06-25-2018, 11:53 AM
(06-25-2018, 08:03 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: Not too long ago I discovered an article concerning the homeless problem. Apparently many feel that the ravages of the tech industry, which has displaced numerous jobs over the past 25 years or so, is largely to blame. I have said for years that the nature of the job and housing markets plays a big role in creating this problem, as there are fewer jobs available which don't require higher education and/or specialized training. When there was a stronger manufacturing base you could go into a factory job right straight from high school and earn a decent living, especially in the days when labor unions were strong. Not only that, but workers seldom got fired for anything less than real serious offenses. Not so today. I am posting a link to an article I just found today for discussion purposes. In large cities including Chicago, gentrification of poor and working class districts has been rampant, and many of the new residents haven't had a call to venture into the unknown; therefore are without a doubt highly unaware of the magnitude of the problem. And I lay much of the blame at the feet of restrictive zoning ordinances which are specifically designed to keep alternative housing such as rooming houses out. The revival of rooming houses, if there ever is to be one, would go a long way toward solving much of this problem, especially acute in places such as Chicago with the harsh winters. We need a rising of consciousness of the issue, opening our minds in relating to others, allowing more room for the growth of alternative methods of solving this issue. Where do we go from here?
https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-isn...all-of-us/
Maximal profits depend upon pricing people out of something. So it is with housing, transportation, health care, education, or food. It may be a tenet of classical economics that high profits entice competition -- but the highest prices typically show a lack of competition and economic actors intent on keeping a non-competitive sector of the economy. Profit, no matter what the human cost, is the objective of our economic elites, and the current crop of politicians largely comply with that objective lest they miss out on campaign funds. Maximal profits also mean great suffering.
Affordable housing is possible -- so long as people are willing to live in high-rise apartments. But we know all about the horror stories of such gigantic slums as Pruitt-Igoe, or for that matter, the normal housing flats of former Commie states.
The technology in housing is basically nineteenth-century. The furnishings may be ultra-modern, but the building techniques aren't. Then again, what family really wants to live in some giant tower?
...We are not coping well with the transition to a post-industrial world. Our system of rewards depends, at least for the masses, upon staying latched onto what remains of the industrial economy that had barely modernized out of the factory era.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.