Not that Elon Musk doesn't have plenty of flaws that people online will be happy to spill much ink about, but what does that have to do with widespread poverty on a national level?

Does the US not have a government and state-level and federal-level representatives whose job it is to take care of their citizens and keep them out of starvation? Elon Musk and his pals seem like a convenient distraction from holding accountable people whose job it is to protect their constituents.

Many of those wealthy individuals (or their companies, at least) have lobbied to ensure that we don't have a government which takes upon itself to keep citizens out of starvation. Not sure about Elon Musk specifically, but politicians don't just magically decide to ignore the needs of their constituents.

To spell it out for those in the back: reducing tax rates reduces the government's ability to fund public projects. i.e. roads, schools, and safety nets like food banks.

Also, the responsibility of feeding children has fallen upon schools in some areas. When SF closed schools in March 2020, one of the issues they had to address was "how do we feed the kids?"

https://www.sfusd.edu/about/news/current-news/sfusd-provide-...

Politicians magically decide to ignore the needs of their constituents whenever they think they can get away with it, unless they're saints - and not many saints are politicians.

The better question might be, why do they think they can get away with it? Why do they get away with it?

(By the way, note that this is not just a problem with one party...)

Whenever they can get away with it and it's in their best interest (thanks to lobbyists). If they don't get anything out of it, they may as well take the free goodwill from voters.

Yeah, maybe I'm too cynical, but I suspect that there's always some lobbyists willing to make it worth any politician's time to do what's not in the voters' interest.

> Does the US not have a government and state-level and federal-level representatives whose job it is to take care of their citizens and keep them out of starvation?

It’s patently obvious that no, the US does not.

Agree it's unfair to single out Elon. But Elon has clearly been anti-union for a long while and has building factories in states with low union presence. He's undoubtedly contributing to income inequality via corporate policies.

The cumulative pressure by major companies on congress is probably the single main reason why congress does not enact stronger protection. We got corporate tax cuts because of this over say better employment protection laws.

Disclosure: am a Tesla stockholder.

Agree that blaming individuals makes no sense. It's the system that is pushing the poorest into more debt and insecurity while making the rich richer that is the problem.

A lot of talk about building a healthy middle class but we've lost track of that goal decades ago.

Except those people heavily dictate how the system operates. "Systems" don't just operate without human input or decision-making.

No. We have representatives whose job it is to serve their campaign donors. Musk is a leech, but someone with that much money has political influence.

Because money is power and it's clear people like Musk have a bigger responsibility to push for an accountable government.

Are you sure? I like Elon Musk quite a bit, and even I don't think he should go around telling politicians what to do. That's not what we as a society have businesspeople for.

I agree with you. However, there is the world we want and the world we live in. Until we have an actual democracy (which likely won't have billionaires, look into what happens in popular movements in the past) then Musk has an outside responsibility to society because he has outsized power.

I never understood this because a Bezos, Musk or Gates aren’t gonna spend hundreds of millions a year buying up all the food and toilet paper. Their wealth buys them political power and influence but it shouldn’t really effect the supply chain as far as everyday basic goods are concerned.

So has our productive capacity fallen to where we can no longer feed everyone? Or are we producing enough food and then just trashing the excess when people cannot be afford it? It just doesn’t all add up for me. I am a novice at economics though.

Could be worse, e.g., any prior point in time on average ...

This is a pretty recurring theme in history. Read any Charles Dickins story for example.

> Meanwhile, an estimated 54 million Americans will struggle with hunger this year, a 45 percent increase from 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. With food aid programs like SNAP and WIC being reduced, and other federal assistance on the brink of expiration, food banks and pantries are being inundated, reporting hours-long waits and lines that stretch into the thousands.

And meanwhile, in the other America:

> When Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump start building their new home on the 1.8-acre lot at 4 Indian Creek Island Road that they purchased for $30 million, they’ll have plenty of equally famous neighbors to get to know.

> Indian Creek Island, sometimes called “Miami’s Billionaire Bunker,” is home to an eclectic group of some of the world’s wealthiest, from singers to hedge fund managers, inventors to developers — even the founder of a company dedicated to collecting blood donations.

> Just how pricey is Indian Creek Island? According to the village’s tax rolls, the median assessed value of homes on the island in 2019 was $13.6 million. Taxes from real estate jumped 6.4% in 2019 to $87,234, along with a city property tax of $63,000.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article247709685.h...

No people are not stealing food to survive. US have food banks and food stamps. People steal because they can.

I don’t say people are wealthy or eat enough. I’m saying your statement about survival is untrue, and as any false statement does not help to resolve the issue.

It kinda feels like someone is paying you for this hot take. People needing food banks and food stamps is bad. It's obviously not Yemen bad. This is so obvious it's not really worth mentioning. We have moved on from pointless comparisons of degree to feeling empathy for these people and fear for what this instability will bring about.

People steal food because they have to survive*

Fixed that for you.

Perhaps, our definitions of survival are very different. One might say people steal playstations to survive.

When was the last time you were unable to eat because of an income deficiency?

Funny you mention "food banks" and "food stamps" during a time of unprecedented services shortage due to a pandemic. Some people are still waiting on unemployment checks from 6 months ago. Stomachs can't wait that long.

An inability to use reasoning while also remaining heavily opinionated indicates you have never faced a severe economic hardship like homelessness and feel the need to shift the blame to others to avoid confronting systemic issues.