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Posted 2008-06-28, 02:15 AM
in reply to !King_Amazon!'s post "Oh Noez Communism!"
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I was talking to Volls yesterday and telling him that if Bill Gates were to suddenly lose half of his wealth, it would not alter the quality of his life in any way. I also said that, that money, given to the people in our country who don't even have the necessities to live, would significantly increase the quality of their lives.
Just for fun, I ran some numbers.
There are approximately 3.5 million homeless people in America (I got this number from a quick google search. It should be relatively accurate but I won't deny that it could be wrong.)
Bill Gates is currently worth approximately $58 billion. Half of this = $29 billion.
$29 billion, divided amongst the 3.5 million homeless people in America, is $8285.71. That, at the very least, is enough to fund a very large amount of public services for the homeless.
However, I'm sure at least a few of the people reading this are the "homeless people are homeless for a reason" sorts. In that case, ignore the information above. Instead, I'll only consider the 1.35 million homeless children.
Dividing $29 billion between 1.35 million children gives $21,481.48 per child.
Just to make it more clear what I'm saying:
$29 billion, HALF of the wealth of a single person, could potentially end a very large portion of homelessness in America, without negatively effecting the life of the person losing it. This is from a SINGLE PERSON! What if you took, say, half of the wealth of every person over $5 billion?
According to Forbes, there are 63 people with $5 billion+ in America. Adding all of this up, you find that the combined wealth of these 63 people is $771.8 billion. Half of that is $385.9 billion. Divided amongst the 3.5 million homeless people in America, that's $110,257.14 PER PERSON. Divided amongst the 1.35 million homeless children, that's $285,851.85 per child.
So why does homelessness still exist? I would guess that it's because the government would never even consider doing anything like what I'm suggesting, since it's a "communistic" idea. Also, while you could probably show numbers to prove that Bill Gates losing half of his wealth would have no negative impact on the rest of his or his family's life, I think it would be hard to convince someone of something like that regardless.
I'd like to note that I don't think Bill Gates or any of these other rich people are necessarily bad people. I don't blame them in any way for not willingly giving half of their wealth away like that. I blame the system, more than anything. I do not agree with the fact that there are people in our country that do not have the bare necessities of life when there are other people in our country that have near-infinitely more than they will ever need.
I would also like to note that I don't believe in the Communist ideal that everyone should have equal amounts of everything. That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I think people who work hard should be rewarded, to a point. Not even an unreasonable point; only to the point that there are no other people in our country that are deprived of things that are NEEDED to survive, such as food, shelter, clothing, and such.
I also won't deny the argument that most or some people who are homeless are homeless because of choices they made. In my opinion, this isn't relevant to the point I'm making, but I have no problem admitting that that could be and likely is the case. However, in return to that argument, I would ask, does the fact that someone has made some bad choices in life justify them not having the bare necessities of life?
In my opinion, nobody, not even the lowliest humans on Earth, should be denied these things. There is no reason that things have to stay like they are. I'm not saying that we should start busting down the walls to billionaires' houses and doing insane shit like that, I'm just saying that humans, in general, need to be a bit more compassionate toward their fellow humans.
Sorry for the rant!
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Holy shiz.... 
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