Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 21, 2024, 11:58 AM

QuoteThere's still problems.  People who do their community service job might be slackers.  They show up for work and pick up the broom, but they don't get much sweeping done.  They work slow and take long smoking breaks.

The supervisor will write in his/her report that the individual is not be invited back next week.  The individuals card balance falls to the cheese sandwich level.  Bouncing around from job to job would identify someone who needs training.

No different than now, except that someone with a problem gets help.

OK, what about the problem of professions with chronic worker shortages?

RE

Quote from: RE on Jul 21, 2024, 01:04 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 21, 2024, 11:58 AM

QuoteThere's still problems.  People who do their community service job might be slackers.  They show up for work and pick up the broom, but they don't get much sweeping done.  They work slow and take long smoking breaks.

The supervisor will write in his/her report that the individual is not be invited back next week.  The individuals card balance falls to the cheese sandwich level.  Bouncing around from job to job would identify someone who needs training.

No different than now, except that someone with a problem gets help.

OK, what about the problem of professions with chronic worker shortages?

RE

Those jobs pay better.  People still get paid.  How else are you going to get personal property if you don't earn money?

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 21, 2024, 09:02 PMThose jobs pay better.  People still get paid.  How else are you going to get personal property if you don't earn money?

That's not what I'm talking about.  I mean on the requirement that everyone has to do some low level jobs to fulfill their social responsibility.  Nurses would be needed to do nursing work during all their working hours.  You could make the same case for Doctors and Dentists.

RE

Another article bemoaning the housing crisis, and another one drawing the same tired conclusion:

The crisis of housing affordability took years to emerge, and it'll take years to solve.

Yea, great, so what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

Now, he does point out Socialized Housing is an essential:

Whitzman was also quick and careful to point out that nonmarket housing is an essential part of any answer to the problem. In the United States, the idea of a green social housing development authority provides some hope for tackling two problems at once: housing and climate change. In Vienna, Austria, rents are much lower than similar cities in Europe thanks to its 220,000 socialized housing units.

Not sure where this green social housing development authority idea is coming from or who is promoting it?   This is the first time I've heard anything about it.  The example of Vienna though has merit.

The reason WHY not getting socialized housing going is brought up:

Shortcuts run the risk of tanking existing equity and the fortunes of those who rely on their biggest asset to make it to and through retirement.

As I mentioned with the Thought Experiment of the Free Basic Container Housing idea, if you offer TRULY affordable housing to everyone, then it will tank the value of housing all the way up the line until you get to the luxury housing for the elite, because nobody would move out of the free or even just low cost socialized housing until their incomes were really high, otherwise the upgrade in your living standard isn't worth the 50% of your take home pay it costs.  So we are protecting the value of the Boomers homes so they have a comfortable retirement at the expense of having affordable housing for Millenials.

What really pisses me off here is the "Enough Already!" title of this article when it's just another contribution to what we already have enough of, which is people moaning about it, saying it will take years to solve and then not really doing anything to get it solved.  They identify the CAUSE of the problem which is the financialization of housing and treating it as an asset which can be used for profit rather than as a social obligation and fundamental right of all the members of the society.  Their long term solution is "years of rising incomes and stable prices to really make a difference".  Where on the horizon are years of rising incomes coming from when we have had DECADES of falling incomes and rising prices, and nothing systemic is being done to change that dynamic?

So, once again, short of Revolution and/or Collapse, this problem is not gtting solved anytime soon and we'll keep on getting more of what we have already had more than enough of.

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/housing-crisis-homelessness-financialization

RE

Or how someone making twenty bucks an hour can't find a place to live.

Merica, do you still love it?

The Answer:

Build more housing.

Quote from: K-Dog on Aug 17, 2024, 12:23 AMThe Answer:

Build more housing.

Astoundingly obvious.   

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 28, 2024, 10:34 AMMerica, do you still love it?

Anyone still living here must not think it is all that bad, otherwise they would have left for greener pastures already. How about that for a measure of how a citizen thinks about America? If you think of how the current slow movign American invasion is happening, it is because conditions elsewhere are intolerable enough to leave everything behind and make a bold leap into the unknown, and hopefully better. It was how America came about, and applying the same logic, if it was as bad as some think it is, why are they still here? If Venezuelans can vote with their feet across all the dangers between them and the US southern border, how ball-less are Americas to do it as well? Canada perhaps, it is a nice place, half of its speaks English. Some European countries would be nice etc etc.

Quote from: RE on Aug 17, 2024, 06:47 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Aug 17, 2024, 12:23 AMThe Answer:

Build more housing.

Astoundingly obvious.   

RE

As a man, I know one said, "Who cooda node?"

Carl Sagan: We need to invest more in our poorest and less in military might

QuoteCarl: We have let all sorts of social programs languish as we have permitted the amount of children in poverty to increase.  Before the end of this century more than half the kids in America maybe below the poverty line.

What kind of a future do we build for the country if we raise all these kids disadvantaged and unable to cope with the society.  Resentful for the injustice served up to them?  This is stupid.

TTT: And then what happened with the resources is they they went into increasing budgets for arms.  Isn't that where the money went. 

Carl: That and making rich people richer.  Those are the two places.

TT:  The thing about rich people, and I being one.  Is the money all gets reinvested.  If you've got money you put it in a bank.  The bank runs it out to people to buy homes or cars or whatever.

Carl: Not to poor people.  That's a good point.  It tends to stay up at that highly stratified level.

TT: More people get employed with capital formation.  Are you a socialist?

Carl: I'm not sure what a socialist is, but I believe that the government has a responsibility to care for the people.  I'm not talking about dole.  I'm talking about making people self-reliant.  Able to take care of themselves.  There are countries which are perfectly able to do that.  The United States is an extreme rich country.  It's perfectly able to do that.  It chooses not to.

The United States chooses to have homeless people.  It chooses.  We are 19th in the world in infant mortality 18 other countries save the lives of their babies better than we.  How come?

They just spend more money on it.  They care about their babies more than we care about ours.  I think it's a disgrace and this country has vast wealth.  You just look at what something like Star Wars.  The money on Star Wars already spent is $20 billion.  If these guys are permitted to go ahead they will spend a trillion dollars on Star Wars.  Think of what that money could be used for. 

To educate, to help bring people up to a sense of of self-confidence.  To improve not just the
happiness of people in America but their economic standing.  To improve the competitiveness of the United States.  Compared to other countries we are using money for the wrong stuff.

Carl feared half American children would be in poverty by the year 2000.  Was he right?  Dammed lies and statistics.  Hell if I know.  But check this out.

Carls fears are realized.  I do not care if he was right about the year 2000.  Current material conditions are unacceptable.

Looks like another winter with the Pols saying we must do something and following up by doing nothing.


City clears out latest Midtown Anchorage homeless camp

RE

Danny Shaw is part of Midwestern Marx.  But he needs a new way to buy the beans.

Quote from: K-Dog on Sep 02, 2024, 06:30 PMDanny Shaw is part of Midwestern Marx.  But he needs a new way to buy the beans.

With many colleges closing and downsizing, professors are an endangered species anyhow.

RE

Endangered-R-Us

Knee Jerk documentary by a local that reflects the typical middle class attitude toward "those people" who they view as kind of sub-human.  Lots of moaning about how it's getting worse and no solution.

You do get a fairly comprehensive look at some of the encampments tho.


RE