Sunday, March 21, 2010

philanthropy and poverty

There is a problem with poverty in America today. According to povertyinamerica.edu, a website that is designed to study the statistics about poverty in America, household debt has risen to 132 percent, mainly because Americans are abusing the credit card and piling on the mortgage debt. In the year 2006, the national personal savings rate for the nation fell below zero for the first time since the depression. Today the economy is slowly recovering from almost collapsing into another depression; however it is still not where it needs to be. The American economy needs to be brought out of the depths of the ocean and become above sea level again. Poverty is not just about an economy but it is also about the poor conditions that people have to live through. There are homeless people in America right now that roam the streets every day of their lives begging for food, water and shelter. Poverty in my opinion is living below what is considered a lower class population. It is not having shelter or not being able to pay your own rent. Also living in poverty means that you can no longer support yourself or your family. This semi-depression that has hit America over the past couple of years has made America experience more poverty. More and more people are jobless and cannot pay the mortgage or their house. Americans and economists need to develop a plan that will not only get America out of their debt, but find a way to prevent inflation in doing so.
Philanthropy, according to the Webster’s Dictionary is the effort or inclination to increase the well being of human kind, as by charitable aid or donations. When someone is seen as increasing the well being of human kind, they are called a philanthropist. Many philanthropist have come and gone throughout history, however one of the most important philanthropists of all time; also one of the best known philanthropists in America, was Benjamin Franklin. He invented many things for the betterment of human time such as the lightening rod, the bifocal glasses, the glass armonica, and the Franklin Stove. These inventions are still used in some sort of form today and greatly helped in the advancement in technology for humanity at the time. It opened the gateway for other inventions to be made. I think that the next big thing in philanthropy to occur in hopefully the near future is a cure for cancer. That would be probably the most important thing invented in the history of mankind. Electricity might be in the same category however a cure for cancer would be truly remarkable. It would extend the lives of many people in this world and humans would not have to worry about dying from a certain disease any more. The medical profession and government jobs are mostly associated with philanthropy. If u think about it, almost every government job has to do with the betterment of human kind. Whether it be a police officer, a teacher, a senator or the president, government jobs and medical jobs are related to philanthropy because they support the well being of human kind.

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