Money doesn't solve the problems of the poor
Mack Metcalf had problems with living. He didn't know how to act to get what he needed. Neither did his second wife Virginia Merida. But five years ago they struck it lucky. They won the Lottery. He took $14 million for himself and she got $9 million.
The New York Times reported what life was like for them before the winnings. It said they had years of "blue-collar struggle and ramshackle apartment life." Apparently the couple pursued values that were destructive to wealth and happiness.
She came from a family of drug dealers. He had a drinking problem and a working problem. The paper said he had "drifted from job to job" and at one point was living in an abandoned bus. He had been married before. So had she.
His first wife, Marilyn Collins, said that Metcalf had simply disappeared on her one day leaving her and their new-born daughter to fend for themselves. His relationship with Merida was no more stable. He left her as well.
Merida, said the Times, "worked a succession of low-paying jobs, lived in cramped apartments, drove decrepit cars and struggled to pay rent." At least until she got her share of the lottery winnings.
Many people with dysfunctional values are attracted to the lottery. It promises huge pay outs for very little investment and no work. Something for nothing appeals to those who can not see a connection between wealth and effort.
For $3 Mack and Virginia hit the big time. They had the option of taking payment in one big lump sum or in regular payments for the rest of their lives. They, of course, preferred to have it all immediately.
Mack was already in trouble. Shortly before buying the winning ticket at a truck stop he had been driving drunk and plowed into a series of parked cars. He and Virginia were already split up as well. They told everyone they would now pursue their life's dreams.
Mack still had the past haunting him. A case worker noticed he had won this money and the state went after him because he had neglected caring for his own daughter. Back child support of $31,000 was taken and the courts required him to set up a substantial trust fund for his daughter.
After leaving Virginia he found a new girlfriend but he took her to court claiming she tricked him into giving her $500,000 when he was drunk. She argued that she could prove that he gave a string of women money and not just her. He never bothered to show up for the hearing so the court ruled against him.
He had gone on a spending spree. He spent $1.1 million to buy a replica of Mount Vernon, George Washington's house. He started buying horses and vintage cars. He also liked the attention of having money and would give away money to total strangers for no apparent reason. His drinking sent him to hospital where he was treated for cirrhosis and hepatitis. When he was released he married yet again.
Virginia had a geodesic dome house built for herself for almost $600,000 and quickly found another relationship. Neighbors who visited her a year after she moved in found she still hadn't bothered to unpack the boxes of belongings she brought with her. Both she and Mack quit their jobs to live more leisurely lives.
Virginia had a live-in boyfriend named Fred Hill. Shortly after she moved into the house with him he was found dead from a drug overdose. Neighbors said they thought the home had become a center for drug distribution and that all kinds of people were going in and out constantly.
Mack's lifestyle didn't change after he won the millions. He was still a drunk and it killed him only three years after winning the lottery. Virginia didn't do any better. She was found recently in bed several days after she died. Police suspect a drug overdose.
USA Today says that Virginia may have still had some of her winnings left but "that may not have been the case with Mr. Metcalf, his daughter said." His home was sold off for half what he paid for it only a few years earlier.
Mack and Virginia won a lot of money. All that money did was amplify their pre-existing problems. It was not their salvation but their downfall. One of Virginia's brothers said: "Any problems people have, money magnifies it so much, it's unbelievable."
Marilyn Collins, the wife that Mack had deserted years before said, "when you put that kind of money in the hands of somebody with problems, it just helps them kill themselves."
Mack and Virginia, if press accounts are to be believed, were textbook cases of how dysfunctional values cause problems of people. It is often believe that people like Mack and Virginia have problems because they are poor. This is the premise of the redistributive state. If money is taken from those who "have too much" and given to those "less fortunate" the increased wealth of the poor will eradicate the problems in living that they experience.
The Left assumes that such problems are the result of poverty. But what if these problems did not result from poverty? What if poverty and these problems both were the result of the values they had embraced?
If social problems are the result of poverty then it is believed that throwing money at the poor will solved those problems. Yet no such problems have ever been solved by state generosity.
People who live in slums are said to do so because their poverty prevents them from living better. Yet when governments around the world created new housing for these same people it too becomes a slum.
Right on down the line we find that one social problem after another, among the poor, has not diminished as a result of generous payments to the poor. It such problems were caused by a lack of money then more money should have led to a reduction in said problems.
But the redistributionist has an answer for this. The real problem is that the poor were not given enough money. More funds, more redistribution, more benefits and programs are needed. If you throw enough money at the problem it will, they assure us, go away.
Mack Metcalf was one of those people with problems. And through sheer luck he had $14 million dollars thrown at him. He had a mansion and cars and all the drinking money he wanted. And his problems got worse. His drinking was not caused by his poverty but it may have been limited by it. His ex-wife said: "If he hadn't won, he would have worked like regular people and maybe had 20 years left." Virginia had $9 million thrown her way. It didn't help her avoid the consequences of her own choices either.
Unfortunately there are a lot of poor people today who are poor precisely for the same reasons that Mack and Virginia were poor. Cash didn't solve the problems of Mack and Virginia. And I suspect had they lived longer they would have ended right back in the same situation. Money can solves problems of poverty but it can not solve problems caused by bad values. And when the problem is one of values increased funding only makes it worse not better.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (Who made the real windfall profits?) - Next (Would you pull the trigger?)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Thursday September 9th 2010. |
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