End Poverty. Make Trillions.
Poverty is a distribution problem. The amount of wealth required to eliminate it globally is trivial. Getting rid of poverty saves society trillions of dollars.
End Poverty. Make Trillions.
February 2023
The core argument here is that poverty is actually a very easy problem to solve. Defining poverty in the modern world as not having sufficient income to purchase the bare minimum food, clothing, shelter, and transportation needed to survive in a specific region makes that obvious. Once you know how much income is needed to purchase these items in a region, you then look at the gap between what people earn and what they would need. You sum that amount up for each person living below the poverty line (as defined above), and you get how much it would cost to eliminate poverty somewhere.
The amount of wealth required to do this globally each year is trivial. Poverty is a distribution problem. And on top of that, poverty is expensive. Getting rid of poverty saves society on many fronts (emergency care, policing, shelters, street cleaning, incarceration, foster care, etc.).
Ending poverty is simple once you do the full cost-benefit analysis. What is the cost to eliminate poverty? What is the benefit? Just be sure to eliminate poverty efficiently (ie use direct cash / send people money) and not in bureaucratic, wasteful ways (vouchers, housing programs, conditional aid, etc.). In the US, the net savings is trillions of dollars over a decade. What is it for your country?
This book underwent community peer review before publication and remains open to ongoing feedback and revision.
Chapters
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: This Can’t Be Life
- Chapter 2: You Can’t Win, Child
- Chapter 3: They Made Us Hate Ourselves and Love Their Wealth
- Chapter 4: Far From a Harvard Student
- Chapter 5: Don’t Give Me That Do-Goody Good Bullshit
- Chapter 6: It’s a Rich Man’s Game, No Matter What They Call It
- Chapter 7: I Think I’ll Try Defying Gravity
- Chapter 8: Ism Schism
- Chapter 9: The Waters Around You Have Grown
- Chapter 10: Now That I’m Older, All Childish Things End
- Chapter 11: The Seed Money Act
- Chapter 12: Questions and Answers