Just a reminder that Brazil bulldozed parts of the protected Amazon rainforest to build a 4 lane highway for the COP 30 climate summit this year. Thousands (50,000?) of "climate champions" burned millions of liters of fossil jet fuel flying from around the world (many on private jets), then drove on a freshly bulldozed highway through cleared Amazon land. Seems a bit ironic.
Do you know that millions of people live in that jungle, the Amazon rainforest? People that need to go to work, need to transport food, goods? Lula want to end the poverty there and this won't happen without bringing a bit of "development". Thousands (not even that actually) of kilometers is nothing compared to the 7 million kilometers of PRESERVED rainforest (the biggest preserved rainforest in the world, with the costs paid mostly by Brazilians).
Venezuela is not only almost completely dependent on oil exports (extreme price fluctuations) but it's also not agriculturally self sufficient. It's not the only country with those problems, and they're not insurmountable problems, but it requires good economic planning to be able to handle downturns in those conditions, something Venezuela didn't have.
Argentina, on the other hand, has somewhat more varied exports (though soy and corn products are a large portion) and is agriculturally self sufficient. Unlike Venezuela, which had a "export oil, import everything else" mentality, Argentina has a large degree of economic protectionism and so they do have other sectors to help supply domestic demand to some degree.
There's obviously many other factors, but those are the largest ones in my opinion.
Argentina is blessed with natural resources and vast fertile land. It is perhaps the second best piece of geography in the world in terms of natural resources and fertile land after America
The mystery is why it doesn’t grow, not why it doesn’t collapse. Inflation is a beast if people can’t get enough food. But Argentina has never had much of a problem in that respect
There are some who argue Argentina would face massive social unrest if it weren't for it's welfare programs.
"Benítez is one of millions of Argentines who survive largely thanks to soup kitchens and state welfare programs, many of which are funneled through politically powerful social movements linked to the ruling party. Almost a third of Argentine households are estimated to receive some kind of social assistance."
I can't seem to find anything to verify your 10% claim - all I can find is stats showing that child poverty actually went down.. Are you able to post a source for that?
EDIT: since my account has been rate-limited...
The msn article below was released before the stats and is purely speculation. The stats before covid already indicate an increase, and NZ has long had fluctuating child poverty rates, which the current government is attempting to address. However it is essential to realise that this increase is largely driven by the effects of the previous government, and the housing and rental market - not the effects of Covid-19.
https://www.cpag.org.nz/the-latest/current-statistics/latest...
"An additional 18,000 children were probably pushed into poverty in the 12 months to March 2021, even without taking rising housing costs into account, according to new modelling in the report, entitled The first year of Covid-19: Initial outcomes of our collective care for low-income children in Aotearoa New Zealand"
"This increase in child poverty of around 10% comes at a time when property owners have seen their wealth rise at an accelerated rate," said McAllister. "Loss of income related to job loss was probably inevitable for many families; but loss of income to the point of inadequacy - or further inadequacy - was due to political decision-making.
"The Government avoided one massive health and economic crisis but it enabled another one - that of poverty, homelessness and inequality - to grow rapidly."
The next mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, ran and won on a pro-police platform. He won in one the most diverse cities in the US, with the diverse bloc (his highest voter support was in majority black and hispanic neighborhoods) carrying him to victory. I wouldn't say this group is the law and order reactionaries you mentioned. Also, he is bringing back past policies that were labeled as racist. Why do you think he won with such a platform?
Here are some of those issues.
- Bringing back the plainclothes police unit that was famously disbanded last summer.
- Deploy more police to poor neighborhoods.
- Bring back a variation of stop and frisk (stop, ask questions and frisk).
I don't have any experience with the housing issue in California, but got involved a while back trying to find pragmatic solutions in Seattle.
The situation is a mess and there is an entire "homeless industrial complex" complicating matters here, rife with fraud, misspending and cronyism.
Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse.
At first I was in the "Housing First" crowd, but after my experiences I would say I more firmly believe in "Rehab First".
A local news station released a great documentary called "Seattle is Dying". It has 10 million views since released a couple of years ago.
https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw
>Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse.
Because home prices and rents keep going up. Homelessness is an inevitable side effect of that.
Funneling money on rehab rather than providing places to actually live cant fix that. It's attacking a symptom not the cause.
However, attacking the cause (property prices/rents) would make a lot of very rich, very powerful people very angry - all backed by an army of overleveraged homeowners terrified of negative equity.
Until property owners are apoplectic with fury about declining property values I doubt the problem will stop getting worse.
> Why do you favor blaming rent for homelessness instead of lack of jobs that pay well enough?
In most countries, homelessness is concentrated in wealthy, but expensive cities e.g. London, NYC. There are plenty of well-paying jobs (even relatively unskilled ones) but high rents more than make up for it. I felt significantly more housing-secure living in a cheap area with a shitty job than in an expensive area with a good job.
If everyone is paid more but the housing supply remains limited housing prices will simply increase further.
My friend in California makes twice as much as I do on the east coast. I can afford a home and he can’t.
Supply and demand. Housing prices will only go down when there is significant excess supply.
If you want to help homelessness build more housing. Not specifically low income housing, just lots of housing. No it is not going to help the people living on the street right now, but it is the only real solution.
>Why do you favor blaming rent for homelessness instead of lack of jobs that pay well enough?
Two sides of the same coin.
>Unless you only care to push an agenda.
Some people prefer to prevaricate and show only faux concern for the homeless, I guess.
It's understandable - there are a lot of people who while they dont want to be seen to be outright hostile to the plight of the homeless, will react negatively to the idea of seeing the value of their assets decline.
The thought that there can be enough jobs that pay “well enough” is a myth. There are only so many jobs that can provide the wages needed for rent in a given city, and there are always more people that want it than have it. Of course there is no single root cause but if I had to point one out I would finger the stagnation of real wages.
Also don’t forget that you can have high unemployment and lots of available jobs at the same time if the skills doesn’t match up. It is complete rubbish and false to claim that we can train anybody to do any job.
The problem is not lack of jobs. The problems is that a larger and larger % of the population doesn’t have the skills/IQ/whatever to do those jobs. Or the cost (car etc.) of getting the job isn’t covered by the pay.
I've never understood why working the most entry level job should afford you a midrange 2br. Why not link minimum wage to 3x rent for an entry level apartment?
Yup, and the problem with inadequate housing affordability means pumping money into rehab just further increases the price of housing as you need to house people in rehab, after all!
Get rid of height limits, parking minimums, single-family-only zoning, and make most housing projects zoned by-right without public comment required.
Seattle light rail was sold to the voters with one premise being upsizing the surrounding neighborhoods. Once construction began, upsizing became controversial and never happened in some neighborhoods because of gentrification fears.
Your "very rich, very powerful" comment is unfounded and a weak attempt to make it seem like a conspiracy. It's the tens of millions of basic, everyday middle-class homeowners who freak out when anything related to their home changes negatively -- lower values, higher taxes, "wrong people" moving into the neighborhood, HOA rules not followed, school system grades declining, traffic increasing, etc etc
My experience with those living on the streets is that substance abuse and mental health is the main symptom of them living that lifestyle. They will be the first ones to tell you if you're willing to have a conversation with them.
What continues to amaze me is that the US completely ignore successful programs run in other countries. The US spent more $ per person on education, healthcare, homelessness etc. and get consistently worse results than countries in Europe for example. I wonder if it is a weird “US #1” kinda thing that makes it impossible to admit that the US can learn from other countries? Or is there some other explanation? Perhaps an unwillingness to actually solve those problems because of a general individualistic/selfish/not my problems mentality?
After the 2016 election I was really curious as to how Trump could be elected. Most of my peers brushed it off as dumb, racist white people, but I really wanted to understand. Especially since I had family who had voted for him who I don't consider to be dumb or racist.
I'm from the coast and live in the city. When taking a road trip through the Midwest, it hit me that people from the rust belt and rural areas had to vote for his message. Honestly it was depressing to see the decaying factories and poverty stricken areas. He was giving them hope and was going to fight for them. Anyway, I may be wrong but that's just my perspective.
Someone posted this video here yesterday with Steve Bannon explaining the populist movement and how Trump came to be president. There are multiple parts and this video is over two hours long but worth the watch. I'm not normally one to watch a video over half an hour and especially not Steve Bannon, but it's quite fascinating to hear this story and perspective.
This is an interesting take that I have seen in my Facebook feed, media and Joe Biden about white privilege allowing the protestors into the Capitol building.
Could it be that this particular group at the Capitol didn't have any supposed proclivity to violence?
This was supposed to be a group of people who "backed the blue" and stood for law and order. Perhaps their guard was let down because of this?
Perhaps it was because the police response to mass gatherings has changed and become more lenient since the beginning of the BLM protests.
Interesting that you posted this link with the image of national guard members on the Lincoln Memorial steps this summer. I had read the an official, maybe Mayor Bowser didn't want this exact scene pictured to happen again because it looked bad.
Anyway, here is the tweet from the Mayor Bowser officially declining additional federal law enforcement to help MPD and their partners.
So, you're telling me the response had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that almost all the 1/6 "protestors" were white, that that was just a coincidence? You're gonna have to provide more than "could it be," and "perhaps," if you want me to swallow that line.
Given the difference between the two types of protestors, Occam's Razor leads us to the obvious conclusion. Now, I say again, if you want to claim it wasn't white privilege, I'm still gonna need more than "could it be the case," and "perhaps."
Are you actually trying to make that claim or just arguing for the sake of arguing?
If you think I'm being uncivil, don't step out into the rest of the comments section, bud. I haven't called you a single name, or done anything, other than express incredulity at your position. I didn't even point out how racist it sounded that you were claiming one side was more prone to violence or less law and order oriented.
All I'm saying is that if you're going to disagree with Occam's Razor, given the history of racial relations in this country, including the fact that there's an entire protest movement about police violence against non-white people, you've gotta bring something besides "could it be," and "perhaps."
If you can't deal with that, I'd suggest you avoid internet discussions entirely.
I'm talking about politeness and courtesy not name calling. Having a discussion and avoiding snarky comments so this forum doesn't devolve into Twitter or Reddit.
"I assume you have noticed how the majority of the people in the 1/6 "protests" were white, didn't you? "
"You're gonna have to provide more than "could it be," and "perhaps," if you want me to swallow that line."
"Are you actually trying to make that claim or just arguing for the sake of arguing?"
"If you can't deal with that, I'd suggest you avoid internet discussions entirely."
Okay, well, see ya then. None of those are attacks on you in any way. I'd advise you to grow a thicker skin if you want to participate on the internet.
I totally get what you're saying. I'm just pointing out that there are community guidelines here to create civil discourse that is not present on other internet forums.
Here is the text from the tweet that I had previously posted. Mayor Bowser goes on to say in her letter that MPD and their partners are well prepared for the event and didn't need further assistance.
I'm not certain the context of why she begins her statement "To be clear". I looked at her previous tweets from the day and day before and this matter wasn't specifically addressed. The only thing I could think of is that a federal law enforcement authority wanted to get involved and she didn't feel the need?
"To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD if such plans are underway."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o
Brazil is also bulldozing large swaths of the rainforest to build thousands of kilometers of roads to sea ports to access trade routes with China.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-lula-backs-hi...
Oh yeah, Lula wants rich nations to pay billions of dollars to Brazil annually to protect the rainforest.