A few examples of major political donors profiting from homeless shelters and services.
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American Economics Thread
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A few examples of major political donors profiting from homeless shelters and services.
Further evidence that American economic problem is in fact a political one. The country is obscenely rich. If the money is spent productively the country would be much more powerful. Key word being "productively" not just "spending". Political corruption hinders spending productivity.
In4ser
Junior Member
Yep. There's a reason why most artists start with a blank canvas or cooks use empty plates. Having too much existing complexity muddles the work wasting valuable time and energy. Even in nature, wildfires create growth or winters produce spring. From death comes rebirth instead of undeath zombification of trying to keep something alive that should be dead.
Let us bury the delusional dream of American re-industrializing:
Turns out every single subsidy was a lie, from the semis to the autos.
Turns out every single subsidy was a lie, from the semis to the autos.
US companies don't need any subsidies. The government just needs to make share buybacks illegal again.
I agree with you on your assessment about type A and B. However;
The case of A (regular people), stem from a chronically poor labour market. Deindustrialization in the United States has created a rising low wage market that has replaced good industrial jobs. In 2018 the richest 88% earned of all income.
Thus, half of Americans earn only 12% of the income. If you look at level of education between 25-30 years old (US, stats; 2018) you find that 93% of American hold a high school diploma, 47% a associate degree and 37% a college degree. Americans have more education than ever before but education (with some exception for key professional degrees) do not lead to professional jobs. What we see is a "College to McDonalds" trend. Even in the late 1960s data conclude that mass-education eventually would lead to a saturation of University educated skilled labor.
Until 1976 Americans could default on a student loan debt. It was treated as any other debt. A new bankruptcy law was introduced as to many applied for bankruptcy. Instead of abolishing student loans all together - student loans became more common with rising tutition fees. Many European countries have tutition free college. Still, Europeans cannot repay their debt (taken out for housing, books and living) as a college degree do not lead to a professional job but a low paid menial job requiring little or no education. Hence, in the United States and across Western countries workers income do not rise relation to the rising cost of living. To a large extent it´s driven by increased cost for housing. If your career is working McDonalds you are not going to be able to pay your rent.
Public Housing was introduced in early 1900 and than became more common from the 1930s throughout 1970s to solve house poor people. These "projects" turned into social dumping spot. Public housing have failed everywhere. Nordic countries introduced a better solution to public housing. You can apply for grant instead if you income is to low to pay your rent. Still, should government subsidize housing costs? Would it not be better to raise peoples income so they can afford housing?
Developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin-America need public housing together with infrastructure (roads, sewage, water treatment plants, stable energy and so on). Western countries need to create jobs with living wages. This is something the elites in the West do not want of course.
Regarding B. The rising number of people with mental illness and drug addiction can in part be explained by a growing number of normal people, that because of social conditions, fall into it. Unemployment and underunemployment tend to lead to an increased risk of physical and mental illnesses. Often people turn to drugs and alcohol. It also causes other social problems such as divorce. These social problems are later inherited by the children.
So what to do? Well, there a realistic and unrealistic solutions. Grants are no doubt better than public housing. However, there need to be political, ethnic, religious and social cohesion to solve these rising social issues in the West. There have to a high sociotal social capital, reciprocity and solidarity. Because "elites" has changed Western societies into multi-ethnic balkanized neo-liberal societies were the people are shattered with liberal individualism - it has become almost impossible to solve social ills like homelessness. As you point out. People, and in particular not in the Americans, do not care for it´s fellow man.
Have you seen the K-12 Curriculum? lol
Also, only 10-15% of blue collar workers have college degrees. So college degrees are perfectly fine for the most part. The issue is that there is no national policy that prioritizes STEM.
Realistically, the proper way to do this is to make STEM degrees subsidized if you can get into the major. That way, you'll get more STEM graduates per year. There is a major STEM shortage in United States which is a major issue.
STEM is not trivial though. Not everyone has the right brains for it and that includes a lot of very smart people. And the push towards STEM has backfired a bit in the sense that curriculum’s difficulty has been reduced. Back in the days my Alma Mater only graduated half of the students who enrolled in Engineering school. Nowadays doing that would incur outrage from their parents who won’t believe that their precious children can’t make it. As a result, job market is doing the elimination instead.
Most Americans students don't grasp mathematics outside of basic arithmetic. The sight of fractions in an exam make a lot of students shit themselves so good luck passing Calculus I since that's bare requirement for STEM majors. It really boils down to early exposure to real time application of mathematical concepts to minimize the "We won't need polynomials and derivatives at Wal-Mart" mentality.
However given America's increasing rate of childhood poverty I wouldn't be optimistic about the future. Poverty complicates low engagement in children's learning and your most adept people in math are teaching college level, in specific STEM careers, or their tutoring services are not affordable. Unless the the federal government makes a concerted effort to STEM training in poverty or
Funny story. When I was taking Calculus on Manifolds my class started with ~40 students. By the time midterms finished, the class size dropped to 20. Before finals, the class size was 10. 8 of the 10 were Chinese students and the last was a white girl. Honestly, I admire her tenacity.