The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York is doing a great thing — it’s recognizing designers who created inexpensive and useful items for poor people of the world, the New York Times reported. The ingenious inventions include a water drum that holds 20 gallons of water and rolls easily along the ground, a Lifestraw that kills bacteria as water is sucked through it, and a pot-in-pot cooler that relies on the evaporation of water from wet sand to cool the inner pot.
These new gadgets have the opportunity to make life easier for the poverty stricken. More designers who cater to the richest 10 percent of the world need to put their talents to helping the other 90 percent.
Posted by Andie Clum
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47 Comments
Making cheap gadgets is not a solution to poverty, only an enabler. Focus your attention on unjust factors that deny opportunity to all. Instead of making devices that only help them accept their situation.
I would think these cheap gadgets would help expand the opportunity to those who can least afford them. For example, the pot-in-pot cooler would help preserve food without having to invest in electric fridge, and the electricity to run it. Simple and elegant solutions can help increase the standard of living of the world’s poor. After all, one of the “unjust factors” would be an utter dependence to the newest, most expensive technology there is, when all is needed is just the basic edition, (e.g., Vista vs. XP).
“More designers who cater to the richest 10 percent of the world need to put their talents to helping the other 90 percent.Posted by Andie Clum”—————-
Okey dokey….I wonder what Ms Clum has designed for the poor lately.
lol
Good points, RuRa.
And listen to the CONs ridiculing the whole idea of helping the poor.
Doesn’t everyone already know the right-wing dogma that the poor are poor because they DESERVE to be poor.
If they were good, hard-working people, they’d be rich, like CONservatives.
Everybody knows that . . .
Capn – and what have YOU designed to help the poor?
Or are you just all talk?
lol
Well, as recently as last March, my wife and I took 1,000 dollars worth of school supplies donated by a local club to a school for students with special needs in a poor country.
As if that really makes any difference to this argument.
You can support these efforts without actually inventing anything yourself.
It’s good you donated something – somewhere.
But when it comes to designing new inventions – the designer wants to get paid for his work, too, after all.
Charity SHOULD come from individuals and not the government.
And considering that the poor have no money . . . that’s why they’re DUH! poor . . . the only source of income for these new designs is going to be a government somewhere.
Saying that charity should come from individuals and not government is a good way to keep the poor, poor.
The social security program for instance reduced poverty among the elderly from 40 percent to less than 10 percent.
I assume that people gave to charities before social security was implimented, right?
How’d that work out?
“And listen to the CONs ridiculing the whole idea of helping the poor.”
Posted by: CapnAmerica | June 04, 2007 at 09:23 AM
Just who ridiculed the idea? I think it’s awesome.
I wonder, good Capn, where the government gets money, if not from individuals or corporations that are owned by individuals.
(I am referring to money other than what they create themselves via the printing press and the central bank.)
Seriously, Hernando de Soto showed in “The Mystery of Capital” that people in many poor countries do have money, in the form of equity in the property they own. But most poor countries have no formal property systems, or there is lack of respect for property rights, so the capital that could be tapped — as it is in Western countries — remains an unused resource.
The problem with tapping equity in property is that property must be sold. So to use the equity they have to lose their land.
Many of the poorest live a subsistence lifestyle. If they have no land, they have no food. So if they get the equity out of their land, they would have to use that money to feed themselves so they would be in the same situation, just without land.
Brian, can’t they use the equity as collateral for loans?
Most people can, if the property is part of a formal system as most Western coutries have.
For the most part, the poor in Western countries do not own property.By poor, I mean those that are unable to provide for themselves food, water, and shelter. Those that are well below the US poverty line, perhaps destitute or impoverished would be better terms.
If they have no means to provide for something, and have to borrow money to buy it, they certainly would then not have the money to repay the loan.
Anonymous–
You are right of course that gov’t gets money from people through taxes. That’s a given.
But it also creates wealth in society by providing education and infrastructure.
Poor countries are poor in large part because they don’t have a government that provides this infrastructure.
Also, there’s the issue of wealth distribution. Oil companies pump oil out of the ground offshore and on federally owned land. That oil, in part, belongs to all of us, and the oil companies should have to pay all of us some of their profits back.
Same way with a Rockefeller or a Warren Buffett. They live in a country that allows and even encourages massive concentration of wealth.
Why does their family deserve those riches any more than the nation that supported them?
The children can keep some of it, yes. But what about the rest of the country that had a hand in that person’s personal fortune? Where’s our cut for providing roads and police protection and health care and education so that a consumer base can afford to buy that man’s product or service?
That’s the rationale behind the estate tax to keep wealth liquid instead of tied up in feudal fifedoms.
‘Okey dokey….I wonder what Ms Clum has designed for the poor lately.’Is she a designer?
‘Capn – and what have YOU designed to help the poor’Is he a designer?
‘Charity SHOULD come from individuals and not the government.’I certainly agree, the government Should not have to take care of the poor, especially in “Christian” countries. Unfortunately, that is not reality. Individuals do not do enough to take care of the poor around them, so the government has to.
That’s a pretty socialistic way to look at it Capn
By your measure, why do you deserve the car you drive? Why do you deserve the home you live in and whatever niceties are inside?
Good points Capn.I also think the sliding scale tax rates (higher taxation with higher income) help address some of the inequity of wealth distribution.
This is a very difficult area to implement though. How is industry encouraged to innovate and grow if not for the potential financial gain of the business owners? However, this growth and innovation forces barriers to entry for other people to also have financial gain. This is probably more of a problem in other countries than here in the US where many of the richest individuals and companies are also the most charitable.
It is necessary to weigh the capitalistic nature of most world economies with the overall good of having a populous that does not have huge extremes of wealth and poverty. However this causes some people to start throwing out terms like socialist and communist and wealth redistribution. A few questions must then be resolved: should the government provide assistance to those in need? Who do we take that assistance from?
“Why does their family deserve those riches any more than the nation that supported them?”
Those “riches” were taxed every step of the way. Everything that is left is after-tax money.Talk about greedy. You people want the steal the pennies off the eyes of the dead guy.
“Unfortunately, that is not reality. Individuals do not do enough to take care of the poor around them, so the government has to.”
This post almost had it right, except it should have read “Individuals do not do enough to take care of themselves.”
I read an article awhile back, I think during the 2005 elections where the multi-millionaires that support the Democrats out number the Republican multi-millionaires by a substantial amount.
I’ll see if I can find that article and offer it to Capn, so he can use it as a Kleenex to wipe his tears away when he finds out the Dems are the rich bastards.
Capn, why do you deserve the car you drive and the home you live in?
Did anyone bother to _READ_ the blog entry, or the article in question? It’s not about giving things away to poor people. It’s about developing inexpensive technology that will work in no-to-low infrastructure, impoverished parts of the world.
The radical conservatives are off and running, attacking these inventions as “enabling” or “socialistic,” and attacking the Eagle for daring to publish this information. The radical liberals are off on another tangent, talking about how they somehow have a right to other people’s money.
Good grief. Read the article. Get the point.
Bully Tom,
How about…. Start a competition, on a local, county, state, crap, federal level. Make it the biggest science fair you ever heard of. Middle school thru high school. The winner (say top 5 or 10) get some kind of scholarship to the college of their choice (pending admission)
The goal is developing items like these. How many colleges wouldn’t get behind that and give a 3-5K scholarship?
I just watched the video attached to the source article. Apparently, Dr. Paul Polak, the man behind promoting these designs, think they should be sold, not given away. “It helps create local economies” he said in the video.
It’s so great to see my fellow bloggers read the sources on these blog entries before launching into attacks.
Oh wait…
Sol,
Interesting idea. Maybe someone will pick up on that and run with it.
Sol,I actually had a similar thought, but for adults and or companies with awards of grants or even cash.
The government could identify a problem, like providing clean drinking water to those in Louisianna, and propose a timeline for ideas with a grant or prize for the winner. Good publicity for a company that comes up with a solution, too.
OK Brian let’s one up it. Let’s also bring in the company that will produce it. Set it up so that the product can be delivered at little or no cost.
Again, get the media involved and some good free publicity for the companies in R&D and production.
The last question is financing. Our state budget (MI) is so screwed our governor was willing to kill people – this is not a joke. She was going to cut Medicare/aid. She went on TV and told us that people would die. So a piss ant little state like MI could do little.
HEY !!! The Gates foundation. That guy has the financing. And it would look good for him as well. Damn, who are the right people to talk to to get something rolling?
Maybe we talk to a lot of little people. I have $50 to chip in. Maybe run it as a 501(c)3 instead of government sponsorship. We can get a tax deduction that way, too.
“I also think the sliding scale tax rates (higher taxation with higher income) help address some of the inequity of wealth distribution.”
Taxes should be a flat percentage. Everyone pays the same percent of their income. That is fair.
As far as the poor……..this is America. “most” of the poor in America are born with the same opportunity as anyone else. The poorest person in the U.S. can still go to grammer school and high school and get a good education, study hard, and go to college. I didn’t have help from my family. I went to one of the most expensive colleges in the state of Kansas…..worked full time had a very small scholarship. I did it on my own. I made $15,000 per year. That’s pretty poor. And I made too much to get grants counting my parent income who didn’t pay a penny for my college. I get so tired of hearing about the dis-advantaged. Every person in this country can study hard, learn a trade and become wealthy. That is the great thing about this country. There are exceptions for those who are unable to work and I have no problem with the government helping those folks out but what we need to do as a society is teach trades, teach financial discipline. Teach the fundamentals of life. Not give handouts. It is ludicrous.
Jared,
Perhaps you should have used that expensive education you claim to have to have read the original blog posting for this thread, and the source article it quotes.
Oh, and it’s “grammar,” not “grammer.” And it’s called “elementary school” these days.
I am all for a flat-tax (and I am an accountant). Everyone pays the same percentage of their income.It becomes hard to implement when we start considering what ‘income’ is. Maybe cash receipts?
Hey Tom,I read it, and it enables the poor. And guess what???? Someone is doing this to make money! One thing that I learned for FREE was common sense. Too bad you can’t buy it or I would let you know where to get some.
Brian,I don’t see how it would be so difficult. They take a percentage right now. Just change that percentage to a flat percent for everyone rather than on an income scale. As far as all other taxes in income……investment earnings etc….do away with them. Let the money you make be taxed once. Even if it is at a little higher rate.
Jared,Not to burst your bubble, but what about the non working class. Sitting on millions left from daddy and well invested. The wealthiest would not pay anything.
Well, SolDevVB……although I’m not typically fond of those who inherited money the fact is…..that money has already been taxed! Heavily taxed! I make money and pay the government a large sum of it. If I decide to give some of what I got to keep to my kids it should not be taxed again. That’s just all there is to it. So saying that the “Wealthiest would not pay anything” is simply WRONG. The wealthiest pay the most. They just wouldn’t pay it twice.
OK, so let’s say this, the money bequeathed has already been taxed so don’t tax it again. What about taxing the money earned from the investmenst?
SolDevVB,
That money is being taxed…I’m tossed as to if it should be but earning from investments are taxed for the most part.
Poor people have poor ways because poor thinking is all that is given to them.That is that they did it to themselves or someone else made them that way.
I guess this part of your post confused me then –
“As far as all other taxes in income……investment earnings etc….do away with them.”
The point I guess I was making is that taxing the money should happen once….no more. It should also be simplified. But I would be ok with “ALL” earnings being taxed. The reason there are so many problems with tax evasion etc.. is because taxes are so high. This tax the rich thing is a bunch of crap. I’m considered rich to the democrats and with school loans and 3 children I squeak by. I don’t mind paying taxes but my money going to support programs that only enable the poor to stay poor and things like global warming research and all that is rediculous. I’m sick of it.
jared,You have several problems rolled into one. How about I help separate them?1. Tax evasion/noncompliance – use a fixed percentage flat tax on all income2. “taxes are so high…paying taxes but my money going to support programs…is rediculous” – if you don’t like how your tax dollars are spent talk to Congress and the Prez3. “This tax the rich thing is a bunch of crap. I’m considered rich to the democrats” Ummm….OK
brian,
was there a point in all that?
that you are pissed about too many not-quite-related things and are getting the causes, effects, and solutions to them mixed up
There are some non-profits and for-profits that create products for poverty stricken areas, but I cannot think of any that focus soley on that.Could be profitable though. Not much money per person but there are a lot of poor people.
One of the major problems of the poor is the militant warlords and radicals groups that take away prosperity from their own people.This is something that requires Government intervention and law enforcements.No great inventions in the world will solve the problem of poverty so long as leadership is corrupted.
Sol asks if I deserve a car?
Well, why is the government building me a highway if I don’t deserve one?
Do you walk to school or carry your lunch, Sol?
Another important point is the question about patent holder. Often a great invention becomes unaffordable to the target consumers due to the royalties that must be paid. On the other hand, intellectual properties must be respected. Any suggestions?
A little reality for the story. Most inventions do target people with more money. Over time the design is refined, usually for no other reason than to make it cheaper. Hence many useful products do find their way into more households.
However designing/building things to sell to people with no money is known as a ‘bad business plan’.
As I said before, if you want to help the poor then find the reason they are poor. Is it their own habits? Is there a third party in the way? Making life ‘cheaper’ is not a solution.