Tag: poverty

Bill Gates uses vaccines and genetically modified crops to impoverish and reduce the world’s population

Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has funded various scientific research programs and vaccination initiatives, such as “Grand Challenges Explorations.”

It’s not only his investment in vaccines globally that is the problem.  He has also invested in companies that contribute to poverty and pollution and seeks maximum returns on his investments regardless of the social cost.

Gates’ advocacy for vaccines is intertwined with population control, with many concluding his true interest is in reduced fertility or even the elimination of a significant portion of the world’s population.

In addition to vaccines, he has also supported genetically modified organisms in food, which have been linked to health and environmental issues such as the development of super-bugs and super-weeds.

His Foundation has invested in genetically modified crops research, claiming to help African farmers grow their own food but it has led to dependence on large corporations for seeds, pesticides and equipment.

You probably think the above is an introduction to an article written fairly recently, but it’s not.  The article that follows was written 9 years ago.

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California County Fines Man $120,000 for Refusing to Evict a Family From His Property

Hundreds of people live in trailers and campers on the streets of Santa Clara County, California—a very visible sign of the ultra-expensive county’s homelessness crisis.

Despite the scale of vehicular homelessness in the county, county officials have spent years focusing their enforcement actions on a single trailer parked on private property.

For years now, winery owner Michael Ballard has allowed his longtime vineyard manager, Marcelino Martinez, and his family to live rent-free in a trailer parked on the winery’s property.

County officials say this violates a county ordinance prohibiting recreational vehicles (RVs) parked on residential parcels from being used as dwelling units. Therefore, Martinez’s trailer has got to go.

Ballard has been trying to fix the violation by building a permanent home for Martinez and his family on the property. But getting all the needed permits from the county for that home has taken years.

In the interim, Ballard has refused to evict Martinez’s family from the property.

“I’m not going to remove this trailer because that will cause them to be homeless and I’d be putting this family on the street and I’m not going to do that,” Ballard tells Reason.

In response, the county has issued Ballard daily fines for every day he refuses to remove the trailer. These fines total some $120,000.

Ballard is now suing the county in federal court, arguing the fines violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines.

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HUD Explores Cash over Housing Vouchers

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is toying with the idea of providing American renters cash aid instead of vouchers. Current vouchers only demand that tenants pay 30% of their income on rent, while the US taxpayers foot the rest of the bill. The department says it is still too difficult for would-be tenants to use these vouchers and would like to provide them with cash to use as they see fit.

Pilot programs are appearing across America. Philadelphia swapped out vouchers with cash for 300 renters across the city. Since the government is incapable of efficiently running these smaller programs, the waitlist for housing vouchers in Philadelphia overwhelmed the city to the point that it was shut down for a decade. Those in the pilot program earn under 50% of the local median income with a child under the age of 15. Not only is their portion of rent reduced to 30% of income, but the government has provided them with debit cards to cover the additional portion of rent. Technically, they can spend it however they see fit.

Housing development agencies say cash is preferable to vouchers as landlords bypass discrimination laws and are more likely to reject potential tenants who use government vouchers. If someone has a business, does it not make more sense that they would be hesitant to partner with someone who they know cannot pay? Advocates believe “red tape” items like unit inspections are causing delays. Advocates also insist that providing cash will directly will help these people move to safer neighborhoods, neighborhoods where the residents work and pay their share of taxes into the system. These people insist that everything should be done to provide for those who remain underemployed or underemployed without addressing the root problem.

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Electric Vehicles for the Impoverished

Dear Readers: everyday we are bombarded with stranger than fiction news regarding “green energy”, “global warming”, and EVs.

Sorting through all the absurdities takes time, so for your convenience, here I present a specially curated nugget.

In my ramblings and basura sorting, I recently identified an exotic niche EV curiosity: a Washington State program that promotes and subsidizes EVs for folks at or below poverty level, defined as a 4 person household that brings in less than $93,000/year, or per guidelines below:

The million dollar question: why does a person at the poverty level need an EV?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these less than fortunate people don’t need or want an EV, but would instead better benefit from a reliable ICE car or hybrid that gets decent mileage, right?

Is the EVs for the Impoverished Program a ploy to get rid of EVs sitting moribund at dealerships with no takers?

Or perhaps the program is yet another example of white-guilt virtue signaling per this report: “Most US car owners would benefit from EV switch, but lowest-income Americans could be left behind: study”

Whatever the case, the hit to taxpayers is quite significant, as backed out of the data shown below.

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Newsom issues executive order for removal of homeless encampments in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday to direct state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments, a month after a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces.

Newsom’s order is aimed at the thousands of tents and makeshift shelters across the state that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks. The order makes clear that the decision to remove the encampments remains in local hands.

The order comes after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces. The case was the most significant on the issue to come before the high court in decades and comes as cities across the country have wrestled with the politically complicated issue of how to deal with a rising number of people without a permanent place to live and public frustration over related health and safety issues.

“There are simply no more excuses. It’s time for everyone to do their part,” Newsom said in a statement.

While Newsom cannot order local authorities to act, his administration can apply pressure by withholding money for counties and cities.

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Portland enforces homeless camping ban after SCOTUS ruling, county continues giving out tents

After Portland, Oregon, announced it would implement a ban on homeless street camping and impose fines or jail time for those who refuse shelter, Multnomah County says will continue distributing tents and tarps to homeless individuals despite the city’s efforts. The news comes just as the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that cities can remove homeless encampments from public property.  

On Monday, the city announced that it would start enforcing the new ban which applies to any homeless person offered reasonable shelter who refuses. Violators could be fined $100 or jailed. The ban also prioritizes targeting camps that pose significant health and safety risks in the community.  

Despite the city’s ban, the county will keep handing out tents and tarps, aiding those living on the streets, according to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, per KATU News.   

“We’re not stopping handing out tents and tarps. We’re just not going to be purchasing any more,” said Pederson. “We do have supplies on hand that are sufficient for the needs we have right now.”  

On Wednesday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler criticized the county’s actions, explaining, “It doesn’t make any sense that with 6,000 homeless people on our streets that we would hand out more than 6,000 tents and nearly five times that many tarps.”  

The city and county are currently in the middle of negotiating a three-year homeless response plan. Pederson emphasized she wouldn’t be pressured to stop distributing tents and tarps to reach a new deal.   

“If anyone was going to be using this to have an ultimatum about what our policy was going to be, that’s not something I was going to stand for,” she said.  

Responding to questions from KATU about the city and county’s relationship, with the county distributing tents and the city enforcing the ban, Pederson remarked, “I think it’s a sign of where we are right now, where we don’t have enough capacity within our existing system for shelter.”  

Mayor Wheeler responded to the same line of questioning, stating, “I think it says you have two separate governments.”  

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Supreme Court allows cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside

The Supreme Court decided on Friday that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors, even in West Coast areas where shelter space is lacking.

The case is the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court reversed a ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court that found outdoor sleeping bans amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The majority found that the 8th Amendment prohibition does not extend to bans on outdoor sleeping bans.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. “A handful of federal judges cannot begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”

He suggested that people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could raise that as a “necessity defense,” if they are ticketed or otherwise punished for violating a camping ban.

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On Wealth Inequality, the Left Has a Point

The federal government has been waging a war against the middle class and working poor since at least 1970. Wealth inequality has steadily increased since the early 1970s, and it’s not a coincidence. It’s a result of a series of policies. The government wants the masses of American working people broke, propertyless, and dependent upon elected officials for the crumbs they give back as handouts from taxes taken.

The most insidious attack on working people has been inflation, which really took off when the federal government decoupled the dollar from gold in 1971.

The inflation tax is the most regressive tax that currently exists in federal policy.

Inflation always taxes wages twice, once when the labor is performed and the worker is awaiting payment, and again when the wages are deposited into the worker’s checking account. But inflation leaves the rich man’s yacht untaxed.

No level of inflation, no matter how high, can ever take one cent of value away from a yacht. A yacht is always going to be a yacht, no matter what the value of money is.

Inflation taxes the poor man’s rent he advances to his landlord, but leaves private jets and vacation homes untaxed.

Want to know where this inflation tax goes? The stolen value of the inflation tax doesn’t just vanish out of thin air.

Some of it goes to the government; economists even have a name for the benefit government draws from the inflation tax. It’s called “seigniorage.”

Rich people generally don’t pay the inflation tax, and many of them benefit from it. Let’s say you’re a billionaire real estate mogul, not unlike Donald Trump, with a net-worth of $1 billion. You buy houses and real estate, and when you get your 20% equity, you pull that equity out and invest it into another real estate holding. So you have properties worth $5 billion, net assets of $1 billion, and (with only 20% equity in your properties) you also have $4 billion in mortgage debt.

4% inflation lowers the value of the mortgage debt you owe, since with CPI inflation you’re just going to raise the rent 4% next year. Inflation created by the Federal Reserve Bank becomes a gift of $160 million annually to your net worth ($4 billion x 0.04).

Every year.

And it enriches them more if inflation exceeds 4%, as it has in recent years.

If the CPI is 10% (as it nearly was in 2022), inflation alone adds 40% ($400 million) to this real estate mogul’s net worth. That doesn’t count the decrease in the nominal debt paid off by the real estate mogul’s tenants.

And this assumes the value of his property holdings is only increasing at the rate of CPI inflation, which it’s vastly exceeding, thanks to Federal Reserve Bank interest rate manipulation and federal housing subsidies and incentives.

Inflation enriches the real estate mogul with a boatload of mortgages that are now easier to pay off. It also benefits the hedge fund speculator and the banker, who are in the very businesses of being in debt.

In other words, the inflation tax makes the value of money flow directly from the wallets of wage-earners to the vaults of rich people who work with debt.

As long as the working man holds money in his possession, whether in the form of credit to his employer for his labor, in his pocket, or in his checking account, inflation taxes him. Only when the money is finally no longer due to him does the inflation tax end.

Working people know this truth intuitively because inflation raises prices at the grocery store, at the hardware store, at the department store, and the price of real estate.

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27% of Americans Are Skipping Meals Because of Skyrocketing Food Costs, Survey Shows

The price of food has jumped by 25% since the start of the pandemic — even more if you factor in the cost of a quick trip to the store, which takes into consideration the price of fuel. Now, a new study says there are some major ramifications.

Intuit Credit Karma, which provides information about financial products, says that more than one-quarter of the people it surveyed said they have skipped meals or sacrificed other spending due to rising costs. The survey of 2,011 adults was conducted online in the United States during the week of May 7. 

According to the survey, 28% said they are putting off paying for necessities, such as rent or other bills, to afford groceries — while 27% say they are occasionally skipping meals. Another 18% have applied for or have considered applying for food stamps and other types of assistance, and 15% rely on or have considered visiting food banks for their groceries.

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San Francisco opens city’s first $5 million taxpayer-funded free food ‘market’

San Francisco opened its first $5.5 million free food “market”, where approved residents can show a benefits eligibility card, put what they want in their carts, check out to keep track of outgoing inventory, and leave without paying.

The Bayview-Hunters Point facility aims to be a food pantry alternative that replicates the supermarket experience in an area where many grocery stores have come but few have remained due to high crime.

The 4000-square foot District 10 Market is the first of San Francisco’s food empowerment “markets” funded by the San Francisco’s Human Services Agency. Eligible individuals receive a Costo-like benefits card that allows use of the facility once per month. Eligibility is limited to individuals who live within one of three zip codes, be verified social services clients, have dependents under 25 or a qualified food-related illness, and be referred by one of eleven community organizations in the market’s referral network.

Geoffrea Morris, who spearheaded San Francisco’s Food Empowerment Market legislation in 2021 while working for a county supervisor and is a senior consultant for the District 10 Market, explains the program is meant to supplement food stamps that run out towards the end of the month, especially due to rising food costs from inflation.

“This is a supplemental source for food. Food stamps should be the primary source. This is a supplemental source especially close to the end of the month when families are facing the pain, especially with inflation,” Morris told The Center Square.

The facility is designed to closely replicate the supermarket experience, with individuals’ items weighed and scanned upon “check-out” to keep track of inventory and manage supply chains. District 10 Market, which is operating on a $5.5 million grant from San Francisco, uses taxpayer funds to purchase high-quality fresh produce from Rodriguez Brothers Ranch in Watsonville, and largely relies on donations from other grocery stores for its shelf-stable items and toiletries.

“If we didn’t tell you it was free you’d think you’d have to pay,” Morris said.

Morris also detailed how District 10 Market’s referral process is meant to ensure use of wraparound services.

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