Poor America - BBC Panorama Documentary

[joolz]

There aren't any shanti towns springing up in the UK AFAIK. And when did you stop beating your wife?

Plus I haven't seen any publicity about US charities coming to treat poor people in the UK, whereas the UK has sent medical people to the USA to treat people there who needed help but couldn't afford health care. If I was from the USA that would make me feel ashamed.

 

[joolz]

In the UK, no diabetic who requires it has to pay for insulin, or any other medication, for that matter. It's a exempted condition in England for prescription charges. They also get free eye tests.

In Scotland all medication on prescription is free so there is no need for exceptions.

Not sure about Wales or NI.


ETA Just remembered - Wales have free prescriptions too.

 

[joolz]

There are other important things beside healthcare, and Cuba's healthcare isn't too shabby anyway. <snip>

I presume they are having problems in Cuba, the radio said the reason they are allowing free enterprise, as mentioned in my prev reply to you, is that they are having difficulty keeping everyone employed by the state.

 

[crimresearch]

Plus I haven't seen any publicity about US charities coming to treat poor people in the UK, whereas the UK has sent medical people to the USA to treat people there who needed help but couldn't afford health care. If I was from the USA that would make me feel ashamed.

Ashamed for sending our help to Haiti, et al. instead of to you?


;-}

 

[joolz]

Arizona under kindly Republican leadership is ditching Medicaid (AHCCS) for the childless poor. The unemployed ill are suffering of maladies with preventable causes. I know of two diabetics with out funds simply doing without insulin. I know of at least one death.

Judge allows cuts to health care coverage for poor Arizonans

A judge gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the state to deny free health care over the next year to about 135,000 poor people.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain acknowledged that voters mandated in 2000 that the state must provide care for everyone below the federal poverty level. And the Voter Protection Act, a provision of the Arizona Constitution, prohibits lawmakers from altering or repealing anything approved by voters without taking the issue back to the ballot.

But Brain said that does not preclude lawmakers from refusing to provide enough money to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program, to cover everyone who is eligible to enroll. .

That is shocking. The next proposal will be just to kill people your government don't like. Ring any bells? Most times the USA hits the press here I think international respect for the USA drops another few notches.

I know there are a lot of good USA-ers, I've 'met' many here, I just wish you could have more influence on your politicians and government.

 

[joolz]

Ashamed for sending our help to Haiti, et al. instead of to you?


;-}

Could have expressed that better, but hope you got my drift

Like most folk, I give money to charity and assume it will go to poor countries, although I am glad people are being helped there if they need it.

 

[Travis]

By that logic, the most "socialist" American states should have less poverty and homelessness than the states with less safety nets. Instead they have nearly the same level or more, but are on the verge of bankruptcy.

I can show you apartment complexes that are large majority section 8 (gov't assisted), are as modern and comfortable as the average apartment, has a parking lot full of new/newer nice cars (even new BMWs and such), leave their front curtains open so you can watch their big screens TVs, and own smart phones.

My sister lives in an apartment complex for people on government assistance. There's not much crime there so they leave the curtains open too. But you don't see big HD TVs in those homes. In fact most of them have no television at all. My sister has an older one that the family gave to her but she doesn't even get basic cable to so there's nothing to see on it (we get no reception over the air here). The parking lot is mostly empty since most can't afford cars. What cars are there are mostly up on jacks awaiting needed repairs to start running again. My sister's car was like that for six months. She had to bum rides to all the places she needed to go (that would include work) because we ended public transportation back in 2007 in order to pay for some property tax breaks that the politicians had promised (the same tax breaks also closed our only public hospital and the outpatient clinics we used to have leaving the private hospitals ER as the only place most can go for treatment now).

There used to be a playground for the children but it burnt down back in 2009 (by some teenagers that didn't even live there) and has remained a giant charred sand pit ever since. Now children just play stickball out in a busy street and get hit by passing cars every now and then.

Most of the machines in the laundromat don't work anymore so residents also have to bum rides into town to use a laundromat there. Oh and they paved over most of the lawns that used to be there to save maintenance costs.

But, please, do go on with this fantasy joyland that you seem to think public assisted housing is. Next time I talk to my sister I'll let her know how awesome she has it. I'll call her up on her aging non-cordless phone to let her know that she needs to start using her phantom smart phone to schedule a pickup for her BMW before getting a large LED television that matches the new furniture.

She might even get a laugh off if her lingering whooping cough will allow it.

So don't have an abusive boyfriend that deals drugs from your Sec. 8 housing.

Yes, if only women caught up in abusive relationships would just end them! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before?

 

[devnull]

It's a right wing guilt eraser.

Nail..... head...... bang!

 

[Francesca R]

I'm not sure what logic you are trying to use here. Our excessive defense spending is counted as income. So it is included already and therefore overestimates standard of living.

If the US didn't do this, and produced more housing or whatever instead then our standard of living would be accurately reflected in the current statistics. You wouldn't add it in there a second time and say we are even wealthier than the current statistics imply.

The logic is that defence spending is resources mandatorily diverted from what they would otherwise be avaiable for into defence, coupled with the assertion that much of this is wasteful. Therefore if the same resources were not spent on defence they could be spent on something more productive. Not necessarily; the government could waste them on something else, or the private market could waste them too. But it's a valid assumption.

Purchasing Power Parity [ . . . ] isn't "more accurate".

It's not perfectly accurate, but the UN human development index uses PPP-based GDP not the version you cited, so they believe it is more accurate.

 

[AlBell]

What is *********? A magic incantation for He whose name cannot be spoken?

The actual word meaning bull droppings.

Or the whooshing sound of facts flying right over a head?

Facts are certainly flying over heads -- mostly for BBC documentary makers and viewers -- not over my head though.

 

[crimresearch]

The actual word meaning bull droppings.


Facts are certainly flying over heads -- mostly for BBC documentary makers and viewers -- not over my head though.

Dream on...

 

[keale]

Families are not thrown out on the streets, they can get housing assistance. The people you see living on the streets are primarily drug/alcohol addicts or the mentally ill. Then you have the odd tent city under a bridge somewhere occupied mostly by registered sex offenders who can't live anywhere else.

It appears you are in a different state but around here families do end up on the streets and your better off praying than hoping for housing assistance because there isnt enough funding for it and the wait list is years long.

We have a seen major erosion of the supposed safety net. Even getting food stamps and minimal cash aid is not easy.

 

[keale]

There's no reason those people wouldn't qualify for housing assistance. If they prefer to live in a tent in the woods there's nothing the state can do to force them into a housing program.

It looks like the people in the ABC story have mental issues as well. Couldn't get along with relatives, have lots of pets. I doubt there's many rent-subsidized or government housing that would allow them to keep that menagerie, probably why they choose to live in a tent in the woods.

Like I said housing assistance is much more difficult to get than you think around here its near impossible

 

[WildCat]

Like I said housing assistance is much more difficult to get than you think around here its near impossible

Where is "here"?

 

[keale]

Where is "here"?

Southern California
Orange County

 

[Travis]

Southern California
Orange County

No different in Northern Cali.

I had an aunt that had to live in an old garage with her son for over a year before a place opened up in the low income apartment complex. It's worse now with so many people in the $40-80,000 income bracket unable to find any medium priced homes for sale. This is the consequence of housing complex developers focusing almost exclusively on high priced McMansions during the bubble. With nothing but those huge homes now on the market, and no credit available for anyone to build the types of houses people now want, those $40-80,000 income bracket people are now competing with actual low income people for those apartments.

 

[often mrunderstood]

She might even get a laugh off if her lingering whooping cough will allow it.?

You busted me! I made all that up because I hate poor people. Man am I feeling bad now. At least I could provide a laugh to someone down on their luck. Shame on me. Thanks for setting me straight Travis.

 

[keale]

No different in Northern Cali.

I had an aunt that had to live in an old garage with her son for over a year before a place opened up in the low income apartment complex. It's worse now with so many people in the $40-80,000 income bracket unable to find any medium priced homes for sale. This is the consequence of housing complex developers focusing almost exclusively on high priced McMansions during the bubble. With nothing but those huge homes now on the market, and no credit available for anyone to build the types of houses people now want, those $40-80,000 income bracket people are now competing with actual low income people for those apartments.

Every apartment complex in my area has big signs to draw in new tenants with a month of free rent its not helping much since theres way more empty apartments than people looking that can afford them. The strange thing is even as homes lose 30+% of their value the rental pricing has stayed firm....if I had the cash id buy a few homes and rent em out.

 

[Virus]

I'm radical like that...I want a planned economy.

Are you undeterred by the fact that planned economies don't work?

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

Are you undeterred by the fact that planned economies don't work?

They've worked a bit in the past; there's reason to believe that with the current state of information technology and various other contemporary factors a planned economy might work well if instigated in a developed country.

Capitalism works a bit. Your binary does work/doesn't work position is unrealistic - as if capitalism doesn't have any downsides, such as environmental degredation, wasted economic effort, unemployment, astronomical wealth inequality, "each person for themselves" mentality leading to the annulment of community cohesion/civic responsibility...