10/31/2007

Giving is stairway to hell

I was reading Sheralyn Tay's report in Today on what Charles Hampden-Turner said at the conference on National Volunteerism and philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility. In his speech he said everything that we need to know about the false assumptions and farce of charity and means testing. He does not recommend blind generosity, the singlemindedness to give and think that that is the road to paradise, a good and generous act. One side just give and the other side just receive, instead of rewarding success, we reward failure. And related to means testing is that the recipients will try to outdo each other to be the '100% certified slob' to qualify for handouts or subsidies. These people may even give up job opportunities or other means to help themselves as those means would make them less eligible to qualify. Thus there will be 'a race to the bottom.' And that was exactly what the public were slapped with during those charity shows when pathetic cases were paraded to show how bad their conditions were. Does anyone bother about the pride and diginity of these poor souls? Or poor souls need no pride?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cut-and-paste from another blog:

"Ngiam Tong Dow said that in any system, there would be the 5% that would have problems and not making it and needed help. And the govt must have a little compassion to help these people.

Yes, these are the lazy, useless people to some. To the kinder ones, these are the people that are less endowed, less gifted, handicapped or under privileged that have too many chains around them to run forward."

Anonymous said...

Wait, it was YOUR blog LOL

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

The first and only economic reality which determines the rest of economic realties (aka "Natural Laws of The Universe")

PEOPLE RESPOND TO INCENTIVES

If you give them a reason to be poor which BENEFITS them, they are likely to act toward attaining the said benefit.

This is the prime cause of govt welfare failure.

The reason private welfare (charity) does a better job is that it is unlikely to cause institutionalised indigence simply because private individual soon get fed up of someone asking for help over and over again.

The message in govt welfare is : "We will reward you if you are needy" (including corporate welfare), and that is why you get useless cocksucking bums wailing and moaning that they are "entitled" to assistance (including corporations who can't compete)

Private charity from private citizens: " OK, I'll help you get on your feet, then you are on your own!"