poverty
If you bump into Lisa or Sarah in the next 90-something days, give them some money for the 100 Days 100 Dollars campaign (raising money for Kiberia slum in Kenya. Visit their blogs for more info.).
Lisa's post has generated a bunch of comments about private charity, trade, economics, etc. – which interest me since that's essentially what I'm studying at the moment. It's great how everyone on the internet is an expert (a criticism that can be applied to me as often as it is applied to anyone else...). Here's my two cents (for stan :P):
(one of Polyp's Big Bad World cartoons - "borrowed" from the latest issue of the New Internationalist)
pity all the poor nations heavily tariff trade (or more bluntly, steal the money that belongs to their farmers) and the tax all goes into their corrupt government
http://jim.com/econ/contents.html (Comment this)
"[A]nyone who has studied any economics knows..."
Economics is not a science. You might convincingly prove that government intervention causes poverty, but someone else could convincingly prove that a lack of government intervention causes poverty.
Arguments about economics end up being arguments over ideologies. No one can "win" such an argument.
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generally it can be shown that capitalism (privatisation and less government intervention) has resulted in growth (the West) and socialism (state owned enterprises) results in poverty (communist countries). it's not ideology, it's historical results that prove this (Comment this)
Thanks for the plug Mark :)
Stan, good luck with trying to bring the world around to your point of view. Looks like you've got a bit of a task ahead of you. I'm no intellectual, so your economic theories tend to go over my head. (Truth be told, same goes for many of Mark's quotes :) ).
On the issue of the cartoon, yes it's bad taste. That's why it gets attention. Sometimes humour and bad taste are what brings people out of apathy. And it also gets us to look at ourselves. It may seem crass, but isn't it also crass to sit around on computers discussing the best methods for "solving" the world's poverty problems while people continue to suffer?
However, we're all entitled to our opinions - limited as mine may be. Ahhh the joy of blogs. (Comment this)
If you want to look historically at how the West got (and maintains) its wealth, it is as much a case of competitive protectionism (involving government intervention) as it is one of free trade...
Free trade and protectionism are political ideologies cloaked in economic language.
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As for your comment Huggies... I don't need to justify how I spend my day but the time I spend on the internet debating politics and Christianity I believe is worthwhile. You might say shouldn't I be doing something about it instead of discussing it but how are you supposed to do anything if you have your objectives wrong. I spent two years of my life (only part time) giving my time to charities that I no longer have faith in (Amnesty International, Oxfam), not to say I think what they do is wasted at all but had I the knowledge I do now I would have spent that time differently. So these days when new ones pop up like Make Poverty History and LiveAID (and pretty much anything to do with supporting coffee farmers through bad economic understanding of how trade works and causes started by rockstars), and of course global warming I'm not as foolish as to jump on the bandwagon anymore. This would not have been possible without all the forums I've been to where there are both Left and Right-wingers taking apart each other's arguments and giving me new perspectives on what the best way to deal with poverty is. (Comment this)
Take homosexuality for example - what's your view on that? It's a lot more complex and relevant to people's decisions to join the Church today and as the news shows many Churches are divided about this issue and it results in people hating Christians and Christians constantly trying to keep their youth passionate about God because of the peer pressure they come under. I used to be against it, nowadays I am part of the gay club on campus and take my friends to rainbow Churches, it takes forever to discuss and I made a post on it on Lisa's site maybe she'll address it someday and I could be wrong but I guess we'll see. (Comment this)
I suspect the name that eludes you is that of Joseph Stiglitz. While I'm sure his knowledge of economics pales in comparison to that of your lecturers, he did manage to pick up the Nobel Prize for Economics. I don't know much of his work, but he obviously holds views threatening to neoliberal purists.
blah, blah, blah... (Comment this)
its just like alcohol. the Bible says not to get drunk 'cos it'll affect your witness, can't remember the verse but that's pretty much all you need to guide your Christian walk isn't it? from another perspective alcohol is expensive and not worth buying in the first place anyway when you can drink water. i've seen so many Christians drink at parties just to fit in and they don't even like the taste (Comment this)
For your sweeping statements to hold any weight you would have to ignore several things. First of all, like most things the Bible isn't exactly clear cut on drinking. I think it's somewhere in Proverbs that is says "Let the poor in spirit drink so that they will remember their misery no more." Your one verse doesn't really constitute an argument. But the Bible aside you would also have to ignore the long tradition Christian establishments have had with alcohol. Brewing beer and fermenting wine have long been the work of the abbeys and monasteries. You also drink port or wine, depending on denomination, at communion. And Jesus himself drunk... no wait... didn't he also turn water into wine? I think he did...
I would suggest that a Christian attitude towards not drinking is more a reaction against our wildly abusive drinking culture.
The world must be a boring place when you know it all eh?
Chuck (Comment this)
It was the second to last episode of "Discovering More Prophecy Seminars" with Doug Buchanan in case you're interested, I'm not really qualified to restate the whole one hour session regarding why drinking is bad but he also covered clean and unclean foods etc. and went through both the Testaments looking at food and alcohol in context.
And say Jesus did turn water into alcohol, do you think He did it so everyone could get drunk? Considering my post which you responded to out of context simply said Christians ought not drink to an excess. (Comment this)
by the way, i'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at by saying i'm making a lot of noise and the world being a boring place? fyi i spent most of my teenage years (13-16) going to drinking parties and drinking in town with my friends, even when i drank in moderation it was still costing me about $20 a week. it was a pretty boring lifestyle and definitely wasteful and unnecessary. and if that's just teenagers being immature, these days when i go into town i still find it pathetic how much people spend on alcohol in bars, and when i worked at a supermarket it's distressing seeing how much people spend on alcohol while some families come through and you can tell they struggle even to buy essentials (Comment this)