Speaking Of Poverty...
The previous post reminded my of one of my favorite and least-likely-to-ever-gain-any-traction ideas.
Poverty is mostly a matter of money (duh!). Therefore, poverty can be eradicated if a sufficiently large source of money can be found. I know of a large global expenditure which is totally unnecessary and if those funds were shifted to a fight to end poverty, they would suffice several times over.
The world cosmetics industry is a business with revenues in the hundreds of Billion annually. Cosmetics are totally unnecessary because they are nothing but an arms race among women. Everybody does it only because everybody else does it. If all cosmetics were eliminated tomorrow, the better looking women would remain better looking and the less so the less so.
At some point in time cosmetics may have been a significant differentiating factor in that so few could afford them that rich women who could were able to jump a few rungs on the attractiveness ladder. This is clearly no longer the case as just about everyone can afford some cosmetics and men really can't differentiate between Sephora and store brand make-up at WalMart (is there such a thing?)
So all that would need to happen is that one day women of the World wake up and say "from now of I will no longer buy make up and will put that money into the Global Fund to Fight Poverty". They would all have to do it on the same day to avoid the "free rider problem". Women proclaim that they stick together and stand up for one another so simply saying no to make-up should not be a difficult problem?
One can dream ....
Poverty is mostly a matter of money (duh!). Therefore, poverty can be eradicated if a sufficiently large source of money can be found. I know of a large global expenditure which is totally unnecessary and if those funds were shifted to a fight to end poverty, they would suffice several times over.
The world cosmetics industry is a business with revenues in the hundreds of Billion annually. Cosmetics are totally unnecessary because they are nothing but an arms race among women. Everybody does it only because everybody else does it. If all cosmetics were eliminated tomorrow, the better looking women would remain better looking and the less so the less so.
At some point in time cosmetics may have been a significant differentiating factor in that so few could afford them that rich women who could were able to jump a few rungs on the attractiveness ladder. This is clearly no longer the case as just about everyone can afford some cosmetics and men really can't differentiate between Sephora and store brand make-up at WalMart (is there such a thing?)
So all that would need to happen is that one day women of the World wake up and say "from now of I will no longer buy make up and will put that money into the Global Fund to Fight Poverty". They would all have to do it on the same day to avoid the "free rider problem". Women proclaim that they stick together and stand up for one another so simply saying no to make-up should not be a difficult problem?
One can dream ....
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