent on Christmas in America?

"The UN estimates ending world hunger each year would cost $30 billion.
How much does it cost to feed the world for 1 year?

Based on that alone (465 billion/30 billion), we could feed the world for 15 1/2 years for every year we take off buying Christmas presents... in America alone.

But, it gets better:
Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth was 71.5 years
What is the worldwide average life expectancy?

So, if we each took 4.6 years off (71.5/15.5) from buying Christmas presents across our lifetimes, we could end world hunger completely.


Amiright?

It's also like 7 F-35's, or 6% of our defense budget.

Although the better solution would be to send these



To places that need them, so that we actually solve the food problem, and put Americans to work doing it.
 
Check this out. I've been doing the math.

The average American will spend $700 on holiday gifts and goodies this year, totaling more than $465 billion, the National Retail Federation estimates.
How much money is spent on Christmas in America?

"The UN estimates ending world hunger each year would cost $30 billion.
How much does it cost to feed the world for 1 year?

Based on that alone (465 billion/30 billion), we could feed the world for 15 1/2 years for every year we take off buying Christmas presents... in America alone.

But, it gets better:
Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth was 71.5 years
What is the worldwide average life expectancy?

So, if we each took 4.6 years off (71.5/15.5) from buying Christmas presents across our lifetimes, we could end world hunger completely.


Amiright?
Isn't that the definition of communism and socialism?
 
Yemen

This country is going through a famine .... yet, they still have a fertility rate of almost 5 children per woman.

Poverty is a mindset. Giving people free food and free shit = more poor people.
 
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