Sound and Fury

On the one hand, I agree with you, the price of food rising is far more important than the price of gas rising. But they certainly are connected in various ways.

On the other hand, I am not sure that I entirely agree with you on the matter of the car. Yes, you would think that having a car means that you are doing alright. In a lot of ways it does. On the other hand, we here in Portland are blessed to live in a place with good public transit. We are also lucky that there are a fair number of jobs here and our minimum wage is higher than the mandated federal one.

If the job that you manage to get is far from where you live and there isn't much public transit it can get pretty difficult. What if you can get a good paying job a forty five minute drive away, but can only get a minimum wage job nearby (keep in mind that until recently, minimum wage was 5.15 in a lot of places). Add to that living someplace without much public transit, or having kids that you have to get home to watch, and things get a lot more complicated. You may have to do the two hour public transit commute each way because it costs less and you make more. Where does this leave your kids when you are gone for 12 hours each day?

Is owning a car a sign you are financially better off? Yes. But I also think that there are people who will determine that they need a car to survive more than they need healthy food or much of a (or in some cases, any) place to live.

It is clear you live somewhere with decent public transportation and services within a reasonable distance of your home. I have known individuals living out of their cars who had to decide between food and gas on an all too regular basis. It is interesting to consider how much potential food goes into fueling an automobile though!

Minimum wage and close vs. better wage and commute:

It leaves your kids unsupervised and well-fed. Your kids' choices will then largely determine their future. If they spend their time making mischief, then they might end up pretty badly. If they make good choices, then they'll probably end up ok.

If you have family or friends in the area, perhaps your children can spend their time with them.

If you can subsist on the minimum wage job (it was listed as a potential alternative, so one must assume that it was actually a viable alternative), then you can probably afford gas after a paycheck at the better paid job. If that's the next priority on your list.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck. But it sucks less than starving.

Living in car, food vs. gas:

I don't doubt that this happens. I'm sure it's terrible for them, but I think the hordes of starving Asians are worse off than the handful of starving motorists.

Besides, if you're living in your car in the first world, there's probably some sort of assistance program for you somewhere. Sell your car, buy a bus ticket, and go there.

And if you're not in the first world, you're not as poor as the guy who doesn't have a car, and so doesn't worry about gas. It sucks to be you, but it sucks more to be him.

My outlook on helping the poor is pragmatic, capitalist and harsh:

0. Ignore those who are stable and can just meet their own basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, basic medical care, and education for their children. Keep the playing field as level as possible, but exempt those at this level from taxation, as an investment in those who might rise higher.

1. Bootstrap the ones who will eventually support themselves first - those few who through mischance find themselves insolvent and stuck, but are willing and able to work to support themselves. Most of us could have ended up here at one time or another, if not for luck or a helping hand.

Do this mostly through microloans with generous terms, and placement assistance, so that the program may serve the most people possible, teach responsibility, and give the aid recipients pride of accomplishment, rather than a feeling of dependence. Make their story a story of overcoming adversity with a little help, not one of abasement and handouts.

2. Care for the ill, feed the starving, clothe and shelter the freezing - at this stage, just the ones that will support themselves after finite aid, and thus, will enter the first category. They must not be comfortable, so that they won't become complacent.

3. Educate and motivate the remaining poor, giving them the opportunity to enter the first or second category. Expand basic support services to any who will attend classes and do the course work. Students should be less comfortable than category 2, and so should spend a significant amount of time working for their tuition, as well as studying.

4. Comfort the rest - the truly helpless. Provide food, clothing, shelter and medical care as necessary and try to find them a productive niche. These are the permanently mentally or physically ill, and the severely handicapped.

This sort of system serves the most with the fewest resources, which lets you get to helping category 4 the soonest. It also does not help those who will not help themselves, which is as it should be. I have no compassion for those who refuse to contribute to society despite being able to do so.

The hard part, of course, is deciding who fits where, and who is most deserving of the system's limited resources. This is where enormous inefficiencies are introduced into the system. The only real fair way of doing this is helping everyone a little bit, until they blow it.