This isn't for you as you do plenty but incase others read this, but if you happen to ever see a thick coat in a charity shop, second hand store, or thrift store (whatever you call it) and it is quite cheap, do buy it as there are many charities that take them to give to homeless people.
This is such an uneducated and entitled comment just showing how little regular people know about this situation in Germany. Its also one of the most commonly used arguments on this topic and its simply not true. Homeless shelters are overcrowded and extremely unhygienic. Our infrastructure isn't made for an ever-growing amount of homeless people. Law, rights and reality sadly grow appart heavily. "Die Tafel" is completely overwhelmed too. This statement might have been true 15 years ago but you should re-educate yourself on the topic.
It's not just the hygiene. it's that in those shelters you're constantly surrounded by a few mentally ill and possibly violent people who will lash out in unpredictable ways and make life worse for everyone with their constant tics and noises.
If you're homeless but not mentally ill yet, then being in such an environment everyday will definitely negatively affect your sanity as your daily struggle becomes surviving the shelter, instead of working to getting back on your feet. Kind of like being locked up in a prison but from which you can leave.
So then no wonder a lot of homeless people feel safer and less stressed just living and sleeping in public areas than in shelters.
However, if you give a homeless person money and they go buy drugs, I think you effectively made them poorer. I would advise giving them food instead.[2]
[1]: Word in quotes because there is no way to verify their identities.
[2]: I've literally seen a person asking for money get offered free fries at McDonald's and denying them. Beggars don't get to be choosers.
So if you give them food directly, you're certain where your money goes. You also eliminate the false homeless people (similar to the example I gave).
Did anyone ask what the money was for? Did anyone offer to buy whatever it was they needed, even if a meal at a better place? Or was the interaction to simply offer fries (probably the least filling, cheapest, far from healthy choice that they likely have been offered dozens of times already) and then do nothing when they refused?
Which isn't their strategy because the beggar spent probably 2 minutes in the restaurant.
It's not rare to see a beggar ask for money to "get food", get offered food and then decline.
Sometimes a homeless person needs a blanket, or a bus ticket, or just a safe place for a few hours.
If you don’t want to give money, that’s your prerogative, but don’t simply assume food. Ask.
However, understand the context: the beggar entered a McDonald's and asked clients that were currently eating for money. He got offered the fries of a woman who didn't finish them. So there was no poisoning (I think this is very much an American problem, where I don't live) possible—except if you consider McDonald's to be poison in the first place.
In my experience, people don't give cash to beggars anymore. Everyone has their reason, but I think the fact that a lot of beggars were not really in need hasn't helped. But I think many would be open to give food or donate useful objects instead (which they don't have at hand when being begged).
Consider the beggar’s context too. How many times per day/week must they go into that McDonald’s? Leftover fries are probably what they get offered the most. You can accept it a few times, but after a while they provide neither pleasure nor sustenance.
> In my experience, people don't give cash to beggars anymore.
Anecdotally, seems about right.
> But I think many would be open to give food or donate useful objects instead (which they don't have at hand when being begged).
Again, I agree, but I don’t think anyone asks either. One possible workaround would be to donate to your local food bank or another organisation you trust, then when asked by a beggar direct them there. Though that could be another can of worms depending on where one lives.
The person denied the fries without adding anything and left. This makes everyone who heard that the beggar didn't need food. Otherwise he'd have asked for something else (even food from the supermarket nearby).
I would personally prefer to give money to someone that needs it to eat.
Outside of drugs and drink they can spend it how they like. They choose the food or maybe save for a hotel night.
I’m old enough to remember the Moonies with flowers at the airport[0].
[0] https://youtu.be/Ls_qFlF2gHw?si=znZJsjki-QLq5J1A (this actually was inspired by real behavior)
They're easy to recognize, because they're very forceful in their begging, relying more on intimidation than compassion.
There really is no level people won't sink to for some money.
Once you meet a real poor, it's obvious. You meet them outside of reasonable business hours, they are obviously a native, ashamed to ask for help and actually like to have a conversation.
The actual homeless people here have access to government support and shelters, those beggars don't as they're not here legally.
I'll take "Things That Never Happened" for $200, Alex.
lol more like whatever keeps their heroin dealer warm
Anyway, yes, direct donation is always better, be it to some random guy down on his luck in the street (unless they have just missed their bus and need ticket money for the next one and so for 3 years in the same bus station) or to some trusted person/group who actually does deliver the stuff to the area. Way too many random NGOs have popped up in Europe promising to do good things, just transfer money to their bank account and they will take care of it all for you.
Chance Letikva is registered with the US IRS as a charity. They've filed a Form 990. Location is Brooklyn, NY. [1] Address is listed. It's a small house. It's also incorporated as CHANCE LETIKVA, INC. in New York State. Address matches. Names of officers not given. There's one name in the IRS filing, listed as the president.
Web site "https://chanceletikva.org" has been "suspended". Domain is still registered, via Namecheap.
Some on the ground digging and subpoenas should reveal who's behind this.
[1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852...
Edit: Clicked through some of the other entries in there and yeah, usually liabilities are relatively close to incomes. How the system didn't catch this is beyond me.
I saw this ad a few months ago on YouTube and flagged it as a scam when I couldn’t find much information about the company. Never donate money through random sites. If you use platforms like https://www.gofundme.com/, at least you have the option to file a complaint if you find something suspicious.
They haven’t scammed nor inconvenienced a rich, well-connected person, so unlikely anything will happen. Remember that online fraud is effectively legal (10% of Meta’s revenue is from scam ads by their own estimates) as long as you only target the poor.
These scam campaigns have been going for years with people operating in the field across many countries - if there was an incentive to stop this it would’ve been done already, but since everyone’s making money why bother?
> file a complaint if you find something suspicious
Which will be piped to /dev/null, just like reporting scams on social media.
Common pattern they had was:
- similar or same domains
- same messaging on their website
YouTube could have taken action, but it choose not to
Their incentives contradict healthy behavior… :(
... the crimes they actually make a lot of money from.
However it's also a tricky business to be the adjudicator of what is and isn't a scam. You're going to have to deal with a lot of complaints from "legitimate businessmen".
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-tolerates-rampan...
Same with education. I am more than happy to pay taxes for an education system, even if I do not personally have children.
Public health systems vary with country. Private advocates say public sucks, until it is their turn to be scammed.
Public education is largely a scam to put 'original sin' of debt of children to society so when they grow up there is some plausible explanation that "we're a society" and they must feed into the pyramid scheme.
There are plenty of capitalist nations that provide public healthcare on a large spectrum of coverage and quality.
In capitalism it is easy and transparent: price, with the side effect of aligning society interests with those of the selfish individual.
Of course the strange and heavily regulated US health-care system is obviously far far away from a free market.
In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.
Case in point: the EU that started lagging the USA so much in growth that ended up having to beg for basic defense when a blood-thirsty neighbor came hungry for land.
the market / capitalism won’t correct itself, much people want to call it God/ perfect
Regulation, anti-trust laws try to correct somethings but many politicians are against those things because they limit the profit that can be made, profit first, that’s the corruption
And no, no lists, no lotteries or any of that other lies the conservative US media is spewing out to keep the masses pacified.
I strongly believe, that if US citizens were to experience German healthcare for a year and having to go back to the US system, that there would be riots. Because I don’t think anyone with first hand experience of both systems would ever want to return to the US system.
There definitely are lists. You don't just get the surgery or therapy you need the next day. You get the next free slot in the list of people queuing.
For example the first appointment you can get at my state funded therapist if you call today, will be in june. How is that not a list?
> In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.
Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.
>Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.
That evidence of socialism working well, only works as long as there are enough resources to cover the needs of most people, basically the wealthy European countries.
But when those resources become scarce due to poor economic conditions, then you'll see the endless queues, black margets and nepotism running the system. Evidence: former European communist countries who experienced both systems.
Both actual capitalism, i.e. the bad thing, and this which can plausible be argued to be well-functioning market economies, are is often stabilized by adding elements of communism to the system-- publicly funded education, healthcare etc. This is one of the reasons why I as a vaguely socialism-influenced whatever I can reasonably be said to be see communism, i.e. a system characterized by the distribution principle "to each according to his need" as less revolutionary than the socialism distribution principle "to each according to his contribution". Communist distribution principles can coexist with ill-functioning market systems such as things which have degenerated into actual capitalism, whereas the socialist distribution principle can't.
This allows decentralised decision making for large grained resource allocation - for example should we build a factory for shoes, or for toothbrushes? - and is a good thing, as central planning has been demonstrated to not work if applied to the whole economy. (the converse, no central planning to any of the economy, has also been demonstrated to not work!)
However that accumulation can be (and nowadays usually is) orchestrated by a corporate entity, which in an ideal world would be almost entirely beneficially owned by retirees.
But don't worry your free market friends are killing it right now, for tax reductions
https://www.wired.com/story/how-trump-killed-cancer-research...
Also we don't need "pre-auth" and other Bullshit before we start standard treatments.
The real death panels are sitting in your Insurance Companies Offices as seen by the news coverage around United Healthcare et al lately
For comparison, the New York City public transport system (MTA) runs a deficit of about $3 billion. Six billion for universal healthcare in a country of 83.5 million people seems like a total bargain.
The German Healthcare System also has some historically developed peculiarities that don't make much sense in today's age, but they are difficult to address without pissing people off (The duality of Private and Public Health Insurance, allowing the first one to get rich and very healthy people out of the risk pool, and then loopholes to switch back into the public system when they grow older and don't want to pay the then high prices in private insurance)
The Hospital Reform is already working to reduce costs by reducing the number of small hospitals, and concentrate them into bigger ones. (As a side effect, quality of care will increase too, since outcomes are correlated with experience)
Also more care will be shifted to outpatient setting.
Otherwise we are fighting with the demographic change. But these problems are also hurting all other developed nations including the US, where funding problems in Medicaid are also expected in the next decades
tl:dr We have problems due to the demographic change, but these are in line with other developed nations. There are some efforts to address them, but politicians are hesitant to do real reforms, because old people have the most voting power
I have three second-hand cancer experiences from family here in Australia (Dad, Mum and my half-sister - under 35/yo). All three were detected early thanks to regular checkups and screening (covered under Medicare), treated in major hospitals (Dad was in a rural hospital, Mum and half-sister in Metro major city hospitals) and are all alive and certainly not in debt. The biggest cost was parking at the hospital, drinks from the vending machine and the PBS medication (all PBS medicine costs $31.60 for adults, and $7.70 for concessions).
Any PBS medication has the full-cost price printed on the label for reference, more often than not the printed prices go from $300 - $2,000, but I remember that these aren't the full price anyway since our government collectively bargains for cheaper prices on OS medication).
I can't imagine having to pay for treatment AND the insane full price of medications, it must be so much more stressful for families going through cancer treatment.
Americans, don't let the media and your government tell you otherwise. Universal healthcare is cheaper [0] and more effective than whatever archaic system you have now.
I am so god damn proud of our system in Australia, it's not perfect, but damn it's so efficient for critical care, thank heavens for Medicare and the PBS.
Oh and for those that say "well doctors aren't paid very well"... they are. My brother-in-law is a surgeon and he's doing pretty well for himself, bought a new Audi last month for his wife, heading to Europe for a month-long holiday with his family and just moved into a new house.
[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?most_...
So then you would expect life expectancy in the US to be higher than in Germany, France, UK?
It is not.
Yes, there is quite a bit to improve in the German system. No doubt there. But if I compare it to the abysmal situation in the richest country on this planet, I am left standing awestruck asking myself why. I really, genuinely cannot wrap my head around.
It's all very well and dandy that you can say "actually, there is a larger structural problem underlying it all" when meeting something bad, but it doesn't make that particular bad disappear.
You're absolutely right.
Local man embezzles $20,000 meant to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine.Just one example, prostate cancer today has a 90+% 10 year survival rate, in 1970 that was 25%
That’s not utterly transformative but I wouldn’t call it negligible either.
Which could also include a QR code going to a gov website with details why this org was given the certification.
This isn't perfect but would certainly lower such incidents.
Do they just not like children in Israel?
By the way, indiscriminately bombing children seems to be more acceptable than opening fire on them for some reason, so maybe Israel military should stick to its guns.
Huh, maybe people can ask for donations to be cured of that "cancer"...
France cancer fraud trial begins (1999) [0] (the head of the charity was found guilty, imprisoned, and fined)
And you are less likely to be killed by a mob, as a bonus.
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/israel-law-of-return-extradition...
These monsters.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/b676/live/3589b...
Laws can be based on ethics, but moral judgments really should not be involved in their application.
Unless you want to live in a theocracy, of course.
SilverElfin•3h ago
zwnow•3h ago
Braxton1980•3h ago
zwnow•3h ago
enneff•3h ago
kakacik•3h ago
There are many existing punishments - go after all their wealth, family and connected business, trusts etc. Simply ban them from western financial world. Publicly shame them and make their name a curse to spit on. Properly harsh jail and making sure all inmates know who arrived, I wouldn't expect kinder treatment than pedophiles get. And so on.
vladms•3h ago
toolslive•1h ago