Tag: poverty

Maybe We’re Closer to ‘You’ll Own Nothing’ Than We Realize

The World Economic Forum’s catchphrase you’ll own nothing and be happy was widely mocked as an eyebrow-raising vision of a “sharing economy” future without the implicit agency granted by full ownership. Renting stuff that one needed only for one-time use has long been a market, and car-sharing makes sense for urban dwellers who only need a vehicle on occasion.

But to own nothing still implies powerlessness and poverty, not happiness, which continues to be associated with owning income streams and nice things, i.e. wealth.

Given our dependence on software / digital rights and the phantom wealth of credit-asset bubbles,”how much do we actually own?” is a fair question. Consider the recent New York Times article Why Tech Companies Are Not Your Friends: Lessons From Roku, which was reprinted in other publications with the more accurate title Our Gadgets Are Not Ours.

The gist of the article is that since we don’t own control of the software, our “ownership” of the device is illusory. Here is an excerpt:

More than a decade ago, when we bought a TV it was just that–a big screen that let you plug into it whatever you wanted. Nowadays, the vast majority of TVs connect to the internet and run the manufacturer’s operating system and apps. Even though you bought the TV, the software component, a major part of what makes the product work, remains controlled by the company.

Changes to the product’s software interface and data collection practices can happen at any moment. In extreme examples, a device can stop working. In 2020, for instance, Amazon deactivated the Echo Look, a camera that helped people organize their wardrobes. It issued a promotional credit for owners to buy a different Amazon gadget that lacked similar features.

The less extreme, more common situation is when companies stop supporting older products because they need to sell new gadgets. Apple’s original Apple Watch from 2015, for example, no longer gets software updates and now barely works.

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San Francisco buys vodka shots for homeless alcoholics in taxpayer-funded program

The City of San Francisco is providing free beer and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics at taxpayer expense under a little-known pilot program. 

The “Managed Alcohol Program” operated by San Francisco’s Department of Public Health serves regimented doses of alcohol to voluntary participants with alcohol addiction in an effort to keep the homeless off the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services. Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics wonder if the government would be better off funding treatment and sobriety programs instead.

“Established in countries such as Canada and Australia, a managed alcohol program is usually administered by a nurse and trained support staff in a facility such as a homeless shelter or a transitional or permanent home, and is one method to minimize harm for those with alcohol use disorder,” the California Health Care Foundation explains in an 2020 article describing the pilot program. 

“By prescribing limited quantities of alcohol, the model aims to prevent potentially life-threatening effects of alcohol withdrawal, such as seizures and injuries.” 

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Ohio Pastor Criminally Charged for Letting People Sleep In Church. Again.

An Ohio pastor is once again being brought up on criminal charges for sheltering people in his church.

On Friday, the city of Bryan, Ohio refiled charges against Chris Avell, the pastor of Dad’s Place, for fire and zoning code violations related to his operation of a 24-hour “Rest and Refresh” ministry at the church’s downtown building.

The city argues the church’s 24-hour ministry is in fact just a residential homeless shelter, which is not allowed at the commercially zoned property. The fire code violations make it not only unauthorized but also unsafe. Each violation, if not corrected, is punishable by a $1,000 daily fine.

“We appreciate that Dad’s Place has tried to help people in need,” said Bryan Mayor Carrie Schlade in a statement. “But putting these people’s lives at risk in the case of a fire or other dangers is not helping them.”

“Here we are with the pastor facing new criminal charges for caring for people inside his church,” First Liberty Institute attorney Jeremy Dys, who is representing Dad’s Place, told Reason in an interview on Friday.

Reason covered Avell’s case back in January when he was first charged with 18 criminal counts for similar zoning and fire code violations.

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Greenpeace Crusade Will Blind and Kill Children

Greenpeace and other anti-biotech activist groups have logged a win in a crusade that could ultimately blind and kill thousands of children annually. How? By persuading the Court of Appeals of the Philippines to issue a scientifically ignorant and morally hideous decision to ban the planting of vitamin A–enriched golden rice. The objective result will be more children blinded and killed by vitamin A deficiency.

The World Health Organization estimates that 250,000–500,000 children who are vitamin A–deficient become blind every year, and half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight. In addition, children with immune systems weakened by vitamin A deficiency have an increased risk of illness and death from infectious diseases.

The court also banned the planting of an eggplant variety that has been biotech-enhanced to resist insect pests. The same variety approved by Bangladeshi regulators has reduced pesticide usage and improved farmers’ yields by more than 50 percent.

In their press release, Greenpeace activists crowed, “The Court of Appeals has essentially put a moratorium on these genetically modified crops.”

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Nearly 13% of US Households Face Lack of Food – Reports

A growing number of Americans are struggling to feed themselves and 12.8% of households face lack of food, Newsweek said on Tuesday, citing US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data.

Some 17 million US households faced problems to obtain enough food in 2022 due to lack of resources, the report said.

Those most affected by food insecurity were single parent and ethnic minorities households as well as families with children.

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Behind the Badge: In New York City Homeless Shelters, the Same ‘Peace Officers’ Abuse Residents

In April 2018, at a New York City intake center for homeless families, Melina Cardona and five other city employees handcuffed a woman who had just walked in to get information about emergency housing. They applied the cuffs in a manner “so excessive,” they fractured her arm.

At the time, Cardona was a peace officer with the New York City Department of Homeless Services Police, an obscure, approximately 700-member agency that maintains security throughout the shelters the city owns and operates. Department of Homeless Services (DHS) officers “work with New York City’s most vulnerable population,” as a former deputy commissioner said in a recent recruitment video.

They are “the original community police officers.”

Although DHS’s peace officers are given broad powers, they are not police officers. They carry non-lethal weapons such as pepper spray, batons, and Tasers, and they are given the power to detain, not arrest. Nevertheless, they have been training with the NYPD since 2017.

And peace officers still have the ability to mistreat the people they are employed to protect. An investigation by a team of journalists reporting for MuckRock and New York Focus offers a first-of-its-kind look at how these officers are held accountable — and how long their behavior can go unchecked. Previously-unreleased disciplinary files show that it often takes DHS a half a year or more to suspend officers found guilty of misconduct. Those who do land a timely suspension tend to be back at work within a month.

If they’ve done it once, they’re likely to do it twice: Through public records requests, MuckRock and New York Focus uncovered disciplinary incidents involving 31 officers, many of them repeat offenders. Just three officers were involved in more than a third of all incidents.

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How effective are California’s homelessness programs? Audit finds state hasn’t been keeping track

California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years but didn’t consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation, according to state audit released Tuesday.

With makeshift tents lining the streets and disrupting businesses in cities and towns throughout California, homelessness has become one of the most frustrating and seemingly intractable issues in the country’s most populous state. An estimated 171,000 people are homeless in California, which amounts to roughly 30% of all of the homeless people in the U.S.

Despite the roughly billions of dollars spent on more than 30 homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, California doesn’t have reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to state auditor’s report.

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‘It’s going to be war’: Hundreds of furious Brooklyn residents take to the streets to protest planned homeless shelter for 150 men

Thousands of protesters descended on a Brooklyn neighborhood Saturday to protest a planned homeless shelter that will house only men.

The shelter, proposed by the city, will be a 32-room hotel with a community facility, and will provide services like case management, housing placement, and community partnerships that will work to provide the men with jobs.

The planned site is located in heavily residential Bensonhurst, where locals have expressed unease over the site’s proximity to several schools.

City officials have shot back that the neighborhood is one of few in the five boroughs without a shelter, and that residents have had ample notice, being notified back in November.

Unswayed, residents, business owners, and politicians in the mostly Asian neighborhood came together Saturday to say no to the city’s plans, as Mayor Eric Adams‘ administration works to address the city’s rapidly rising homeless rate.

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Net Zero is a war on the working class

It’s official. Net Zero will make us poorer. A new report finds that the British government’s climate-change policies are likely to ‘make the poor poorer, and push struggling communities further into deprivation and exclusion’.

Our Journey to Net Zero, by the Institute for Community Studies (ICS), shows that the transition to Net Zero will cause a rise in unemployment, as carbon-intensive industries are forcibly restructured. Food will become more expensive. And the eco-friendly changes we’ll all be forced to make, such as insulating our homes or switching to electric cars, will be extremely difficult ’for low-income households’. The ICS concludes that the poorest 40 per cent of households are at risk of falling into ‘transition poverty’.

As shocking as this statistic is, the report is no rant. A team of researchers from ICS, Trinity College Dublin, and the universities of Leeds and York have thoroughly reviewed the policy changes and instruments – subsidies, taxation and so on – most likely to prove effective in reducing emissions of CO2. And they have concluded that these Net Zero measures will push down living standards for a lot of people in the UK.

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This Is A Tale Of Two Americas, And Those At The Bottom Of The Economic Food Chain Are Being Hit Extremely Hard

If you have plenty of money and you are able to shield yourself from what is happening to the tens of millions of people that are wallowing in poverty, life in America is still good in 2024.  Stock prices have been hovering near record highs, and companies that cater to the rich and famous have been raking in the cash.  But for most of the rest of the country, things are not going so well.  Homelessness has been rising at the fastest rate we have ever seen, crime is out of control all over the nation, and large companies are laying off workers at a very frightening pace.

If you live in the version of America that is still living the high life, good for you.

But if you live in the version of America that the rest of us live in, conditions are rapidly deteriorating.

Earlier today, I came across an article in the San Francisco Standard that detailed what life is like in Oakland, California these days…

A Prius hanging out of a dumpster. Stripped-down cars. Burning trash cans. These are some of the East Oakland sights set to a new catchphrase that’s blowing up on social media: “Oakland, California, … donde la vida no vale nada.”

Even cops, government officials, firefighters and kids are repeating the catchphrase on social media and on the streets of the Town.

That catchphrase was created by a man named Gregorio Ramon.

He has posted hundreds of videos on social media that document what is happening to the city where he has his home…

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