Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You want to talk about fraud? Let's talk about banks that do no risk management and need a 50 billion dollar bailout from the government to not blow up the economy. Let's talk about Enron. Let's talk about when billionaires in the agribusiness sector become $382 billion richer during the pandemic by jacking up food prices 33.6% while 263 million people are pushed into extreme poverty and 62 people in the food industry became billionaires over the past two years. Let's talk about how the Pentagon failed a fifth audit in a row, as they were unable to account for 61% of their 3.5 trillion in assets.
Wild that a billionaire's companies committed fraud for 15 years, found guilty on all counts, and faced a maximum fine of 1.61 million for their crimes. No jail time, no criminal charges. Just a payment processing fee for them.
Oh, there was one CEO, Paul R. Allen, who was sentenced to prison for a 3 billion dollar fraud. He was CEO of one of the nation's largest privately held mortgage lenders who was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a 3 billion dollar scheme that officials called one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history.
Maybe we should talk about Walmart, which has 78 subsidiaries and 76 billion in assets in tax havens where there are zero stores. Maybe if Walmart, who has the most workers on welfare than anyone in America, and other businesses actually paid a living wage to their workers, those workers wouldn't be drawing welfare and there wouldn't be any welfare fraud. Ya think?
None of the above have anything to do with homelessness, but whatever.
But you do have a few errors in facts.
You're referring to the very public failures of Silicon Valley Bank & First Republic Bank. The owners of those banks (shareholders) were wiped out - as well they should be. Taxpayers did not lose a penny. But the right question is: Where The Hell were the bank regulators from the Federal Reserve & Treasury??? Where The Hell were the bank examiners??? Where The Hell were the executives at The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (historic home to US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellin) and at the US Department of the Treasury???
We now know the bank regulators and bank examiners were asleep at the switch: public sector and quasi-public sector employees. They were earning fat paychecks while not doing their jobs of regulating and examining. The banks did it to themselves by failing to contemplate a world where the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates so quickly, just as some homeless people today failed to contemplate a world where rents would go precipitously. But with the banks, regulators broke the public's trust.
' And sadly, not a single employee at the US Treasury lost his job, and not a single employee at the Federal Reserve Bank lost his job.
Owners of Enron - shareholders - were wiped out, as well they should have been, and the public accounting firm that audited them - Arthur Anderson - was convicted of destroying audit documents & wiped off the face of the planet, even though their conviction was overturned later by the US Supreme Court. The Justice Department prosecuted and won convictions of the fraudsters including Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow.
Your rant about Agribusiness should be a praise of Agribusiness - during the pandemic, no person in the nation died from starvation.
Your rant about Walmart employees on welfare is misguided. If it were not for Walmart, those employees would be 100% on the public dole.
But none of the above have anything to do with homelessness.
That is an absurd statement. How do you come up with this stuff? I have represented institutionalized patients, both old and young, for reasons other than their involuntary admission. Off the top of my head, one was involuntarily committed for anorexia nervosa, another was an old lady who disrupted a town hall meeting for refusing to be quiet, and another old codger decided to outrun the police, etc. The ACLU did not swoop in to save them.
Any case of a person placed into involuntary hold has to go to the court within 3 days (generally with a state-appointed lawyer), per class action lawsuit which was brought by the ACLU, and was adjudicated in 2021 in favor of the ACLU. Thus, the ACLU has made every involuntary confinement a legal case, which has to be heard within 3 days - that is what I meant by a swoop. I am not a lawyer, and it is possible I understood something incorrectly, but I don't think I did; it seems fairly clear-cut:
Where is this homeless housing that gets demolished by the homeless? And this thing about the ACLU, where did you hear that? The ACLU rarely represents individuals most of their cases involve large numbers of people. By the way, you might consider that someone who is homeless in the bay area probably lived there when they were housed and they are very unlikely to agree to go to some trailer park in Nevada, they aren't like a herd of cattle that you can move around anywhere you like. How did you ever come to have so much animosity toward people who never did a thing to you?
An example from San Francisco (there are so many examples in so many cities - it is such a common knowledge that I don't know how would anyone even ask your question):
Re the ACLU, please see my response to the other poster. Correct, the ACLU case which they won in 2021 was a class action lawsuit, but the result pertains to every single individual placed into involuntary hold in the future, ie, every involuntary hold longer than 3 days is automatically a legal case that has to be heard in the court.
"People who have never done anything to me"? I was attacked in one city that I was briefly visiting by one of such people, another city where I spend a lot of time has been made grossly inconvenient and frankly dangerous for living by such people, and there is an effort to force me out of that city on behalf of such people. They have never done anything to me, really? Ok, they have not stabbed me in the eye (as has happened to a grocery store owner in one of the cities I am mentioning), but I'd kind of prefer to prevent that compared with having to deal with it after the fact like that poor grocery owner in his 70s who I believe has completely lost vision.
The homeless may not agree to take the offered housing (they frequently don't take it, whether it is in Nevada or anywhere else), but in that case taxpayers should have the right too to not agree to support the homeless in places where they endanger the others and obstruct normal functioning of the city. Actually, taxpayers should have a right to refuse supporting other people in places where that costs above a certain level - WHY should anyone be obliged to support unrelated people where ot costs a lot to do that, if there are places where it costs ten times less to do so? In other words, if people are offered housing but they refuse it and continue to use public space as their private homestead, then trespassing laws should be enforced. I believe the issue is being pursued in the courts by several municipalities in the nation.
People who don't like the pay at Walmart (or at other businesses that pay below a certain limit) don't have to work for Walmart or those other businesses. Nobody is forced to work for any specific employer.
Get real.
Do you know any Walmart employees? How many better employment options do you think they have?
Last edited by GotHereQuickAsICould; 12-04-2023 at 08:29 AM..
It is about me, me, me… The narcissistic victim complex is in full bloom.
The homeless of San Francisco conspired to force you out of the city! Never mind that 56% of the voters in the city passed a tax proposition that happens to provide housing support for low-income seniors and homeless that might impact your real estate taxes on a home that is unoccupied for more than 183 days in the year. It must be the campaign of the homeless against you as an individual.
Have you followed on how homeless housing often gets treated by the homeless? Where in SF would you put a trailer park? Where in most metros would you put trailer parks? How is the no/low income senior supposed to keep trailer and lot up? Considering depreciation is not a question yet.
How is it that the homeless destroy housing they do not have?
Yes, the homeless housing is generally demolished by the homeless. But my opponents here keep saying that the elderly homeless are homeless mainly because the housing is too expensive for them, so if that is the case, then let's give them inexpensive housing, ie, trailer park villages on inexpensive land. When did I ever advocate putting up trailer parks in San Francisco or in most metros? Of course not there, but on inexpensive land. About 95% of land in California is rural open space, and almost half of the land in California is federal land:
There is no such thing as a "no-income senior" in the US, since every such senior over 65 qualifies for $914 per month SSI. If the trailer is free, why would the senior be unable to keep the trailer and lot up on $914 per month? What depreciation? The trailer would be owned by the government; there is no appreciation or depreciation in value there, since the formerly homeless senior wouldn't be buying or selling the trailer, but just living there.
But let's go back to the fact that homeless housing often gets demolished by the homeless - since a lot of that population lives in the streets NOT because housing is unaffordable, but because a lot of that population is very mentally ill. It does not follow from it that the taxpayers should be providing a new housing to such a person every time he/she demolishes the previous one. I am all for reopening of large mental institutions for such people, if you can get that past the ACLU (which degenerated from a honorable agency that used to defend individual freedoms to a bizarreness that defends freedom of violently insane people to terrorize everyone else). If you try to even put a mental patient into a short involuntary hold, you'll have an ACLU lawyer after you, let alone if you try to reopen mental hospitals. So, what do you do then? If a formerly homeless person demolishes a trailer gifted to him/her, the only place for such person, in the absence of mental hospital, seems to be prison. I don't know what else you want me to say about that.
So you put a trailer park up in the middle of nowhere as that is the only place you can find inexpensive land. Then "we" as in taxpayers may pay development, acquisition, trailers, movign elderly on shoe string budgets into those silos without infrastructure and transportation.
Just because it is government property laws of accounting still apply not to mention that trailers have a very limited lifespan.
Most municipalities to not permit trailers but "we" will put low income elderly into them. Those who do not comply get sent to an asylum. History repeats itself?
Any case of a person placed into involuntary hold has to go to the court within 3 days (generally with a state-appointed lawyer), per class action lawsuit which was brought by the ACLU, and was adjudicated in 2021 in favor of the ACLU. Thus, the ACLU has made every involuntary confinement a legal case, which has to be heard within 3 days - that is what I meant by a swoop. I am not a lawyer, and it is possible I understood something incorrectly, but I don't think I did; it seems fairly clear-cut:
You do not need to be a lawyer to understand the relatively brief summary that is provided in the case cited. Had you read the summary, you would have learned that the Plaintiff was INVOLUNTARILY DETAINED IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM for 18 DAYS without being afforded a hearing.
@ moguldreamer - Then perhaps I should give you credit for a very clever double entendre in your username, because every post I've ever seen from you shows a dewy eyed adoration for the wealthy and an utter contempt for the poor, winter sports or no winter sports.
And the old, "you are so emotional and not logical" noise is just so tired. Really. I can't be bothered with it.
The bottom line for me is that I see certain levels and degrees of human suffering being tolerated in our nation (and honestly everywhere, but we can't solve for everywhere) as problems that could be solved. I don't think that the issue with misuse of public funds is just your average bureaucrat drawing a standard paycheck with no motive to solve a problem. I think that it's grift on a bigger scale. When you get sleazy opportunists who see public funds as theirs to plunder at will. Things like the Brett Favre scandal probably happen all the time but people get away with it, rather than getting caught and having to pay it back. Meanwhile if you are rich and steal millions or billions from the people, you get a civil lawsuit and MAYBE have to pay it back, but if you are poor and steal a can of SPAM, you go to prison.
Speaking of prison, jail is basically the solution that cities in Colorado have decided to use to deal with their homeless folks. If you try to hide in a tent in the woods someplace, the cops will sweep the area, if they find evidence of homeless encampments they post a "move along" notice and within a day or two they come through and take everything and throw it in the landfill. The people they catch being homeless, get a ticket, fail to pay it (often around $2,000 from what I hear, how is a homeless person supposed to pay that?) or show up in court, and you catch a warrant and go to jail.
The shelters are terrifying. They take away what little a homeless person owns and lock it up. Fail to meet every single rule to meticulous perfection and they throw your stuff away. What little these people have gathered together to survive...gone. You can only shower in the late morning hours, you have to be in and out at very specific times, and it's just about impossible to get a job around their requirements. But they don't really want you to get a job, they want you to participate in their faith programs. There are no shelters run by a government entity, only private faith based orgs, but they do get government funds.
@elnrgby
I actually like your notion of trailer parks.
My position really is that I believe it would be easy enough to gather data on what specific problems individuals have that caused and perpetuates their desperate situation. Even with a million individual stories, there are probably only a handful of significant root causes. Then set up methodologies to push solutions. For the mentally ill person, someone to check on them and make sure that they are taking their meds could help. Temporary housing and vocational training. Rehabs. They do not need to be luxurious, absolutely no they don't, but they shouldn't be needlessly brutal and horrific either.
I differ in opinion from some, in that I believe that the wealthy defraud society and taxpayers vastly more than the poor do. The poor are just trying to survive, and there's a solid chance they were born into their situations. What possible excuse could a rich person have for stealing millions of dollars meant to serve the public, to benefit themselves? But it happens all the time. I will never see the richest people as better than others and incapable of doing wrong, nor the poor as inherently inferior and deserving of nothing better than to die in a ditch, preferably out of sight. I will never stop thinking that we can do better as a nation and a society, and that we should.
But I AM against just throwing cash at poor people. And I don't even think that simply raising wages is the answer, either. Not if you don't solve for the other end of the equation, which is egregious and predatory exploitation of consumers using monopolistic and anti-competitive business practices.
Oh, and elnrgby - I'm glad you mentioned those bad tenants you had. Take a moment to think of the worst ones. They are now your options for a "roommate" because you can't afford rent on your own, which one are you living with and what are you dealing with from them? And please understand that it can probably be a lot worse.
That's why the roommate thing can be an issue. I've only ever seen roommate situations cause the destruction of friendships and relationships, because somebody if not everybody has issues and is hard to live with.
The other thing about what you are saying, is that as someone who has rented for most of my life, I was always doing everything I could to be a great tenant. During the years that I rented from private owners, they didn't raise my rent because they appreciated having a good tenant who always paid on time, took great care of the home, and was a good neighbor to others. But as soon as you move into a managed corporate property, you can kiss that consideration goodbye. They don't care if you are a good tenant or not, the rent will go up until they price you out and then it'll go up some more. My son was renting an apartment where the jumped it from $1800/month to $2600 after the first year.
Thing is though, what you ran into is the fact that an individual landlord can't just socialize their risks and losses. You can't operate at scale like that. It's the same kind of market forces that squash small business everywhere, and our government used to have some guardrails against that sort of thing until certain billionaire think tanks started buying up politicians and judges to put a stop to enforcement and regulation in the latter decades of the last century.
A program that does exist that I would like to see as a good foundational model for more similar things, is Job Corps. It is neither luxurious nor punitive, it's dorm living, with strict rules and vocational programs along with some life skills training. But it is only for young people and it's means tested. But still though, vocational training is only so helpful for homeless seniors in a lot of cases.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ok, they have not stabbed me in the eye (as has happened to a grocery store owner in one of the cities I am mentioning), but I'd kind of prefer to prevent that compared with having to deal with it after the fact like that poor grocery owner in his 70s who I believe has completely lost vision. 