this is how amerika is seen from the outside

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/11/07/world/social-issues-world/t...

SEATTLE – Housing prices are soaring here thanks to the tech industry, but the boom comes with a consequence: A surge in homelessness marked by 400 unauthorized tent camps in parks, under bridges, on freeway medians and along busy sidewalks. The liberal city is trying to figure out what to do.

“I’ve got economically zero unemployment in my city, and I’ve got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can’t afford housing,” said Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien. “There’s nowhere for these folks to move to.”

That struggle is not Seattle’s alone. A homeless crisis is rocking the entire West Coast, pushing abject poverty into the open like never before.

Here in Chitown supposedly another 80,000 are homeless, me thinks the
total nationwide are less than advertised.

But hey those elites need another tax break, another war, more power
more greed....the amerikan dream is now the amerikan nightmare.

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mimi's picture

Anyone, who lives with one leg on the streets and with the other leg clings to a roommate situation to make the rent, sees it.

Homelessness is not new on the West Coast. But interviews with local officials and those who serve the homeless in California, Oregon and Washington — coupled with an Associated Press review of preliminary homeless data — confirm it’s getting worse.

People who were once able to get by, even if they suffered a setback, are now pushed to the streets because housing has become so expensive. All it takes is a prolonged illness, a lost job, a broken limb, a family crisis. What was once a blip in fortunes now seems a life sentence.
— Official counts taken earlier this year in California, Oregon and Washington show 168,000 homeless people in the three states, according to an AP tally of every jurisdiction in those states that reports homeless numbers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That is 19,000 more than were counted in 2015, although the numbers may not be directly comparable because of factors ranging from the weather to new counting methods.

— During the same period, the number of unsheltered people in the three states climbed 18 percent to 105,000.

Rising rents are the main culprit. The median one-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area is more expensive than it is in the New York City metro area, for instance.

— Since 2015, at least 10 cities or municipal regions in California, Oregon and Washington have declared emergencies due to the rise of homelessness, a designation usually reserved for natural disasters.

The West Coast’s newly homeless are people who were able to survive on the margins — until those margins moved.

People are willing to see that situation apparently only, if they have intimate experience with such homeless situations among their own loved ones, friends or themselves. The media is not covering it, and the human character is to not want to see how cruel they are.

Thanks for writing this up.

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@mimi Many stories in hottest rental areas where owners and landlords evict economically margin people, make some minor repairs, and then charge high rents given that the demand outstrips the supply.

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ggersh's picture

by our 4th estate, so yes while it seen by those
that live it the story isn't told, as MAGA only
covers the military, and #resistance certainly
doesn't entertain any thoughts of telling the story.

I agree outta sight outta mind and thanks.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh in Chgo. and suburbs as well, I was born and raised on the south side of Chgo. although I now live in the burbs. and don't recall it being anywhere near as bad as its been in the last 10 yrs. I have been in the transportation industry since the 1980s so I travel regularly all over the Chicagoland area and I see the homeless and panhandlers just about everywhere now.

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ggersh's picture

@pro left but not a Sox hater, my wife works downtown
and see's many living on the streets, she helps
here and there, we aren't well off enough to do
any more, wish we were.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

riverlover's picture

vessels? A game? Unclear towing regs? Are we at fault?

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

ggersh's picture

@riverlover quite different than computer programmed
or video game run ships?

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Alligator Ed's picture

@ggersh still apparently doesn't have enough skilled pilots to drive them. Consider the McCain, Fitzgerald, Shiloh, Porter, Cole, Cook, and others unreported. Only the Cole was damaged while at anchor. The rest were damaged either by poor seamanship or EMP. As proof, the USN fired 7th Fleet Commander Aucoin for poor overall management of readiness and seamanship in the western pacific.

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Meteor Man's picture

From The People's Tribune:

First They Came For The Homeless:

It is our world, not just theirs. It’s about time people start learning that, because the elite are destroying our home.
* * * * *
We at the Poor Tour, a project of ‘First they came for the homeless’, have shown how this can be done: by taking care of each other and showing the rest of society how cooperation and mutual support can be done with very little. Everything could work this way if people had the power to do it on a social and world level. This is a short history of a project in the real world that illustrates the above words:

The Poor Tour started a year ago. A group of homeless were asked by city commissioners and social workers to bring attention to the lack of progress from the HUB (centralized homeless services). The homeless were not getting helped and the HUB budget was over a million dollars. So, we occupied, with our tent community, all over the City of Berkeley, including sites around City Hall. Over the next three months the homeless were raided and moved location 17 times, had multiple arrests, and suffered injury and hospitalizations at the hands of police. We did not quit.
In early January, the Poor Tour settled on a piece of property in South Berkeley. There it has remained. For nine months no police, no city harassment, and no real problems.

During those nine months the successes have been amazing. The Poor Tour is credited with the following: They saved a life and rescued a victim of a serial predator, they protected a senior with Alzheimer’s who had been missing for weeks, they reunited a runaway with her mother, they protected a victim of domestic violence, they protected a mentally disabled girl from sexual predators, and they have helped maintain an environment of stability that has helped over thirty people get themselves housed.

http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/2017/11/first-came-homeless-resistance...

More stories of homeless Americans on the offensive:

Homelessness has been seen in the streets of the United States for over 30 years, since the introduction of the microchip and automation into production replaced human labor and threw millions out of work forever, or into low-wage, part-time or contingent jobs that don’t put a roof over one’s head. We now have a society with astronomically high corporate profits on the one hand, and growing insecurity, misery, hunger and homelessness on the other. This is a shocking moral failure that could easily be solved by a political and economic system that takes care of people’s needs, instead of landlords’ and corporate profits.

The basic demands of the homeless for homes and for all they need to live safe and productive lives are a demand for a society that puts that as its absolute priority: a society that shares the abundance it creates and fulfills the basic needs of all.
When homeless people resist, the system trembles. That is because a system that has no use for human beings must be and will be abolished. It is time to replace it with a cooperative economy based on meeting the material, cultural, and spiritual needs of people, not the bottom line of corporations.

http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/2017/11/homeless-resist-system-trembles/

Legalize Sleep:

http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/2017/11/homeless-offensive-new-society/

The People's Tribune:

http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Daenerys's picture

@Meteor Man The only way humanity is going to survive is if we help each other out, no more of this 'everyone for themselves' insanity.

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This shit is bananas.

ggersh's picture

@Daenerys

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

ggersh's picture

@Meteor Man

During those nine months the successes have been amazing. The Poor Tour is credited with the following: They saved a life and rescued a victim of a serial predator, they protected a senior with Alzheimer’s who had been missing for weeks, they reunited a runaway with her mother, they protected a victim of domestic violence, they protected a mentally disabled girl from sexual predators, and they have helped maintain an environment of stability that has helped over thirty people get themselves housed.

It's amazing how ordinary people come together for the greater good
while the psychopaths, narcissistic sociopathic greedy assholes still
want more.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh already have, they too fight each other for more while others starve. The American Way.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

ggersh's picture

@lizzyh7 time flies and so does the path to destruction
this country is on.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

divineorder's picture

@Meteor Man

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Bollox Ref's picture

are to be removed, so as not to inconvenience the Super Bowel in 2018.

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-homeless-will-move-to-temporary-s...

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Deja's picture

@Bollox Ref
Nice word choice for a shitty situation.

Speaking of, Houston has posted a series of images, apparently taken by citizens of the homeless relieving themselves outside. Then they show the tents, and then they talk about how dirty it is, hepatitis outbreaks in other places, blah, blah, blah.

Then I yell at my teevee and ask why they don't put up some port-o-potties if they don't want to see them shitting next to a dumpster, or peeing in the grass? Where, pray tell, are they supposed to go? The businesses won't let them go inside.

Ugh! Makes me angry.

Oh, and the population has grown, exponentially, since hurricane Harvey wiped out thousands and thousands of homes. But, let's kick 'em while they're already down, and shame them for relieving themselves literally the only place they can.

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@Deja with indecent exposure.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Meteor Man's picture

@on the cusp

Much easier case to arrest and prosecute.
L.A. Municipal Code 41.18(d) makes it a crime to sit down or lay down in public. The L.A.P.D. has discretion to charge this as an infraction or misdemeanor:

The L.A. Municipal Code 41.18 (d) remains an easy way for police to criminalize homeless individuals and make their lives more difficult than they already are, resulting in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court to rule in their "Jones vs. City of L.A." case that this code violates the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment (No cruel and unusual punishment). Certain officers issue citations to people arbitrarily without providing ANY time for individuals to comply.

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/10/18741305.php

Commonly used for harassment. I have been arrested and "run through the loop" (fingerprinted, booked and released after 2-3 days after charges were dropped) for sitting down. Sherry, a 71 year old neighbor of mine was ticketed for sitting down in her wheelchair and had to make a personal appearance in court to get the ticket dismissed.

It's referred to as a "quality of life" issue because homeless encampments are an "eyesore" to people driving by. And why the L.A.P.D. needs over half of the entire L.A. city budget.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Deja's picture

@Meteor Man
I'm gobsmacked, though I guess I shouldn't be, which makes me sad.

Just got off the phone with my brother, and he said he was shocked that the city of Houston actually went in and cleaned the encampment, and didn't arrest anyone. Sylvester Turner is the mayor, and we seem to have a decent chief of police, and what seems to be a badass DA (she may prove to be a hardcore bitch, but seems pretty progressive so far). I'm glad they didn't arrest anyone. Now they need portable toilets and showers, and some plan to help them get permanent places to live.

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divineorder's picture

@Deja

This is from 2015

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Deja's picture

@on the cusp
At first I thought, how disgusting - probably drunks. Then they said these were homeless people, and I realized they have nowhere else to go.

See my comment to mm about my convo with my baby brother, also.

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Pricknick's picture

You didn't capitalize the first word of your subject as it's not important.
You highlighted the plight that many including myself and yours will soon see if not already experiencing.
Few words and excellent video support.
Thanks ggersh.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

ggersh's picture

@Pricknick will find shelter soon, as for society doing
what's necessary, I'm both hopeful and concerned
but keeping my fingers crossed for a better outcome
we can't let the assholes win.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Interesting podcast which I think bares on the question of homelessness and adequate living conditions.

https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-15-the-real-estate-page-as-co...

I am not on Twitter, but I do following Adam H. Johnson who is a writer for FAIR and just cuts through the media bullshit and memes in the elite and mass media.

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC

Twitter updates the title of the HTML page to show if new tweets have been made.

From what I can tell, poorer families are being pushed to the edges of urban boundaries as inner city areas become populated with expensive housing and developments.

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Read it and weep: QE, the largest transfer of wealth in history

This article may be mostly about the UK

It appears that the massive, almost decade-long transfer of wealth to the rich known as 'quantitative easing' is coming to an end.

Of the world’s four major central banks - the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan - two have already ended their policy of buying up financial assets (the Fed and the BoE), and the ECB plans to stop doing so in December. Indeed, the Fed is expected to start selling off the $3.5 trillion of assets it purchased during three rounds of QE within the next two months.

Given that - judged by its official aims - QE has been a total failure, this makes perfect sense. By 'injecting' money into the economy, QE was supposed to get banks lending again, boosting investment and driving up economic growth. But overall bank lending in fact fell following the introduction of QE in the UK, whilst lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) - responsible for 60 percent of employment - plummeted.

And then there is the "hero" Obama

Obama orchestrated a massive transfer of wealth to the 1 percent

He tried to get TPP and Social Security cut, but didn't pull it off. But he did succeed in trashing the dem party.

***

Thom Hartmann was just on. He pointed out that the Cong Bud Office said over and over that Obama's deficit was the result of W Bush tax cuts. But Republicans never acknowledged it. Nor did the dems fight like hell to get the message out.

Thom made the point that it this tax cut goes through, even if the dems win in 2018 and 2020, their hands might be tied.

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