What the fuck? They’re homeless. Sleeping outside is their only option. Shelters are often dangerous, very restrictive on who they let in and there aren’t anywhere near enough of them in the places they need to be.
Sleeping in public places isn’t a fucking crime. It’s not like they’d choose the park over an apartment if they had one.
Also prisoners are slave labor thanks to the 13th amendment so if you can take people off the street and chuck them in jail, you get free labor. Yay capitalism. /s
Slavery is a great way to maximise profits! Who cares about humans? If you just reduce them to numbers in your excel sheets it gets a lot easier to do maths with them!
Humanity just never changes, does it? Are we doomed to be forever despicable?
These aren’t the “oh, poor innocent homeless, down on their luck” portrayed by advocates, they are drug addicts and thieves, leeching off society, and actively making life worse for themselves and everyone else.
Perhaps if they had housing and sufficient social nets so they didn’t have to steal to eat and places they could get managed drug doses (you can’t just quit, especially without resources) then this wouldn’t be a problem.
It’s not like people choose to be problems and homeless. Almost all Americans are one or two bad turns away from joining them.
Ideally, what I’d like to see is this… It would probably take 1.5 to 2 billion to pull off:
You build and staff a state of the art medical facility for mental health and addiction treatment, including the ability to hold people long term if necessary.
You build and staff a facility for job training and placement, including specialized support for people with criminal records. This would also need to include interview and resume skills. Assistance for email, phone, and Internet, but also clothing assistance, laundry assistance, and the like for interviews.
You build and staff a facility for housing support. Like work assistance, there needs to be specialized support for people with criminal records. But also a permanent address for mail.
Once all that infrastructure is in place, you sweep the streets.
People who need mental health and addiction treatment get institutionalized and treated until they are healthy, then they get released to the job and housing programs.
People who have no job get the job assistance program.
People who have a job get the housing assistance program.
People with warrants or otherwise engaging in crimimal behavior (stolen cars, stolen bikes, other material) get arrested.
People who are otherwise able bodied, but who are homeless by choice because “I ain’t part of your system, maaaan!” get their asses kicked and pressed into service cleaning up homeless camps.
Your last sentence is what is so unreasonable. You are criminalizing being alive without a job, which means humans have no right to live without being in your system.
Since one day you will go bankrupt, or your children will be destitute, and we can throw you all in a cell and laugh at you, I think your lack of empathy has the perfect end game.
Careful about them medical bills when you have a heart attack, tough guy. We don’t like poor people around here.
Been bankrupt, addicted to vicodin, and had 2 heart attacks with a bonus of open heart surgery. Never homeless. Never had to steal from others to get by.
Funny thing, after working in the medical profession many years, you’ve made it all up. The statistics of surviving these things, combined, its zero unless you’re a billionaire. Also since insurance paid for it, you didn’t. Oh that’s different though isn’t it.
The bit that has changed since then is the 2nd heart attack in January… Was running short of breath, thought it was because they changed my meds. Doc told me to go down to the ER and get checked.
Troponin was elevated again. Well, fuck. Having a heart attack right there in the ER… and the power goes out. January remember? This was right in the middle of the ice storm.
They get me checked in, get me an angiogram, tell me I need a stent but they can’t do it at Mount Hood, I need an ambulance ride to Good Sam, and the ambulance system is over loaded.
So, first night at Mount Hood, I wake up around 6 AM and am screwing around on my phone. Nurse comes in…
“Hey, were you asleep?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Your heart rate dropped to 40.”
“. . . Is that bad?”
Yeah, apparently bad.
They tell me again, ambulance should be there around 10:30 that night.
Same deal… Wake up around 6 AM, on the phone… nurse comes in…
“Were you asleep about an hour ago?”
“Yeah, my heart slow down again?”
“No, your heart stopped for eight seconds.”
“Uh, thanks? I guess? I don’t know what to do with that information. But wait, the machines didn’t go off, aren’t they supposed to go off or something?”
“Alerted us at the nurses station.”
Anyway, the ambulance showed up that morning, got me to Good Sam and I got stented.
4 days, 2 hospitals, 1 ambulance ride, $2,100 after insurance. Big difference from Kaiser.
Some might say making forced camps for a subset of people might be considered a final solution. But maybe I am just concentrating on the whole sweep the streets of undisrables part.
Ah yes, they can put a uplifting phrase on all the entrances as well. Something like work will set you free maybe. That way you know the camp was built to help people and would be way better then just leaving them alone.
There are some other things that would need to be done as well though. How would the authorities know if someone was both working and had a place? Oh I know we can issue papers to each person that have their job and residence listed, that way all it would take is the local authorities asking everyone out “Papers, please”.
On what is a seemingly unrelated note, how much of a history buff are you?
Studies show the majority of homeless people have jobs. Furthermore they didn’t have one big reason for going homeless. They just couldn’t afford housing and eventually they are unable to pay. People report sliding into homelessness over the course of years as the cost of housing kept rising without pay rising.
Trying to depict all homeless people as junkies is disingenuous at best.
That was the estimate from the University of Chicago in 2021 which has since been actively been disproven by point in time counts of actual homeless people.
“53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time, in the year that people were observed homeless between 2011 – 2018.”
“According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s (LAHSA) 2019 Adult Demographic Survey, over 50% of single adults (24 and older) experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County are unemployed (LAHSA, 2019a). Of those unemployed, approximately half reported that they are actively looking for work. The same survey found that 49% of unsheltered adults in family units are unemployed, but a much higher percentage of them (36%) are actively looking for work than single adults. Additionally, 46% of unsheltered adults cited unemployment or a financial reason as a primary reason why they are homeless (LAHSA, 2019a).”
And:
“According to the same survey, about 20% of single adults experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County are working, including full-time, part-time, seasonal, and self-employment compared to about 32% of unsheltered adults in family units (LAHSA, 2019a). Not only are people experiencing homelessness employed at low rates, but evidence shows that those who are employed report very low annual earnings (California Policy Lab, 2020). In Los Angeles County, employed people experiencing homelessness earned an average of just under $10,000 in the year prior to experiencing homelessness (California Policy Lab, 2020).”
So first of all, you’re comparing two different regions. Second 51 percent of people in the document you linked have an income and 36 percent are seeking work. Third, you should really read their myths document. It pretty clearly refutes all of your claims.
While employment helps people stay housed, it does not guarantee housing. As many as 40%-60% of people experiencing homelessness have a job, but housing is unaffordable because wages have not kept up with rising rents. There is no county or state where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest apartment. At minimum wage, people have to work 86 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom. Even when people can afford a home, one is not always available. In 1970, the United States had a surplus of 300,000 affordable homes. Today, only 37 affordable homes are available for every 100 extremely low-income renters. As a result, 70% of the lowest-wage households spend more than half their income on rent, placing them at high risk of homelessness when unexpected expenses (such as car repairs and medical bills) arise. Source
“You should work for what you have! Also, you should donate your time to corporations because they shouldn’t have to pay people a living wage to earn all their profit for them!”
They aren’t asking for anyone to give things to them (well, besides spare change). They just want to live their lives and not go to jail. Some want to find a job but can’t. Some have a job but not a good enough one to get an apartment. Some want to do drugs and sleep in oblivion. Some have severe mental challenges and couldn’t hold a job if they tried.
How does 51% of homeless people being unemployed in LA County disprove the claim that only 47% of homeless people are unemployed in Chicago? They’re almost the same figure…
This came across a few days ago and the consensus was that it’s likely showing that people who look for a diet might be at higher risk of cardiovascular death.
Exactly … I know a guy who eats intermittently over 24 sometimes 48 hours. He works in a factory as a manager but gets involved in everything because he’s been there for 30 years. He’ll go to work and run around continuously to the point where he just won’t take time to eat.
Thing is, when he gets home to actually eat, he eats terribly, drinks endless beers, guzzles coffee like water and is still overweight. He has a heart condition, sleep apnea and chronic acid reflux.
It’s not how or when you eat … it’s what you eat and the amount of what you eat.
She added that, if GOP lawmakers are unwilling to respond to the reproductive health care needs of women, she hopes that voters will get a chance later this year. A push to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution is well on its way to qualifying for the November ballot.
In my experience, overly fearful people that get terrified over nothing are the primary audience for gun ownership. The mindset it takes to responsibly own and carry a gun is RARE.
I have 60+ year old relatives that suddenly all decided they wanted a gun, just because one of them bought one and won’t shut up about the confidence it gives her. She literally bought it just to walk to and from her car, which is parked directly in front of the business SHE owns, despite there being absolutely zero crime happening in her parking lot, and not bothering to set up security cameras. She literally bought a gun because she was afraid of a non-existent problem, and made no non-violent effort to correct the issue. I’m waiting for her to shoot some poor homeless person asking for change…
If owning a gun makes you confident, then you’re a scared little baby. Especially the guys with big trucks that drive like they’re trying to provoke people. I KNOW you have a gun. You bought the little dick pride set, so there’s no way you don’t have a gun. Quit trying to make excuses to pull it out. Pussies. FYI, I’m driving slow in front of you BECAUSE you’re driving like an ass hole and riding my bumper. Wave your gun at me again. I do not care.
You hang out with the wrong crowd. I’ve belonged to several gun clubs over the years, of the many hundreds of people I’ve gotten to know, I’ve met probably a dozen who fit the profile you describe. IMO the difference is socialization: if guns are a right but at the same time you make guns a taboo and actively discourage organized events and interest shooting sports, the people who do not go into it with a healthy mind and diverse social life end up dwelling on whatever someone feeds them for clicks and ad revenue (Fox News and similar shit, not even partisan just scary news gets clicks and trains fear into people). Shooting is fun if you do it right.
Ah yes, the true test of what’s right: how many people’s preconceptions your words appeal to. Perhaps we should have have an AI stroke our egos instead of communicating with other humans.
It’s such a shame Americans brains are completely dysfunctional when it comes to guns. Despite literally overwhelming evidence that guns are a errible, terrible idea to be so easily accessible. Somehow what you you’d usually call a socially progressive person becomes more like a raving lunatic to most others outside of the USA when it comes to guns…
It’s honestly a fascinating phenomenon, it’s just really, really tragic.
Answer this: how do you work on legislation to ensure responsible gun ownership with someone who detests any form of civilian gun ownership and absolutely refuses to learn the intricacies? How do you collaborate with someone who thinks themselves to be above understanding what they’re working on? Sensible things HAVE been proposed by people with a deep understanding of guns, but they get spit on because they’re something other than another ban on an inconsequential feature or function or type of something.
Edit to add: I cannot count the number of times I’ve given someone a chance and nearly every time the answer to “are you open to the possibility of your side being wrong about anything at all” is along the lines of me being the one who needs to be schooled by someone with zero firearms experience about why banning some specific things will solve mass shootings. On the other hand, I’ve taken many anti gun people shooting, and taught them some basics, and that changed a lot about how they viewed what they’d previously been told. Internet scholars will say this invalidates their ability to be objective and so their opinion no longer counts.
The evidence, that is total intolerance to the actual ideas and proposals by gun owners, and pushing for more of the same that didn’t work the first few times, shows that legislators actual objectives are total disarmament, not the safety and lives of good people.
Hanging out with the wrong crowd? It’s my family. And about half of them aren’t even Republicans. If anything, THEY hang out with the wrong crowd. And considering that you make guns such a large part of your identity, even making it a regular social interaction, I have a hard time believing that you’ll look at it from anyone else’s perspective. I especially doubt your ability to judge who should and shouldn’t have a gun, because you literally go to clubs full of people and judge their ability to responsibly own a gun off of their social skills, which for many people is a facade they create to seem normal. I doubt that the guy who’s excited to kill people is talking about it like that at club time. And my problem isn’t just intent. My problem with my family, specifically, is that they’re all a bunch of scared little bitches who are going to shoot at the first thing that scares their precious little baby asses. And I’ve met a shitload of fearful gun owners. I grew up in the South. Saying you’ve only met a dozen, means that you don’t pay attention, you excuse more than you should, or you’re just lying.
What makes you think it’s so central to my identity? (Granted I’ve got way more hobbies than most people, I’m sure it’s an innocent assumption.)
We might have different ways of judging people. I learned to judge character long before I ever touched my first gun (as an adult), and do not defer or equate a person’s identity to their character.
Yeah people lie, but in the orgs I belong to everyone has the keys and full access to nice facilities, and is treated like an adult - consider that a litmus test, or a baseline level of trust which is exceedingly rare to have someone break. You think fearful people just sign up to be on a “cold” range (unarmed) where someone else is running around with a loaded gun (e.g. USPSA), and submit fully to whoever’s running the range that day? Or join the club at the police or military range? There’s way more fear at the universities (and I live at one of the biggest right now).
Yeah I’m not in the south, only ever lived in big cities that are as blue as it gets.
Unfortunately, as you get older and closer to death, fear becomes a big factor in your life. This is the reaction you see from boomers. They can’t verbalize or even comprehend the fear of death, so it manifests in these bizarre behavioral patterns.
No, this is just boomers. They were exposed to lead their entire lives and emotional disregulation is one of the consequences. They were done dirty by their parent’s and grandparent’s generation.
Yeah. I want a gun. Specifically I’d love to have a bolt action rifle I can use as a long range hole punch on some papers and cans. And I can definitely afford it. I don’t have it because I don’t have the free disposable income for it, a secure and sturdy gun safe, and the space for it.
If I thought for a second that I needed a pistol to walk around town I shouldn’t have one. The only times I even consider owning a gun for conflict is when the proud boys occupy a nearby city that I do stuff in regularly. They’re holding semi automatic rifles and it may be valuable for a counter fascist militia to march against them. But I’m not a good shot and that’s expensive and I can’t go to prison.
Guns are not therapy. They aren’t Xanax or Wellbutrin or buspirone or anything else that will actually fix irrational fear. They are a device that exists solely to put a hole in something far away, and often they’re designed for that thing to be a living animal or person.
Don’t worry, the off duty cops attending also shot an elderly man and a five year old child just in case. So even tho the attempted mass shooter didn’t shoot any innocent people, the cops have it covered.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said at 1:53 p.m., a female, approximately 30-35 years old entered on the west side of the property parking lot. She was armed with a long rifle, wearing a trench coat and a backpack, and accompanied by a 4 or 5-year-old child. Finner said she began to fire the gun after she entered.
Finner complimented the off-duty officers on the scene, one an officer with Houston PD and the other an ATF agent, who both quickly engaged with the female suspect, returning fire.
“It could have been a lot worse,” said Finner. “They stepped up and did their job.”
The off-duty officers said the woman threatened to have a bomb after she was shot. Her vehicle and backpack were searched and no bomb was found. She died at the scene.
Finner said the child with the woman was hit and is in critical condition at Children’s Texas.
A 57-year-old man was also shot in the leg and is being treated at the hospital.
In Texas there are lots of churches where members proudly open carry. They’re the same people with the “we don’t call 911 in this house” yard signs. They desperately want to kill somebody.
The legal minimum wage hasn’t risen, but the real minimum wage has. Around here, in a poor little redneck town, you’re getting $10-$12 to start at McDonalds.
That’s actually even more depressing. The legal minimum wage is so low that it’s not even lifting up the wages of the most modest jobs in the lowest COL areas. It functionally doesn’t exist.
I mean, I think part of the recruitment policy for each workplace is to state “We’re above minimum wage by a decent margin!” But if minimum wage were bumped up to $10, that would no longer be the case, and McDonalds would be doing little to differentiate themselves - at least until they offer $15-$18.
If trump is immune from all criminal charges for the sole reason of being, or having been, president, then this would apply to all current and future presidents.
If trump is immune, so is clinton, bush, obama and biden.
Presidents could have any political opponents assassinated.
By the time of the night of the long knives, hitler was effectively immune from all prosecution.
By the time of the soviet purges, stalin was effectively immune.
If this case allows a president complete immunity, its a huge step towards a dictatorship.
If presidents are immune, why would they ever give up power? Trump winning this case could mean he is never president again because biden could just, stop the election and purge anyone who challenges him.
You know, that whole war thing going on where the Israeli government is commiting genocide against the Palestinians while the Palestinian government vocally expresses its desire to commit genocide against the Israelis? That one.
It’s okay, you’re doing fine, I think most of us realize that you’re a troll without the hinting. There are probably some who took your hyperbole as a sincere statement but the rest of us don’t think you’re that uninformed.
A huge step towards dictatorship? Even Putin has to pretend to follow the law. This ruling would mean that there is no law that the US President has to follow. On top of that, they can also pardon anyone else of any federal crime. That isn’t moving towards dictatorship, that’s already despotism.
Many Christians probably believe that these laws were made for everyone except them. If you go to more conservative sites discussing the matter, they would probably be asking why people aren’t charged for hate crimes against Christians. It’s part of their persecution complex.
“For saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas! Starbucks changed to just a red cup so that’s a hate crime too! Schools are trying to stop coaches from making kids on their teams pray! And trans people exist! Hate crimes!!”
Yeah, now that you mention it, that’s fucking nuts. On average, $67,500 worth of outstanding balance for these people who went into public service. That doesn’t even take into account what they’ve already paid in principal and interest over the years.
Edit: it’s actually $72,892 per person being forgiven for people that have worked in public service for more than a decade.
I feel like education should be free for everyone, especially people in public service because that is usually challenging work and often well below market pay.
Careful, you might accidently summon him. No one knows the exact incantation to bring him back and frankly I’d rather add “reanimated corpse of Reagan appointed to state department” to the 2025 bingo card.
I thought you had to turn off the lights in the bathroom of a Better Business Bureau, hold a copy of The Wall Street Journal between your legs, and say his name backwards three times fast whilst flapping your arms like a chicken.
Or is that how you summon the ghost of Alan Greenspan? It all blends together after awhile.
What’s insane is this is barely a drop in the bucket…
There’s over 1,770 billion in student loans debt.
When people say 1.77 trillion, it might not be immediate how little a few billion is to the larger issue.
But it’s only around 0.2% of total debt. Probably less because the 1.77 trillion is rounded, and at this scale that’s what 5 billion is. A rounding error they don’t even include that digit when talking about the total amount.
They’re obsessed with their own power and money imo. Prisons make money, and keep the proles in line using fear. That’s the whole reason for the drug war - Nixon etc wanted to harm their political enemies, as in leftists and minorities, while also grifting money from the government and increasing authoritarianism.
you don’t understand, after they gut the irs funding they’ll replace all the management positions with politically chosen replacements, then force investigations to solely target their political rivals. No resources left to investigate their buddies.
That’s the strategy now. All competitors are ‘crooks’.
It doesn’t prevent the rape, but they do have “cul-de-sac pouches en route, that could prevent fertilisation by capturing unwelcome sperm.” So they can choose whether or not they get fertilized. Which is at least some sort of a defense. Edit: link for quote
CEO’s don’t give a shit about the longevity of a company or product. They’re incentivised to cut costs and increase profits this quarter/year; everything beyond that might as well be someone else’s problem. If they succeed, they make many extra millions. If they fail, they’ll make slightly less millions, and eventually be replaced by someone who succeeds at extracting extra currency units from the company or its customers.
Let’s not breakout the paint roller to cover every company. (Long-winded, but I want people to see that not all companies are capitalistic hellscapes. And it’s possible to practice capitalism where the company, customers and workers win.)
We have a monthly all-company meeting. Weirdly, it’s not boring, mostly interesting info, I rarely skip one. The “suits” give us a breakdown as to how much we made, lost, expected, exceeded, all that. The CEO chimes in with future directions we’re looking at, praises people and teams, takes questions about anything, nothing verboten. Last meeting, I asked how, given the tiny market we dominate, we continue growth? Very eye-opening response! Straight answer, no bullshit, no corporate talk.
Hell, for 2020, 2021, maybe 2022?, the CEO told the board we expected to lose money as we were building up our staff, skills, products, etc. They were happy to hear that! At my org, it’s staff first. We realize that taking care of our people automatically means taking care of our customers.
We failed. Fucked around and made a profit those years. We’re aiming to break even this year. And again, we’re not striving for profit at all costs. We’re building a solid future. And this isn’t some brand new venture. In one form or another, we been at this 20+ years.
As to CEOs “failing” and “golden parachutes” (which you didn’t bring up!), often the board brings in a CEO to make unpopular decisions to get what they want, change course in ways that might not be well-taken by the public. Sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. I won’t say CEOs are blameless, but they do indeed have a boss in the form of a Board of Directors.
If you’re a smart businessperson and leader, you’re going to get a contract including a parachute. You would be a fool not too! The board can force your hand, ruin your reputation, and that’s often the job you agreed to. So yeah, pay me if you fire me for doing what you said. Ellen Pao anyone?
Any yes, the cyberpunk Megacorps that have evolved are poisonous. Antitrust laws, legislation and court rulings used to me much stronger.
Is this company public? The company I work for was like that pre IPO. And then it got a bit worse afterwards but we still got good answers to hard questions at all hands. That lasted for idk 3 years? But now 6-7 years later our all hands have been reorganized to split them up, people who used to ask the hard questions were let go or encountered to leave etc.
Idk adults like this are literally the point of the campaign. “As a minor you’re subjected to whatever idiocy the adults around you want to pull. It gets better when you can tell your parents to fuck off and you have money and your own place and can move out of whatever shithole you came from”
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