I'm looking for an alternative to the phrase, but I can't seem to figure any out.
What's an alternative to "rob Peter to pay Paul?"
I'm looking for an alternative to the phrase, but I can't seem to figure any out.
What's an alternative to "rob Peter to pay Paul?"
From googling I see, from China, "dismantle the West wall to repair the East wall".
"Cutting off your nose to spite your face" is similar, but not exactly analogous.
Perhaps shell game
A fraud or deception perpetrated by shifting conspicuous things to hide something else.
The phrase is based on a street scam, also called thimblerig
The term is often used for dishonest dealings in which the money/asset/payoff is constantly being shifted to avoid actual delivery of a payoff. Many ponzi schemes use this type of shuffling short-term payments
a fraudulent investment operation that pays quick returns to initial contributors using money from subsequent contributors rather than profit
Personal experience is all I can offer to this discussion. Most people have engaged in this practice when we use too little resources ( usually money),and juggle it so that enough debts are satisfied for the near term. If it's true that over 3/4 of the us public lives paycheck to paycheck, then we Americans might be considered experts at this practice. Not a distinction that we should take pride in. rk
It seems to me that this is "making [it] someone else's problem," or "passing the buck." In the case of the idiom you are making it Peter's problem (or passing the buck to Peter, if you prefer).
Peter
and Paul
here refer to the Christian apostles, generally thought of as a team moreso than as individuals. So if you rob Peter to give to Paul, you haven't really accomplished anything, not even passing the buck
. The Peter/Paul team is neither better nor worse than before. Another interpretation is that you're trying to do something righteous ("paying Paul") but you've committed a sin ("robbing Peter") to do it. So regardless of Peter/Paul's relationship, in the end you're not doing anything positive for yourself either.