[roflyear]

I don't think many look at wealth inequality in isolation, it's usually accompanied by how people are starving. E.g. "over 20 people die from malnutrition in the US but we have over 900 billionaire's" - e.g. each billionaire would probably only have to give $300k each (equiv to what the average tax payer gives to the defense budget each year) to prevent most deaths in the US due to lack of food - etc.

[solveit]

I get the feeling that you're winging the specific numbers because they're spectacularly incoherent.

But anyway, the United States is extremely rich and has essentially no big problems that can be solved by a small amount (say, a few billion) of money. The problems are either so big that it would take trillions to solve (supporting aging population etc), or blocked by something other than money (politics, regulations, etc). The big problems that can be solved just by throwing a few billion at them are solved quite easily by either the government or by private entities like the Gates Foundation.

[rizzom5000]

In practice, it seems that politics generally takes precedence over problem solving. If you look into the psychology of it, neither politicians nor voters are really incentivized to solve big problems. This is especially true for big problems that will take more than an election cycle to solve.

It seems to me that it would be easy to support an argument that suggests more big problems could be solved if incentives were better aligned toward problem solving and if competent people, not professional politicians, were chosen to solve them.

[SpicyLemonZest]

One of the things you learn quickly when you look at these kind of problems is that they’re not so easy to solve with money. The budget for SNAP, the US’s primary food benefits program, is about $100 billion; the additional $270 million you propose would be a tiny drop in the bucket.

[gishh]

883 billion divided by 200 million is like 4 grand. How do you figure each taxpayer pays 300k/yr in taxes to the defense budget?

[Spooky23]

You make your currency the reserve currency, tax the world by inflating it while restricting circulation, print money, then borrow.

When people or countries potentially disrupt the equilibrium, kill them.

[Workaccount2]

In the US, the poorest people suffer from an obesity epidemic. Virtually no one is starving in the US anymore, besides mental health problems or other edge cases creating it.

[gopher_space]

Volunteering at a food bank in any large city will change your perspective.

If you’re not where the rubber meets the road your knowledge of a system will always be incomplete and inaccurate. Literal trade secret of S Class developers, you’re welcome.

[HumblyTossed]

The poor are food insecure. This leads to obesity not because they have access to an abundance of food but because their access to food is not stead, leading to over eating to compensate, and the food they can afford is not healthy.