As today being "Blog Action Day" where, in theory, all bloggers pick a subject to write about, this year being "poverty", here are a few random thoughts of how to solve poverty.

Having traveled to India, I realize that poverty in India is different than in the United States. In India, people have a lack of food, cleanliness, and organization that people here have. However, besides the lack of food, people learn to live with poverty and the sort of anarchy that goes along with it. Folks are expected to live with their family in the same house, and to share the expenses of maintaining the house and the family.

Looking back, it seems that the value system is different. Here, where the family is disintegrating and people are expected to take care of themselves (i.e. you are expected to move out at around age 18), the expenses are much higher. The support system here isn't the same as in India, and it's purely a cultural phenomenon.

One other thing - people in the United States are always competing with their neighbors (i.e. "being better than the Joneses"). If people would stop being commercially driven to make purchases that are unnecessary because their neighbor (or "neighbors" on television) show how glamorous owning things are, then money would be spent on more important things. Like healthy food.

Of course, we are in a credit crisis, aren't we? Always trying to be better than the Joneses.