tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post4764180484197189255..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses?hederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-57481101211103580542008-12-31T23:52:00.000-08:002008-12-31T23:52:00.000-08:00There are prisons. There won't be any workhouses a...There are prisons. There won't be any workhouses as they would cost the gov't money. More people on street corners with signs saying, "Homeless, Please Help - God Bless", that we can expect. And, some people claim this is a "Christian" country...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-39026258193140129492008-12-17T12:42:00.000-08:002008-12-17T12:42:00.000-08:00This is going to sound a little weird, but it's so...This is going to sound a little weird, but it's something I keep thinking.<BR/><BR/>If you look at population trends in our "great" state, you find that California has today over three times (300%) as many people than it did in 1950. About 33 million versus about 10 million. <BR/><BR/>The percentage of aged, disabled and otherwise needy or dependent individuals may not be constant--as it is affected by many other factors not purely statistical--but the actual numbers could be said to be roughly equal. Let's say it comprises something like 10 % of the total population. That would mean that in 1950, that group totalled 1 million. At that same rate, today we have 3 million. <BR/><BR/>The numbers and kinds of support systems and programs for such groups has increased significantly over the last 50 years. These individuals are eligible for (if not actually "entitled"to ) many kinds of benefits that did not even exist in 1950. In addition, large numbers of immigrants--many, many of them undocumented, and hence "uncounted" in official numbers--participate in the largesse of charity and public governmental support. <BR/><BR/>It's probably not a stretch to say that upwards of 5 million individuals in the State of California are dependent, to a significant degree, upon public sources of support. That number promises to rise as the baby-boom generation ages, and private pensions decline. <BR/><BR/>Our country has seen middle class jobs exported at unprecedented rates over the last three decades. Pensions, private health coverage, mean income levels, are all evaporating. Republican policies have increasingly siphoned off public and private capital into the hands of the rich. <BR/><BR/>Whether or not you believe it fair, or undemocratic, or mean-spirited, the bottom line is that Americans are going to have to do with less. Not just bad roads and bridges, not just poorer public schools and prohibitively expensive college degrees, not just run down hospitals and bizarre "Shawshank"-like prisons, but lots more homeless and abandoned and forgotten folks. <BR/><BR/>People sit and watch their television sets and fret. We all feel powerless and impotent and victimized. <BR/><BR/>But it happens every day, every week. The Secretary of the Treasury is sitting, right now, on 400 billions of our dollars, and there is no oversight. This is YOUR money, folks, and it's being given away to the rich and favored.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com