Also problematic is that the Wizarding world undervalues Galleons and overvalues Sickles. If he can pay the debt in 1.7 million Sickles, then he’s fine- but if he has to pay them in Galleons, and he just modified the Galleon-Sickle exchange rate to 50-1, then he’s worse off. (He might have made enough from the arbitrage to pay back Malfoy, but maybe not.)
Worst comes to worst, he asks Dumbledore to cure some rich muggles with cancer who are willing to pay.
[edit]Remember, the trick only needs to work once. Take out 40k galleons, convert it to muggle gold (probably necessary, but maybe not), convert it to 50 times as much silver by weight, convert it to Sickles, and now he has (if they’re the same weight coins) 2M Sickles, minus conversion losses. Hand off 1.7M of them to Lucius (or get them changed at Gringotts), and the debt is cleared.
Now, Harry triples his money every time he does the trick- so he’ll probably want to try it several times before losing a lot of his principal. But that’s not a big issue.
Actually, there’s a fairly complicated question of why don’t we immediately go cure world hunger. I mean, the production and logistics aspects wouldn’t be very difficult compared to what today’s industry can output on an everyday basis. I guess that it’s 80% pure irrationality and only 20% politics.
You mean IRL? It mostly boils down to “we’ve tried giving hungry people food, it doesn’t work, and that’s pretty much all the ideas we’ve got”. It’s a much messier problem than it seems at first glance, and it isn’t all politics or insanity. To pick the most obvious, when you dump planes full of grain on the tarmac in Zimbabwe, what did you just do the finances of the local farmers who now need to compete with free? And what does that do to next year’s crop?
I might agree with such a reversal, provided that you agree with the well-known maxim that “The personal is political”* and make one more step towards embracing our insidious corruption :)
(in the relevant sense, this refers to why don’t various charities just rain megatons of food, water, schools and hospitals from the sky, given how much private 1st world citizens have to spare)
(in the relevant sense, this refers to why don’t various charities just rain megatons of food, water, schools and hospitals from the sky, given how much private 1st world citizens have to spare)
The linked article does point out the difficulties of raising overall quality of life and human development. Is that what you’re saying is harder to do than just throwing money at the problem? If so, I agree completely (and join the anti-PC crowd in suggesting that the very best of currently conceivable general solutions for Africa is reinstating colonialism).
However, I was talking specifically about satisfying the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace), not grand questions of policy or structural change. Why I took such a narrow view is because I feel that pushing the self-sufficiency, ground-up angle when talking about ways to fix the whole mess is quite limited and even hypocritical; maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone (and enforcing birth control, and dealing with a whole separate can of worms, but that’s a problem with every approach) could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare while our social engineering looks for a way to kickstart the aforementioned self-sufficiency.
Yes, increasing dependency and taking away responsibility is a clear instrumental evil, and according to many just evil, period. But if we could first stop people from 1) being born into suffering to do little but increase that very suffering and 2) dying quickly and miserably, maybe that’s worth the tradeoff.
maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone . . . could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare
When there is hunger, there is power in controlling the distribution of food. When people have power from something, they do not simply allow outsiders to come in and take it away without a fight. You can ship all the food you like for free to African ports; the people of the country itself will still go hungry, because the people with guns will control the distribution to maximize their power.
If a man is intentionally starving and beating his children, you can’t solve their hunger and bruises by giving him material goods. You need to remove his power over the kids and put the kids in care of someone who won’t abuse them. If you want to grant the “the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace)”, what you will have to do is overthrow their governments and install colonial governors.
There currently seem to be few volunteers for the job.
Yes, this problem is quite obvious, and yes, I’m in favor of full-scale colonialism, but couldn’t a heavier presence by UN/coalition-of-the-willing peacekeepers, with powers to override local authorities when it’s needed to prevent open violence and abuse, also keep the scum that floats to the top there in check? What’s the tactical record for peacekeeping operations that had a reasonably broad mandate for use of force? (Hmm, here’s one account. My cached thought that a “firm hand” brought decent results in Somalia appears to be confirmed.)
...Of course I realize how unlikely any international body would be to approve such powers against the protests of an “independent” local regime (Somalia being an unusual case in that regard), so such policing of aid-receiving countries would have to be carried out unilaterally and without foreign oversight by whatever nation could be willing to implement it. Which creates a power dynamic that’s basically colonialism. Which, again, would IMO be quite OK with purely selfish intentions and better yet with benevolent ones, but should be done openly anyway for clear generic reasons.
Also problematic is that the Wizarding world undervalues Galleons and overvalues Sickles. If he can pay the debt in 1.7 million Sickles, then he’s fine- but if he has to pay them in Galleons, and he just modified the Galleon-Sickle exchange rate to 50-1, then he’s worse off. (He might have made enough from the arbitrage to pay back Malfoy, but maybe not.)
Worst comes to worst, he asks Dumbledore to cure some rich muggles with cancer who are willing to pay.
[edit]Remember, the trick only needs to work once. Take out 40k galleons, convert it to muggle gold (probably necessary, but maybe not), convert it to 50 times as much silver by weight, convert it to Sickles, and now he has (if they’re the same weight coins) 2M Sickles, minus conversion losses. Hand off 1.7M of them to Lucius (or get them changed at Gringotts), and the debt is cleared.
Now, Harry triples his money every time he does the trick- so he’ll probably want to try it several times before losing a lot of his principal. But that’s not a big issue.
I think that the can of worms of why wizards don’t immediately go cure world hunger etc. is best left to be opened near the end of the fic, if at all.
Actually, there’s a fairly complicated question of why don’t we immediately go cure world hunger. I mean, the production and logistics aspects wouldn’t be very difficult compared to what today’s industry can output on an everyday basis. I guess that it’s 80% pure irrationality and only 20% politics.
You mean IRL? It mostly boils down to “we’ve tried giving hungry people food, it doesn’t work, and that’s pretty much all the ideas we’ve got”. It’s a much messier problem than it seems at first glance, and it isn’t all politics or insanity. To pick the most obvious, when you dump planes full of grain on the tarmac in Zimbabwe, what did you just do the finances of the local farmers who now need to compete with free? And what does that do to next year’s crop?
I’d reverse those. (Although one could be considered a subset of the other.)
I might agree with such a reversal, provided that you agree with the well-known maxim that “The personal is political”* and make one more step towards embracing our insidious corruption :)
(in the relevant sense, this refers to why don’t various charities just rain megatons of food, water, schools and hospitals from the sky, given how much private 1st world citizens have to spare)
This is much harder to do then you seem to think.
The linked article does point out the difficulties of raising overall quality of life and human development. Is that what you’re saying is harder to do than just throwing money at the problem? If so, I agree completely (and join the anti-PC crowd in suggesting that the very best of currently conceivable general solutions for Africa is reinstating colonialism).
However, I was talking specifically about satisfying the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace), not grand questions of policy or structural change. Why I took such a narrow view is because I feel that pushing the self-sufficiency, ground-up angle when talking about ways to fix the whole mess is quite limited and even hypocritical; maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone (and enforcing birth control, and dealing with a whole separate can of worms, but that’s a problem with every approach) could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare while our social engineering looks for a way to kickstart the aforementioned self-sufficiency.
Yes, increasing dependency and taking away responsibility is a clear instrumental evil, and according to many just evil, period. But if we could first stop people from 1) being born into suffering to do little but increase that very suffering and 2) dying quickly and miserably, maybe that’s worth the tradeoff.
Yes, I’m exploring a view I know to be naive.
When there is hunger, there is power in controlling the distribution of food. When people have power from something, they do not simply allow outsiders to come in and take it away without a fight. You can ship all the food you like for free to African ports; the people of the country itself will still go hungry, because the people with guns will control the distribution to maximize their power.
If a man is intentionally starving and beating his children, you can’t solve their hunger and bruises by giving him material goods. You need to remove his power over the kids and put the kids in care of someone who won’t abuse them. If you want to grant the “the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace)”, what you will have to do is overthrow their governments and install colonial governors.
There currently seem to be few volunteers for the job.
Yes, this problem is quite obvious, and yes, I’m in favor of full-scale colonialism, but couldn’t a heavier presence by UN/coalition-of-the-willing peacekeepers, with powers to override local authorities when it’s needed to prevent open violence and abuse, also keep the scum that floats to the top there in check? What’s the tactical record for peacekeeping operations that had a reasonably broad mandate for use of force? (Hmm, here’s one account. My cached thought that a “firm hand” brought decent results in Somalia appears to be confirmed.)
...Of course I realize how unlikely any international body would be to approve such powers against the protests of an “independent” local regime (Somalia being an unusual case in that regard), so such policing of aid-receiving countries would have to be carried out unilaterally and without foreign oversight by whatever nation could be willing to implement it. Which creates a power dynamic that’s basically colonialism. Which, again, would IMO be quite OK with purely selfish intentions and better yet with benevolent ones, but should be done openly anyway for clear generic reasons.