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This has to be some of the worst advice I've read, work harder and develop money making skills. If only it were so easy given that they are already short on resources (not only money but time) and may be responsible for more than just themselves.

And your comment about homeless is equally ridiculous.

"The recession will force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years, according to estimates by The National Alliance to End Homelessness. In a 2008 report, the U.S. Conference of Mayors cited a major increase in the number of homeless in 19 out of the 25 cities surveyed. On average, cities reported a 12 percent increase of homelessness since 2007."

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/526/homeless-facts.html

Are those people suddenly crazy? Maybe they should just work harder. Right?

Your whole comment speaks to never having actually met or worked with anyone who was really struggling financially. There isn't an easy solution to solve this issue, this myth of just working harder is bullshit. Some of those people are the people doing the jobs nobody else would dream of doing but they work really fucking hard at it and get next to nothing in return. Perhaps even working two of those jobs. Now throw in a kid or two that they are responsible for, just working harder solves nothing.



If only it were so easy given that they are already short on resources (not only money but time)...

Please do your research. Only 25% of poor adults work full time (compared to 65% in the population at large). I cite official statistics here: http://crazybear.posterous.com/why-the-poor-dont-work

According to your own link, 66% of the homeless are drug addicts or crazy, and 38% are drunks (I'm not sure if being a drunk is included in the 66%).


It seems the causation is not (drunk OR crazy) => homeless but more homeless => (drunk OR crazy). The fundamental attribution error says that to explain a behavior, we frequently overlook situational explanations (upbringing, environment) to favor dispositional explanations(character, identity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error. Same reason why immigrants cause problems, it's not because of them being immigrants but of them living in hard conditions.


I made no claims concerning causality. I only made a factual claim that "most homeless are crazy" and inferred that as a result they would be "are unlikely to accept your advice" (to make more money).

If you have evidence as to the direction of causality, feel free to post it.


My comment was to be read in the context of the discussion, as in, it's not as simple as to tell to homeless people to go "develop their moneymaking skills" and it's not simple because of a myriad of factors, not because they're crazy and drunk (consequence of their situation).

I don't have direct evidence of the causality other than the comment I've posted above.




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