For most people quitting your job is an extremely risky proposition. Even if you do have a financial safety net, there are no guarantees other employers will be jumping at the opportunity to give you a job.
They looked very much alike because most of them were socialist dictatorships, or socialist oligarchies. Their economic system didn't decide the shape of government.
That's not so much an issue with grain prices. Rice and bread and such are the most basic of staple foods, and pricing people out of that market results in hunger and starvation.
But huge amounts of the staples the US produces are then fed to animals to make meat. It takes something like ten pounds of grain to make a pound of hamburger. If food gets more expensive people cut back on meat, which frees up more grain.
That is true in the US, but not as true in other countries. The US eats an enormous amount of meat compared to most countries (and even more so compared to history).
The article mentions that it would be better if some of the farmers started growing vegetables rather than grain, but the subsidies don't pay for vegetables.
That is where government is supposed to step in and provide at least a small incentive, or buy the supply for a more modest sum before distributing it. Protecting the life and health of citizens is pretty much the most fundamental role government is supposed to serve. If it is failing in that duty, it should be toppled.
Generally I agree with this sentiment but the place where it falls down is that the grain is rotting. Its one thing to cover some of the economic loss to the farmer, its another to do the 'double lose' of both paying tax payer money for grain that won't be consumed, and then not doing anything with the grain. So perhaps the government builds our distillery so that there is a 'sink' for any amount of excess grain into a useful pre-cursor product.
Yeah i don't see what the story was here either. It sort of disgusts me to think anyone would read this and be enlightened or surprised. If you've never had to worry about being out on the streets yourself you've led a very privileged life.
And, that's the point. The poster in the story realizes the privilege of his life and gains insight into the life of others. You really expect him, at 19, to understand homeless people when there is so often a sensationalized stereotype.
About his username, it is absurd that you cannot admit to going to a good school without being pretentious. The classic example is how Harvard students say where they go to school, "in Boston". Hiding information about your successes because they might impress people is much more pretentious than making a username "MIT_Hacker".
Getting employed and staying employed when you're homeless is a lot more difficult. Psychiatric and substance abuse problems don't help either; even if you're a homeless person and lucky enough not to be struggling with one of those, jobs available are often patronizing and demeaning (shit jobs).
Poverty is structural. Why are people poor? Largely because they are working jobs that pay shit wages, or live in areas they are too poor to escape, where there are not quality jobs matching the skillset taught to them by society.
This article is elitist bullshit coming from someone who has lived their life completely alien to poverty, who struggles to understand it.
When every type of worker makes enough money to afford to live in a school district with resources and quality educators, have health care, buy groceries, and care for their kids, we'll be in a lot better condition as a society.
