Is Maurice Strong so wrong?

by **Dreams End** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:22 pm

I dissassociate myself from scollon's point...as I now don't know what it is. I would like to have his old job, however. And those are lovely anecdotes...but the plural of anecdotes, as you know, is not data. The truth is that in this country, the gap between rich and poor is growing...not shrinking. And the superrich are amassing an even greater percentage of wealth. Speaking of actual slavery, there were SOME slaves who not only gained their freedom but even became slave owners themselves. So I guess real slavery wasn't so bad either. So, freedom to move from one low paying job to another...or take a nighttime job, as you suggest (great for single moms), or wait for months in the hopes of making 11 bucks an hour as a janitor, well, I guess that's freedom, American style. And that's without bringing racial discrimination and gender discrimination into the mix. Here's a graph of the distribution of wealth in the U.S. THIS is what I was talking about...individual stories aside, this graph gets more and more lopsided, so clearly there are lots of counterexamples to your alger stories: <img src="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/Wealth2001.gif" style="border:0;"/>

by **anotherdrew** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:25 pm

good points scollon things are rotten here. I live in a "nice" west coast city in the US and our downtown is so full of homeless people it's mind numbing. Most people are just numb to it, but we have armies of hopeless half-or-more deranged walking wounded homeless people like you wouldn't believe. Now we get to see them more downtown because in our 'nice' city we actually have a decent amount of shelters, low-cost housing, soup kitchens, etc. mostly in the downtown area. Other places push the problem to near invisibility by forcing the homeless out. Some cities will actually take a homeless person and buy them a one-way bus ticket and send them to another town.

by **scollon** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:33 pm

Well, one thing Mr Blair has done is to more or less remove the homeless from the streets (round here anyway) and massively increase the quality of public housing. It's a policy called social inclusion and is deeply un-American. The idea is to make the underclass (which is the worst in Europe) fit to enter the job market basically (there's your ulterior motive ). The slums are being swept away and I doubt they were as bad as American ones before they went. Actually they wern't slums at all and the other ulterior motive is large contracts to private building companies. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=scollon>scollon</A> at: 1/8/06 6:38 pm

by **robertdreed** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:35 pm

"Indentured Servitude is also better than plain old slavery too." Indentured servitude is the same thing as slavery, except that there's a limit put on the term of indenture. (That is not an insignificant difference, however- the difference between being incarcerated for 3-7 years, and being born in jail and dying there.) There are so many more limitations and conditions involved in a term of indenture than there are in a minimum wage job that the comparison is completely spurious. The key to getting ahead with an entry-level job is minimizing expenses for the first 6 months. In some ways, it's never been easier. But you have to think outside of the box. And I'm not going to tell you how to do it. I've provided enough hints already.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:45 pm

I don't pity the homeless any more. I drove a cab for too long. DE, I think that the skewed income distrbution that you've posted is significant- but it doesn't prove the points that you're attempting to make on this topic, or negate my points. I mistrust huge imbalances of wealth because they give the wealthy too much power, not because, as part of the demographic of the lowest quintile of income in the USA, I'm a miserable starver. I'm constantly reminded of my relative afluence, in fact. You can do better as a dumpster diver in the USA than you can as a full-time worker in a lot of countries. I don't buy into the emphasis on "relative poverty" that Left academics and ideologues endorse. I've seen too many apartments in the projects with satellite dishes. I don't have a satellite dish. I don't rent new movies every week. I don't have a cigarette habit. By resorting to simple measures like that, I've saved myself thousands of dollars. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/9/06 2:42 am

by **scollon** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:59 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>I dissassociate myself from scollon's point...as I now don't know what it is.<hr></blockquote> The point was that the UK is becoming more and more like the USA and I quit because the management had far too much power. I now live in extreme poverty and prefer it. It's more than that. There was a creeping Americanisation in the respect of corporate culture (euphamisms, double speak, quality management etc.) . Everything is now a business including music, sport and so on. A primary focus on money kills the soul of eveything. American culture seems dynamic and exciting on the surface but it's empty and phony in my eyes. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=scollon>scollon</A> at: 1/8/06 7:05 pm

by **anotherdrew** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 10:01 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>robertdreed: "The key to getting ahead with an entry-level job is minimizing expenses for the first 6 months. In some ways, it's never been easier. But you have to think outside of the box. And I'm not going to tell you how to do it. I've provided enough hints already."<hr></blockquote> I'm doing just fine thanks (I once drove cab myself too) with a nice union represented gig that is really fairly enjoyable. But I've seen the other end too and it's not easy to escape once things go wrong. My point about indentured service was simply to say that situations exist along a scale and while we're above those situations of slavery we aren't nessesarily at the top of the scale either.

by **scollon** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 10:21 pm

Indentured service and transportation for crime were the two most common methods for Scots to arrive in America in the early days.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 11:04 pm

"Everything is now a business including music, sport and so on. A primary focus on money kills the soul of eveything." I can't stand the emphasis on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous mentality, myself. But I don't feel coerced to buy into it. Somewhere around the beginning of the Reagan era, news networks began reporting on things like weekly movie grosses, and the details of contracts signed by various and sundry movie stars, musicians, producers, business exectutives, etc...I mean, bore the heeel out of me. You'll never catch me stampeding into Wal-mart at the beginning of Christmas season, either. But, man...those people aren't being forced to do that at gunpoint. And that's what slavery is really all about...being forced to do things day in and day out, at gunpoint.

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:24 am

"So, freedom to move from one low paying job to another...or take a nighttime job, as you suggest (great for single moms), or wait for months in the hopes of making 11 bucks an hour as a janitor, well, I guess that's freedom, American style. And that's without bringing racial discrimination and gender discrimination into the mix." I don't know whether you realize this, but that sort of sneering and condescension has lost the Left a lot more support than it's gained- particularly among the working class. That line of rhetoric sounds like the standard issue scoffing of layabouts and petty criminals, and working people just disdain that attitude. It's one excuse after another- Knock night work, because it's tough for "single moms." Well, what about everyone else? There are plenty of people who find that they actually prefer it. You speak of "waiting for months" as if it were the equivalent of scaling Everest...well, it might not take months. They might be hiring right now. And in the case of Kaiser, not for $11 an hour, either- more like $17 an hour. To start. With medical benefits, and union representation. For swabbing toilets, emptying wastebaskets, and mopping floors- a job I've done in my time, and find ridiculously easy to do, personally speaking. ( It helps that I'm white, and don't feel any social pressure to find such work demeaning. ) A job that one can get with a felony rap sheet, incidentally... ( That's a better hourly wage than a lot of cab drivers make, incidentally. But a lot of cab drivers are in their line for fringe benefits, such as the ability to act as one's own boss, to call one's own hours, and to have as many days off as one feels like, up to the point where economic necessity intervenes. &c., &c...) As for "racial and gender discrimination"- for entry-level service work, or construction labor? You must be kidding...or should racial minorities and women be refusing such work precisely because so many of them are employed in that sector? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/8/06 9:33 pm

by **Dreams End** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:31 am

well, a literal comparison to slavery I guess doesn't get us too far, due to the number of points of dissimilarity. However, there is a gunbarrel. The state, ultimately, has the threat of violence to back up all other means of social control. But it's often not needed. Your own statement about the homeless would be an example of how effective propaganda can be. First off, the homeless are, themselves, propaganda...as so many are just a paycheck loss away from that situation themselves. It's a real disincentive to bucking the system. Secondly, having lived and worked in a community comprised of homeless people and volunteers who served them, I found all kinds of homeless people. Mostly, we saw young, African-American men. This isn't because there aren't women and children who are homeless, but because there are far more programs that accept them. Often, for example, shelters that will accept women and children will not even accept men, even if they are fathers of the children or husbands of the women. I found a great number of them to have some level of mental illness, including, of course, addiction. Robert...you are quite aware of HOW drugs get into this country...are you equally aware of the devastation they can cause to individuals and families who don't have the access to resources to kick the addiction? Treatment on demand would be FAR cheaper than jail...but alas, for the poor, jail often IS the only place they get even a minimum of mental health care. And usually not even that. There are also people suffering from depression (perhaps often resulting FROM the condition.) Have you ever suffered from depression? Do you know how poor mental health insurance coverage, should you even have insurance coverage, can be? And, of course, there are those "stereotypical" crazy homeless people we have all enountered. Guess what, had things been slightly different, my wife might have been among them. Mental illness is no joke. Do you know about the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 60's? All those community mental health clinics supposed to fill the gap...didn't happen. Still hasn't (Not calling for a roundup of the mentally ill, the institutions were horrible. Still are. Just pointing out one cause of homelessness.) Another group that predominates withing the homeless, and there's a great deal of overlap, are veterans. I don't imagine I have to point out the ironies of THAT. Compare and contrast to the GI Bill after World War 2. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>How many homeless veterans are there? Although accurate numbers are impossible to come by ... no one keeps national records on homeless veterans ... the VA estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. And more than half a million experience homelessness over the course of a year. Conservatively, one out of every three homeless males who is sleeping in a doorway, alley, or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served our country ... now they need America to remember them. <a href="http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm">www.nchv.org/background.cfm</a> <hr></blockquote> And that sound you hear is Iraq veterans knocking on the shelter door. Thrown in a little Post Traumatic Stress syndrome... Now, I suppose you meant to say that you did not feel sorry for the homeless who were actually responsible for their condition. Well, most of the men in Atlanta among the homeless were black. Atlanta, of course, has a large black population. As you surely know, the incarceration rate for young black men is astronomical. Despite representing only 12% of the population, African-Americans make up over 40% of those incarcerated (as of midyear 2002 according to: <a href="http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/)">www.hrw.org/backgrounder/...ceration/)</a> Here's a handy graphic: <img src="http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/images/figure2.gif" style="border:0;"/> the numbers refer to the ration of percentage of black prisoners to percentage of overall black population in the state. A larger report from Human Rights Watch is available here: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/ But let's not focus on one race. You are also well aware and opposed to the fact that incarceration rates in general have gone off the chart. The U.S. incarcerates more people per capita than any other country. The incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1980 while, ironically and despite media hype, violent crime rates have remained fairly constant. You were in California, I think. Remember the three strikes laws? How many stories did YOU hear about someone going to jail for 25 years for a third offense that would have gotten maybe probation not long ago? And make no mistake, these particular people ARE providing slave labor. Not a well covered story, but true nonetheless. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972. During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer. Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month. Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq. Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here)." http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/octubre/juev13/42carceles.html <hr></blockquote> Combine this fact with the fact that we are increasingly turning prisons themselves into for-profit industries run byc companies like CCA (based here in nashville) and Wackenhut (that's a familiar name, Octopus fans) and you see that there may be more to our burgeoning incarceration rates than just a "war on crime." But, eventually, these guys get out of jail. And onto the streets. Tough to get jobs, except in the "underground economy." Rinse and repeat. Add to this the number of single women, sole caregivers of their children. 20 percent or so are classified as living in poverty. (after government benefits. About 35% before government benefits are received. That's about 4 million people living in these households headed by single women. Yeah, they can get a bartender job and lose what government benefits (especially healthcare) they currently have. Overall, there are over 34 million people living in poverty in the U.S. You managed the poverty rate as a single man. Not always so easy with kids in the mix. But I AM impressed. the povert level for a single man is just over 9000 bucks a year. So your frugality is impressive. Keep in mind that among these in poverty, 12 million or so are children. I think I recall you arent' much of a fan of public schools...we'll save that debate for another time....but it's no secret that public schools in poor neighborhoods often lag far behind other public schools. And, given the conditions in which these kids live...coming to school without a good breakfast, parents not in the home (out working at that bartending job), violence in their neighborhoods, gangs, drugs...etc. they've got a lot of challenges ahead. yeah, some will make it out. And some will die. And some will go to jail. And some will live their lives of quiet desperation. the point is that there are so many very real barriers that keep the poor locked in place. The fact that a few make it through...well, that sure makes us feel better doesn't it? It's the fault of the people living in poverty that they are poor. Mustn't feel sorry for them. Here's an article about the shrinking middle class, as more and more middle class folks set their sites lower and decide they are tired of living in comfort. Or else they are getting lazy. http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html (the article is a "factcheck" article on Kerry's campaign statements about the economy. But the data is from the Census Bureau.) so, maybe slavery isn't the right word...and given scollon's...unique...perspective on this...I distance myself from his whole argument, whatever it actually turns out to be. But I stand by the fact that there are real obstacles for advancing out of the lowest economic classes. Furthermore, I maintain that, since a pool of cheap labor is ALWAYS in demand by business, the system is designed to keep it that way.

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:24 am

But Dream's End, the systems of pervasive governmental socialism also tend to keep the great mass of people in economically stagnant circumstances...moreso than the American system, as far as I can tell. The growth of the prison-industrial complex is ghastly. But it's a direct outgrowth of the Zero Tolerance War On Drugs, not the inevitable decadence of the capitalist economic system. That's why I contend that the War On Drugs has to be stopped first- because there isn't any way to assess how many negative societal and economic consequences are due to it and it alone, until something like Prohibition Repeal has been accomplished, and it's over. After that, we should be able to get a handle on how much unemployment, poor education, homelessness, and poverty the fault of inequities in the American economic system, and how much isn't. But it's ludicrous to blame the Drug War on the free-market economic system. It's nothing if not an attempt to assert total governmental control. As a practical consequence, what's replaced the notion of a legal and regulated capitalist commodity trade more nearly resembles a fractious combination of mercantile feudalism and unregulated buccaneering. There's another faulty premise in your argument, which is that people deserve large amounts of money for entry-level wage work, simply because they're raising families. I have a different viewpoint. If your work skills or other inclinations keep you in entry-level or relatively low-wage work, you need to put off the family plans until you've saved enough money to afford children. That might take several years of scrimping. It might take ten years. But if having kids is your top priority, it's a worthwhile sacrifice. And ten years is a lot of time in a work force. Upward mobility is a lot more attainable if one isn't burdened with children. As true as that is for middle-class people, it's even more true for the people commonly termed "working class." That means doing things like exercising a high standard of personal responsibility, and bucking the tide of advertising-driven consumption. And those in higher economic strata aren't bound by such constraints, and that isn't "fair." But it's important to retain some perspective on that situation. Yeah- life in America is so unfair that working-class people should best put off having children until they're 28 or so...and unlike the middle-class people who so often do the very same thing, they don't get the same access to extra disposable income in the meantime that allows them to have yuppie perks like ski trips and vacations in Hawaii, because they're saving it in anticipation of raising offspring. Oh, the humanity... ( On the other hand, people who go directly into the work force and stay there aren't saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from their college educations, law school, med school, etc., at the outset of their entry into the working world. It isn't all roses to be a member of the professional class, these days. ) Important point: if a household with an income of $9 an hour wants to have children at age 19, no one is stopping them. But the looming consequences are there for anyone with eyes to see. A responsible couple is going to spend much of their next 15 years house-bound and pinching every last penny, and risking disaster in the event of a loss of income of only a few weeks- although there are social welfare mechanisms available to help ameliorate the problems in that event, to some extent. But "capitalism" didn't force them to have children at age 19. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/9/06 2:51 am

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:33 am

Poverty now comes with a color TV Census data find an ever-growing material prosperity, with formerly high-dollar luxury items now commonplace in even poor households. By The Christian Science Monitor In case there was any doubt, a study has confirmed that Americans have a lot of what economists know, technically, as stuff. The computer has surpassed the dishwasher as a standard household appliance. The poorest Americans have posted a sharp rise in access to air conditioning. The richest Americans still own the most cars, but they are choosing to own slightly fewer of them than they used to. These Census findings, released in December, were true even before gifts piled up under trees. These nuggets provide a glimpse of American lifestyles that isn't captured in the raw data of monthly economic reports. At a time of concern about the standard of living for future generations, the study offers hopeful signs of tangible progress, even as the pace of income growth has slowed in recent years. It's only one piece of the overall picture of economic progress and doesn't resolve the question about future generations. But it confirms that what the Census Bureau calls "material well-being" abounds for regular folks today in ways that Louis XIV -- for all his palaces, silk stockings and ruffled finery -- could barely have imagined. True, most of us don't have an entourage of fawning servants, and while U.S. homes have expanded in square footage, they hardly rival Versailles. But modern appliances, in many ways, are robotic servants who sometimes break down but have yet to stage an organized revolt. Electronics aren’t closing the wealth gap Wealth remains highly stratified. For example, the wealthiest 10% of Americans had 2.4 cars per "consumer unit" (essentially a household or an individual living on his or her own) in 2002, the most recent year in the Census study. That's down slightly from 1992, when they had 2.5 cars per household. The bottom 10% of the income ladder averaged just 0.6 cars per household in 2002, the same as 1992. Still, by almost all measures, the data show rising well-being for all of society. And while the wealth gap may not be narrowing, the rich-poor gap in lifestyles has narrowed substantially since 1992 when measured in many of these tangible items. "In terms of the items people have ... it amazes me the number of people who are at or near the poverty line that have color TVs, cable, washer, dryer, microwave," says Michael Cosgrove, an economist at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas. That's not to ignore the hardships of poverty, he adds, "but the conveniences they have are in fact pretty good." Poor, but more comfortable The study doesn't explore the happiness factor -- whether the growing material prosperity is actually making people feel more satisfied with their lives. While economists tend to focus on things that can be measured in dollars and cents, the spiritual side of the economy has begun to garner more attention. That's partly because some research has found that once people gain a modest sufficiency in goods, further increases in income don't result in rising happiness. Census researchers don't have a happiness index, but they are exploring aspects of well-being that go beyond physical goods. For example, nearly 13% of Americans have incomes that place them below the official poverty line. But what does that mean in terms of their daily lives? The fact that 95% of them may have a refrigerator tells only part of the story. The Census report also compares, from 1992 through 1998, people's perceptions of whether basic needs were being met. More than 92% of Americans below the poverty line said they had enough food, as of 1998. Some 86% said they had no unmet need for a doctor, 89% had no roof leaks, and 87% said they had no unpaid rent or mortgage. More computers than dishwashers While some improvement was found in all those measures over that period, shortfalls obviously remain. But in many goods, the progress is significant for poor and rich alike. Two-thirds of those in poverty had air conditioners in 1998, up from 50% in 1992. Personal computers have grown increasingly ubiquitous. Where fewer than 20% of homes had them in 1992, nearly 60% did in 2002 (more than own dishwashers). That doesn't mean all have equal access to PC-enabled economic empowerment. "What good is a computer without Internet access?" asks Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future. In this networked age, he's only exaggerating a bit. While high-speed Internet access is spreading, the potential rise of free wireless networks in cities could help many low-income Americans, he says. Even with the rise interactive tools like computers and media players -- alas, Apple iPods aren't included in the Census survey yet -- the preferred appliance of couch potatoes is also spreading. There are now 2.1 TV sets per household, up from 1.6 in 1992. The Census report doesn't measure environmental factors. The U.S. routinely consumes more resources per capita than most other nations. Census survey: percentage of items owned Item 1992 2002 Refrigerator 98.7% 99.2% Dryer 68.5% 77.1% Stove 98.0% 98.3% Stereo system 57.3% 72.55 Color TV 94.7% 98.2% Computer 18.6% 59.3% Auto, truck, van 85.1% 85.7% Dishwasher 48.7% 58.1% Microwave 76.8% 93.2% Garbage disposal 37.3% 47.0% VCR 68.1% 86.9% Freezer 32.8% 30.8% Washer 75.0% 80.0% Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey Interview Data, 1992 and 2002; Rich Clabaugh, Christian Science Monitor By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor <a href="http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P140067.asp">moneycentral.msn.com/cont...140067.asp</a> For me, the obvious question that arises is- how sustainable is this, in terms of energy consumption? Well, consider the ingrained wastrel energy consumption habits of most Americans these days, vs. how much energy would be saved simply by leaving the shit off more often, or parked in the driveway more often... Another important point, and markedly good news: Buckminster Fuller's "ephemeralization of technology" is already well in effect. Having all of those consumer items built and operating under the constraints of the technology of 30 years ago, every power plant in this country would have blown their generators by now. I don't know how much the extra energy consumption would be, if that were the case- my guess is around triple of what is today. More, if one factors in personal computing ability... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/8/06 10:59 pm

by **robertdreed** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 5:37 am

I've dealt with homeless people for years, driving cab. Despite all the talk about working people being "one paycheck away from homelessness", it was exceedingly rare in Sacramento for me to encounter anyone with a steady job history who had found themselves bounced out into the street simply due to economic circumstances like job loss. I can think of a few times- sadly, the ones I recall were women with young children. But mostly- overwhelmingly- I've found people who have relegated themselves to the category of the unemployable. They're serious alcoholics, they're meth heads or crack heads, they have hustler dreams, in their minds they're too good to take the simplest orders from a supervisor, they've made the transition from sealed-record juvenile delinquency to adulthood without a single substantive change in their outlook, values, or behavior. I've heard little or no resentment from them at their circumstances. In the main, I'd characterize their prevailing outlook as "intoxicated existentialism." I can relate, up to a point. It's a young-single-guy thing. But there's no sense in going overboard. There may be a lot of unemployed homeless in Sacramento, but that doesn't explain how it is that so many jobs at living wages, sufficient to support a single person like themselves, go begging. Anyone over the age of 25 with a clean driving record, sufficient literacy to read a map, and who doesn't have too many of the wrong kind of felonies on their rap sheet can drive a cab in Sacramento. 15 years ago in Sacramento, there were no immigrant cab drivers. Now I'd say that 1/4-1/3 of them are immigrants from Pakistan, Khalistan, Mexico, Cambodia, Russia...many of them have only the merest command of English. They have to be pointed around town by their passengers. For the life of me, I don't know how they understand the map thing. How did that vacuum arise, that so many immigrant cab drivers found a way to fill it? Because not enough young single able-bodied native-born American males were up to doing one of the most anti-authoritarian, independent jobs out there. Same with the day labor pools that are found down off of Route 99 on 47th Avenue and MLK Boulevard. Almost no native-born Americans, of any ethnicity. Virtually all of the laborers are Mexican and Central American immigrants, doing pickup work for $10-$12 an hour, cash money. That's $80-$100 a day, and it will keep a roof over your head. Even if you just rode into town on a boxcar- people still do that, in that neck of the woods- if you're willing to sleep in the weeds for a few weeks, it will get you first, last, and cleaning deposit. What's our problem? I don't need to be lectured about drug addiction, and how "devastating" it is. But the drug addicts I know are pretty much doing what they want to do. They'll quit when they get a pig-belly full of it, and not before. If they want methadone, it's there for them. California passed a ballot initiative that decrees mandatory treatment instead of incarceration for first-time drug offenses. It's a mixed bag. I don't believe in mandated drug treatment simply for being convicted of posssession of drugs, personally. Confiscation ought to be sufficient. It's a particularly huge waste of time, money, and man-hours in the case of marijuana (but oh, how it pumps up those "rehab" statistics for the Drug Czar to trumpet!) If a drug addict or someone under the influence commits a crime like DUI, theft, or burglary, that's different, they should go into a treatment program. And if they do a violent crime, they can do their kicking in the hoosegow, because their problems are bigger than simply being a dope addict. If you think being a homeless drug addict is worth it, fine. But don't blame the system. To their credit, the homeless drug addicts I've known don't put it on anyone but themselves. They're often very up-front about it, as in "I like to smoke crack. Know where I can get any?" or "I'm a stone alcoholic. I drink a fifth of vodka every day. Sometimes, a half-gallon. See this scar? That's where I got my triple bypass. Do you mind if I smoke?" Etc. And there are sound overriding reasons, which I shouldn't have to enumerate, why shelters for women and children don't accept males, even if they're husbands or cohabitants. Homeless women and children are an entirely different situation, that really is tragedy. I've been known to spend a good part of a night running around town for free, trying to find shelter for them after hours. And drug-addicted women are often terribly vulnerable, victimized, traumatized people. But the men? Enh...my pity feels misplaced. They're a generally unapologetic lot. I've seen a lot of mentally ill folks on the streets, too, but often they were disobeying their counseling services, in point of fact- refusing to live in care homes, refusing to take their medications, mostly. Some of them were also alcoholics. In my experience, very few schizophrenics on the street mess with illegal drugs. They have enough trouble with predators, jail, and traumatic experiences as it is. I think that they'd be better off institutionalized, as long they receive a high level of care. Care homes for the menally ill or emotionally disturbed can be a hit-or-miss proposition in terms of quality of care provided, but the best of them are actually very good. Believe me, no outpatient community mental health clinic could provide their level of care. When I lived in Sacramento, I think the public welfare agencies there did a fairly good job. I often heard the WIC program praised by my customers, for instance. I've seen low-income families, both welfare and working, get back on the straight and narrow after going through some difficulties, on account of the WIC program. The public health clinics in Sacramento presently do a good job, too. They're overcrowded and underfunded, but the level of treatment provided, including dental treatment, is quite good. The urgent care clinic in neighboring Yolo County, for instance, was staffed by doctors, internists, and medical students from UC Davis, a world-class research university and medical school. I've been to that clinic a couple of times. Most of the patients were Mexican farmworker families. The clinic doesn't demand green cards. I'm not sure who staffs the Sacramento public health clinic, but my guess is that they have a lot of UC Davis alumni and interns, as well. You could do worse. But I also remember seeing the droves of men leaving the shelter at Bannon Street in Sacramento during the morning check-out time, the last time I passed by the place a few months ago. They were almost all able-bodied, and under 30. Mostly black. That was a difference from 10 or 20 years before, when the age cohort was much older, and more of a multiracial mix of blacks, whites, Mexicans and Indians. In the previous eras, the homeless mostly looked like alkies- debilitated, emaciated, prematurely aged. Not any more. These guys looked as if they'd all been recently released from the penitentiary, maybe all of them dropped off from the same bus. Young, strong, hard, and cold. And they were the new "homeless." I'm not reassured that increased public welfare assistance is the answer, there. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/9/06 4:24 am

by **Jerky** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 7:16 am

I've taken craps in Porto-Sans that were less full of shit than you. Get over yourself. Your current level of narcissistic self-absorption is dangerous and unsustainable. At some point, you're going to disappear straight up your own ass. And then where will you be?

Is Maurice Strong so wrong?

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

Re: "employee" vs. "slave"

indentured service

options

Re: options

Re: options

Re: options

Re: options

about the homeless

Bob...

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