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Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing?
First time accepted submitter nomad63 (686331) writes "Earlier this week, the NY Times reported that a group of city and leaders, with NYC public advocate Letitia James at the helm, are pushing for a commitment from Comcast to provide free broadband to the city's public housing and to extend its low-cost Internet Essentials plan (which was created as a condition of the NBC deal). While New York City might be the center of finance and commerce in the U.S., about 1/3 of households don't have an Internet connection, highlighting the huge "digital divide" between the city's wealthy residents and those who can't afford broadband service.In addition to the free service for public housing, the group wants gratis access at shelters for the city's homeless and its victims of domestic violence."
1, isn't this a dupe?
2, how about free internet access for all? it would be a genuinely useful thing for a local government to provide, and it would help them stay in touch with the citizenry. My net access still sucks, they're going to have a better connection than I am most likely
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NSA: We cannot spy on 33% of the people in NYC
And still misses the real issue here. If you want to narrow the "Digital Divide" stop granting monopolies to companies like Comcast. Once you have some real competition in the market there's no reason that people who need the internet won't be able to buy it for themselves.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
Is there any reason that internet in NYC should cost 4 times what it does in Zurich or Seoul, except and exploitative monopoly ? The U.S. has places were the population density will make any kind of communication service more expensive but NYC is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and is not one of them.
You can't even apply for a job at Burger King without an Internet connection these days.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
We need to really help these people out, just so they can get back on their feet...
So we give them an unemployment check... public housing... Sheesh.. these people don't seem motivated to get on their own even less than before. LETS GIVE THEM FREE INTERNET. Now what can possibly motivate them to even get out of bed?
Rock bottom is a college education.
Yeah that will help.... /sarc
That will so help the family who uses food stamps as a way to pay for food.
That will so help the family who friends and family encourage you to not bother with high school.
That will so help the family whos father is a crack head.
That will so help the family whos father is not around.
That will so help the family who domestic violence is a way of life.
That will so help the family whos children have to go thru metal detectors every day to go to school.
That will so help the family whos only hope of getting out of it is to have one of the kids hit the lottery ticket of the NBA/NFL.
That will so help the family who has the brother hooked on heroin who hawked the computer to pay for his habit.
Now that I have said that it might help some. But the real core issues is a lack of jobs and a tax system that encourages poor behaviors and discourages good behavior. We have done more to harm the poor than help them with hand out programs. We have created whole generations of people who will not bother to do better. Who yearn and hope for the luck of the draw to lift them out of poverty. Either by 'i can sue someone' or 'win the lottery' or 'my kid got into college on a sweet scholarship so he can go onto the NFL'. Instead of giving people the tools to do better. The rich can deign upon the chosen few some riches and feel special they are helping.
How about I dupe my comment? Two wrongs don't make a right. The whole thing stinks.
What would have been better is blocking the merger, and if the city council is feeling generous, negotiating a low-cost bulk deal to provide internet to public housing. Perhaps even paying that low cost out of the city's budget. There's got to be room in the budget from all the 0.1%-er property taxes on the penthouse suites. Any other alternative stinks, reeks, nauseates.
the group wants gratis access...
Say what you will about Comcast (actually, please don't - we all know), this is nothing but a tax. Why not just be honest and make it an internet service tax like the ones we all see on our cell phone bill that pay for Obama Phones?
Free quality education, free quality medical care and free child care would help more.
t seems to me that if you're going to give a company a de facto monopoly of both television distribution and Internet, it would be a fair trade-off to require that they provide a very basic level of service to poor people for free. We can quibble over the details, but for example, providing the over-the-air channels and a 1mbps symmetrical connection seems fair.
These companies don't like to admit it, but they're providing exclusive access to public infrastructure. I think they should be counting their lucky stars that they're not as regulated as other utilities.
Now it's, "give the people who vote for me free stuff so I can stay in office so I can be wine and dined by lobbyists."
We'll give you Free Broadband at the lowest tier, feel free to pay for fast lanes later.
And since we're grateful enough to get more business, you need to legalize extortion if we do it.
Deal?
God spoke to me
Free food.
Free money.
Free medical care.
Cheap housing.
And now.... Free entertainment! They needed something to do after they are their food and weren't looking for a job.
Trolls sure have itchy trigger fingers in these municipal wifi threads. Don't bring up comcast? Why, because you'd be obligated to defend them? Nice appeal to vague conservative outrage with the obama phone namedrop, though.
In reality, there are many poor areas where no one can afford broadband, and sedentary ISPs like comcast have no incetive to develop infrastructure or lower their prices. That's the problem--not a bunch of poor folk who want "hand outs".
What they should do is put together a municipal broadband system and let the citizenry choose.
I wish governments would use taxes to pay for benefits for the poor instead of making us pay through hidden costs by forcing companies to give "free" or reduced cost services, which are made up for in higher fees for the service. The same goes for "affordable housing" where developers have to provide reduced cost housing, which is paid for in higher cost of housing for everyone else.
I have no problem with providing benefits, but If governments want to provide these benefits, then provide them through taxes where they are shared among all taxpayers (why should a Comcast customer pay to subsidize "free" interenet for the poor, while an AT&T UVerse customer does not?), everyone can see what they are paying to the full cost of providing these benefits is known, and the local taxes are tax deductible themselves.
"These people already have housing assistance, now they want INTERNET????"
http://rumahprediksimbaphoer.blogspot.com/2014/11/sarang303-sbobet-ibcbet-casino-338a.html
If you give them free college educations, they turn into social scientists, journalists, and media critics complaining about capitalism and misogyny.
Public housing worked out pretty well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Im a bit dicey about a lot of this stuff (and I'm canadian... some of it is a good idea, ie: health care, school, etc, but there are limits), but internet IMO makes sense, because its the best tool to get your ass out of poverty. It makes looking for a job, learning, school, making connections, finding ways of saving money, etc, a bazillion times easier.
When I was young, I was very, very poor. Computers were not common. As I hit 5th~ grade or so, they started being quite common, and some teachers started giving bonus points or other advantages to people using computers. Then they would give certain research assignments that could be done in minutes with Encarta at the time, but would take forever with books (gathering pictures, snippets, quotes...).
So someone who didn't have a computer would have to -put several times as much effort in the same assignment. That was time they couldn't put in another subject. Let's put aside how retarded/unfair those assignments were at the time, and put it in today's context...where some college work would be downright impossible. Sure, you can use the school's infrastructure, but that prevents you from being at home and multitasking (doing chores, cooking, taking care of siblings) at the same time.
I'm definitely not for free lunch. If there's no difference between rich and poor, there's no reason to get up your ass and help yourself. But in 2014, the internet is the ultimate tool to get out of a shitty situation. Knowledge is just too important, and a basic connection is too cheap to not give it to everyone. You'll spend more money with all the bullshit social programs, or worse, jail, if they stay in poverty a single more day because they were connection-less.
I see nothing "hyperbolic" about that. Seems like an accurate assessment to me.
I call bullshit that they "don't have broadband". Sure they do (at the public library)... it's just not convenient.
I applaud our public officials working to make sure poverty isn't the slightest bit uncomfortable. Of course, I pay $70/month for my broadband, I guess that makes me a chump.
-Styopa
When I did not have an ISP I went to the Library , and coffee houses. McD has connections in some restaurants. Can you give me free ISP ? 11 million UNDOCUMENTED workers as DEMS call them will need free ISP too. Actually I heard it could be 34 million UNDOCUMENTED workers. So if 34 million (illegals) will ask 318 million USA citizens to flip the bill ? This is coming to all states under President Obama ? Comcast will tax the working USA taxpayers to make up cost. Do you think we can take in all the poor of the world if there are 7000 million in the world. 318 million in USA est. pop. without UNDOCUMENTED (illegal) citizens as Democrats call them. WE can take this further: demHouse demPhone demObamacare demISP demEBT demSNAP demCAR demCashforclunker demFreeSolarPanels
"These people already have housing assistance, now they want INTERNET????"
Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?
cheaper the them having to get all of that in prison / jail.
So your theory is that giving people free housing, food, internet, etc. makes them less likely to be criminals? Do you have any evidence to support that? By conditioning people to believe that they are entitled to something for nothing, we may be creating more crime, not less. Many crimes occurs in criminal "hotspots" where there are few jobs, and few social barriers to a criminal lifestyle. Prior to the 1960s, this was not true, because with no income flowing in, those hotspots were economically unsustainable. People would move away to where they could get a job. But now, with welfare, food stamps, housing projects, etc. people can stay even without an economic base and little hope of honest employment, and crime festers. Instead of helping people stay in poor neighborhoods, maybe we should be helping them to leave. A good place to start would be to ban discriminatory zoning laws.
Will you be writing a check Payable to NYC Housing dept ? Will you be writing a check Payable for DemCare Obamacare ? Will you be writing a check Payable for ObamaPhone BidenPhones ? If USA has 11-34 million UNDOCUMENTED workers ( 318 million est. pop. in USA) will you write a check for them too ? Call me names if I do not agree ? Will you be telling us how we should spend our money because COMCAST will pass the cost on to USA taxpayers.
Don't worry, it's the "we gave them free Internet and now they want a free computer as well????" step that they're concerned about...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So sorry that you're poor, here, have some comcast.
Simply an observation:
When the geek posts about poverty or gender issues, he seems to come down somewhere to the right of Rush Limbaugh.
so we have people who robbed a bank for 1$ to Get Health Care in Jail / prison.
In fact the government should pay you to sit home and replicate.
What the NY politicians are trying to do is make themselves look good to the public and to Comcast at the same time.
In exchange for some minor concessions that make the politicians look good with the public they will simultaneously restrict competition resulting in higher rates for everyone else and increasing Comcast profits.
Comcast was likely the ones who made this proposal to the NY politicians in the first place.
Will you be writing checks to rebuild the parts of the world you've bombed to shreds? Will you write checks to repay your national debt?
When I was young, I was very, very poor. Computers were not common. As I hit 5th~ grade or so, they started being quite common, and some teachers started giving bonus points or other advantages to people using computers.
Wait...what? Why?
... More free stuff.
Lets assume we gave all the people in public housing 100 percent of everything they want/need free.
Have we encouraged them or given them the opportunities to better their lives?
Nope.
Public housing should be seen as a temporary solution to temporary problems in a person's life. That or permanent if someone is very disabled which most of the people in PHing are not.
People are raising SECOND generations of children in public housing. That is madness. Get these people out of public housing if they've been in it for more then a couple years.
That might mean encouraging them to leave big cities they can't afford to live in. Tough. If you're poor, why would you think you can afford to live in places with high costs of living?
PHing the way it is implemented is bad on so many levels. I almost don't know where to start with it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm Canadian as well, and strongly disagree with this.
Not sure where you are, but head by Regent Park in the summer and watch them out on the lawn enjoying a few beers while you are on your way home from work.
The more we (taxpayers) give the more a certain percent of the population takes. We already have "welfare queens" who have multi-generation welfare bums.
If they want/need internet, go to the library. Once they get internet access it wont be long before they need a PC, and other things everyone else has to go to work to pay for.
Want to make a bet over how many of the gvt subsidized houses with free internet will be sitting around watching netflix all day?
You seem to come from a poor background and worked your way out of it, but you are not the norm, many of those living in gvt subsidized housing make a lifetime out of it and never work a day in their life to better themselves.
Not +4 anymore. Apparently Liberals only believe in freedom of speech when the words are what they want to hear.
The devil's in the details, isn't it? If you go through my posts, I'm for ensuring everyone has access to internet, but against doing a lot of these things as long as the US doesn't have its undocumented (fuck PC... ILLEGAL) immigrant problem under control. Makes for a complicated problem, and that's why I'm not a politician, or even an activist. I'd just fuck it up.
That said, I pay more in property tax than a minimum salary worker makes pre-tax, and my wife and I together pay more income tax than the average household income in the US. The only "tax shelters" we have is our 401ks, and only real deductions are the property tax and mortgage interests (I guess I deduct my transit cards too...how greedy of me).
So that probably pays for my share?
Slashdot beta sucks! I keep deleting beta.slashdot.org from my cookie stash and reloading www.slashdot.org, and I've gotten beta four times now.
Somebody needs to be fired.
I totally agree with you and despise welfare queens. My own parents definitely fit that category to the extreme, so I do know what you mean.
At the same time, you don't want people to be predisposed to fail. Everyone should be, as much as realistically possible, born with equal opportunity (disabilities and stuff throw a wrench in this though, so there's always exceptions). If they fuck it up after that, they should only be given just enough safety net to be able to bounce back. If even that isn't enough, you want them to have just enough that they won't get desperate enough to pull a gun and kill a bank clerk for money.
If someone is born in a situation where they have very little options to get out of that situation, you quickly end up with a lot of social problems. In Canada, very few people are in that situation. In the US, its another story. In either case, I think making sure people have full access to communication channels that makes it as painless as possible to learn and/or get a job should be provided. That doesn't mean 100mb up/down. Just enough to browser job sites, read documentation, and answer emails.
There's a lot of stuff they ARE getting that they probably shouldn't... When I was young, my mother got a 1 time subsidy for home renovation to repaint and change carpets and stuff...even though our apartment looked better and was in better shape than by $1 million USD condo. Thats fucked up. I'm also seeing people on Section 8 housing getting assigned townhouses that I can't possibly afford, in the most desirable portions of the city. That makes my blood boil. Get rid of that, take the money, and pay for internet with it.
Prettier documents, easier to read, easier to grade, less work for the teacher. Making an accurate complex graph on a computer is a HELL OF A LOT easier than making the same one using a pencil with a $4.99 geometry kit bought at CVS on graph paper? Takes freagin forever. Man i loved getting a lower grade because I spent all night doing my 9th grade physics report instead of doing it in an hour because I didn't have a computer at home and if I stayed at the school's computer lab I had no one to pick me up after the school bus was gone!
Hmm? Are you insinuating that giving cheap housing in locations that normally even upper middle class people can't afford, sometimes in houses that the same upper middle class would never dream of affording regardless of where they are located, is a bad idea?
How dare you!
Will you be writing a check Payable to NYC Housing dept ? Will you be writing a check Payable for DemCare Obamacare ? Will you be writing a check Payable for ObamaPhone BidenPhones ?
Not exactly. But close. If you don't want to do the same, revoke your American citizenship and GTFO, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Right now, if your house is burning down, you can call the fire department, and they put it out free of charge. It's a government service that is paid for, usually primarily by tax dollars and rarely by specific usage fees.
Most government services are paid for by a combination of usage fees, general fees, usage taxes, and general taxes. For instance, transportation is paid for about fifty percent from usage taxes (like gas taxes) and about fifty percent from general taxes, with a bit also paid for by usage fees (like toll bridges and carpool lanes, registration fees, et cetera). Something similar is true of public transportation, which comes about 50% from usage fees (usually in the forms of fares) and about 50% in the form of general taxes.
Right now, the road outside my house is, for the intent of what the OP meant by "free" provided gratis by the government. The government makes sure that I can walk, drive, or bike from my house to wherever I want to go by maintaining public roads. Everyone pays for it in one way or another, but nobody makes me pay a bill every month to walk to the subway station or drive my car to the grocery store.
Absolutely nothing would stop a municipality from doing the same for the internet. Provide basic service to every home in town from the tax general fund, like we do with roads. Charge residences a premium for broadband speeds and raised data caps, charge businesses, and provide discounts or free broadband speeds to children enrolled in school or poorer residents.
It is hardly "impossible". It is really nothing more than a question of some city deciding to actually do it.
Prisons= Free room, free meals, free medical, free education, free fitness.
The devil's in the details, isn't it? If you go through my posts, I'm for ensuring everyone has access to internet, but against doing a lot of these things as long as the US doesn't have its undocumented (fuck PC... ILLEGAL) immigrant problem under control. Makes for a complicated problem, and that's why I'm not a politician, or even an activist. I'd just fuck it up.
I'm not sure how illegal immigrants fit into this discussion, since they aren't eligible for most Federalwelfare programs. Eligibility for state benefits varies from state to state. I suggest you educate yourself, friend.
That said, I pay more in property tax than a minimum salary worker makes pre-tax, and my wife and I together pay more income tax than the average household income in the US. The only "tax shelters" we have is our 401ks, and only real deductions are the property tax and mortgage interests (I guess I deduct my transit cards too...how greedy of me).
So that probably pays for my share?
Good for you. But that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand either. Are you complaining that you pay too much in taxes? Are you unhappy with how your tax dollars are spent? If so, these folks may be able to help.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Are ya SURE it's an "either or" kinda deal?
Oh stop acting like a hysterical gaywad. Jesus Christ, you are an embarassment to the species. You know, it IS possible to discuss things without being a twat about it... although as a libertarian I disagreed with the post you replied to, but at least he discussed it like a rational human being, unlike you, who behaves as if this were freerepublic dot com or something.
A lot of these welfare/secion 8, people are just milking the system.
Almost every week there is stories about "spouse in the house" or other welfare abuses.
Spouse in the house - welfare mother claims no spouse, has kids and needs welfare but yet the husband does live in gvt subsidized housing with her.
" Everyone should be, as much as realistically possible, born with equal opportunity"
People are born with equal opportunity (for the most part) but not everyone wants to take it, many are rather happy living off the taxpayers.
I work 40 - 50 hours a week and have to pay for my dental coverage in Canada, while welfare case get it for free, Is that equal? How did the dentist get paid when he serviced the welfare cases, tax dollars?
They need to cut back on benefits to encourage them to go to work, not give them more.
Good thing i wasn't replying to you then :) It makes a lot more sense in the context of the person I actually replied to. I was addressing their points specifically, not the whole of the discussion.
... More free stuff.
Lets assume we gave all the people in public housing 100 percent of everything they want/need free.
Have we encouraged them or given them the opportunities to better their lives?
Nope.
Public housing should be seen as a temporary solution to temporary problems in a person's life. That or permanent if someone is very disabled which most of the people in PHing are not.
People are raising SECOND generations of children in public housing. That is madness. Get these people out of public housing if they've been in it for more then a couple years.
That might mean encouraging them to leave big cities they can't afford to live in. Tough. If you're poor, why would you think you can afford to live in places with high costs of living?
PHing the way it is implemented is bad on so many levels. I almost don't know where to start with it.
Absolutely correct. There has to be another way. And of course there is. I'd like to propose a solution. A proposal for preventing the poor people in the United States from being a burden to their parents or country. It would also make them beneficial to the public at-large. I've posted my thoughts online for public comment. I think we should push ahead with due haste, don't you?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
It is far worse then that.
It distorts the economy of the city.
It puts a heavy tax burden on the city which makes it less affordable for everyone self supporting.
It chains the people in it to a life of subsistence because they can only live in that environment with subsistence.
It distorts labor pools.
It damages the culture of both the people providing subsistence because they think they're better and it distorts the culture of the people getting subsistence because they think they're worthless.
It distorts the political system because politicians can LEGALLY buy votes by taking money from one group of people and giving it to another in return for votes.
Generally it is just a really really bad policy.
People in these situations should be encouraged to move to more rural areas where the cost of living is substantially lower and they might have a chance as self supporting. Also getting some fresh air and not being stuck in high rise crack dens.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Oh stop acting like a hysterical gaywad. Jesus Christ, you are an embarassment to the species. You know, it IS possible to discuss things without being a twat about it... although as a libertarian I disagreed with the post you replied to, but at least he discussed it like a rational human being, unlike you, who behaves as if this were freerepublic dot com or something.
What, exactly, is a "gaywad?" And why is my comment hysterical? GP set up straw men and knocked them down. I called him(her?) on it and made suggestions as to how to deal with the situation. I'm guessing you're just a sock puppet for GP, but hey, good for you. At least it gets you blathering on with someone else rather than talking to yourself. Rock on, friend!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Right because anything but the current model means I want to literally kill them and eat them.
Jesus fucking Christ this sort of argument offensively retarded.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why isn't Google running fiber to all of them for free?
Sure, just as soon as we got some reparations for our beheaded journalists... at least we can start there. Or the fact that we had to go in and save europe for the germans in the 40s
All I see from this is the YouTube comments getting even more outrageous.
Also, when I did not have an ISP the government did not provide one FREE to me. I went to the public library, McDonalds , starbucks or a coffee house. I do not mind the socialists communitarian collectivists (demo crat party) pay for this. We , the USA, could create a special democ_Rat tax.
You do not own your house. You have a mortgage. The bank owns it. You own the right to live there. Am I correct ?
NotSanguine, I do not mind you , democ-rat party, libs paying the added cost for ISP service for those victims of oppressive USA system. I do not mind if you work to hours a day to pay for it or getting a 2nd job. If NYC , NY or USA mandate us to pay ISP services, COMCAST will pass on the cost to the rest of us. You can also take a loan if you want to pay for their FREE ISP service.
if there's not difference between rich and poor there's no _reason_ to. Lord, the things that get up modded on /. these days. Go read a few studies on the affects of poverty and remind yourself how lucky you are. There's a reason they say people who grew up poor and made good 'escaped'...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Really? Prior to 1960 we didn't have slums, regions of high crime, skid rows?
Check up a little history there, you will see that poverty and crime are rather long lasting friends.
(And yes, you have crime without poverty as well.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Actually, if we spent the tax money to create adequate, accessible and well equipped libraries in these areas we would arguably create more opportunities for local residents to advance in the world.
Encouraging people to read and learn in a somewhat structured environment has to be better than allowing them to watch reruns of honey-boo-boo gratis or even wasting time on lowlife sites like Slashdot.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing?
Not everyone lives in a city.
Everybody living in New York City lives in a city by definition.
Free Internet is the latter part of "Bread and Circuses" the government sees as the final nail in the coffin of liberty. I'd put forth to you that it's 99% unproductive time-wasting habits and 1% opportunity.
I'd also say your homework assignment example is severely flawed. You see students "wasting less time that they could use for another subject", I see students "spending less time learning and more time trolling facebook." The average schooled 14 year old is a drooling idiot compared to a century ago, and it keeps getting worse from all these people that see learning as simply completing assignments. STEM my ass.
That might mean encouraging them to leave big cities they can't afford to live in. Tough. If you're poor, why would you think you can afford to live in places with high costs of living?
How is one supposed to get to work if one lives outside the reach of public transit?
Only a retard or sumone focused on brainwashing would believe that outsourcing childcare is a good thing. And Obama? Which category is he in? Making rent is very important. Buying groceries is important. But, why is it assumed that everyone should work, and that therefore raising your children is not work? If we didn't have needlessly dual income families, unemployment would be gone.
No mortgage on mine. I own it, not the bank.
This space unintentionally left blank.
... This is like asking how one is to eat without McDonalds.
How do you think everyone gets to work outside major cities? Do you think we go to work by training hamsters, making little carts out of sticks, discarded cans, and duct tape... and then getting them to move forward by tossing peanuts in front them?
First off, small towns generally do have mass transit. Buses are very common.
Second, for very small towns you don't need mass transit because you can literally just walk anywhere in the town in about 5 to 10 minutes.
Third, cars are not that expensive especially if you out of the big cities. It is very common for people in trailer parks to have cars. Not great cars... but cars that can get them where ever they need to go. And because it is an area with low congestion they spend ZERO time in traffic and they probably aren't that far away from work anyway which means they might only be in the car for 10 to 20 minutes tops. Compare that to city commutes which can top two hours WASTED going to and from your place of work every day. When I was in Los Angeles, I would often spend upwards of an hour commuting sometimes EACH WAY. And that is STILL considered normal in LA.
I just don't know where to start with your question. It is as if you think we didn't have civilization at all until subways were invented.
And are you under the impression that everyone outside cities are rich? Think about that. There are poor people that don't live in cities. How do they get to work every day without mass transit.
Come... the fuck... on.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Really? Prior to 1960 we didn't have slums, regions of high crime, skid rows?
Of course we did. Crime has always been higher in some areas than in others. But the degree of difference between high and low crime zipcodes increased during the 1960s through 1990s, and has declined somewhat since then, in tandem with the rise and fall (since 1996) of welfare payments.
First off, small towns generally do have mass transit. Buses are very common.
Buses in a particular city of about 200,000 people don't run at night, on Saturday evenings, or on Sundays. This can become hard for people who hear "We have no openings unless you're willing to work the night shift or on Sundays" from multiple employers. I imagine it's even worse in smaller towns, or what am I missing?
for very small towns you don't need mass transit because you can literally just walk anywhere in the town in about 5 to 10 minutes.
Yet other Slashdot users have kept telling me to move to a bigger city if no employers in my desired field are located in my city.
Third, cars are not that expensive especially if you out of the big cities.
A new driver still has to obtain the state-required 50 hours (which varies from state to state) of supervised driving experience somehow. My state's BMV's web site doesn't manage to explain how someone without a roommate who also drives would get this supervised driving experience in the first place. And even if a bus pass vs. motor fuel and scheduled maintenance is a wash, a driver still has to pay per year for plates and insurance.
I'm on disabiliity in Saskatchewan, which is run by the same people as social services/welfare. I get an extra $200 a month compared to someone on welfare. I have a freezer full of food, wear nice (but not fancy name-brand) clothes, paid for my own glasses, and pay for an upgraded internet connection (mid-tier) as well as my landline. I have a modest single bedroom apartment, but not in one of the big apartment blocks where they gouge you on rent.
A friend of mine is also on disability, and gets the same, but is in subsidized housing so her rent is $200 a month cheaper than mine. Yet while I can afford my internet and have $100/month left over for spending money, she's perpetually broke. Why? She smokes like a chimney.
Most of the people I knew on social services or disability in Regina were also perpetually broke, because come pay day they'd buy a bottle of booze, a case of beer, and order a pizza instead of going shopping for food they could cook themselves.
I know for a fact you can get by on what the programs provide -- I've done so for years. There is no excuse for "suffering" and "having no food" or "not being able to afford the internet". You choose to party it up, go out to bars, and buy frozen foods instead of learning to cook.
So suffer.
You'll not get one whit of sympathy from me.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
we already do. We cut checks for all kinds of unreasonable things and no one blinks and eye.
Something that might actually work? Nah, no one wants to pay for it.
it's the legal H1-Bs taking for jobs I used to have a shot at that I'm worried about. I don't plan on taking Pablo's place at the meatpacking plant, but I sorta had my eye on of of those cakewalk DB admin jobs that now go exclusively to H1-Bs.
Average household income in the US is $69,821. Google it. You pay $70k/yr in income tax? You're doing pretty well for yourself. Also your accountant sucks. That said, why the hell don't you stop asking why you pay so much in taxes and start asking why you're not getting anything for it? I got news for you, it's not Pablo's $20/mo free internet. Maybe it's all those swank tax shelters you aren't rich enough to qualify for?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
We don't need our africans sending it from the homefront as well!
Not eligible doesn't mean the same thing as not receiving. A lot of states, like Massachusetts, have rules against asking about immigration status when processing applications for benefits. Obama's own aunt Z lived in Boston public housing as an illegal alien while US citizens were wait-listed. There are laws against being in the country illegally, yet an estimated thirty million are here. Laws don't mean shit anymore.
there's no reason to get up your ass and help yourself.
yes, there is: boredom.
Right because anything but the current model means I want to literally kill them and eat them.
Jesus fucking Christ this sort of argument offensively retarded.
Satire motherfucker, do you get it?
With apologies to Quentin Tarantino.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
When IT geeks can't get a decent job it's "blame corporate policies" and "blame biased laws" and "eliminate employment-driven wealth". But when it's people who can't be a10-hour wage-slave or part of the knowledge-based workforce, the solution is Mitt Romney all-over again: They "don't pay tax" and are therefore the problem.
For the geeks tolerating welfare programs, the problem is one of necessity or cost. Posts on this thread imply policies and laws that obstruct a job-hunting geek magically disappear when poor people are job-hunting. Like capitalism has 2 competing outputs; what the market can bear and perfect supply. Like human capital has 2 competing effects; wages and profits. Like laws protect the rich more than the innocent and the important more than the commoner. Start talking welfare and the poor are blamed for being on the wrong side of those equations.
NotSanguine, I do not mind you , democ-rat party, libs paying the added cost for ISP service for those victims of oppressive USA system. I do not mind if you work to hours a day to pay for it or getting a 2nd job. If NYC , NY or USA mandate us to pay ISP services, COMCAST will pass on the cost to the rest of us. You can also take a loan if you want to pay for their FREE ISP service.
I pay my taxes as I'm required by the 16th amendment and the law. What is more, as Justice Jackson pointed out, I don't mind paying taxes. With it, I buy civilization. Have a *nice* day!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Not eligible doesn't mean the same thing as not receiving. A lot of states, like Massachusetts, have rules against asking about immigration status when processing applications for benefits. Obama's own aunt Z lived in Boston public housing as an illegal alien while US citizens were wait-listed. There are laws against being in the country illegally, yet an estimated thirty million are here. Laws don't mean shit anymore.
You're talking about *state* benefits rather than Federal benefits. As I said, "Eligibility for state benefits varies from state to state." If you don't like how a particular state deals with immigrants, legal or otherwise, you're free to move. America! What a country!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
I've seen more than one job site (many government run) that required Internet access. Internet is "entertainment" like a car is "entertainment". You might think it s luxury, but many places it's a necessity.
Learn to love Alaska
And the use of leaded fuels. Which at least has a proven causal factor.
Learn to love Alaska
I had to get special permission for using computers at school. I was the only person who couldn't be marked down for handwriting. So I had a special advantage over everyone else. It also had a spell-check (the 1st gen, where it notified you that a word wasn't in its small, static dictionary, but gave no hints or suggestions). But I was never bad with spelling in school papers because I knew I was bad, so I'd look up words lots and go slow. I typed much much faster than I wrote (also a benefit for school that showed up on grades). Ended up leaving school typing faster than most. About 60 WPM. Never took a typing class or course. Taught myself touch typing.
Learn to love Alaska
People are born with equal opportunity (for the most part) but not everyone wants to take it, many are rather happy living off the taxpayers.
I know plenty of people born into billionaire families. They have "welfare", just not taxpayer paid. And it pays a hell of a lot more than government welfare. Opportunities aren't equal. That it's theoretically possible for a rich person to fail or a poor person to succeed doesn't prove equality. The rarity of each seems to prove the rule.
They need to cut back on benefits to encourage them to go to work, not give them more.
Many of the systems are rigged. I've seen the numbers where a poor person making $10 more on their own would lose $100 or more of benefits. It's "cheaper" to not work, than to work some and try to reduce their burden. It's the system that's broken, not the people using it. Many people can't ever be self sufficient. What would you do with them?
Learn to love Alaska
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
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So you'd ship them to the south to work in the fields? What would you do with them?
Learn to love Alaska
I'm not going to ship them anywhere to do anything.
I'm suggesting that you simply scale back the subsidized housing. Do it slowly so there isn't a big shock. It took us a long time to get here, it is going to take a long time to get out of it.
Scale it back over 10 years or something. Lots of time. And have exceptions for people that really can't survive otherwise. But most people unless they are outright inferior to the rest of the active labor force... can support themselves. And for the record that should be about 90 percent of them.
A lot of them are going to realize they aren't going to be able to live where they're living. Some will move out to the periphery of the city. Some might talk to family members in other parts of the country and say "oh, maybe I'll start my new life over there." Others will take a chance in various places. They're not all going to move at once. Just a little bit at a time.
These are not children or cattle we're talking about here. I am not going to ship them anywhere. It is not my right to ship them. These are grown men and women. Adults. These are people we allow to vote.
If they're so stupid in your opinion that they are unable to solve rudimentary problems in their lives... then basically you're suggesting these people need to be institutionalized. That they must be given cradle to grave support by the rest of society because they're just too broken to be able to take care of themselves.
You made this rather stupid insinuation that I was shipping black people off to work on slave plantations. Well, ironically, you're the one suggesting that these same people are so stupid and inferior that you need to keep them in state institutions eating government jello for the rest of their lives like people with brain damage.
Am I racist for suggesting that grown men and women can take care of themselves or are you racist for saying they're inferior, unable to compete, and must be taken care of for the rest of their lives like children?
Kindly don't try that snarky shit with me again or I will rhetorically slap the shit out of you again.
You don't know me. You don't know what I believe. You don't know what I know.
All you did was project your own inherent racism onto me.
http://heeereswilly.ytmnd.com/
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What good is a right to a free in home internet connection, when you don't have a device that can connect to it? So by typical liberal incremental policies, the next logical step is to give them a free computer or tablet. When they smash it up or trade it away for drugs. Give them another one. We've been giving them obamaphones, now they are going to get obama galaxy note 4s.
Federal taxpayers have already footed the bill for high-speed Internet in their local schools and libraries, in an effort to 'bridge the digital divide', now we need to wire up the projects with high-speed (broadband) Internet access... Who will pay for the laptops and desktops they will need to take advantage of this free Internet access?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Point taken. At the same time, Poe's Law notwithstanding, Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is likely the most famous piece of English language satire. Ever.
Since I *linked* to it, and it was clearly attributed to its author, I never imagined that anyone with a modicum of English language education (which, of course , may not apply to you -- are you Dutch? German?) wouldn't recognize it as the famous satire it is. It is pretty much required reading in most American (and English, Canadian, Irish and probably Australian, I'd expect) secondary schools. My apologies for any confusion.
From the Wikipedia page on the work:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
DemCare Obamacare .. ObamaPhone BidenPhones
You mean Early 90s NeoCon Care and Reagan/GW Bush Phones — Obama can't rightly take the credit (or blame) for either program.
More free shit for obama voters? How about no.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
We have it in Belgium, although in practice space is limited to the poor for ages 6 to 30 months. From 30 months, it is universal and free. I should note that basic health care is also free.
and while you're at it, hand out free Snickers bars at every stoplight from all your trucks...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Sigh... I quoted Poe's law and everything.
Fine.
I hear people making extreme arguments like that sincerely all the time. What is more, despite the citation being initially intended as saterial, that does not mean that someone citing it did not mean to use it as a slander against me. It does not mean that someone like yourself could not be using such a citation to imply that my own words were either evil or so comically wrongheaded that I had begun to sound like a satire of someone evil.
The point is that you MUST give context to your comments. FUCKING PERIOD. END OF STORY. END OF LINE. DONE.
Savvy?
I can't see your face when you say things or pick up on voice intonation. I don't know you so I can't assume an implicit context.
You MUST state the context or you leave me to assume context and I CANNOT be held accountable for mistakes should I GUESS incorrectly.
Again. PERIOD.
And with that... there is clarity. :-)
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Sigh... I quoted Poe's law and everything.
Fine.
I hear people making extreme arguments like that sincerely all the time. What is more, despite the citation being initially intended as saterial, that does not mean that someone citing it did not mean to use it as a slander against me. It does not mean that someone like yourself could not be using such a citation to imply that my own words were either evil or so comically wrongheaded that I had begun to sound like a satire of someone evil.
The point is that you MUST give context to your comments. FUCKING PERIOD. END OF STORY. END OF LINE. DONE.
Savvy?
I can't see your face when you say things or pick up on voice intonation. I don't know you so I can't assume an implicit context.
You MUST state the context or you leave me to assume context and I CANNOT be held accountable for mistakes should I GUESS incorrectly.
Again. PERIOD.
And with that... there is clarity. :-)
Oh, I get it. Loud and clear. And yes, the satire was *most definitely* directed at you, sir. Your comments caused me to think of Swift's writing and now of Dickens':
--Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
With you, in the role of Scrooge.
Is that enough context for you to take my meaning, sir?
Have a lovely day
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
A lot of these welfare/secion 8, people are just milking the system.
Almost every week there is stories about "spouse in the house" or other welfare abuses.
Spouse in the house - welfare mother claims no spouse, has kids and needs welfare but yet the husband does live in gvt subsidized housing with her.
" Everyone should be, as much as realistically possible, born with equal opportunity"
People are born with equal opportunity (for the most part) but not everyone wants to take it, many are rather happy living off the taxpayers.
I work 40 - 50 hours a week and have to pay for my dental coverage in Canada, while welfare case get it for free, Is that equal? How did the dentist get paid when he serviced the welfare cases, tax dollars?
They need to cut back on benefits to encourage them to go to work, not give them more.
Why would we encourage the less skilled to go to work? There aren't enough JOBS anywhere in the world for all of them to work. This is a reasonable start on providing a minimum income stipend and standard of living to people as we need fewer and fewer of them to run the global economy. Multiple generations on welfare is a great thing if we're going to keep driving automation. Now we just need to raise the minimum wage for those who do choose to work, and make the basic living stipend a livable amount for anyone who wants to withdraw from the labor pool.
Then I was correct in my original assessment of your intent and I repeat my reply to your statement:
""
Right because anything but the current model means I want to literally kill them and eat them.
Jesus fucking Christ this sort of argument is offensively retarded.
""
Why did you correct me if I got guessed your context?
You complained giving the impression that you were just kidding...
I cite Poe's law.
You attempt to brow beat me with your little question about whether or not I speak english as a first language.
And then here we are full circle with it confirmed that my initial assessment was correct thus rendering your subsequent complains self contradictory.
*flicks frozen peas at adversary*
Try harder.
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Then I was correct in my original assessment of your intent and I repeat my reply to your statement: "" Right because anything but the current model means I want to literally kill them and eat them.
Jesus fucking Christ this sort of argument is offensively retarded. ""
Why did you correct me if I got guessed your context?
You complained giving the impression that you were just kidding...
I cite Poe's law.
You attempt to brow beat me with your little question about whether or not I speak english as a first language.
And then here we are full circle with it confirmed that my initial assessment was correct thus rendering your subsequent complains self contradictory.
*flicks frozen peas at adversary*
Try harder.
You do misunderstand. Clearly there's a reading comprehension issue going on, so I'll keep this to words of three syllables or less:
No. I don't accuse you of wanting to kill and eat babies. That's satire. However, your comments show you to lack empathy and seem to hold views that are almost as disgusting as those satirized in "A Modest Proposal" and "A Christmas Carol." What is more, you don't seem to realize how hateful and nasty your statements are.
We clear now, sport?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
You attempt to brow beat me with your little question about whether or not I speak english as a first language.
I wasn't trying to brow-beat you, I was genuinely surprised that someone whose first language was English and who, presumably, is a product of an English language secondary school would be ignorant of such a famous piece of literature. I can only assume you're a high school drop out, your school sucked or you just weren't paying attention.
My sincere apologies for thinking that you might have a *valid* reason not to be aware of Swift's work -- such as not being from an English speaking country.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Because even two girls in two girls one cup work for a living!
Internet access is the only way you can apply for many jobs. For people living in major cities, internet access is at least as necessary as a telephone, and we have acknowledged the need for universal phone access for many years.
No, you weren't trying to brow beat me... because apparently you never stopped trying because haven't realized it I'm fucking immune to that rhetorical nonsense.
I am very secure in my intellectual credentials. I am not a stupid or uneducated person. You are not going to rattle me with that crap.
As to your continuing attempt to use this line of logic, it is undermined pretty heavily by the fact that I properly interpreted your intention with the citation. You were indeed trying to associate me with such language which meant my initial response to it was correct.
So please... stop with the this sad attempt to try and get an intellectual one up on me. You tried to be clever and instead managed only to be crude and obvious.
Try again... with something completely different because everything you're using right now is addressed, labeled, and filed away into neat little boxes.
This conversation has moved on. Let it go.
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Isn't this something that's available in the public libraries? Which is 'internet for free' since it's already being paid for by the taxes that support the library. They also have these nifty things called 'books' that people can read for 'free'. I can see requiring free broadband to the libraries since that has the greatest benefit to the city but to give it to individual households so they can watch Netflix and surf porn isn't quite .. quite.
Yes, I had you pegged right off the bat. I saw through you nonsense instantly and I apparently caught you off guard it happened so fast.
Next time be more subtle before you spring your little games on people.
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Where do you think the money for state benefits comes from? A lot of it comes from the feds and is left to the states to come up with rules for dispersal of benefits. And no, a citizen should not have to move because of illegal immigration. The illegals should move back to their country of origin. I have friends trying to come here legally and cannot, meanwhile they flood in from our southern border and are promised amnesty by political hacks. It's disgraceful. If this country now runs on anarchy, surely the rest of us can start choosing laws that we'd like to break. Maybe we should all start by declining federal income tax. It's not illegal to break the law, right?
What about the other 99.5% of geographical New York State?
How the hell do you expect someone to find a job these days without an internet connection? Even retail jobs and temp agencies have online applications. You make a phone call, you show up at the office, you get sent to the bloody web site.
Where do you think the money for state benefits comes from? A lot of it comes from the feds and is left to the states to come up with rules for dispersal of benefits. And no, a citizen should not have to move because of illegal immigration. The illegals should move back to their country of origin. I have friends trying to come here legally and cannot, meanwhile they flood in from our southern border and are promised amnesty by political hacks. It's disgraceful. If this country now runs on anarchy, surely the rest of us can start choosing laws that we'd like to break. Maybe we should all start by declining federal income tax. It's not illegal to break the law, right?
Yes, I know what block grants are. Do whatever you like, with whoever you like. Please just keep me out of it, kthxbye.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
No mortgage on mine. I own it, not the bank.
You don't own the land under your house. You merely have a deed for exclusive use, but society can still revoke that through eminent domain whenever they want
It's easy to fall into the trap of believing you own your house, but you never actually do. You only enjoy it so long as your neighbors like you enough to not want to build a highway or a mall there.
I'm suggesting that you simply scale back the subsidized housing.
Why do so many other countries have more subsidized housing than the US without the problems you mention?
You don't know me. You don't know what I believe. You don't know what I know.
Then tell us. Instead, you play rhetorical games to attack others and claim you said nothing and implied nothing. If you are posting nothing, why bother?
You made this rather stupid insinuation that I was shipping black people off to work on slave plantations.
For someone whining so much about what others presume about you, can you point to where I used the word "Black" or "plantations" or "slave"? Oh, I never did? You just assumed you knew what I believed, what I know, and did exactly what you complain about in others. You made stupid assumptions about others.
All you did was project your own inherent racism onto me.
I projected nothing.
These are not children or cattle we're talking about here.
So it's ok to treat children like cattle? I'm not sure what you are saying here, but I can't know what you believe, so tell us.
Learn to love Alaska
They do have those problems. Notice the rather frequent riots in Paris as well as growing ethic problems throughout europe.
The concept is generally poor. And anyone that is paying any attention to it what so ever is already aware of the issue.
The idea is causing problems where ever implimented. Many cities actively don't report on the issue in the media.
For example, I've lived in Los Angeles which has hundreds of murders a year. Nearly all of them in the same square mile. And guess how many of those murders make it into the newspaper every day?
Pretty much none of them. Why? Because no one cares. Its boring.
Drug dealers killing drug dealers.
So little twits like you that don't pay attention actually don't know about it. Which is really quite sad.
I'm sorry if I'm being brief with you. But ignorance offends me.
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They do have those problems. Notice the rather frequent riots in Paris as well as growing ethic problems throughout europe.Ah, so the riots in Paris are caused by public housing. Got it.
I also note that Singapore has large scale public housing, and had two riots in 40 years, both "race based". Or are you going to claim that agrees with your unstated hypothesis, since you are hinting racism at every turn ("ethic problems" and such), while denying race is an issue.
I'm sorry if I'm being brief with you. But ignorance offends me.
I get it. You are offended by yourself, so you move on to the next post as soon as possible.
So little twits like you that don't pay attention actually don't know about it. Which is really quite sad.
So because your little square of the world has a race problem (that's apparently not race-based), you generalize that to the rest of the world, and demand people prove you wrong, but are offended if people point out your race-based problem is race-based. Got it. As much as anyone can get it.
Learn to love Alaska
Keep your hands out of my wallet and you can do whatever you like as well.
Why even bother replying? Your claim about eligibility was wrong. It's an often repeated lie from the forked tongues of our politicians. We have to see past the lies.
I can't speak to Singapore. I can speak to the US and Europe which is all I need to make my argument.
Good day.
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And for "US" you mean your little corner of Los Angeles only, and for Europe, you mean the riots you know nothing about, other than what you think you read in the news about race riots that weren't related to government housing.
Learn to love Alaska
Keep your hands out of my wallet and you can do whatever you like as well.
Why even bother replying? Your claim about eligibility was wrong. It's an often repeated lie from the forked tongues of our politicians. We have to see past the lies.
You are absolutely right. Please give me 40 lashes and post my name in the hall of shame. I'm so sorry. I'm going to kill myself now.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
No. Strawman rejected for being a strawman.
Try again.
The saddest thing on the internet is being subjected to the seemingly endless hordes of fuckwits that don't know how to process a logical argument or think.
I mean... you're failing basic rhetoric here. Its sad. Try harder.
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I mean... you're failing basic rhetoric here. Its sad. Try harder.
Ah yes, the Slashdot Concession. Rather than discussing the facts, you discuss the discussion. You win. You are obviously here to assert opinion as fact and harass anyone with a different opinion until they say they agree, so you "win" yet another argument. I'm not 12. It's not worth my time.
Learn to love Alaska
Wrong.
You saw an argument you didn't have a counter to and instead of accepting that or struggling to deal with something that was hard, you instead intentionally misrepresented someone else's argument.
You lied in an obvious and crude manner. I am right here. Did you think I wouldn't notice you moving my pieces on the game board?
That isn't how the game works. You move your pieces. I move mine.
When you move my pieces that is cheating.
Strawman is cheating. You do not get to define my argument. My argument is my argument.
What I did was slap your hand away from the game board and tell you to move YOUR pieces and leave mine alone. I asked you to play by the rules and not cheat.
I also assumed that you were a petulent child and would throw a temper tantrum when disallowed from cheating. I assume this because people that cheat in this manner are typically a mix of stupid and dishonest. Stupid because they don't know how to cheat more effectively and dishonest because they'd cheat in the first place.
And here you are... whining that you are being held to standards and being forbidden from just changing the rules whenever it suits you.
Tough shit, you whiny piece of shit.
Either play by the rules or fuck off.
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But better late than never. Few years ago, someone in the wise US government, approved that, poor people on government provided health insurance plans can get the little blue boner pills on the taxpayers' dime. Now getting access to free porn, they are closing the loop, making everyone happy :)
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals