Al Guardian of Palestine and Wall Street

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Lazy opinion journalism backed by seriously BS numbers. New York's homeless is maybe in the tens of thousands, not 113,000. 40k was a peak of last winter's shelter census.

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.o...es/basic-facts

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/press/pr031910.shtml

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I'm curious, did you intend to use both those links to counter the LA Times excerpt, or did you provide the first link as an example of "BS numbers"?

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Originally Posted by Coalition for the Homeless

• Each year, more than 113,000 different homeless New Yorkers, including nearly 43,000 children, sleep in the municipal shelter system.

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They should have clarified that that number refers to the total number of people that year who experienced homelessness of some duration and had to sleep in emergency shelters provided by the municipalities.

Re. money, when it comes to homelessness we are of course not talking about fendi bags but rather about affordable housing. Last time we discussed homelessness I believe we found that a lack of affordable housing is a prime driver of homelessness in the US and I can't imagine that particular problem is small in a city like NYC.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

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Re. money, when it comes to homelessness we are of course not talking about fendi bags but rather about affordable housing. Last time we discussed homelessness I believe we found that a lack of affordable housing is a prime driver of homelessness in the US and I can't imagine that particular problem is small in a city like NYC.

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That's why the NYC guy who formed The Rent is Too Damn High party was (temporarily) awesome. Housing in NYC is very expensive, in comparison to other urban cities, even when things like public transportation are factored in. That's another part of the American Problem dilemma. :(

I found it interesting (and missing the biggest point) when Chicago's Board of Trade high-rise employees put posters in the windows, strung across maybe a half city block of street-side windows), saying, "We Are Part of the 1 %".

They're not, they're actually part of the 99% (secretaries, human resources, account managers, entry-level traders, data collectors, IT units, compliance specialists, para-legals, CPAs, etc.)

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Originally Posted by Aimless

homelessness

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this board does have a slight problem with understanding homelessness. I remember the last time it came up I had to argue the very basic idea that you can't always point out the homeless based on their physical appearance.

Think it had something to do with a homeless doll people were complaining looked to clean.

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Originally Posted by GGT

That's why the NYC guy who formed The Rent is Too Damn High party was (temporarily) awesome. Housing in NYC is very expensive, in comparison to other urban cities, even when things like public transportation are factored in. That's another part of the American Problem dilemma. :(

I found it interesting (and missing the biggest point) when Chicago's Board of Trade high-rise employees put posters in the windows, strung across maybe a half city block of street-side windows), saying, "We Are Part of the 1 %".

They're not, they're actually part of the 99% (secretaries, human resources, account managers, entry-level traders, data collectors, IT units, compliance specialists, para-legals, CPAs, etc.)

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Who is the ultimate arbiter of who is or isn't in the 99%, or the remaining 1%? Are there defined and determined rules for who does and doesn't qualify, and are those standards even remotely meaningful?

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Who is the ultimate arbiter of who is or isn't in the 99%, or the remaining 1%?
Are there defined and determined rules for who does and doesn't qualify, and are those standards even remotely meaningful?

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The point (as I see it) is to encourage masses of people, including "rich people" that don't fall into the Forbes 500 multi-billionaire status, to find their common complaints and Unity borne of anger and frustration: dissatisfaction with business as usual, political polarity and extremism, a status quo that's not working, lack of ethics and/or vision from our "leaders", the need for re-structuring our basic foundations of Education and Infrastructure *and Innovation*, and a deep desire in figuring out how to move FORWARD. Instead of being mired in the same damn muck of the last two or three decades.

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Originally Posted by GGT

The point (as I see it) is to encourage masses of people, including "rich people" that don't fall into the Forbes 500 multi-billionaire status, to find their common complaints and Unity borne of anger and frustration: dissatisfaction with business as usual, political polarity and extremism, a status quo that's not working, lack of ethics and/or vision from our "leaders", the need for re-structuring our basic foundations of Education and Infrastructure *and Innovation*, and a deep desire in figuring out how to move FORWARD. Instead of being mired in the same damn muck of the last two or three decades.

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You seem to be saying that the status quo sucks, and I agree! You seem to think that if enough people think the status quo sucks that it will get better, but it's not that people aren't united enough in their frustration, it's that what to do with that frustration that doesn't make sense. In fact, if the only metric you are using is anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction with business as usual, why can't the Forbes 500 be party to the 99%?

For that matter, why can't Al Qaeda be party to the 99%?

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You seem to be saying that the status quo sucks, and I agree! You seem to think that if enough people think the status quo sucks that it will get better, but it's not that people aren't united enough in their frustration, it's that what to do with that frustration that doesn't make sense. In fact, if the only metric you are using is anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction with business as usual, why can't the Forbes 500 be party to the 99%?

For that matter, why can't Al Qaeda be party to the 99%?

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Personally, I'm actually surprised it's taken "this long" for America to see mass protests in the streets. I'd thought it would begin earlier than it did, especially after the '07--'08 financial crisis and bail-outs. Maybe it makes perfect sense, though---things take time to truly Trickle Down. :sour:

IMO the Tea Party movement, and the 2010 elections were the first visible fits and starts, symptoms of the greater dissatisfaction with the status quo. "Throw the bums out, clean house". But "politicians", in particular the GOP, didn't assess things from the greater population view, but from their own desire to get elected. And now we have a paralyzed House of Representatives and Senate, and multiple millions of citizens angry that nothing moves forward. Checks and Balances are one thing, but this kind of polarizing gridlock is actually dangerous.




I'm gonna ignore the comment about Al Qaeda because they're terrorists, and I don't believe American Civil Disobedience is terrorism.

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Originally Posted by GGT

I'm gonna ignore the comment about Al Qaeda because they're terrorists, and I don't believe American Civil Disobedience is terrorism.

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Civil disobedience isn't terrorism, but the definitions you are using to describe who does and doesn't belong to a movement are so vague, so nebulous, that it might as well encompass everyone. Up to, and including, terrorists.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Civil disobedience isn't terrorism, but the definitions you are using to describe who does and doesn't belong to a movement are so vague, so nebulous, that it might as well encompass everyone. Up to, and including, terrorists.

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I'm not the one who picked the terminology (Occupy Wall Street, We are the 99%, Occupy America, or the like.) But I do think "most" people could find a place and identify within this movement, somewhere. "Most people" means a majority, and they are angry or Mad as Hell and not willing to stand by idly or unrepresented. Especially since our elected representatives aren't doing much. Or are seen as doing the wrong things.

I think probably everyone posting HERE is also part of the 99%. Most of this forum's threads are expressing dissatisfaction at fundamental levels, and the zit is almost ready to pop.

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Originally Posted by GGT

I'm not the one who picked the terminology (Occupy Wall Street, We are the 99%, Occupy America, or the like.) But I do think "most" people could find a place and identify within this movement, somewhere. "Most people" means a majority, and they are angry or Mad as Hell and not willing to stand by idly or unrepresented. Especially since our elected representatives aren't doing much. Or are seen as doing the wrong things.

I think probably everyone posting HERE is also part of the 99%. Most of this forum's threads are expressing dissatisfaction at fundamental levels, and the zit is almost ready to pop.

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Okay, so let's say this goes through. Everyone gets really angry and agrees to join this movement and try to disrupt the economy until the economy and everything else gets better.

Now what?

Raw emotion is a stupid basis for a movement.

I'm not convinced the "movement" is based on raw emotion, or trying to "disrupt the economy", though. I think what we are seeing is what "delayed response" looks like. We're accustomed to that delayed and reactive response from Washington, but not from the populace.

It's interesting to read about the Populist movement that didn't really take hold until the early 30s, even though it began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and similarities between Federal Reserve monetary policy, and government fiscal policy. History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

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Originally Posted by GGT

or trying to "disrupt the economy",

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They're not based on that goal, and they probably haven't even thought things through enough to realize that's the only possible end result if they succeed in what they're doing. It's just the only thing they seem to agree that they should be doing. "Occupy Wall Street", it's right in the name.

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We're accustomed to that delayed and reactive response from Washington, but not from the populace.

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I've often thought a problem was the opposite. Politicians are too responsive to the heightened emotions of any given minute, and make knee-jerk decisions without thinking about them rationally. But really, it's the voters who are to blame for that, since we vote people out who fail to make the knee-jerk decisions that correspond with our knee-jerk reactions to events.

Trying to tie this back, raw emotions are never good in politics. They should stay separate. I'm not supporting any movement that's so ridiculously poorly directed and defined, except that they're angry about something, somewhere, for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

They're not based on that goal, and they probably haven't even thought things through enough to realize that's the only possible end result if they succeed in what they're doing. It's just the only thing they seem to agree that they should be doing. "Occupy Wall Street", it's right in the name.

I've often thought a problem was the opposite. Politicians are too responsive to the heightened emotions of any given minute, and make knee-jerk decisions without thinking about them rationally. But really, it's the voters who are to blame for that, since we vote people out who fail to make the knee-jerk decisions that correspond with our knee-jerk reactions to events.

Trying to tie this back, raw emotions are never good in politics. They should stay separate. I'm not supporting any movement that's so ridiculously poorly directed and defined, except that they're angry about something, somewhere, for some reason.

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We could probably ask local vendors and merchants in any place these protests are taking place, and they'd probably say "business is up!". Whether it's pizza delivery, porta-potties, or some savvy small business selling a colored plastic wrist band 'for the cause'. ie, NYC hasn't seen their economy suffer at all, in fact, it's almost a tourist attraction. :bulb:

The only reason it started @ Wall Street is because that's the ubiquitous title for the general US Financial and Banking Industry, and because it's an important US urban hub. Probably wouldn't have had the same connotation if it was....Occupy Greenwich, Connecticut! ;)

Politicians are good at responding to knee-jerk, short-term emotions, I agree there. But those politicians mostly plan their campaigns, elections, and RE-elections over the course of years. But they've got huge and bulky machinery behind that, so it's like turning a barge around on a dime--it can't be done.

Tampa's protest started today.
Drove through chants of "we were sold out", gave a few honks, got a few window taps and supportive anti-fox cheers thanks to my bumper sticker.

Noticed a depressing lack of topless hippies :(

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

....anti-fox cheers thanks to my bumper sticker.....

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Even Fox News might be seeing the Light! They gave unprecedented criticism to Hank Williams, Jr. :up:

Cain doesn't understand the protests, either. If you're not a millionaire, or don't have a job, blame yourself, he says. But he admits to not having any facts, to back him up, even though he blames things on the Obama administration. :hmm:

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Originally Posted by GGT

I think probably everyone posting HERE is also part of the 99%. Most of this forum's threads are expressing dissatisfaction at fundamental levels, and the zit is almost ready to pop.

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So, then, not only is the term so broad that it's useless, it's also broad enough to be patently self-contradictory and/or extremely dishonest? Good to know, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Raw emotion is a stupid basis for a movement.

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Well, given what one of the marks of maturity is, I think it does validate a lot of the pointed criticisms about the "movement" - little more than petulant children, whom we'd better hope don't actually influence politics.

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Originally Posted by GGT

We could probably ask local vendors and merchants in any place these protests are taking place, and they'd probably say "business is up!". Whether it's pizza delivery, porta-potties, or some savvy small business selling a colored plastic wrist band 'for the cause'. ie, NYC hasn't seen their economy suffer at all, in fact, it's almost a tourist attraction. :bulb:

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So, the movement would be having the opposite of its intended effect, then. <sigh> :rolleyes: Whadda bunch of unmitigated morons.

Cain, it's disingenuous of you to suggest that people can't be Mad as Hell and want things to change. You, yourself, emigrated to the US based on such self-disclosed assessments. That was your way of initiating "change" and bringing those expectations with you. For those of us who don't want to leave the US, because we still believe this is the best place (for many reasons), civil disobedience is part of our history. What else would you have us do instead?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Cain, it's disingenuous of you to suggest that people can't be Mad as Hell and want things to change. You, yourself, emigrated to the US based on such self-disclosed assessments. That was your way of initiating "change" and bringing those expectations with you. For those of us who don't want to leave the US, because we still believe this is the best place (for many reasons), civil disobedience is part of our history. What else would you have us do instead?

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People be civilly disobedient, and even mad as hell, and still not use raw emotion as the basis of their movement.

They can also refer to facts. This graph is from WikiCommons, using Census data. If it's wrong then some other source could prove it wrong. Using, uhm, Census data? Or would it mean more if thousands or millions of people took to the streets, so every "number" became a real person?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Un..._1947-2007.svg

Are you now saying that the whole movement is based on the idea that somebody, somewhere, has more money than they do?

This isn't a step up from just being angry.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Are you now saying that the whole movement is based on the idea that somebody, somewhere, has more money than they do?

This isn't a step up from just being angry.

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Was that to me? If it was, no...it was showing that the middle class/quintile hasn't experienced the same exponential growth as the top 1% (or 5%). It's been going on for decades, but only now associated with "anger". People who followed the rules, did all the "right" things, but now find the American Dream was either an illusion, a false promise, or a scam. I think it's more complicated than anyone admits. And that's partly why the Occupy Wall Street protesters confuses so many people....

So it is just anger at nebulous things.

OWS is easy to understand. Those of us criticizing them are not confused in any way about them. They are a rabble running on pure emotion, with no consensus on what they're actually angry about, and as a group they do not seem to understand any of the issues involved in anything related to their non-specific anger. The entire movement is vacuous, and we don't take them seriously because they offer nothing to consider.

You could be taking a different tack to this, you know. You could divorce yourself from them, and just say that their disorganized whining, their confused and poorly defined complaints, do not in any way undermine your own legitimate grievances, whatever they happen to be. You don't have to attach yourself to any group just because they are angry and seem to be in the same general part of the political spectrum as you. It's okay to have standards. You can even reevaluate later, if these people ever manage to get their act together and produce specific complaints and specific plans with specific goals in mind.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

So it is just anger at nebulous things.

OWS is easy to understand. Those of us criticizing them are not confused in any way about them. They are a rabble running on pure emotion, with no consensus on what they're actually angry about, and as a group they do not seem to understand any of the issues involved in anything related to their non-specific anger. The entire movement is vacuous, and we don't take them seriously because they offer nothing to consider.

You could be taking a different tack to this, you know. You could divorce yourself from them, and just say that their disorganized whining, their confused and poorly defined complaints, do not in any way undermine your own legitimate grievances, whatever they happen to be. You don't have to attach yourself to any group just because they are angry and seem to be in the same general part of the political spectrum as you. It's okay to have standards. You can even reevaluate later, if these people ever manage to get their act together and produce specific complaints and specific plans with specific goals in mind.

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But it seems part of their point is....legitimate grievances haven't been addressed. I can relate to that, because I've been "whining" about the same damn things for over half my life. That's some kind of messed up. I wasn't born early enough in the Baby Boom to be considered a "legitimate" activist, or even a Kosher anti-war hippie! (Even though my older sisters had boyfriends or friends caught in the Viet Nam mess, who either came home without limbs or didn't come home at all.) In fact, I've never been considered a "legitimate" feminist.

The previous standard used to be "Choice", but even that doesn't pass the litmus test now. Is it really a "Choice" if you do well in HS, find your way to college, spend 4 years and take out loans (because not everyone can get four year athletic scholarships for Football---or academic scholarship full rides, either) work and study hard....only to graduate with no employment prospects? But now deeply in debt and either unemployed, or working 60 hours a week at minimum wage? And your parents can't help you much because they can't maintain the mortgage, or rising property taxes, or one of them has been laid off for more than 99 weeks? Or they lose their home to foreclosure, or decide to walk away and send jingle keys to the mortgage servicer?

(I stopped there, at the "rambling moment" :p but it's still part of today's Discussion.)

All people have a voice in this "movement". Millennials, Generation X or Y, Baby Boomers, Sandwich Generation....all demographics. I think the common complaint, from all those groups, is that there's been a massive chasm created within the American Dream. A loss of trust in government, the private sector, and even "Do the right thing". A cynicism that laid its seeds decades ago has grown into visible things, and seeing that doesn't make anyone a conspiracy theorist.

Take a look around the world, at the dysfunctional governments, the economies that bought into promises of Financial tools (ie, current debt as future growth and profit, saying sovereign debt is "different") and it's pretty clear....kicking the can down the road eventually comes home, and someone has to pay. And here we are.

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Originally Posted by GGT

The previous standard used to be "Choice", but even that doesn't pass the litmus test now. Is it really a "Choice" if you do well in HS, find your way to college, spend 4 years and take out loans (because not everyone can get four year athletic scholarships for Football---or academic scholarship full rides, either) work and study hard....only to graduate with no employment prospects? But now deeply in debt and either unemployed, or working 60 hours a week at minimum wage? And your parents can't help you much because they can't maintain the mortgage, or rising property taxes, or one of them has been laid off for more than 99 weeks? Or they lose their home to foreclosure, or decide to walk away and send jingle keys to the mortgage servicer?

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If you go to college and get a liberal arts degree, say your standard undergrad degree in psychology, sure you had a choice, and you made a poor one. Right now, even in these troubled economic times, there are a lot of companies that are looking to hire skilled engineers, IT developers, etc...

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

If you go to college and get a liberal arts degree, say your standard undergrad degree in psychology, sure you had a choice, and you made a poor one. Right now, even in these troubled economic times, there are a lot of companies that are looking to hire skilled engineers, IT developers, etc...

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What are you saying, exactly? That only liberal arts majors are having trouble finding jobs?

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Originally Posted by GGT

What are you saying, exactly? That only liberal arts majors are having trouble finding jobs?

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That poor choices often have negative consequences. Thinking that simply getting a college degree in anything is a guarantee of financial security simply isn't true. Racking up tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree that a simple Google search could show to be worthless is a poor decision.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

That poor choices often have negative consequences. Thinking that simply getting a college degree in anything is a guarantee of financial security simply isn't true. Racking up tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree that .....is a poor decision.

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But that wasn't part of the American Dream, now was it? No, the "promise" and the social contract used to be: do well in school and follow your interests and/or talents, follow them into secondary education, and you will find a job, a career, and be "rewarded". Liberal Arts colleges actually turn out very good thinkers, analyzers, planners. Besides, our whole nation can't just have millions of STEM grads---science, technology, education, math.

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Originally Posted by GGT

But that wasn't part of the American Dream, now was it? No, the "promise" and the social contract used to be: do well in school and follow your interests and/or talents, follow them into secondary education, and you will find a job, a career, and be "rewarded". Liberal Arts colleges actually turn out very good thinkers, analyzers, planners. Besides, our whole nation can't just have millions of STEM grads---science, technology, education, math.

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I was clearly raised with a very different American Dream than you were. No part of my Dream indicated that success was guaranteed to me regardless of my life decisions.

Case in point. A cousin of mine went to a rather prestigious university for a degree in film-studies. He racked up over a hundred thousand dollars in debt for his undergrad education alone. This wasn't even a good school for the program he was interested in. You're saying that the American Dream dictated that because he went to a school he couldn't afford, for a degree that he will likely not use, he would end up taken care of... just because? These are the kinds of good thinkers that liberal arts degrees are churning out?

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

I was clearly raised with a very different American Dream than you were. No part of my Dream indicated that success was guaranteed to me regardless of my life decisions.

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I didn't say the American Dream meant success was "guaranteed". But hard work and education was something most everyone could rely upon. Until we couldn't.

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Originally Posted by GGT

But that wasn't part of the American Dream, now was it? No, the "promise" and the social contract used to be: do well in school and follow your interests and/or talents, follow them into secondary education, and you will find a job, a career, and be "rewarded". Liberal Arts colleges actually turn out very good thinkers, analyzers, planners. Besides, our whole nation can't just have millions of STEM grads---science, technology, education, math.

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This is incredibly incorrect. Our 'social contract' says nothing about wasting your money and time getting a useless degree and then being outraged - outraged, I say! - that no one will hire you.

I was listening to a piece on the radio a couple days back (yes, I've been listening to NPR a lot since I've been doing a lot of pointless driving) that involved a discussion with some 20-something guy who was leading some advocacy group for fresh graduates. They were talking about their challenges finding jobs, yadda yadda yadda. Then a whole bunch of recent grads called in, and they all had similar stories. They got a degree in, say, sociology, or anthropology, or glass blowing or whatever, and then were disappointed in the system that there was a limited number of opportunities available for them, so they had to retrain/shift careers/get a crappier job than they wanted.

This is ABSURD. There's no secret which jobs are in demand right now: pretty much anything technical (yes, your aforementioned STEM), and anything in healthcare. There's vast numbers of jobs available in some fields that simply aren't filled because not enough people are trained to do them. Yes, everyone probably could go into these fields, since jobs aren't a zero sum game, except for one-handed glass blowers. My own field is projected by the US department of labor to have over seventy percent job growth by 2020. That's incredibly high. There's continuing demand for people in CS, IT, traditional engineering disciplines, skilled manufacturing positions, modeling/computational work (e.g. all those mathematical finance guys, or the network theory guys snapped up by Facebook and the like, or the search algorithm guys, or whatever).

There are genuine hard-luck cases among our young graduates, but many are self-inflicted wounds. I have two sisters who got English degrees in college. One is now earning probably close to $200k a year (I don't know the exact amount, but let's go with that), the other is unemployed. What's the difference? Well, the high earning sister also completed a premed curriculum, went to med school, and now works as an attending physician. The unemployed sister decided to go into English education, got a master's degree in education (adding on a nice tidy sum to her loans), and surprisingly can't find a job in a subject that's generally oversubscribed and in a time when education budgets are strained or cut. If she'd become a science or math teacher, of course, that would have been different... or if she was willing to relocate to a part of the country that is in need or more English teachers, which she isn't. The point is that I'm fine with her 'following her dreams' as long as she doesn't complain when her dreams leave her with little employment prospects.

Not quite what I meant by the social contract, or an education leading to "outrage".

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Originally Posted by GGT

Not quite what I meant by the social contract, or an education leading to "outrage".

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Well, what exactly did you mean by social contract, or an education leading to outrage?

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Originally Posted by GGT

I didn't say the American Dream meant success was "guaranteed". But hard work and education was something most everyone could rely upon. Until we couldn't.

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You could make this point until you're blue in the face, but you're still wrong. Education and hard work do make it much more likely that someone will get a job and that they will be paid well. Education and hard work are not and have never been sufficient conditions for gainful employment.

Let's be honest here, this entire protest movement exists because the economy is in poor shape and unemployment is high. Unfortunately for the protesters, any of their "solutions" to the current situation would likely harm the economy even more and lead to even higher unemployment. As hard as it might be to believe, being outraged has never fixed an economy; neither has demonizing those working in productive parts of the economy.

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Originally Posted by Loki

You could make this point until you're blue in the face, but you're still wrong. Education and hard work do make it much more likely that someone will get a job and that they will be paid well. Education and hard work are not and have never been sufficient conditions for gainful employment.

Let's be honest here, this entire protest movement exists because the economy is in poor shape and unemployment is high. Unfortunately for the protesters, any of their "solutions" to the current situation would likely harm the economy even more and lead to even higher unemployment. As hard as it might be to believe, being outraged has never fixed an economy; neither has demonizing those working in productive parts of the economy.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Well, what exactly did you mean by social contract, or an education leading to outrage?

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Yes, the protest movement is because the economy sucks, unemployment is high, and neither the private sector nor government has ideas or solutions. College grads in general fare better, but barely. Some of them haven't been "counted" in national numbers, but they're either underemployed or returned to school.

The protestors also haven't laid out any solutions, as far as I can tell. They're also not trying to demonize or fix any one employment sector, either. That's probably why the media can't figure out how to cover them, and why those who don't understand....well, they don't understand.

Some op-eds say this is just Americans acting spoiled, because we haven't really known this kind of stagnation with globalization before. Most of our recessions have bounced back faster, and even our previous jobless recoveries didn't look quite like this.

Let's play this again.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Well, what exactly did you mean by social contract, or an education leading to outrage?

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That was in response to wiggin and his two sisters who both had English majors, where one also went to medical school but the other won't move to where education jobs are. In other words, the social contract goes both ways, and we know that. English majors who get a masters in Education and are willing or able to move to where the teaching jobs are....probably aren't in the same group "complaining" with the Education Masters who also have a mortgage they can't get out from under, or those who got their Masters while raising a young family, or the teachers that were laid off when budgets got cut.

And yes, as Loki said....let's be honest here. As our Information and Technological Age has gone so far, it's easier to replace teachers first. But who's next down the line....when Watson is being used as a replacement for human actuarial and physician input at health insurance companies? Robotic surgery can replace plenty of ancillary staff, too. Para-legals and attorneys can also be replaced by Watson or other super-computers, or their labor sent across oceans to Asia. Even our Financial Industry is using super-computer math quants and algorithms to replace the human element. Maybe firefighters are next, using smoke detectors and automatic distinguishing chemicals, or non-human devices. Drones, anyone? The same kind of war-fighting-unmanned-military-drones that are capable of assassinating terrorists?

Still, we have young people wanting to be teachers, nurses, physicians, fire fighters, police, accountants, attorneys, soldiers. During the four to eight years they go to school for these degrees, they're competing with either the developed world with just as much information (and cheaper labor) or advancing technology that can easily replace them.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I'm curious, did you intend to use both those links to counter the LA Times excerpt, or did you provide the first link as an example of "BS numbers"?

They should have clarified that that number refers to the total number of people that year who experienced homelessness of some duration and had to sleep in emergency shelters provided by the municipalities.

Re. money, when it comes to homelessness we are of course not talking about fendi bags but rather about affordable housing. Last time we discussed homelessness I believe we found that a lack of affordable housing is a prime driver of homelessness in the US and I can't imagine that particular problem is small in a city like NYC.

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Originally Posted by GGT

That's why the NYC guy who formed The Rent is Too Damn High party was (temporarily) awesome. Housing in NYC is very expensive, in comparison to other urban cities, even when things like public transportation are factored in. That's another part of the American Problem dilemma. :(

I found it interesting (and missing the biggest point) when Chicago's Board of Trade high-rise employees put posters in the windows, strung across maybe a half city block of street-side windows), saying, "We Are Part of the 1 %".

They're not, they're actually part of the 99% (secretaries, human resources, account managers, entry-level traders, data collectors, IT units, compliance specialists, para-legals, CPAs, etc.)

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Apologies that wasn't clear. I was more saying that the actual amount of homelessness at any given time fluctuates and it's a difficult number to count, so implying that there are hundreds of thousands of homeless is sort of lazy journalism. It's also not easy to spot/count homeless people.

That said, if they are focused on anything, these protests don't seem to be focused on homelessness. And if you want to get into a discussion of housing costs while we're in the middle of a real estate price collapse, so be it. :noob: But housing costs remain high in NY because of a number of things, including high demand, rent control, barriers to new construction and the proliferation of "landmarked neighborhoods" in more crowded/expensive places like Manhattan.