For an awful long way. John if they get it may be seen more people will realize there are better ways to give. Real charity. That is our show tonight. And now. John what is real charity . People are in trouble after a disaster or simply when people are poor. Americans instead is to think amount and government help. After all, who will help those people is not government . Libertarians argue that private charity would step in. Individuals really choosing to help. But with enough of us up . Most people say no. That is why liberals lik newsday columnist say when it comes to helping the need, that is mostly gernments job. Well, listen, it would be great if people of reach into their hearts and solved all these will problems. That does not happen. In almost every single case where theyre is a Government Program that exists because the private efforts. When you have enough. John that is because politicians said they were not enough and we could do better. I would argue that a government did not takes a much of our money the private sector would take care of the problems. Holdn a second. Lets get older americans. The poorest sector of our society. Something called Social Security camelot. Medicare came along. All the people really do comparatively fairly well. We had hundred kids spread all across america. Those numbers were cut dramatically in spite of the generous churches and nice people. Programs are trillions in debt. Unsustainable. Maybe we have to tweak. But you cant throw away the idea. The reality is we need vernment then there. John foodtamps, a couple billionaires could find that all program by themselves. And a private charity would be better as saying who really needs the food help and to is giving the system. I would love that. You know a billionaire who wants to pay to my think we would welcome that. John did not step in because youre a b fat government is there. Peopleay, oh, the government does that. Here is the reality in real life. All these privatefforts are really important. Generous people. We give a lot of money. When the chips are really down and the big thing hapns, the typhoon hi the philippines, w love the red cross effort. But they dt have an Aircraft Carrier with marines o board andescue helicopters. The u. S. Military does. I want them steaming toward the philippines when thatsits. John i dont know what will happen. In haiti ourovernment promised billions of dollars, billion of it is not done to the people. The New York Times said there were going to build 15,000 alums, latest target fewer than 3,000. Your argument is that government sometimes does not do a perfect job. I concede that. John i want to play along peersion of the clip earlier. To my leftwing colleagues were talking about how after a dister Faith Based Charities work better and Disaster Relief and fema. There is fema and then there is the faith based fema. If youre waiting for the government you are going to be in for aawful long wait. Talking about the government response after the tornado in oklahoma in may. Now 30 churches banded together to help much more quickly and did a better job in government. This happened with katrina. Fema was turning away walmart. People were trying to getwater. Sending its water to the wrong place. Youre right. As you know, i am a native of new orleans. There are some things that the province to well. All those kids, wonderful young people who came down, crch grou, they did something much better than government. But they were still an awful lot of things that we needed government. Remember how angry folks were. No one said stay away. John walmart and private Charities Got there. Maybe one of the things of the privates cano is be more nimble. If you are talking about reildi, i don think you want the government to take a pass. John i do. Lets talk about the war on poverty. Lyndon johnson said he would and poverty. Here is where the war began. And sure enough it dropped sharply the first five, seven years after that. To then it stopped improving. We teach people to be dependent. Hat was happening before the americans were lifting themselves out of poverty. Government continue the progress for five years and then stopped it. We should have been more generous, done the other things th government can do to help folks. John government does not teach a dependency. I am not here saying government is profit. Governmentas some bad things, clumsy, bureucratic. There are things it does really well. Hehey, private folks, step up. John these graphs of the test. Can we put these up. John the recession, t it goes up steadily. Two lines referred to one is the number of people collecting in the other is the cost. We are teaching people to be passive. I i will grant you that is something we want to avoid. What is the solutn from a look at the people and say we will take your food stamps a way . Up for the best. Limit the program some of the private sector stepped in. One more example is the rise of disability tes people. Straight out. You have fewer people doing manual labor, medicine is better , and more people are disabled. I am with you on that one. John if you want to get rid of it. No, i dont want to get rid of it. Certainly we can look more closely of the applications. John cut itay back. Theres a place near college of center, a Government Office supposedly to help people find jobs. I went there. People said, there are no jobs. We then went around 40 job offers, 28 and to build positions, one Restaurant Owner said, would hire a dozen people live there would just apply. I would throw we take nine with no experience in trenton. John and that the welfare of a steeple told us there are no jobs. There plenty of jobs. John government jobs offices to encourage people toake welfare. As somebody go and ask for help to see if it would help her get a job and they said, no, they just to reach for welfare and food stamps. Again, it is much smarter to have programs that encourage people to work, dont reward laziness,. John they all do that. Dont know. John pvate charities and of any suppression did he tell. The answer can be to just cut it back a mechanic . John get it back. And let the private sector in. We will stop there. Thank you. Atomize a private charity should replace government. What about the rest of the world . People assume global poverty is a problem. It has to be addressed by gornment givingut foreign aid or maybe the wind. The u. S. And contradicts the title of my book by saying, yes, we, governments, working together can end poverty in just two years. While. Two years. Of course 50 years ago Lyndon Johnson claimed his war on poverty would end poverty in america. The u. N. Will do better. Ted turner gave him a billion dollars for this. Individual governments and squandered nearly a trillion dollars of foreign aid trying to lift peoplout of poverty in africa. I say squandered because after they spent trillions for income per capita it went down. That isaybe because the foreign aid encourages dependency and african kleptocrats governmt steal much of the money. What is the alternative . Michael fay says he has an answer. What is yours . We are going straight to the port. Cash transfers from you directly to them. No middleman, no leakage, no hidden costs. John the charity, and you have raised about 6 million. Just given 27,000 peoplethe thousand dollars each. That is exactly right. A thousand for the households. John this sounds like a stupid idea. They will just spend it and then it wont have any. You are not the only one. The truth is there has been about a decade of research that shows the exact opposite. What are these people missing . A lot of them are missing the capital. We have the old expression teach a man to fish. E truth is the dont have fishing poles. John so y allow them to buy a fishing pole or in this case this may havbeen a guy who got a morcycle and use it for a taxi serce. This is a used motorcycle that he bought with cash and now provides tax to services. John he gives the people a cell phone with the money. That is the way we transfer the money. Found the phone. If they dont have a phone them in a deal to get the money. Jo and it is easier to check up on them. We check, call tm, talk to them regularly. John people build metal roofs. The most popular thing. No charity. Saves income, clean water, was malari we did not think of it, ty did. John before they had that they had at thats true fan is bad about a hundred dollars a year. John instead they can start a business, another person had received training from another charity to be a welder. Said he was standing there doing nothing. He did not have Welding Equipment john what makes you think this work . We have a decade of evidence, we have done our own thirdparty valuation. We know income goes up a monstrous level goes down, under follows. John you do another odd thing. None of your Charity Board members works fulltime for your charity. Here is the great thing. If it is not working i would not lead to need to lie the right attitude my job. John you could be more honest evuating it. The charities delude themselves. Well, i think people have passion and often implies evidence. John i have hard time accepting i just criticize government pro grams because they dont teach people to take care of themselves. I guess giving cash once and knowing that it will keep coming is different. A onetime transforming event it does not matter who does it. Matters what they do. Why buy a cow when theerson is to will then. John to take care of it . Look to make the choice. John i hope it works. Im glad a lot of these experiments are going on. Thank you. If you would like to keep this conversation going go to fabook or twitter and use that has tank. Real charity. That people know what you think. Coming up, president obamas says the way to help poor people is to give them a free cell phone. wheres tommy . I thought he was wh you. No. Jack playing twinkle, twinkle, little star. dont stop keep playing here we go. Heres the fun part the government will pay for you to have a free cell phone with monthly minutes, no credit checand no deposit required. John of free cell phone. 253 minutes. What the deal. This is to help poor people in need a lifeline. That is reasonable. This is a Government Program that began with ronald reagan. Presidenobama expanded it, of course. And in just fr years the costs tripled and will continue rice can. A minority. You know. He gave up. , no income, disability. John the more free stuff you get the more youre eligible to get. But eligible is. What did you do . I wento all the welfare offices in manhattan and a couple in brolyn and found out that there are people of their approach you on the street as the if you have your free phon yet. Outside the office. John private entrepreneur. A not on welfare. I told them that. I would like to be buried at think a lot of the people would like to be. But that was enough. Th ended up giving me not one, not to, but three free phones. John the good news is someplace is turned down. Yea they ended up. First of, you are not supposed to have duplicate files which i have already broken and will. There also supposed to cck eligibility. They also did not catch the eye and multiple applications and and try to work power t the system again and again. Jo and fcc audit, the found 41 pernt of the recipients never demonstrated that they were eligible. Thats about 6 million people. The what you really see is the phone companies hava very perverse incentive to push those bonds and on the street. They get 9. 25 per customer per month for this program. The Street Vendors john is paid for out of your phone bill. If you bothered to read the fine print, there is something called the universal service charge. This was under ronald reagan, make sure everybody and a phone line. Universal service. A dollar and two out of every race home built. Bison i think that most taxpayers dont know what. I went out and investigated. I didnt know. John bore people talk to their families. The pho companies of the bad guys in this. This is a hugeusiness. The mexican billionaire, one of the richest people in the world. John he may be the richest. Csn bill gates compete. But he got in 2011 alone half a billion dollars from this program. So what turned out to be welfare for the poor is actually corporate welfare plan in simple john and what about my obnoxious question. You dont want to help the poor . Well, i think maybe there would be justification for a land line. As with a program started out as, but anytime you have perverse incentives for companies to go and no phones combined with the very poor oversight you have to ask yourself, you cating a situation in which fra and abuse can just compound . That is what we have. John it should not surprise anyone that Government Charity is susceptible to fraud. The contractors doing the work. No ones money. The more they give out the more they get to keep. They get a commission on each give away. The cellphone charities, 2 billion. Think about the hundreds of billions spent on medicare and medicaid. Much more from there. People work out with all this stuff. One man alone spent 20 million on thisiamond jewelry, also a fleet of luxury cars, one after the other. All of which she got because government paid millions for medical treatment that never happened. Government health is just extra susceptible to abuse. And is definitely what i found. Was surprised that i was able to get three of them in violation a pretty much every program wall, and if i can do it being someone he tells the truth, just a man from the people. Actually willing to abuse the program. John private Companies Get ripped off. But they have more of an incentive to check. Its their own money. Hats right. Georgia is actually doing reform within the states to try t see if they can mess with that fundamental flaw in incentive structure. There will start charging 5 for consumers. They have to p 5 spirit there less likely to god and by. John thank you. Coming up, better ways tell people. John one of the richest people in the world is warren buffett. Is the jeep . He is one of my billionaire sue until recently gave very little to charity. He used his money to try to make more money. He said he would give it away when he died. His fellow billionaire ted turner told me buffett was being cheap. She should give some away now john turner just made a big splash by giving a billion dollars to the wind. Now he said he wanted to shame other rich people into giving more. What he said is bad a and the stupid. John that was his answer. What he should do is take his money and invested. He can help people in the other better way into invested and have the companies in building in plans that creating the investment creates jobs and wealth and products for her people. John really . Is it better if a money maker uses money to make more rather than give to charity . I think so. Add to that questn back to ted turner. Bill gates says, and get it making money. John that try to argue this, but he wasnt buying it. Hn and i wrong in thinking that i am happy if he gives that the charity . When you be happier if he did . You alleges this is what people dont like these men. I know your dirty tricks. There is nothing more say. Gobye. I am walking out. John he did not want to talk about it. Lets take that same question to an economist to rise a freemarket institute at texas tech. I am not bothered if they dont give more of it away. They make their money by making allies that. They are helping people. Often that is the best with a can help. John and then make a profit than they hire people, those jobs live on for years. People use it to educate there kids and feed eir family. There is a multiplier. These guys may not even begin dexterity. We know theyre good at making money. Stick to what your specialty is. Its about the results. If leeson to do the things that we want them to do. Of course the real reason is that creating the products and services that make our lives better, but as a byproduct they create jobs that make other People Better off. It is what is fundamentally responsible for the High Standard of living we enjoy. John said most of them, i would say to my dont feel good about all the wealth they create in their business and guiltily give to charity. Even bill gates is now working full time on charity he says he thinks most charity has to come from government. A lot of the money that is supporting these causes is coming fromhe privateector, people like you and less from the government. John governments are the backbone of this. No, no, no. He is good as computers, not it is social policy. Just last week had a Research Paper presented about the great chicago fire of 1871. What happened afterwa, there was no fema. It was private charity and Civil Society organizations the banded together and help get people out of the city who lost their homes, brought in new shelter, clothing. Judging from what i was hearing from my work to haggle a lot better than fema of ordering people when they can and cannot go and buts in the process to behalf of. John a recent editionf forbes magazine, the richest peoples list featured philanthropy. So how they are now reading billionaires by how much they give. A kind of want my heart. Lets have a competition. There is nothing wrong with people giving money to the causes a thinker valuable. Not every good or service will be produced for profit. Somef it can come from this segment of socie, and its fine that we recognize that as long as we dont demonize those who arent doing it and think theres something wrong with them pursuing profit because there is not. That osmanli makes us better off john there are these tycoons from previous years Cornelius Vanderbilt and john d. Rockefler and people who vilify them. They did some charity work. They werevil robbers. They fundamentally transformed the lives of americans and raising living standards. Rockefeller brought us well and made profits. By the way, he probay i also responsible for saving the whales because he pushed down the price of oil it was no longer profitable to how best to extinction henry ford makes jeep automobiles. It does not maer that is motive was profits. He made automobiles affordable for the average middleclass amican. The se is true of most of these socaed robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. John thank you. Up next, if i put on a fake beard and chemistry of people beard and chemistry of people give me mon grew up in a small town and when the rain would fall down id just stare out my window dreaming of what could be and if id endp happy i would pray i could brkaway ill spread my wings and ill learn how to fly ill do what it takes till i touch the sky i gotta make a wish, take a chae, make a chan, and break away out of the darkness and into the sun i wont forget all the ones that i love i gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a ange, and break away john it will come to an end. The sooner the better the billions we spend on foreign aid. Much of which is squandered or stolen. I agree with ron paul and his son, the senator. We should stop almost all foreign aid. The one libertarians say th people need angry. Cut off american assistance to these democratic efforts. Pull the eight o. What the heck. Less than 1 percent of the entire budget of the United States of america. John its pretty close to 1 . 35 million. I say we cant afford that. Gregory adams runs of sams 80 effectively says we should spend more. A giant charity it tries to fight poverty over the world. I say, fine. If you want to do that, you raise the mon he believes government out of it. The issue is that there are some things that charities just cant do. Despite the impact that they have around the world, and we are proud of the work that we do with money raised from average americans, there is only so much that we can do with our own projects. Some places government needs to step in. John all right. Government needs to make sure aids workers and of being murdered on the way to where theyre going. And i should say that you dont take government moneyrom the United States. To other countries. But you call for government to spend more on foreign aid. Why when so much has been squandered . It is important to know that were calling for more of the right kind of a. John this is going to be the right kind. There are some things that we think the United States government is doing that we think is not a good use of money. Particular, food aid is in deerate need of reform. We miss about half of the value of every dollar that we spend because we require it to be shipped in american vessels, delivering food rather than buying food at the source. John you also wanted to spend more. We want more of the right kind. There are good programs, the millennium celebration that invest in success. The best performing countries rather than subsidizing failure. Weant to see more aid given directly to helping Small Farmers grow more of their own food and you want to see more aid used to support the anticorruption efforts. John but what are the odds that that will happen . That the aids support the corrupt dictators as much as half the food aid center at the molly is divertedo corrupt ccntractors, is like militants, local un staff. Somalia is a difficult environment. John i will go on. Zimbabwean authorities confiscated truck filled with American Food aid for school kids and handed it out to supporters of president Robert Mcgowan boy and a political rally. This is one of the problems when the only tool youave is bags of food. John but by calling for more government aid you are calling for more of the aid that despite all the promises of reform has ended up in the hands of corrupt dictators. We are nojust calling for more government aid. John i understand that, and you do some brave work. Why do you call for it at all . A lot of misconceptions. One of the bgest is that most u. S. Assistae actually goes to governments. Inact, that is not true. Most goes to u. S. Based charities, ngos, contractors. John and the u. N. There is portion that goes. We are very clear that they are not the solutn. People on the solution to poverty. John lets hear from an african entrepreneur. A busins and american. But she tried operating a business in her own company countr of senegal. You agree. The combination. Foreign aid. Government. I have a very hard time. The African Union itself is admitting it is being siphoned through corruption. John the swiss bank account. Swiss bank accounts, real estates in the south of france, the son of the dictator of a equatorial guinea. He was busted by french customs. His plan was intercepted, and they found in the plane 27 fancy cars. I dont know how many furry some bentleys, rollsroyces. John the only w to stop that is said keep government out of it. You can get a bunch o people who wanto give their o money they wont give it to dictators. Well, not of governments of the same. We actually work with a lot of anticorruption and human rights activists in countries around the world who are actually working t try to get their governments to govern more accountable. Theyre intested in u. S. Standing with them in joining this fight. Too oft we take such an approach to u. S. Assistance,e try to make it we focus on much and a boarding corruption these activists in telling us that they want to us stand together to fight corruption which means that we need to be their standing with them in solidarity working together. John why the need government aid . Why the need government aid . Government said the only tool that can work to solve some of these accountability problems. It is like asking why the bears need an offensive line. At some point you need these other tools. It will be entrepreneurs who solv theroblem of african poverty. But you also need government to do other things. John you need governments. Unfortunately at least in most countries in Africa Government has been the problem. They basically say, as an trepreneur government does nothing but slow me down on a regular basis. Officials bribing me all along. The fact that my truck is parked on a regular basis. And i have to pay a single time in the delays. John government aid will help fight the corruption. Im sorry. The more youre feeding this huge government the more you choke me from the other end. That is at least the phenomenon that i am awareness of. And the more you give to them the more that is what happens to me. John we do think that the is role that government can play. In a lot of the places we actually find there is a government deficit. People have to deal with john why do you believe government aid would provide that . Has not so far. That is actually not true to a lot of success stories. A lot of african countries that the scene. John to racine them. Thank you. Coming up, why our man came up to me on the street and said are you john stossel . I hope you die. See these hands . They gripped the wheel of a humvee in afghanistan. These hands . Six years treating soldiers. Twelve years, flying choppers. My hands . Theyre here for the pern who fought in afghanistan. I made the call and got support for my sister. My hands are here for the person who treated those soldiers. I helped connect my son with the care hes earned. Mine take care of the person who flew those helicopters. And ifife gets overwhelming theyre ready to dial the veterans cris line. The Veterans Crisis line is re for all veterans and their loved ones. Call 18002738255 and press 1. Or chat online at veteranscrisline. Net john someone once came up to me on the street in new york and said, are you john stossel ha said the spd said to my hope you guys in. So what is this hatred about . It turned out he was what people call and antipoverty lawyer and did things like sue landlords to stop them from evicting people. In his world here in new york capitalism is the enemy, and the only thing that keeps poor people from being totally impressed his government. So because i call for Less Government and evil. This town, we libertarians are selfish people. And a good guy is called a bleeding heart liberal so what is this website about . Bleeding heart libertarians. Talks about social justice and freemarket. Georgetownwn university philosoy professor regularly contributes to the site. Why . The idea is to recapture the soul of libertarianism. What they can and should do is embrace the concept of social justice. John what does the phrase even mean . I am for social justice. Right. John for a lot of people it does not mean anything. Itust means socialism. There is a real meaning. Course of institutions that you expect other people to live by. John laws, property rights, fami rules come anything like that, one of the tests of those institutions should be that you expect when people live and abide by them attend to produce good consequences for everybody. You can show whether you care about this by asking a questn like this. Imagine that marxists were right. Imagine there were a disaster, they left the overall majority of people destitute. Would you still advocate markets . I think most libertarians would say i would at least have some reservations. The fact that they work matters in the justification. If you think that the new advocate whether you know not what philosophers are lling the social justice. John im rand said that do not nsider charity a major virtue. Selfish. Wt she means is not what most people mean. Even if she thinks that i dont think she speaks for most people most are humane, they give to charity, the care that markets work and their work for everybody. The minimum wage, if you did not think that matter why would you argue that because on one. You dont beat you say that the minimum wage causes unemployment among the most laura will people in society and that is part of the reason to oppose it which means that you care of the consequences for theoor. John the website, bleeding het libertarian, categors like advocating nurses caring versus helping. This explains what is going on with people when they think that libertarians are selfish. If you are on the lefty probably believe that your policies are the only sensible expression of benevolence. You probably think they must disagree with your values and only care of their pocketbooks. That is never really make sense because we hav real arguments but also advocacy is cheap. I advocate that we have a 90 marginal tax rate, income over 100,000, if i advocate that it does not cost me anything. If i give money to charity john governments should have a bigger antipoverty program. That costs you nothing but you get the warm glow of altruism when you say you advocate that. Put your money where your mouth is. Does it actually does something. I know your concern. If youre advating taking income from other people or yourself and that is all you do your not really showing me tt you care. John it is easy to be generous with other peoples money. That is what politicians do. Thats right. John thank you. Coming up, my take on real charity. John i used to be pretty cheap. My mom told me, if you dont save your money you will freeze in the dark. So i saved. But when my career took off and i started getting paid money to make speeches i decided to donate the money to charity, and it changed my life. I realize that i like giving money away. It makes me happy. Research on what makes people happy backs that up. On average people who give to charity, whether they give them money or just time, they are happier. So death. It is did for us and get for them. Though that depends whom you give to. I put on a fake beard and tried begging in new york city. People gave me money. They gave me money whe my cardboard sign said thomas and cold, and even gave when i chased it to needed bier. Thank you. Thank you. John when they asked givers why they gave people said things like this. He looks pretty neat, i suppose. John i just beg for an hour, but i did well. But did this for an eight hour day and would have made 90 a 23,000 year. Taxfree. That is the reason social workers say no to give to beggars. Often it is a sm planery often y are an enabling. By giving cash to subsidize the biggest drug or alcohol hit. By not giving you may encourage them to give real help. A few respectable charities illicit on the s streets. But most were begging or running scams. I need your help. I am homeless. John nework attorney general said this pitch from a Group Calling itself united homeless is a scam. Its director keeps nearly all the money comes bins it on things like his weight watcher bills. I hear you keep most of the moy. We are meless people. John the pages it is going to shelters. Am i supposed to run a nonprofit and not get money . All the people donate absolutely kno where the money goes. John it is hard to find out where your Charity Money really goes. We can check Charity RatingServices Like charity navigator. It is better than nothing. The ratings are not perfect. Some charities are not perfect, and Rating Services sometimes did coned. I give my Charity Money to groups that i cacheck out myself, a group tha rehabs excon and attics. I decided they do a good job because i could see these men. They call them men in blue, ready, willing, able. The cleanair bill york city streets. What is hot is that they do is bring in a step in look cerful and work fast. I thought whoever is working with these guys has done something right, taught them to take pride in work. I give them money in a couple of other groups that back and watch. While give to what i think are good charities, we shoul not forget about the people of, capitalists, on this once. But job creators do much more good for the world that politicians. And more en than that dogooders working for charity. I am delighted that the singer bought of figure that out aer spending years calling for government to spend more in foreignaid flop. Now he says the best hope for the four is free markets. Preaching capital. Sometimes i hear myself, and i just cannot believe it. Commerce is real. Just a stopgap. Commerce and on to panera capitalism takes more people out of poverty. We know that. John politicians dont know that. Many americans dont know it. It is time that they learned. Entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty and a never well. That is our show. See you next week. Weekend. The willis report is coming up next. Gerri hello, everybody. Im gerri willis. Tonight onthwillis report consumer relief or blata union to know. Watching outor you tonight on the wlis report