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Power and Free Broadband To the People
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes Slashdot member and open source developer Ben Kallos @KallosEsq — who is now a NYC Councilman — is pushing to make it a precondition to Comcast's merging with Time Warner that it agree to provide free broadband to all public housing residents in the City (and by free I mean free as in beer). Kallos, along with NY's Public Advocate, Letitia James, is leading a group of state and local politicians calling on Comcast to help bridge the digital divide in NY.
Just look at the loving way in which the residents of "free" public housing maintain their residences out of gratitude to the all-caring government.
Truly, public housing solved poverty to exactly the same degree that free broadband will "solve" the digital divide. I'm sure that the upstanding U.S. citizens who live in public housing will take it upon themselves to learn how to code and contribute Open Source software to the world in complete gratitude for this benevolent entitlement.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
While I certainly think that "the poor" should get cheap Internet access, I think that everyone should. This is simply a political move, "think of the poor" instead of, "think of the children".
How about, Mr. Councilman, that you work to make it affordable to *everyone* and not just those you'll gain political points in supporting?
Is it just me or does this not look good from any angle? On one hand you have duopolies becoming a monopoly, on the other hand, the city is demanding free shit from said monopoly. Will that city look the other way when the monopoly abuses its position?
Looks like crooks pressuring other crooks, with the rest of us footing the bill.
Merger is anti-market, anti-competitive and will result in shittier and more expensive internet for everyone. Also, there is no such thing as free, costs will be passed to existing paying customers, again making it more expensive.
Here is a solution: don't allow Comcast to merge with Time Warner! Who cares about "free" broadband? That would cost them maybe a $1 million and the rest of us about $20 billion in increased fees to support the TWC/Comcast monopoly. Ben has a small mind.
Yet again my college degrees have done very little for me, but at least I can now subsidize internet services for others. Remember how we are all supposed to be equal? I know I am not special, so why cant others be expected to pay their own way too. We are all worth the same are we not? Or is the dirty little secret that some groups truly are incapable of taking care of themselves?
Ben wants to allow evil to multiply just so public housing residents get free internet? I think he is due at least 40 silver coins.
You don't help the poor by giving them more free handouts. All that will occur is the middle class will pay for it through price hikes and something similiar.
Time and again, history has shown a healthy middle class is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale. Well guess what? It's the middleclass that has to pay for entitlements by and large (especially through fica taxes), taxing them more after decades of no real wage increases (since the 70s iirc) will have the opposite effect.
The best road would be to block the merger, encourage legislatively more competition, prices will drop, and it will help everyone (except Comcast and Warner of course).
Wouldn't it be nice if they can all have free housing, a free car, free gas, and how about free food and clothing?
They'll burn in Comcast hell for it.
I hope they qualify what "free" & "broadband" mean. That could mean ad-supported, capped at 40 hours, and dialup speeds. In fact, why don't we just hand out AOL trial disks every month like food stamps and call the problem solved?
I am there, ghetto or no ghetto!
...it will be a single 1 Mb/s connection shared by all of them. As a result, more of them will spend the ten to fifteen bucks for a dialup subscription.
There is only a work divide and intelligence divide. If you work then you will make enough money to afford an internet connection for yourself. If you can't afford to have children on your current salary then you should not have them. Be smart, look at your income, calculate if you can afford to have children or not. Personal responsibility is the key to maintaining financial stability for most individuals. If you can't afford children then please be responsible and do not have them, especially multiple children. Don't spend your life in Section 8 housing.
The people who cannot afford an internet connection are the ones who waste money on worthless items. Or even worse decide to have multiple children without a two-parent home with stable income. It costs a lot of money to raise children. Having children is not a right but an earned responsibility. Yes there are some people who lose their jobs and need help. But that help is temporary. The welfare state in this country stresses permanence on the system. Dependence on welfare as if it is a lifestyle choice. Free housing, free food, free internet. Have children and raise them for free. But hey you can even bankrupt a Fortune 500 company and get a bailout in the U.S. so even the rich are doing it at this point. Being irresponsible and raping the taxpayers for a bailout.
Obviously companies like TWC and Comcast are primarily interested in obtaining geographic monopolies for their internet and cable television businesses. So they'll go along with whatever FCC/Government extortion allows them to monopolize an area. But my tax money already pays for an extraordinary level of welfare. Bailing out banks and Fortune 500 companies, throwing money into the military, prison, or drug war industrial complex, or subsidizing the millions in this country that have excess children and don't work a day in their lives. Now the government wants private companies to overcharge private customers to subsidize free internet browsing? They can't go to the library or local public school? They can't stop having kids on the taxpayers' dimes so let's give them more free stuff? Enough already.
If I'm paying for their housing, clothes, food, and now internet, I want a complete say in how those kids are raised. No taxation without representation, right? I want any kids in Section 8 housing to have drug free parents, sterilized parents if they aren't working, Ad-block on all browsers, filters on any websites that aren't educational, and the right to take my tax money back should they refuse any of my requests. After all I'm paying more for these kids than their irresponsible parents are.
...why do I have the sneaky sensation that Google will be the future provider of "free" internet to everyone in the world? Connecting our lives...
Knowledge is indeed power. But who controls Google?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
If these people are living in poverty, how are they going to have a computer to access the internet with?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Not only that, but you've got all these poor people and you're giving them Comcast?? Talk about kicking a guy when he's down!
The problem is in the US working poor didnt qualify for free housing so basically what happened is you concentrated utter poverty in a small area.
Combine that with inadequate security, poor maintenance and shoddy construction you have a recipe for disaster. So right now
working poor pay well over 30% of their salary for rent. What would they do if they didnt have the heavy rent loads? They would spend it on consumer goods like washers and dryers and cars and perhaps even save for the down payment for a house. So an argument could be made that public housing might
in the long run stabilize home prices and improve the economy.
In Europe mainstream families live in public housing so public housing doesnt have the stigma that it has in the US so economic activity is maintained
near public housing in europe because you have working families who spend money not just welfare recipients. Also because working families
vote political interests have a vested interest in maintaining the quality of public housing.
There's no way Comcast (or any cable company) will ever agree to that. The fact is that cable companies make most of their money off of large apartment buildings. That's where they get access to oodles of customers without having to lay hardly any cable at all. Rich neighborhoods, oddly enough, with their spread out property, tend to cost cable companies more money to service than they pay in.
This might help NY City but what about the rest of the same State facing twice the cost already with a maximium of 30Mb downstream (around $180/month) for business connections and 5Mb downstream (around $65/month) fot residential connections?
If this is what counts as solving a political problem, why not just print out trillions in dollars and make everybody a billionaire and then ignore the following economic fallout.
Comcast already provides free or extremely discounted internet to people on foodstamps or any other government program .. you just show them you are on a program and you get the discount..
I am all for people bettering themselves however you know this stuff is going to be used for porn and online gaming..
I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity for over 10 years it finally got to the point i quit because I was seeing things like a kid 22 years old in Wilmington delaware being given a home because he lived in a home with 11 kids... he wasn't taking half the kids with him ... it didn't go to his mom .. the home went to him .. and he was 22 and at that time I was unemployed as a tech worker for about 3 months... Another thing that caused me to quit was when a white man and his son were burnt out of their mobile home by drug addicts I went to the local affiliate with a FREE Mobile home i found on craigslist it was in good condition and we could have put it in place for about $500 towing fee and a disposal fee .. each of which the habitat affiliate could have got waived if they officially got involved and allowed the towing and disposal company to donate the services... the guy told me WE DON'T DO THAT... I then realized that with the exception of 2 latino families and one pakistani family the more than 100 people i put in homes over the years were all black... not one white family.. I then was taken back and did a search of all the people all the affiliates I had volunteered for in PA NJ DE MD and in their history only one white male who was married to a black female who had mixed children were helped.. maybe in other areas.. but I find it difficult to believe because I volunteered in big cities, smaller and rural areas.. only one white guy and he was married to a black woman.....
LOOK I HAVE NO PROBLEM HELPING THOSE PEOPLE IN NEED ...
I do have a problem when it seems like it is a way of life for some people...
I live in a development with homes ranging from 250k to 800k the mixture of people's racial backgrounds is just about the same as the national average.. maybe even more black people.. I have no problems because these people work for their money.. at least other than the $20,000 minority down payments that the state of delaware gave out...
I don't have any more money to give out.. Times are tough .. my taxes are going up.. I am now mandated to buy more expensive healthcare i can not afford .. I worked in the tech industry for over 25 years and lost a large chunk of my money due to the implosion that happened 14 days after president obama won his first presidential election..
I care for sick family members and my own health is failing...
There are times in my life I should have taken foodstamps and wealfare and unemployment.. I NEVER HAVE and hopefully never will
There is now a mindset that people are owed something... well who are you owed it from..
ARE YOU OWED IT FROM ME? ... BECAUSE I HAVE PAID TAXES AND NEVER HAD A REFUND SINCE I WAS 18 YEARS OLD.. I NEVER TOOK FROM MY NEIGHBOR TO BETTER MYSELF I JUST WORKED HARDER.. AND WHEN I COULDNT FIND WORK I DONATED TIME TO CHARITY... TO KEEP MYSELF ACTIVE..
I AM SICK OF IT... I DON'T OWE YOU A FREE OBAMA PHONE.. OR FREE INTERNET.. OR DOWN PAYMENTS ON YOUR HOME ... OR A FREE HOME.. .OR ANYTHING....
IT IS SICKENING...
THESE PEOPLE ARE SCUM..
AND its not just black people but its a huge proportion of the black community.. and yes more whites get welfare but as a proportion its no where near the same.. and even so screw those white scumbags too if they arent trying to do their best....
I worked 5 days a week from the age of 14 until 11 pm and went to a technical high school for chemistry ...
I didn't get discounts on lunch I WORKED..
I had my own car that i paid for by
McDonald's can only hire so many people, especially for high density areas.
Self-employed people have no problem with the fact that their employee may not have a college degree. They didn't wait around for someone to hand them a job.
No one said it was easy, and you're spot on with your last statement: many of the people in question are not driven, intelligent or motivated.
If you have no drive or motivation (aren't those the same thing?), even if you are intelligent, you will almost certainly fail. Why should the rest of us bend over backward to compensate for the shortcomings of unmotivated people with no drive to better themselves? Why should we be expected to provide them with a (lower)middle-class lifestyle at our expense?
Seems like every person in line in front of me at the grocery store using foodstamps has two or three kids with them and every one of them has an iPhone, usually two generations newer than my own.
While I cheer on enthusiastically to anyone challenging Comcast, make sure you get the details in place before trusting them to interpret said details. The devil is inside ;)
"solving" those sorts of problems.
Before declaring the "War on Poverty" LBJ was warned that if "something isn't done" the poverty rate would skyrocket . After the trillions of dollars and years spent fighting the war of poverty, what's the poverty rate, 15.something percent? Before the war on poverty the rate had dropped dropped over 32% in 1950 to below 20%.
The poverty rate is pretty much flat for the last 45 years. Can we at least consider to prospect that what we've been doing, at close to $1T per year nowadays, is simply not working? Can we at least consider alternatives? Or are we destined to forever throw good money after bad--pouring money into a system that simply does nothing to actually "solve" the poverty problem.
Two things get you and keep you out of poverty:
1. Not having kids that you cannot afford (*)
2. An unquenchable drive to improve oneself: education, trade skills, getting that first or next job, getting that first or next promotion or pay raise, entrepreneurship...the basic theme of every rags-to-riches story
(*) A single person working full-time (40 hours/wk for 50 weeks) and earning minimum wage is not, by Federal standards, living in poverty. In fact, they are at about 125% of the poverty line. Add a kid, and bam, both parent and child are living in poverty. Two minimum wage earners, OTOH, could support themselves and up to 3 children without being below the poverty line.
...
1. This makes it harder for anyone to compete with the likes of the cable monopolies because to provide and compete they'll have to first give away their products and services to people for free simply for the privilege of being able to sell them to anyone else. This effectively makes it impossible for anyone to compete with the cable monopolies. And in exchange for protecting and expanding their monopolies the price for them is cheap. The cost of course is paid by everyone.
2. This sort of thing is ultimately vote buying. We've been seeing this sort of thing go on for years. You want to win the election? Use public money or take money/resources/rights from one group of people that doesn't like you and give it to another group that is for sale. Instant win in the election every time. It is a perversion of democracy. Only those that pay should be able to vote on matters that are being funded.
No taxation without representation... remember? Well... why do you get representation without taxation? It is the same thing. Pay like everyone else or you have no right to influence what gets spent on whom.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Depends on how old your house is and the requirements of the remodel. Was it an in-place remodel, or did they tear down the projects and rebuild them? It's fairly easy to get up in costs these days due to the need for better safety (especially for fire) and other requirements. Was each apartment handicap-accessible now, for example? That'll cost you.
Your house may be really cheap compared to them, but if your house was built now in the same exact way, it'd be illegal to sell to you because it would not meet code.
The poor will always be with us. Because Jesus said so.
I believe everyone should have access to the Internet. The value and education Internet access can bring is as important accessibility laws enabling those with special needs.
However, if your low income population lacks reading skills, they may just use it for entertainment (a digital pacifier). Throttling internet also makes for a have and have not society. As there are good educational videos out there. No easy answer, but these big companies have been given public money or tax breaks over years, so let's get something worthwhile back to help foster our younger a risk generations.
What about the rest of the country? This is benefiting one group of people in a particular city and screwing the rest of the United States.
Horrible suggestion.
Addiction isn't a "problem" it's a choice of a weak willed individual, as is laziness, refusal to work because you're "too good" to do the dishes, wait on tables, pick up garbage, whatever.
On welfare? Should be chemically neutered until you've gotten a job and are giving back to the society that held you up while you were down and out.
It happens all over, it's not a black or white issue, it's not a race issue, it's a "i'm too fucking lazy" issue. Get off your asses, get a job, even if it's being a daycare provider someplace for someone else who got the job you wanted.
Welfare should be temporary, and as you work, for every dollar you earn "after taxes", take away 50 cents of welfare, when you reach another level, remove 75 cents for every dollar earned, when you're above a certain level, welfare ends. You'll improve your life and the lives of your family if you're working and not sitting around talkin on your 500.00 cell phone bitchin' about how little you can get with your food stamps and government surplus cheese.
People want to get something for nothing, and right now, welfare's that free handout for doing no work. Taking care of those kids is a responsibility, not a job, you don't get to sit home day after day because you can't keep your legs together.
Sure... Will just be Dial up speed (if not worst).
What about me? I've been getting fucked by comcast for nearly 3 decades...
Wheres my free shit?
And just public housing. Just make comcast give free internet to anyone on any form of government assistance. At speeds that must be equal to or greater than the median speed of their paying customers.
There's nothing wrong with trying to be more independent, should you so choose. But honestly, people are fairly free to live that "pre Industrial Revolution" lifestyle right now. Join an Amish community!
In reality though, most people I know don't WANT that lifestyle, because we've traded a lot of self-sufficiency off in exchange for having an easier life, and one where we're able to focus on specialties of interest. That's done by embracing INTERdependence.
For example, my primary skill and interest is with computers and I.T. If I wanted to be a lot more independent, I'd get stuck spending many hours on tasks like farming and food preparation, that I'm not at all interested in doing. Sure, if I *had* to do it, I probably could... but I think our society is pretty well established in such a way where I'm not forced to do so. To me, that's progress... not some inherently bad thing.
Now, if we're talking about people who can't seem to find or keep a job that pays enough for them to survive? Then sure.... we're now talking about folks who might really benefit from investing time and energy in such things as planting their own vegetable gardens. (It beats being stuck unemployed and having nothing constructive to do.)
As far as the whole "going off-grid" thing is concerned though? Right now, I don't know that it makes sense in many cases. I say that as someone who just invested in a solar panel installation for my home, too. The fact is ... this "investment" is only financially sensible if you take a very long term view. Up front, I'm forking out upwards of $30,000 for a system that will only produce 65% or so of our energy needs -- and the math REALLY starts making it look like an unwise expenditure if you don't factor in the $10,000 tax credit I get back for it, plus another state credit of a couple thousand bucks.
The people who do those solar leases with low or no money down are in even worse situations, because they're #1, not recouping the tax credits and #2, are locked into contracts they can't get out of if they decide to move and resell their homes. (They have to convince the new home buyer to assume the lease, which they can't even do unless their credit score is high enough to allow it ... and may not WANT to do, vs. just signing up for a brand new contract and getting the latest and greatest panel tech. installed as part of the new deal.)
Ultimately, I'm betting on electricity prices going up enough that when I project things out 15 or 20 years from today, the power my panels generate for me will theoretically be worth a lot more than it is right now. But who can say if the power companies will continue buying back excess power you generate over what you use? If they stop doing that, or start paying only pennies on the dollar for it -- this could quickly turn into a real loser of a deal too. (Don't forget, your panels generate NOTHING when the sun goes down ... so you want to get repaid for extra power made during the middle of the day, to offset what you use at night.)
The only part of your statement I disagree with is the use of the term "helping the needy", because these programs are never to help the needy. If they do help the needy, it's usually an unwanted side effect that receives no maintenance or scrutiny. There is always a new bureaucratic position to be created for the explicit purpose of consuming those funds.
Anyone doubting this just needs to look at the "Obama Phone" program, where tax payers are getting shafted, just so people vote for a particular party. Americans are paying hundreds of millions in extra "fees" each year as tax on their services (close to 3.00/month report I read). I have no issue with giving 1 emergency phone to someone in need, but there are 2 huge problems with the current program. 1) No accountability so people are being found with dozen(s) of phones, and 2) The phones and services being handed out don't match up to the funds being taken in as a "Tax".
Oh, and there was a report in the last couple weeks that people with phones are still paying the tax, and people are still being found with dozens of phones from the program.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Public housing resulted from economic disparity and poverty, not building standards. It was a cheaper and safer option to make new "cheap" buildings that are tenant controlled than hand out checks every month which may not have gone to rent anyway. Wealth disparity and poverty causes riots and has caused governments to be toppled. A lack of affordable housing is a side effect of poverty, not a stand alone condition (with the rare exception of temporary housing loss due to a natural disaster, which in reality loops back to poverty).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
He used to be able to hire more, but he got sued.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
They're doing the best they can. You have no ever-loving idea what happened with the projects. You just read the nonsense spouted by the right wing press and never take another glance.
/. these days...
The projects brought a whole bunch of really, really poor rural people into the cities to try and better their lives. Then the political winds changed and the funding for the social programs that would have supported them got cut. Suddenly they were stuck in a city with no jobs, no education, and no hope for getting either of them. Meanwhile manufacturing was being outsourced to China just as fast as it could be. Basically, we dumped a bunch of people into a ready made slum and called it a day.
Jesus, the stuff that can up-modded on
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Free cable tv, free phones, free cab service and metro cards. In fact free everything everywhere for everyone at all times forever.
My rates are high enough as it is I don't want to have to pay the cost for public housing residents too. I'm sorry but nothing is free and the cost will be covered by increased rates for the rest of us I guarantee it.
if people in public housing want access to the internet they can pay for it or go to the library. Not only that but I have seen plenty of homeless with smart phones so if they want internet that bad they can get it.
A Department of Energy Survey [www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/#undefined], includes a part of which breaks down appliance use in US homes by household Income.
For example it states that 16.9M households are below the poverty line, and of those 15.6M have microwaves, 8.6M have coffee makers, 10.6M have top-door (top freezer) refrigerators, 1.8M have a 2nd refrigerator, 3,9M have a separate freezer, 4.8M have a dishwasher, 10.9M have a clothes washer in their home.
For TVs, of the 16.9M households below the poverty line, only 0.3M had no TV, while 4.8M had one TV, 5.9M had two TVs, 3.5M had three TVs, 1.6M had four TVs, and 0.7M had five or more TVs. Some 8.9M had TVs between 21 and 36 inches in screen size, and 4.4M had “big screen TVs” of 37 inches or more, with 5.7M being LCD or plasma TVs. Some 6.1M had cable TV boxes connected to their primary TV, and 3.9M had a video game console, and 7.1M had a DVD player.
In addition 5.8M of the 16.9M households below the poverty line had computers, while 1.8M more had two computers (and nearly1M had three or more). Some 7.2M had internet access, of those 2.7M had cable broadband, 3.1 had DSL or fiber. And 5.2M had at least one printer.
8.0M (of 16.9M poverty-level) households have cordless phones, 5.2M have answering machines, 0.8M have fax machines, and 0.8M have photocopiers. 5.8M have stereo equipment.
"Living in poverty": in the US is hardly the same as being destitute. Considering how prevalent the trappings of modern-day middle-class lifestyles are in the households living below the poverty line, one may find themselves wondering "Wait, they have a big-screen TV with cable, but I've gotta fork over taxes to give them foodstamps that they can spend at McDonalds?"
In my mind the notion that I am being forced to pay welfare benefits even one household that chooses to squander their real income on Playstations and big screen TVs is too many. If they can afford to buy a TV, they can afford to buy their own food. If they’ve got a big TV from before they were poor (they lost a job perhaps), then sell the TV first to buy food, then when you’ve truly got nothing left, we can talk about your “needs”.
So we should be paying benefits so that more people can have a dishwasher, cordless phone, and computer? Progressives seem to support the notion that everyone should be able to live a lower middle-class lifestyle, one that includes all those things, and that our welfare state should provide it without question of other lifestyle choices that may have been made, without requiring work on their part.
No one needs a dishwasher. It is a luxury, work-saving device. No one needs a TV. It is an entertainment device. No one needs a Playstation, it is a game. No one needs a tattoo. It is a personal choice. No one needs Big Macs, Coke, beer, booze, or cigarettes. If you're on welfare and spend money on those things, you can afford to meet your basic needs, but are choosing not to and expecting others to subsidize your decisions.
My definition of “need” vs "want" comes in much lower than progressive find tolerable, and includes minimal support–I don’t want anyone to starve in this country, and want to provide a helping hand. But if you want more than the most basic subsistence level of support, get it yourself. And I mean *basic*, like here's you sack of rice and beans. Of course, though, people who simply lack the basic mental or physical ability to support themselves cannot be excluded from a reasonable level of support.
I guess the question for progressives boils down to "How rich do you want the poor people in this country to be?" The onus should be on them,since they want to forcibly take money from me and others to redistribute it to those they feel do not have enough. They never have defined “enough” but the level of expectation on the word “need” seems much higher than mine.
Its a way of buying (bribing) volts to win an election, promise free stuff...I love how our political system has developed into this.
The population of people born with all those advantages but who still end up on the dole is pretty damn large. What's the difference between them and their whitebread suburban brats who *don't*?
And we've seen plenty of the inverse (or is it the contrapositive?) of "put one of those pampered, designer-coiffed, $400 shoe-wearing wall street masters of the universe who GOT AWAY with wrecking the economy so they could have those stupid $400 shoes, in the same starting place as virtually any poor person, and they will turn to shit, too..." Lots of stories of poor people winning the lottery and being broke again in a few years.
Certainly there is a difference in starting position for everyone. Paris Hilton exists, and it sucks ass that someone like her gets everything. But there are many many people who have succeeded on their own. Not everyone succeeds like Oprah, either, but Oprah's story is certainly compelling.
What, pray tell, has 50 years of the war on poverty and all its social welfare programs costing $22T and counting (and adding about $1T annually now) done to *actually* change the life of the inner-city urban poor, the rural poor, the homeless drunks and addicts? Maybe you're right, and we just need to keep spending that money to placate the masses. If that's the case, though, can we do it more efficiently? Can we do anything about women like this "I got 15 kids & 3 baby daddy's" ... "Someone's gotta pay for me and my kids"?
"The staffing company ManpowerGroup, for instance, reports that 52% of U.S. employers surveyed say they have difficulty filling positions because of talent..."
What a coincidence! I have trouble filling my garage because I'm having trouble finding Lamborghinis. It couldn't have ANYTHING to do with the fact that I'm only willing to offer $20,000 for each car.
If you're having trouble filling positions, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY OFFERING A COMPETITIVE WAGE, instead of continuing to leave them flat.
Still waiting for THAT story to appear in the WSJ.
You get what you pay for. If people get paid to be poor, they will continue to be poor to continue to get paid.
The population of people born with all those advantages but who still end up on the dole is pretty damn large.
Sure. Being born with advantages doesn't mean you'll succeed, or have the drive to succeed even if it would have been relatively easy for you.
But that really has no bearing on the fact that once your at the bottom, it is that many times harder to get out.
More importantly, its a generational cycle -- if you remove the supports the children of those at the bottom will have virtually no upward mobility either.
We want class mobility to have a healthy society.
What, pray tell, has 50 years of the war on poverty and all its social welfare programs costing $22T and counting (and adding about $1T annually now) done to *actually* change the life of the inner-city urban poor, the rural poor, the homeless drunks and addicts?
Take a look at the poor in an actual 3rd world country. Consider the relative standards of life. Consider the relative class mobility. Then tell me our "poor" aren't doing a LOT better than they are. A good reason why is precisely because the support we provide, small as it is, is enough to give those with drive the opportunity to succeed.
Lots of stories of poor people winning the lottery and being broke again in a few years.
Managing money is a skill itself. Putting a lot of water in a leaking bucket isn't going to fix the bucket.
But there are many many people who have succeeded on their own.
Sure there are. But we aren't all Oprah.
Can we do anything about women like this "I got 15 kids & 3 baby daddy's"
The Idiocracy phenomena, right? :)
I agree with you, I'd like to see that fixed. I'm not sure what the solution is... but a good start of it would be free birth control. Obamacare got that RIGHT, but its not good enough yet. Free birth control should be universally available. It won't eliminate the problem entirely but its a huge step. And I'm not talking just free condoms... I'm talking the pill, IUDs, for women, RISUG type tech for men, no co-pays, no exceptions for the church.
As a society we should be making that available to everyone. I'm not going to force men and women not to have children -- the slippery slope once you start deciding who can and who can't have kids is just too great. But unwanted pregnancy should be eliminated from the first world.
the homeless drunks and addicts?
That's another difficult problem. But more those people are more than just poor ... they're 'broken'. Its not merely lack of education and money. They aren't Eddie Murphy from Trading Places... and just need the opportunity. You give them a job and they wouldn't show up. You give them a home and they'd shit in the bedroom and sell the lightbulbs. They're mentally handicapped, autistic, obsessive compulsive, and then toss alcohol and drugs on top of that. Then add in various further health issues, complications from their lifestyle, etc.
I don't know what the solution is, but blaming them for it is just silly.
Why? So they can stay home and not look for work even more?
If I didn't have to pay for Internet, I could just stay home and watch videos and play games all day. How could this be a bad idea?
So, let me get this straight: he's willing to let Comcast get even bigger - and almost certainly even worse as a service, much less as a company - and effectively cement Comcast's monopoly on cable internet service throughout much of the nation, as long as poor New Yorkers benefit? How is that even remotely ethical in any sense? For that matter why would people make the effort to educate themselves and gain useful new skills necessary to get better jobs when you just give them luxuries that would otherwise serve as an incentive for improvement and mobility?
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
"The Idiocracy phenomena, right? :)
No, real life. Search for that phrase an you'll find the news reports with video and everything.
"And I'm not talking just free condoms... I'm talking the pill, IUDs, for women, RISUG type tech for men, no co-pays, no exceptions for the church. As a society we should be making that available to everyone. I'm not going to force men and women not to have children -- the slippery slope once you start deciding who can and who can't have kids is just too great. But unwanted pregnancy should be eliminated from the first world."
Why involve employers, churches, etc. at all? That's where Obamacare went wrong. If that's what you want, then put together a government program that provides these directly. It is 100% a mistake to try to force employers and churches to be proxy social workers. I'm also not going to tell people not to have kids. But I would be pretty willing to tell people who come to me with their hand extended for benefits: "No more kids while on benefits. Birth control will be provided to you free of charge. If you have a kid while on benefits, you can chose to either put the kid up for adoption where it will be raised outside the cycle of poverty or leave the program." Draconian and unworkable maybe, but so was Swift's idea for dealing with children.
"the homeless drunks and addicts? I don't know what the solution is, but blaming them for it is just silly."
I don't blame them, but clearly what we're doing hasn't done jack to fix the problem either and it is naive to think if we just do more of the same (and I mean more $$$ thrown down the same programs) it will get better.
I really can't believe the level of RWNJ stupidity I've seen invade this thread.
Let me make a few statements for the empathy-challenged and brain-challenged few who think it's a bad thing to make broadband access available. These statements are obvious to most human beings in the world, and shouldn't need to be said, but there are clearly a few participants in this thread who missed school the day they gave out brains and the day they gave out hearts.
1. All men are created equal.
2. They are endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
3. Corporations aren't men, and they do not exist in nature.
4. There is nothing "natural" about a corporation.
5. Corporations are created by government statutes.
6. Governments are supposed to represent the people.
7. Governments, which created corporations, have an obligation to the people they represent to regulate and to limit those corporations they created, and to terminate them when and if they violate the law.
8. Antitrust laws are good, and Reagan and those who followed him did a bad thing by failing to enforce the antitrust laws.
9. Helping poor people get computer broadband access is a good thing, healthy for our economy.
Kudos to you for doing a solar panel installation. I've been thinking of my own, but feel that it is still too expensive. I think it is still "big dumb engineering", though I understand solar has gotten much better in recent years. A 30 year or longer payback period is just too long for me. There is so much that can happen in 30 years: technological improvements and price drops, and you may move or die, or your house may be destroyed by fire, tornado, earthquake, flood, or termites.
What I mean by big dumb engineering is exemplified by the double pane windows. Save up to 50% on your heating and cooling costs, they say. How much to replace all the windows and glass doors? Why, only $10,000! I spend about $700 per year on heating and cooling, so the windows only save me $350 per year at best, which makes for about a 30 year payback period right there. I very much doubt I'd see a 50% cut in my heating and cooling costs anyway. A better solution is to put curtains on all the windows. Way, way cheaper, and looks nice too.
Anyway, I've read the first use of solar should be for hot water. There too, I've had no luck. One business quoted me an incredible price tag of $17,000 for their solar water heating system. They quickly rolled out discounts and tax rebates and the like, and got it down to $6000. Nope, still too expensive. I replaced the tank water heater with another tank water heater for $350 (it's nearly the lowest quality available, warrantied for only 6 years), hoping to buy more time for solar water heating to come down in price.
I've gone for much more modest improvements. Replaced incandescent lights with CFLs, and now LEDs. The 4 ft fluorescent tube has been improved from 40 watts to 32 watts and the diameter shrunk a little, and I upgraded to 2 of those when an old ballast went bad. There was this 80plus program to improve the efficiency of computer power supplies. My newest computers are small footprint and low energy, using only 30 watts maximum, and I set them up to sleep after 10 to 15 minutes of inactivity. Tube monitors and TVs are all gone, replaced with flat screens. Most of all, I've let the temperature swing more with the seasons, living with 83F in the summer, and 70F in the winter. I'd go even colder, but the rest of the family whines too much. All that has cut energy use by about 50%. Was using around 10,000 kWh per year, and now I'm at 5200 kWh.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
No, real life.
Idiocracy IS real life.
Why involve employers, churches, etc. at all? That's where Obamacare went wrong.
I agree with you there... but it would NEVER have passed otherwise. Its a step forward from where we were, but its not a destination.
"No more kids while on benefits. Birth control will be provided to you free of charge. If you have a kid while on benefits, you can chose to either put the kid up for adoption where it will be raised outside the cycle of poverty or leave the program."
Meh. Just giving them the free birth control might be enough to make a big different, and doesn't open that can of worms. Confiscating children from unwilling parents so you can put them up for adoption is pretty unworkable.
, but so was Swift's idea for dealing with children.
Nobody took Swift's idea seriously either. We need solutions that are actually workable.
I don't blame them, but clearly what we're doing hasn't done jack to fix the problem either and it is naive to think if we just do more of the same (and I mean more $$$ thrown down the same programs) it will get better.
That the programs haven't fixed the problem is true. But to argue the programs have had no effect is something else entirely. Cut the programs and the homeless people don't go away, they just get more desperate and crime goes up and you pay for it that way. Yay, I get to keep $1000 more in taxes so I can pay $1500 more for policing and prisons.
And worse the police and prisons aren't a solution either. They don't fix the problem, and they would cost more than the programs you don't like.
So, I'm with you... things need improvement... but you are just handwaving that we should do something else / something better. But what? That's the hard question.
Cancelling the programs isn't a good option. It won't make things better, and won't even save any money in the big picture -- where if anything it will cost more.
30 year solar pay-off... It's actually more like 8 years, if up live in states like CA, CO, or WA that support photo-voltaic grid-tied systems with rebates from the local utilities in addition to the federal tax credits.
Not that the systems aren't without maintenance costs. And the utilities are starting to demand maintenance fees for all the added systems, even though they profit from the free additional power, so don't get carried away thinking you should overbuild, if you are so inclined. You can't actually profit no matter how much capacity how install.
But you can help the utilities stave off the need to add capacity, extend their ROI, and decentralize 'their' power production. That and increased home efficiency, especially as regards heating, and carbon reduction could be achieved... for everyone who can voluntarily afford to help.