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#11
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My Bike Path in the News
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:37:42 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote: On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 5:12:07 PM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:18:35 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: That is one of my commute routes, which is now a toxic waste dump... When the authorities are done cleaning up the Portland homeless camps, could you send them my direction and ask them to clean up ours? https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+cruz+homeless+camp&tbm=isch If not, would you mind if we ship our homeless to Portland now that you have some empty space for them? Jeff, you need to put your considerable intellect to solving the homeless problem. Buying them bus passes to Cameron Park has proved to be too expensive. I'm at wits' end. -- Jay Beattie. A solution was tried in Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) back in 1790: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_73/July_1908/Count_Rumford He had the army arrest all the indigents, beggars, street people, homeless, bums, etc and put them to work in his House of Industry. Not only were the streets cleared, but he made a tidy profit on whatever they produced. I suppose we could try that again. Long ago, when I still lived in Smog Angeles, someone suggested that it might be useful to have those on welfare actually do some useful work. So, they were stationed at the on ramps to the major freeways where they reduced the number of cars that could enter the freeway in order to improve traffic flow. I don't recall why the program wasn't continued, but I do know that the traffic control experiment was successful and was eventually implemented with the addition of traffic metering signals at the freeway on ramps. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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#12
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My Bike Path in the News
jbeattie writes:
SMS talks about the "mainstreaming" of the mentally ill -- which is a trend that started decades ago and doesn't explain the influx of homeless in Portland in the last 10-15 years. We're not talking about people who were crushed by an economic downturn. It's not Hooverville. It's Crazyville and Criminalville. I'd settle for Hooverville -- those people were economic victims, and you can fix that. Whatever you do I think there will be a percentage of the population that is psychotic, mad, completely marginalized, absolutely not thinking and acting the way a sane person expects another sane person to act. Drugs, age, contact with other such people, and overall the life the live will make it steadily worse. Drugs (from the pharmacy) could probably neutralize a handful but problem is these people are so disfunctional they cannot use drugs in the way they were intended, they sell and trade and mix and overdose etc etc etc. So flooding the market with drugs just makes it worse because these people always do everything the opposite way. -- underground experts exiled http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573 |
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My Bike Path in the News
Jeff Liebermann writes:
I don't recall why the program wasn't continued, but I do know that the traffic control experiment was successful and was eventually implemented with the addition of traffic metering signals at the freeway on ramps. They cancel most such attempts because one, these people are too disfunctional to do anything the right way, even the simplest things, and two, it requires a structure of sane people to guide and check everything. Sometimes that is partly a good thing because such sane people get jobs and careers out of it. But looking at the big picture it is huge loss to have these people do something sensible. One could try it for sane, yet unemployed people tho, like the "lost youth of Europe" growing up with no real skills - but not without the capability to get them - in the "deindustrialized epoch". -- underground experts exiled http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573 |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:47:08 +0200, Emanuel Berg
wrote: Jeff Liebermann writes: I don't recall why the program wasn't continued, but I do know that the traffic control experiment was successful and was eventually implemented with the addition of traffic metering signals at the freeway on ramps. They cancel most such attempts because one, these people are too disfunctional to do anything the right way, even the simplest things, and two, it requires a structure of sane people to guide and check everything. Yes, that makes sense. I do recall that there was quite a bit of confusion telling these people when to arrive, what to do, how to fill out the time card, etc. However, it wasn't just the participants that were confused. Someone thought that 4 hr shifts were just fine, but forgot to remind the participants to bring water, where's the nearest public bathroom, etc. It probably worked well enough to prove the concept of traffic metering, but not well enough to demonstrate that it could be done the homeless. Sometimes that is partly a good thing because such sane people get jobs and careers out of it. But looking at the big picture it is huge loss to have these people do something sensible. I'm not sure that we really need any more high priced poverty fighters. One could try it for sane, yet unemployed people tho, like the "lost youth of Europe" growing up with no real skills - but not without the capability to get them - in the "deindustrialized epoch". I see quite a bit of that around my office building, which is conveniently located near a homeless shelter, free clinic, the intersections of 2 major freeways, a semi-dry river, and a nice bike path, all of which are major escape routes. Every day, there's a growing mob of drug dealers and users congregating in front of my office building. The buyers are all high skool and college students who appear to be very middle class. The sellers are evil scum recently dredged out of a nearby sewer. Oddly, only the sellers arrive on bicycles, all of them fairly new looking. During the 1960's, when I was in skool, we had a very good incentive. Go to skool, or get drafted into the US Army and end up in Viet Nam. The choice was obvious as to which was the lesser evil. So, I obtained a proper education, partly at the expense of the US taxpayers. Since I took not going to Viet Nam seriously, I actually studied occasionally. Perhaps what we need is an incentive plan for these "lost youth"? (Positive reinforcement never seems to work as well as negative punitive reinforcement). None of this is anything new and occurred in various forms over the entire history of man. All the characters involved were much the same at any period of past history. What's different today is that we seem to be producing more people unable to support themselves or even function in todays society. It might be due to their inability to handle ever increasing levels of education (i.e. knowledge workers), or that the stress level is high enough to make a greater percentage crack under the pressure, or that our environment is rotting the brain (lead, chromium, other heavy metal contamination). Dunno, but it worries me. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 10:16:32 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote: Where are all these homeless, that I read about here, coming from? I read one news article that alleged that the homeless in the Bay Area were the results of extremely high rental rates in the area but how did rental rates get that way? After all rental rates follow the same economic laws as any other financial activity. You can only have high prices where there people to pay them :-) Oddly, most of the local homeless are from other parts of the country, where housing is far more affordable. The SCZ city council ran a survey of some of the more sober shelter residents and found that most had arrived in Santa Cruz in less than 3 years ago and came from all over the US and world. A substantial number are obviously illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It seems odd that if the cost of housing is such a major problem for these people, why would they leave an area with far cheaper housing to go to an area with seriously overpriced cost of housing (and living)? Are they planning on working hard for a short time, live like a homeless person, collect as much cash as possible, and then return to where it's more affordable to live? I doubt it as most don't seem to want to do any kind of work at any pay scale. Incidentally, it's not just the homeless, but also the local teenagers who don't want to work. I can't find any local teenager who wants to do some minor landscaping and brush clearing around my house. I suspect that there's something wrong here. Where did all these high rent payers come from? They're imported by the high rolling Google, Facebook, etc who pay top dollar for talent: http://fortune.com/2018/03/01/best-companies-bay-area-2018/ Predictably, there's quite a bit of job hopping among the tech talent, jockeying for position and of course more money. Long commutes are not a huge problem if the company supplies vans, buses, home loan credit, and crash pads for the occasional overnight push. Are a lot of people immigrating from S. California? Yes. That was me in about 1973. However, it wasn't about cost of housing, jobs, or pay scale. Let's just say it was more about getting away from an area that was rapidly becoming unlivable and moving to one that was more pleasant. I suspect that today's migrant tech workers have much the same motivation. I'm not sure how that would fit in the average homeless persons business plan. Industries going bust? Only in the Bay Area? Sorry. I don't know. I don't know anyone from the rust belt. By all reason and logic, the Bay Area should have emptied just after the dot com crash in about 2001. Are we heading for another bubble? https://www.marke****ch.com/story/this-is-nothing-like-the-2000-dot-com-bubble-2015-03-25 Where are these improvised people coming from? Just follow the money and you'll get a clue as to what moves them and from where. I think some better questions would be: - Why is the ratio of non-productive recipients to productive workers increasing? - Is the support structure that we provide for those who cannot work facilitating homelessness as a lifestyle? - Where is the money coming from that these people live on? Donations, drugs, taxes, what? -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 09:29:42 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:37:42 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 5:12:07 PM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:18:35 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: That is one of my commute routes, which is now a toxic waste dump... When the authorities are done cleaning up the Portland homeless camps, could you send them my direction and ask them to clean up ours? https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+cruz+homeless+camp&tbm=isch If not, would you mind if we ship our homeless to Portland now that you have some empty space for them? Jeff, you need to put your considerable intellect to solving the homeless problem. Buying them bus passes to Cameron Park has proved to be too expensive. I'm at wits' end. -- Jay Beattie. A solution was tried in Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) back in 1790: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_73/July_1908/Count_Rumford He had the army arrest all the indigents, beggars, street people, homeless, bums, etc and put them to work in his House of Industry. Not only were the streets cleared, but he made a tidy profit on whatever they produced. I suppose we could try that again. Long ago, when I still lived in Smog Angeles, someone suggested that it might be useful to have those on welfare actually do some useful work. So, they were stationed at the on ramps to the major freeways where they reduced the number of cars that could enter the freeway in order to improve traffic flow. I don't recall why the program wasn't continued, but I do know that the traffic control experiment was successful and was eventually implemented with the addition of traffic metering signals at the freeway on ramps. I've always thought that something simple like sweaping the city streets might work. You want money? Be there at 05:30 with your broom and at 13:30 you get paid. |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 07:59:49 -0700, sms
wrote: On 7/26/2018 8:16 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:11:59 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:18:35 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: That is one of my commute routes, which is now a toxic waste dump... When the authorities are done cleaning up the Portland homeless camps, could you send them my direction and ask them to clean up ours? https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+cruz+homeless+camp&tbm=isch If not, would you mind if we ship our homeless to Portland now that you have some empty space for them? Where are all these homeless, that I read about here, coming from? I read one news article that alleged that the homeless in the Bay Area were the results of extremely high rental rates in the area but how did rental rates get that way? After all rental rates follow the same economic laws as any other financial activity. You can only have high prices where there people to pay them :-) Where did all these high rent payers come from? Are a lot of people immigrating from S. California? Industries going bust? Only in the Bay Area? Where are these improvised people coming from? Some of the homeless are due to the high cost of housing, but many, in San Francisco, are due to a) the loss of SRO (single room occupancy) hotels that were in now-gentrified neighborhoods, b) Ronald Reagan https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homele ss_mental_illness/, and c) rent control, which has caused many older properties, that were affordable, to be converted to TIC (Tenants In Common) for-sale housing, with the previous tenants being evicted, so there is less rental housing available. The rental prices reflect increased demand from so many tech companies with highly-paid employees. San Francisco added eight times as many jobs as housing units in recent years. Cities like commercial office space which generates more income and costs less in government services than housing. San Francisco has also become a bedroom community for many employees of Silicon Valley companies, with free bus transportation provided by Facebook, Google, Apple, etc., and since they work on the bus, the commute time is part of their workday. They willingly commute an hour or more each way, each day, because they want to live in a more exciting place, even though it's usually much more expensive per square foot than housing closer to their jobs. There is a lot of animosity, by those displaced, to the tech buses https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/05/31/protesters-block-google-buses-scooters-fight-techsploitation/661076002/. Since there's not much money in retaining lower cost housing, or in building new affordable housing, new for-profit housing is all luxury, with very high rents, except for a small portion of mandated BMR (below market rate) housing with strict qualifications. The BMR housing is not free, and most of the homeless could either not afford it, or make too much to qualify (if you include the "homeless" living in RVs parked along roads that have decentjobs but just don't want to spend so much on rent). Contrary to popular belief, it's actually much more costly, per unit, to build a high-rise than a low rise, so the only way to make it financially feasible is to make the housing all high-end. There are some people, some well intentioned, some not, that come to government meetings and recite a list of talking points provided to them. Some genuinely believe what they are saying, others recite them for more nefarious reasons. They must believe that the law of supply and demand is an actual state law, though they never mention the demand side. Interesting. So, essentially it is economics in action with those willing to pay high rentals nosing out those who don't care to, or can't pay. |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 13:34:18 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote: Interesting. So, essentially it is economics in action with those willing to pay high rentals nosing out those who don't care to, or can't pay. Yep. That's the definition of inflation, where the price of scarce goods increase in a bidding war fueled by high demand and too much money (or credit). Fairly basic stuff, except that the media has discouraged the use of the words inflation, recession, depression, cost of living, price increase, and other terms suggesting that there may be a problem. In the US news since 2004: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=16&date=all&geo=US&q=inflation https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=16&date=all&geo=US&q=recession https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=16&date=all&geo=US&q=depression https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=16&date=all&geo=US&q=cost+of+living As inflation causes prices to increase over the years, mention of price increases in the news decreases. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=16&date=all&geo=US&q=price+increase -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote: Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let things deteriorate that far. Hmm. Lawn order is the solution? During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself. It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted. Probably another OD case. If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious. More likely this person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or bipolar disorder. Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me. But of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit under half have a serious and persistent mental illness. How'd that happen? A big contributor was the Reagan Administration which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer taxes. The theory was that there would be community menal heath centers created to care for those folks, but those were basically not funded so they don't exist to the degree necessary to address the problem. The result was a gigantic influx of mentally ill people onto America's street corners. Had the community end of the plan been effectively organized, the problems would have still been bad but less bad. Unless people can be adjudicated a danger to self or others by a judge based on evidence, there is no way to force these folks to have treatment to control their mental illness- any more than a cancer patient can be forced to have chemotherapy and surgery. Individual rights pertain to them as well as everyone else. Unfortunately their mental illnesses result in poor insight, judgment, reasoning and decision making. On top of that, there are simply not enough mental health providers and that is a situation that is worsening. Some 60% of psychiatrists are pushing 65, there is already a significant shortage of them and we are not training nearly enough new psychiatrists to replace them. My clinic has five providers over 80 who are still working because they enjoy it but also because they feel an ethical obligation to continue to help. We have 20-some providers over 70 for the same reasons. More than half of our providers are over 50. The situation is the same in mental health clinics across the country. From 1995-2014, the number of physicians in the US increased by 45%. The number of psychiatrists increased by 12%. The population of the country rose 35%. Considering the known prevalences of various mental illness in the population, the number of people with those illness increased greatly. A fair number of those people will be met by the rest of us on street corners, acting odd and panhandling and makiung us uncomfortable. Our typical reaction is, as noted in this thread, disgust and resentment. On a longhaul bike path something almost miraculous happened today. A homelesss guy on a bike came from the other direction, big plastic bag on top of his handlebar. On such lonely stretches of pavement I usually greet other riders. Homeless hardly ever react but this guy enthusiastically wished me a good day. Couldn't believe it. There is hope for this guy. So the key to success in life is "be nice to Joerg." Good to know. |
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My Bike Path in the News
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:11:59 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote: On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:18:35 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie wrote: That is one of my commute routes, which is now a toxic waste dump... When the authorities are done cleaning up the Portland homeless camps, could you send them my direction and ask them to clean up ours? https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+cruz+homeless+camp&tbm=isch If not, would you mind if we ship our homeless to Portland now that you have some empty space for them? Well, where to you expect the homeless to go? Unless you are advocating euthanasia, they will continue to exist. I suspect most of us would be satisfied if they just went somewhere else. Then they won't be such an inconsiderate inconvenience to us. According to the VA, about 130,000-200,000 US veterans are homeless on any given day and about 400,000 will experience homelessness at some point in any given year. About 40% of homeless men are veterans (compared to about 34% of the male population being veterans) and overall veterans make up 20-25% of the homeless population. Nearly half of homeless vets are Vietnam era veterans. 3/4 of homeless vets have mental and/or chemical health problems. That's America- serve your country, put your life on the life for freedom and then get kicked to the curb. If you become a person who needs help from the government, some helpful politician like Jason Lewis will be pleased to point out that you are a "parasite." Not a human being any more, just a parasite. |
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