Comments on: Sleeping in Cars in the USA

By: mjULTRA

mjULTRA — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:23:55 +0000

Yeah, lets blame the ‘free markets’, that we never really had to begin with..

First off, the FedRes, and its enablers are criminals, but the blame can be shared with those who support excessive regulation (an uneven playing field), taxpayer funded govt. subsidies (rewarding bad investment), and systematic corruption (from the top down, apparently.)

see you in the walgreens parking lot..

By: hp

hp — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:31:43 +0000

“Private profits, socialized losses.”

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:54:42 +0000

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080604_TaxAndDividend.pdf

Don’t read this if you work for an oil company or have stock in those companies!!

By: HR

HR — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:48:37 +0000

Yeah, things are bad, and they are gonna get a lot worse. So, what’s new? The bit about spam is so old that it is mildewed, right along with old people eating canned pet food to save money. Both myths surface without fail whenever the economy is in trouble … as if on cue. The truth is, both cost way more than fresh food on a per-pound basis. Besides, never in my life have I heard any REAL stories, or other REAL documentation to back up these media myths, much like the Vietnam veteran spitting myth. Guess the point of them is to try to con folks into believing that they’re doing OK if they’re not eating canned meat. Come on writers, you can surely come up with a new set of myths after all these years … then again, the left has its own agenda of control, which is just as bad as what the right offers.

By: Chris Crass

Chris Crass — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:17:18 +0000

Well this makes perfect sense. Socialism is only for the rich in America – poor folks can’t buy votes, you know.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:06:47 +0000

That new World order I hope it starts soon.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:04:28 +0000

I understand Mike and I also understand that because of climate change it looks like a new system in many way’s is needed. That is if humans wish to survive. Some ideas from James Hansen good ideas.

Carbon Tax & 100% Dividend
1. Tax Large & Growing (but get it in place!)
- tap efficiency potential & life style choices
2. Entire Tax Returned
- equal monthly deposits in bank accounts
3. Limited Government Role
- keep hands off money!
- eliminate fossil subsidies
- technology support (no Manhattan projects!)
- change profit motivation of utilities
- watch U.S. modernize & emissions fall!

By: Michael Kenny

Michael Kenny — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:38:59 +0000

The interesting thing about all of this is that something similar happened before under rather similar political circumstances. Immediately after WWI, the price of coal went through the roof, completely upsetting the equilibrium of the world economy. Coal, in 1918, played much the same role as oil today. Most goods were transported by steam-hauled railway. Local public transport ran on electricity generated by coal. Coal was used for heating, hot water and sometimes for cooking. It generated the town gas that most people used for cooking and for public lighting. The effect was soaring prices in all directions and strikes as people tried to keep up.

All that came about because the six great empires that had ruled Europe and a good part of Asia, to say nothing of far-flung empires, the superpowers of that era, had bankrupted themselves in WWI. The problem wasn’t economic. It wasn’t a recession. It was a political problem. Economic operators had lost confidence in the stability of the political order. The old order was dead, but no one was sure what the new order would look like. Hence, the lack of confidence and the desire to hoard products which in fact were neither scarce nor running out. That, I suspect, is what’s happening now. The sole surviving superpower has bankrupted itself and destroyed its political credibility in two unwinnable wars. Nobody really knows yet what the new world order is going to look like or how much more blood is going to be spilled before the we get there, so the people with something to lose in the present social order are afraid and are hedging their bets. By so doing, of course, they are precipitating their own downfall, but one of the great advantages of human rationality is that it allows us to understand that human beings are not rational!

By: catherine

catherine — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:59:52 +0000

Mike, People are also living/sleeping in their storage units. I read yesterday that storage companies are doing big business because people who’ve been foreclosed need somewhere to store their furniture, etc. But then many people can’t keep up with THOSE payments, either. AND, some are using the storage units to live in themselves.

Will anyone ever be held accountable for this? Stupid, absolutely stupid question.

Thanks for your piece; good research.

By: Edwin Pell

Edwin Pell — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:29:26 +0000

I think Santa Barbara is a bad example. I have a good paying job and I can not afford to live in Santa Barbara (nor in Beverly Hills, nor La Jolla, nor Menlo Park , in fact nowhere in CA that is not stinking desert). My son just graduated from a good college and is making $7.7 as a checkout clerk at the grocery. He can not afford to live in Santa Barbara. When you come up with a welfare scheme that allows everybody to live in Santa Barbara a place with great weather and beautiful land let me know I will move there too.