I don’t have sufficient knowledge to debate specific numbers, so I will just point out the simple things.
First, where are the governments in this picture? Governments operate with billions and trillions, so by the same logic governments also don’t care about the problems mentioned. And by the way, governments already take money from us under the pretense that they are going to use it to solve exactly this kind of problems… so, if those trillions collected each year haven’t solved the problem of health care or homelessness yet, what exactly makes you believe that the extra 20 billions would?
Second, the picture describes what could be done, but fails to mention what has already been done and how much did it cost. Maybe things are actually way more expensive than the picture suggests. (Like, the picture represents a planning fallacy, and in reality more money was already spent and the problem is not fully solved yet.) Maybe the solved problems keep re-appearing. (Like, if you gave a new home to every homeless person, a year later, most of them would be homeless again, for various reasons.) Maybe simple solutions have bad side effects. (Donate money to lots of people… and watch the rents go up.)
I am not pretending that this is a full refutation of the argument. As I said, I don’t really have sufficient knowledge to do that. I am just saying the evidence is filtered so much, that any conclusions made from it are unreliable.
I don’t have sufficient knowledge to debate specific numbers, so I will just point out the simple things.
First, where are the governments in this picture? Governments operate with billions and trillions, so by the same logic governments also don’t care about the problems mentioned. And by the way, governments already take money from us under the pretense that they are going to use it to solve exactly this kind of problems… so, if those trillions collected each year haven’t solved the problem of health care or homelessness yet, what exactly makes you believe that the extra 20 billions would?
Second, the picture describes what could be done, but fails to mention what has already been done and how much did it cost. Maybe things are actually way more expensive than the picture suggests. (Like, the picture represents a planning fallacy, and in reality more money was already spent and the problem is not fully solved yet.) Maybe the solved problems keep re-appearing. (Like, if you gave a new home to every homeless person, a year later, most of them would be homeless again, for various reasons.) Maybe simple solutions have bad side effects. (Donate money to lots of people… and watch the rents go up.)
I am not pretending that this is a full refutation of the argument. As I said, I don’t really have sufficient knowledge to do that. I am just saying the evidence is filtered so much, that any conclusions made from it are unreliable.