Crisis In Cali: Workers Face ‘Buckets Of Feces And Needles’ As Homelessness Worsens

Workers in California, who are desperately trying to clean up the state because of the skyrocketing homeless population, are facing grotesque conditions. Some workers even fear for their health after being faced with buckets of fecal matter and dirty needles.

In a democrat’s paradise, such as California, you would think all those taxes and numerous regulations would be able to house some people.  But as the taxes and regulations increase so does the homeless rate, and state workers tasked with cleaning up the mess caused by democrat’s policies are facing dire situations.

The taxes will have to continue to rise too in order to cover the cost of cleaning up the shanty towns. According to Fox News, the cost of cleaning up the state’s numerous shanty towns is also hitting record highs, and that price tag is likely to keep rising as workers tasked with tossing the vagrants’ syringes, feces, used feminine hygiene products, and buckets of urine demand safer work conditions; but that doesn’t seem possible considering their job.

The Golden State’s homeless population of more than 130,000 people is now about 25 percent of the nationwide total, and cleaning up after the surging group is getting costly — topping $10 million in 2016-17. But the human cost is getting equally untenable, a workers’ advocate says. In an official grievance filed last week, the union representing California’s maintenance workers accused the state of subjecting its members to hazardous conditions without proper training or equipment.

California will likely provide necessary equipment, and it will all fall onto the backs of the already poverty-stricken taxpayers of the state.  As more are flung into homelessness, instead of easing up on the oppressive government policies that led to this crisis, most politicians in the Golden State will buckle down and pour gasoline on the bonfire.

“It is the Union’s contention that Caltrans is not ensuring that our members are being provided the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), necessary training, necessary vaccinations and proper compensation for the dangerous hazmat duties they are performing when cleaning up homeless encampments on State Caltrans property,” International Union of Operating Engineers director Steve Crouch said in the complaint.

Crouch said that the workers face slippery and muddy conditions in areas riddled with sharp objects, such as used needles, and that could present a health concern. Considering many of California’s big cities are dealing with Hepatitis A outbreaks because of the homeless problem, Crouch definitely should be concerned.  “Feces and urine and feminine products and all kinds of things on the ground; needles, syringes, you know they use buckets, five-gallon buckets for toilets and it gets really disgusting,”  he said.

Workers also fear confrontations with residents of the shanty towns the state has tasked them with cleaning up. Sometimes they have pit bulls in there. They’ll, you know, let the dogs loose to chase the Caltrans workers out,” Crouch said. “Sometimes they’ll throw rocks at the Caltrans workers.”

A worker who chose to omit his name out of fear of state retaliation said he’s seen it all. “I’ve been exposed to blood, needles, women’s feminine products… five-gallon buckets of human feces,” he told The Sacramento Bee.

England Slides Closer To Communism: Malnourished Children Fill Pockets With Food

The heads of schools from various parts of England and Wales have described differences in the appearance of some of their pupils. Poverty stricken children are “grey and pale” and fill their pockets with food so they can have something to eat.

And the problem is only worsening as government regulations and tax burdens continue to make it hard for everyday people to get by.  According to the BBC, on school head was quoted saying, “My children have grey skin, poor teeth, poor hair; they are thinner.” Lynn, a head teacher from a former industrial town in Cumbria, who did not want to give her full name, was one of a number of head teachers speaking to reporters at the National Education Union conference in Brighton.

Even though the government said measures were in place to tackle poverty, much of the UK is sliding into abject poverty as the country inches closer to Communism. “Children are filling their pockets with food. In some establishments that would be called stealing. We call it survival,” Lynn said.

Jane Jenkins, a head teacher from Cardiff, said children in her school often only brought a slice of bread and margarine for lunch and that teachers supplemented this. “It’s really difficult and when people are asking you about standards, why we don’t go up the league tables?

There’s also becoming a stark difference between the wealthy and the poor. “When you take children out to an event, maybe a sporting event, you see children of the same age from schools in an affluent area. It’s the grey skin, the pallor. It’s the pallor you really notice,” said another teacher.  “Monday morning is the worst.  There are a number of families that we target that we know are going to be coming into school hungry. By the time it’s 9:30 am they are tired.”

The teachers are also washing the grubby clothes for the children who can’t afford to even clean the few pieces of destroyed clothing they own. “We have washing machines and we are washing the children’s clothes while they do PE,” said Lynn.  “We wouldn’t have it that these children are stigmatized because their clothes are dirty.”

Howard Payne, a head at an inner city school in Portsmouth, said there had been a four-fold increase in the number of children with child protection issues. “Every one of these issues has had something to do with the poverty that they live in,” he said. “It’s neglect. It’s because they and their families don’t have enough money to provide food, heating or even bedding.”

As poverty increases too, governments usually attempt to solve the problem by raising taxes, which pushes those already borderline into poverty as well, exacerbating the problem exponentially. More government is never the solution to the problems the government created in the first place.

The Cost of Trump’s Military Parade Could Eliminate Hunger Among Homeless Veterans—For Weeks

By Matt Agorist

President Donald Trump has asked the Pentagon to plan a grand parade of the U.S. armed forces in Washington this year to celebrate military strength and flex the US empire. This display of militarism will proceed in spite of the very people Trump claims to be honoring being vehemently opposed to it. In fact, an unofficial poll conducted by the military times found the 90% of people do not want a parade. Nevertheless, it will happen.

While many of Trump’s supporters favor the parade, for those who’ve actually served in the military, the idea of being forced to practice day in and day out for a march through Washington D.C. so civilians can pump out their chests with nationalist pride is terrible. There are far better ways to “support the troops” than forcing them to parade around in front of you.

Here’s an idea, end all the wars. If you really want to support the troops, stop using them as pawns in the spread of empire and the expansion of the military-industrial complex. If you really want to support the troops and veterans, how about we address the fact that tens of thousands of them sleep on the streets every single night in the country they offered up their lives for.

To show how much of an insult this parade is to troops and veterans, according to a recent report, the cost of this parade could directly benefit the 40,000 homeless veterans—by feeding them. Instead, it will go to fuel, logistics, drills, and flyovers.

Conservative estimates of the cost of the parade are around $10 million with the higher end budget coming in at $30 million. Even if we divide the lower end number by the total number of homeless veterans, that would be around $250 each.

As Newsweek reports, Feeding America, a non-profit organization and the nation’s largest hunger-relief and food rescue group, found the average cost-per-meal in the U.S. was $2.94 in 2015, the latest data available. The organization culled data from several organizations and agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and found the cost-per-meal ranged from a low of  $2.04 in Maverick County, Texas to a high of $5.61 in Crook County, Oregon.

What this means is that the cost of the parade could eliminate hunger among homeless veterans by providing all of them with three meals a day, for at least 14 days and that is using the highest estimate of $5.61.

If we use the average cost of a meal, homeless veterans could get three squares a day for nearly an entire month. While we didn’t ask all 40,000 homeless veterans if they prefer a parade or eating for a month, we are betting the prefer the latter.

Last month, Trump said that if the cost of the parade was exorbitant, he would choose not to have it.

“We’ll see if we can do it at a reasonable cost, and if we can’t, we won’t do it, but the generals would love to do it, I can tell you, and so would I,” he said.

However, this week, the Pentagon released a memo noting that the parade will go on as scheduled.

Although the president assured Americans that there won’t be tanks rolling down the streets, the display of military might will be a logistical nightmare for whatever poor units get stuck with doing it. And, all of it will be for Trump—not the troops.

Instead of chest pumping and back patting, if Trump wants to support the troops and veterans, he should start by addressing the problems plaguing them right now. Sadly, none of this has happened.

When 307,000 veterans die waiting for care they were promised by this country while the president gloats over military equipment, something is seriously wrong.

When the entire country looks the other way while there over 40,000 veterans living on the streets with no home as the president forces active duty military members to put on a show for him, something is seriously wrong.

When Americans remain silent as a veteran kills himself or herself every 65 minutes, every single day, every single month, of every single year as troops and Humvees parade down Pennsylvania Avenue celebrating the war that caused these deaths, it’s time to seriously consider a national conversation about what “support the troops” really means. And no parade will ever do that.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Facebook.

Cost Of Housing Has Soared So High Americans Are Sliding Into Poverty

Housing prices in the United States continue to rise at unprecedented rates, forcing many into poverty. This worsening epidemic is explained well in a video by The Money GPS and it’s been engineered this way.

As nations increase taxes and regulations, the price of complying also goes up. Many of these hikes are passed onto to those who are already living paycheck to paycheck forcing them to live in poverty. “You came here for the truth, so let me unveil that for you,” says Money GPS.

 

Severe damage to the nation’s economy can occur when people don’t have disposable income. “People are spending a larger and larger share of their income on their housing. This is something they can’t avoid. It’s not as if they are buying a home and can be renting instead, we are talking about people who rent their homes. It’s very serious,” The Money GPS says.

“There’s definitely an issue with the amount that people spend on shelter, electricity, food, and other basic essentials…we have a big problem on our hands. It’s not being addressed and the bubble just keeps getting larger…they keep saying there’s a limited supply [of housing options].”

“The median asking rent for vacant rental units is consistently rising. when you rent prices continuously increasing specifically for vacant rental units.” All this is happening as the rate of homeownership declines as well. So perhaps there is some correlation between market saturation and prices, but we fail to account for the fact that property taxes put a heavy burden on homeownership and those taxes are passed on to renters in the form of higher rents.”

But the YouTube channel Bull Boom Bear Bust says this is all just a part of the global elitist’s plans to force more people into rentals and out of homeownership. According to the description of their video about this issue, it is becoming more and more clear that the central banking fiat currency system was designed to extract wealth from the poor and middle class and further enrich bankers that are creating a nation [sic] of debt servants.

“It’s a global plan,” says the narrator of the video. “These disasters and downturns in the economy are opportunities for the big money and big investors to come in and actually buy these homes.” He then discusses the reasons banks have for not foreclosing on properties right away, and it’s as simple as a wealth transfer from the middle and lower classes to the billionaires and investors:

“A reason why in some cases the banks don’t foreclose on the property right away, not only to keep the home off the market, but it also keeps the financial responsibility of the property onto the previous homeowner. So things like back due property taxes and fines for failure to keep the property up, banks don’t want to take on that responsibility, so technically in many cases, they’ll not take immediate foreclosure proceedings and in some cases, years and then the unpaid debt can come back and destroy the previous homeowner’s credit, and not hurt the bank.”

“This whole system…of the middle class being wiped out and the poor getting poorer, the increase in homelessness, the increase in people going into more and more debt, the shift from home ownership to home occupied to financial companies and institutions and investors owning these homes. This whole system has been engineered from the top down.”

He continues to explain that it all goes back to the Federal Reserve and was designed to break the average family while benefiting those already at the top. We often refer to these people as elitists. They are the politicians who are bought and paid for by corporations who push laws and regulations on the middle class that they themselves are exempt from and can profit immensely by doing. The entire system has been rigged to transfer wealth to the elites in the government and the deep state who pulls the strings.

City Fines Landlord $2 Million Because They Offered Homeless and Disabled Veterans Cheap Rent

By Matt Agorist

San Francisco, CA — In the land of the free, government and law enforcement not only wage war on the poor and homeless through various unscrupulous means designed to extract revenue and attack the right to exist but those who try to help the homeless—by feeding, clothing, or sheltering them—also face the wrath of the State. As the following case illustrates, even those who’ve laid down their lives for the State—veterans—and the ones who help them are now being targeted.

Judy Wu, a landlord in San Francisco has converted 12 properties she owns into 49 housing units over the last decade which she and her husband, Trent Zhu, rent to homeless, low-income and disabled veterans.

Because they’ve split the units into much smaller ones, the couple is able to provide these veterans with very cheap housing. The contribution to society hasn’t gone unnoticed by the city, however, who couldn’t care less about the dozens of previously homeless veterans now off the streets thanks to the couple.

According to Reason, Wu’s problems stem from a zoning law as the couple’s property was only zoned for 15 dwellings.

And in 2015, the city’s Planning Department first became aware of the excess units, ordering her to obtain permits to dismantle many of them. In 2016, as she was working to bring her units into compliance, and while her tenants fought to preserve their homes, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued Wu, claiming that her unauthorized dwellings “substantially endanger the health, welfare, and safety of individual tenants, the residents of the City and County of San Francisco.”

In reality, however, Wu’s tenants love the affordable shelter provided to them through her setup. And, to illustrate just how vacuous and dishonest Herrera’s claim of worrying about the “health, welfare, and safety” of the tenants is, this move by the government could leave dozens of poor and disabled veterans on the streets.

Sadly, however, it appears that the state has won. Wu fought the lawsuit in a trial this week and was facing upwards of $8 million in fines for providing cheap rent to veterans. On Tuesday, she settled with the city.

“The basic reason for settling is it’s too expensive to fight city hall,” said Ryan Patterson, an attorney that represented Wu, according to Reason. “This will allow the owners to move forward and focus on legalizing these properties and working to ensure that as many of these veterans as possible can remain in their homes.”

According to Reason, the city’s lawsuit notably came before the administrative process that would allow Wu to maintain her current units had run its course, and yesterday’s settlement does nothing to settle their legal status.

Since the ordeal began, Herrera and his pack of bureaucratic dogooders have painted Wu and her husband as slumlords exploiting the poor.

“Defendants’ motive for flagrantly violating the law is simple: profit,” reads the city’s 2016 complaint against Wu. “They rent out units to the most vulnerable members of our communities…as such, they have a guaranteed stream of income.”

However, her tenants—who actually live in these homes—disagree and describe a far different scenario.

“Judy Wu is offering veterans housed in these units a chance to rebuild their lives in a way that is respectful and humane to them,” says Fred Bryant, a 79-year-old disabled veteran, and tenant of Wu’s for the past four years, according to Reason.

“Whenever I needed help of any kind in the apartment, checking the smoke alarm or something,” Bryant says, “Judy Wu has been extremely responsive.”

Looking at the situation objectively—and not through the eyes of the state—we see a couple using their property to provide affordable housing to those in need. Their tenants are there voluntarily and love it. The only people upset about this scenario have nothing to do with the property nor the people living on it—yet they are hell-bent on ruining the mutually beneficial arrangement because of some building code.

The most infuriating part about these zoning standards is that Wu’s homes have met the federal inspectors’ biannual inspections over and over, according to Patterson. Bryant agrees, and according to Reason, he described both his unit and those of the other veterans Wu rents too as nice, remodeled units “with all the amenities of a well-outfitted apartment.”

“There are a lot of homeless veterans that Judy Wu helped. She’s a good landlord as far as I’m concerned,” John Brown Jr., another tenant of Wu’s told The San Francisco Examiner in July of last year.

Even the mayor in 2013, praised Wu for her efforts in providing shelter to homeless veterans.

Sadly, this is of no concern to the bureaucrats who’ve devoted their careers to stifle free enterprise and mutually beneficial arrangements that help people. Now, dozens of veterans are worried about where they will be able to live.

Although the city said they will allow for the veterans to find other homes before they kick them out of Wu’s place, the fact remains they are still kicking them out of homes they actually enjoy living in. Also, finding affordable homes in San Francisco is no easy feat, so rest assured that many of these folks will likely end up right back on the streets. Bravo, government, bravo.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Facebook.

Socialist Dystopia: Starving Venezuelans Loot As Runaway Inflation Forces Pillaging For Food

The socialist dystopia of Venezuela is seeing inflation at such high rates that the starving civilians have resorted to looting the few stores left and pillaging for scraps of food. The 2600% inflation rate and socialist policies are destroying what was once South America’s wealthiest nation.

Worsening food shortages and runaway inflation have unleashed the spate of pillaging since Christmas in the South American country, in which seven people have reportedly died, according to Reuters.  Looters have ransacked trucks, supermarkets and liquor stores across the nation of 30 million people, which ranks as one of the most violent in the world.

The plunder is heaping more pain on battered businesses, raising questions about how much longer the starving Venezuelans can survive. The country, which is run by a full-blown socialist regime is suffering a fifth straight year of recession and the world’s highest inflation rate.

According to PanAm Post, in the city of Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, residents looted a supermarket after waiting hours in line to buy corn flour. Violence broke out when they were informed that only members of pro-government community councils could make purchases. “People were upset,” Ana, a mother of two, said. “There were people waiting yesterday. They started to open the doors (of the supermarket), to get in and grab packets of flour, but the police (socialist government police) arrived.”

Manuel López, President of the Association of Agricultural Producers of the Sur del Lago area, said that criminals will go from farm to farm, extorting producers and asking them to give up an animal. If the farmers refuse,  the extorters destroy everything.

“The desperation, impunity and serious humanitarian crisis that we are experiencing in Venezuela continues to deepen and is leading people to commit this type of crime,” Coordinator of the Venezuelan Conflict Observatory, Marco Antonio Ponce, said. “This situation continues to worsen throughout the country given that it’s impossible to get food,” he said. “In the absence of imported products and in the absence of national production, we are experiencing a rather critical situation of scarcity of the few products that we still have in the country.”-PanAm Post

Socialism destroys the fabric of society. In fact, Climax Magazine reported that the situation in Venezuela has reached such a serious level, that prostitutes are accepting food as payment for their services.

Socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro claims that Venezuela’s oil-reliant economy is under attack by U.S.-backed saboteurs seeking to stoke conflict and discredit socialism in Latin America. Although anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that socialism is doing a wonderful job of discrediting itself. The abject poverty and starvation in Venezuela is a direct result of government interference in what was once a booming economy.  And that is exactly why the totalitarian mainstream media won’t be bothered to report on socialism’s obvious failures – of which there are many.

Any rational human being with even an ounce of compassion would rather be subjected to capitalism’s few failures, than socialism’s few successes.

Poor, Obese and Unhealthy into the 21st Century

(The Real Agenda News) Over 40 million Children are obese according to the latest numbers.

Childhood obesity is not just a problem of rich countries. In fact, it is much less so in wealthy nations.

According to the World Health Organization, of the 42 million children under five who are overweight in the world, 35 million, or 83%, are part of middle and low-income families.

“It’s an explosive nightmare,” says the World Health Organization (WHO), which has advanced data from the Commission to End Childhood Obesity; a body that was established two years ago.

Apart from the figures, the WHO is concerned about childhood development. For example, in Africa, the number of obese and overweight children under five years of age has nearly doubled since 1990, according to this study.

Obesity problems go beyond the scale and into degenerative diseases that are the result of being overweight, obese and morbidly obese.

The consequences of these diseases are now much more prevalent in so-called developed countries, where the crisis is not one of undernutrition due to lack of food, but of malnutrition due to the consumption of fast food.

Going Beyond Malnutrition

In poor countries, malnutrition is not the only problem.

There are more cases of diseases such as dengue, cholera, tuberculosis and AIDS, to name but a few. It is also important to remember that the third world also suffers from high incidence of cancers, cardiovascular diseases and traffic accidents, not to mention other causes of death that were once characteristic of rich countries.

The report, whose data are not yet completed, has drawn the first conclusion: “It is not the child’s fault,” said the co-chair of the commission, Peter Gluckman.

According to the data from the WHO, in 2014, 48% of all obese and overweight children lived in Asia, and 25% in Africa.

“The region where the problem is so alarming and where t is fast growing is Asia,” warned Gluckman.

Among the factors behind the increase in childhood obesity figures include biological factors, the environment and, of course, food intake.

The report also includes other issues such as inadequate access to health services, decreased physical activity in schools and the deregulation of fattening foods.

Any solution to the exploding obesity epidemic requires a comprehensive and coordinated response, the report indicates.

Is being Obese a matter of Genetic Predisposition?

Gluckman has explained that it has been detected that Asian children have a specific metabolism that makes them retain fat in the abdominal part of the body, the area surrounding vital organs, exactly where it is most harmful to health.

“We are studying why, but it is a very dangerous development because that fat is installed long before the external and the child shows signs of overweight and obesity on the outside,” he explained.

With regard to Latin America, it is estimated that the prevalence of overweight children in the region stands at 8% in children under five.

Gluckman has pointed out that Latin American leaders are well aware of the problem and are seriously responding, and noted that many countries are directing their policies in the right direction.

“Keep in mind that obesity impacts the quality of life of children, affecting their physical, psychological state, their ability to study, to relate, and will put many barriers in life, so we must urgently deal with this matter,” said Sania Sishtar, the co-chair of the commission.

In addition, Sishtar has warned that childhood obesity is a major factor in the possibility of developing obesity during adulthood and, consequently, major noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease.

In this situation, the study’s authors expect the WHO Executive Board, meeting this week in Geneva at its 138 edition, to note and suggest to the World Health Assembly to adopt a resolution urging countries to implement measures to fight obesity.

Among them, the report recommends educating children, parents, teachers, and leaders about the importance of eating healthy food and reducing the intake of sugars and fats. It is also necessary to promote physical activity and reduce sedentarism.

In extreme cases of adult obesity in women, the report suggests that they enter into programs that help prevent diabetes for them and their future children, since many cases of obesity may be related to what happened during the months of pregnancy.

The post Poor, Obese and Unhealthy into the 21st Century appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

War on the Poor: Jeff Sessions Rescinds Legal Doc That Ended Debtors’ Prisons

By Rachel Blevins

In addition to his “War on Cannabis,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently revealed that he is also in favor of a “War on Poverty,” when he rescinded a legal guidance document that was meant to end illegal debtors’ prisons.

While debtors’ prisons are labeled as institutions to keep people from failing to pay fines and debts, they have been used to take advantage of impoverished, low-income individuals. A simple traffic ticket can turn into months in prison, which results in even greater fines. As defined by the American Civil Liberties Union:

Nearly two centuries ago, the United States formally abolished the incarceration of people who failed to pay off debts. Yet, recent years have witnessed the rise of modern-day debtors’ prisons—the arrest and jailing of poor people for failure to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford, through criminal justice procedures that violate their most basic rights.

The legal guidance rescinded by Sessions was one that was implemented by the Department of Justice in 2016. It states that courts are required to follow constitutional principles and to prohibit the imprisonment of poor individuals because they cannot pay court fines and fees.

Sessions rescinded the March 2016 “Dear Colleague Letter on Enforcement of Fines and Fees” last week, along with 25 other legal documents dating back to 1975. In a statement, he claimed that he was “ending 25 examples of improper or unnecessary guidance documents” that had been identified by a DOJ task force:

Last month, I ended the longstanding abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page. Congress has provided for a regulatory process in statute, and we are going to follow it. This is good government and prevents confusing the public with improper and wrong advice. Therefore, any guidance that is outdated, used to circumvent the regulatory process, or that improperly goes beyond what is provided for in statutes or regulation should not be given effect. That is why today, we are ending 25 examples of improper or unnecessary guidance documents identified by our Regulatory Reform Task Force led by our Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand.  We will continue to look for other examples to rescind, and we will uphold the rule of law.

The guidance was originally put in place after a series of reports and lawsuits from the ACLU revealed that state and local courts were increasingly offsetting budget deficits by charging additional fees for “public defenders, prosecutors, court administration, jail operation and probation supervision,” and that the courts were using “aggressive tactics to collect these unpaid fines and fees, including for traffic offenses and other low-level offenses.”

As a result, the courts were then jailing people who fell behind on their payments, without holding a hearing to determine if the individual was able to pay the fines, or offering alternatives such as community service.

The ACLU argued that because the courts were imprisoning an individual based on the fact that he or she could not pay court-imposed fines or fees, the court was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection under the law.

In one case, a man undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer in Sherwood, Arkansas, spent 90 days in jail and ended up owing a court more than $3,000 after he wrote a series of bad checks for small amounts ranging from $5 to $41, and his medical condition prevented him from earning money to pay for the fines associated with the checks.

Another case involved a veteran battling homelessness in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who spent 22 days in jail because he showed up to court with $25 out of the $50 the judge wanted him to pay as the first installment for the $2,600 he owed in restitution, fines and court fees after he was found intoxicated, on the roof of a building.

Ultimately, the only ones who benefit from debtors’ prisons are the prisons themselves, and the people who suffer are the ones who find themselves facing jail time on top of the inflated fees and fines they already cannot afford to pay.

Rachel Blevins is a Texas-based journalist who aspires to break the left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.

As Markets Roar American Poverty Soars

By Isaac Davis

If you pay attention to the news you’ll hear all about great corporate earnings, the unbelievable stock market rally, the bitcoin hysteria, and improving jobless numbers. Somehow, though, all of this information and good times reporting belies the truth; and below the radar of such an apparent boom is the sad reality that the United States is suffering from crushing poverty unlike anything we’ve seen in generations.

Alongside all of this is an unprecedented division taking place right now, as the world’s wealthiest people are seeing their wealth explode. They are calling it the new Gilded Age, and at present the distribution of wealth in America has already exceeded the imbalance which preceded the French Revolution.

The United States Census Bureau reports that the poverty rate in America for 2016 was 12.7%, meaning some 41 million people live below the poverty line in the world’s richest country. This is punctuated by a wave of homelessness, especially on the West Coast, fueled by astronomical housing and rent prices. Furthermore, in a ‘new milestone,’ household debt in the U.S. topped $13 trillion in 2017, an incredible number.

As reported by The Guardian, something is changing in America. Something is different about our attitude towards the homeless and towards those who are down on their luck. As a society we seem to find it easier to look away.

That cruel streak – the violence of looking away – has been a feature of American life since the nation’s founding. The casting off the yoke of overweening government (the British monarchy) came to be equated in the minds of many Americans with states’ rights and the individualistic idea of making it on your own – a view that is fine for those fortunate enough to do so, less happy if you’re born on the wrong side of the tracks.

Countering that has been the conviction that society must protect its own against the vagaries of hunger or unemployment that informed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. But in recent times the prevailing winds have blown strongly in the “you’re on your own, buddy” direction. Ronald Reagan set the trend with his 1980s tax cuts, followed by Bill Clinton, whose 1996 decision to scrap welfare payments for low-income families is still punishing millions of Americans.

The cumulative attack has left struggling families, including the 15 million children who are officially in poverty, with dramatically less support than in any other industrialized economy. Now they face perhaps the greatest threat of all.” [Source]

Couple this with the growing tendency of government to crack down and stop citizen-led efforts to help the homeless with food and shelter, and you have a certain institutional callousness developing. This defies the traditional American spirit and can only take us further from national unity.

Final Thoughts

For now the markets are raging – and for those who are on the winning side of this cosmic coin toss, life is good at the moment. This kind of economic prosperity cannot last, though, because it is fake, generated by a corrupt banking and financial system that knows just how to fudge the numbers to create an illusion of prosperity which serves well those in position to take advantage of it.

This rising inequality and the delusion of endless economic expansion combined with the change in attitude towards those less fortunate is a recipe for disaster, and something to watch for in the coming year.

Read more articles from Isaac Davis.

Isaac Davis is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an outspoken advocate of liberty and of a voluntary society. He is an avid reader of history and passionate about becoming self-sufficient to break free of the control matrix. Follow him on Facebook, here.

This article (As Markets Roar American Poverty Soars) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Isaac Davis and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

1,000s Of "Micro-Homes" Sprout Up All Over Bay Area To House The Growing Homeless Population

Roughly one year ago we shared the plans of a billionaire real estate developer in San Francisco who wanted to build communities for the homeless in Bay Area neighborhoods using stackable steel shipping containers (see: San Fran Billionaire Luanches Plan To House Homeless In Shipping Containers).  Not surprisingly, the efforts were met with some resistance from the liberal elites of Santa Clara who, despite their vocal support of any number of federal subsidy programs for low-income families, would prefer that those low-income families, and their subsidies, stay far away from their posh, suburban, "safe places."

Alas, as the San Francisco Chronicle points out today, like it or not, the boom in "micro-houses" is just getting started in the Bay Area with nearly 1,000 tiny homes, with less than 200 square feet of living space, currently being planned in San Francisco, San Jose, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland and Santa Rosa.

Planners say that’s just the beginning. “We’re very excited about micro-homes,” said Lavonna Martin, director of Contra Costa County’s homeless programs. “They could be a big help. They have a lot of promise, and our county is happy to be on the cutting edge of this one. We’re ready.”

 

Contra Costa has a $750,000 federal homelessness grant to pay for 50 stackable micro-units of supportive housing, and Richmond Mayor Tom Butt would like to see them in his city. Developer Patrick Kennedy brought a prototype of his MicroPad unit to Richmond in November, and county and city leaders say they are leaning toward choosing it.

 

“They’re very fine, and they make a nice-looking building,” Butt said. “They’d be good for anybody looking for housing.”

The beauty of the tiny units is that they can be built in a fraction of the time it takes to construct typical affordable housing, and at a sliver of the cost, which means a lot of homeless folks can be housed quickly.

The homes have also caught on in San Jose where the City Council just approved $2.4 million to build a village of 40 units to help house the homeless.  Of course, just like in Santa Clara, San Jose residents are lashing out at city officials over plans that they say will only serve to increase neighborhood crime.

San Jose resident Sue Halloway told the council she was afraid putting the village near residences would increase “neighborhood crime, neighborhood blight (and) poor sanitation,” and predicted that it would be “a magnet for more homeless.”

 

City Councilman Raul Peralez said he understands such concerns, but that “there are no facts surrounding these tiny homes and whatever blight or crime they might bring, because we haven’t done them yet.”

 

“I tell people you really have two options,” said Peralez, who said he wants the village in his downtown district. “You can allow the homeless to live on the streets, or you can provide not only shelter but services in a confined area — with security. In my mind, that’s a way better option for managing this community in an organized way.”

So, what do the stackable units look like?  As seen in the video below, prototypes from one manufacturer, MicroPad, come complete with full bathrooms and kitchens and have up to 160-180 square feet of living space...

“These micro-homes may seem small at 160 to 180 square feet, but they’re actually pretty spacious when you’re in them,” she said. “And they go up very fast.”

 

Kennedy’s MicroPads have showers, beds and kitchens. Individually they resemble shipping containers, but once they’re bolted together with siding and utilities, they look like a regular building.

...which is more or less considered a mansion by struggling New York artist standards...

Four Charts Prove The "Economic Recovery" Is Just A Fed-Induced Entitlement Program For The Wealthy

"Economic recovery" in America no longer means what it used to mean.  Historically "economic recovery" was largely characterized by job and wage growth, distributed across the income spectrum, and a rebound in GDP growth to north of ~3%-5%.  These days, the notion of "economic recovery" has been hijacked by the Fed and bastardized in such a way that they celebrate "asset bubbles" rather than real growth in economic output.

Presented as "exhibit A", here is the Fed"s modern-day definition of "economic recovery" (chart per Bloomberg):

Of course, digging a little deeper you quickly realize that the problem is even worse than what the data in the chart above might suggest.  While overall average wage growth has been anemic since 2009, to say the least, it has been almost nonexistent for those on the bottom end of the income spectrum.

Soaring markets helped the top 1 percent of Americans increase their slice of the national wealth to 39 percent in 2016, according to the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances. The bottom 90 percent of families held a one-third share in 1989; that’s now shrunk to less than one-quarter.

 

The current one has helped millions of people find work; it’s also benefited asset-owners far more than people who trade their labor for a paycheck. Income distribution, already the most unequal in the developed world, is getting worse. And that’s starting to influence everything from America’s spending habits to its elections.

In fact, those in the bottom quintile of wage earners in the U.S. basically haven"t experienced wage growth, on a real basis, since the late 1970"s whereas those in the top quintile have nearly doubled theirs.

Of course, none of this should be particularly surprising to those who are paying attention as the top quintile of earners are the only ones financially positioned to benefit from Yellen"s economic recovery asset bubbles...

Meanwhile, the growing wealth disparity has seemingly put America on a collision course with political chaos as fringe candidates on both the Left and Right increasingly promise to have an "easy" solution for the seemingly inescapeable economic plight of the poorest households. 

Unfortunately, the sad truth just might be that there is no solution, absent some transformational technological advancements, and that the U.S. has just reached the maturity phase of it"s "business cycle"...and while the Fed may try to cover up that fact by repeatedly blowing assets bubbles, per the charts above, they"re only making the problem worse with each successive iteration.

Silicon Valley’s ‘Working Homeless’ Shows How Hard Life Is In “Democrat’s Paradise”

Silicon Valley is the home to tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google. It’s also home to a surging working homeless population who live in dilapidated RV’s, tents, and their own cars, all thanks to the policies Democrats love to implement.

The surging number of those working in Silicon Valley and still unable to afford adequate housing should be a warning about big government, but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone is taking notice as their taxes continue to rise. As governments creep toward socialism though, poverty becomes the norm, not the exception. Silicon Valley has the highest median income in the nation. But a soaring tax burden and expensive regulations have caused housing prices to increase which has also caused homelessness to surge.

More than 10,000 people were living without shelter across San Jose and Santa Clara Counties on any given night in 2016, though that figure is probably low. Thanks to big government, the cost of living is not low. An influx of tech workers along with decades of under-building (thanks again to the regulations of big government) has created a historic homelessness in the Bay Area.

The governments in California continue to attempt to control deadly Hepatitis A outbreaks caused by a booming homeless population and usually do so by taking even more from those who actually work. The cycle will continue: socialists governments will put a cheap band-aid on the gaping wound they created themselves.

Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process. – FEE

The one thing government has are programs to help those in poverty. But those have proven ineffective. And the one thing that will work is the very thing government refuses to do: Climb off the backs of those they pretend they want to help.

Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets.  – FEE

Imagine just how much more money the working poor would have if the big government in California wasn’t stealing over half their income to implement the very rules and laws that continue to make “scraping by” even more expensive.

Silicone Valley’s ‘Working Homeless’ Shows How Hard Life Is In “Democrat’s Paradise”

Silicone Valley is the home to tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google. It’s also home to a surging working homeless population who live in dilapidated RV’s, tents, and their own cars, all thanks to the policies Democrats love to implement.

The surging number of those working in Silicone Valley and still unable to afford adequate housing should be a warning about big government, but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone is taking notice as their taxes continue to rise. As governments creep toward socialism though, poverty becomes the norm, not the exception. Silicon Valley has the highest median income in the nation. But a soaring tax burden and expensive regulations have caused housing prices to increase which has also caused homelessness to surge.

More than 10,000 people were living without shelter across San Jose and Santa Clara Counties on any given night in 2016, though that figure is probably low. Thanks to big government, the cost of living is not low. An influx of tech workers along with decades of under-building (thanks again to the regulations of big government) has created a historic homelessness in the Bay Area.

The governments in California continue to attempt to control deadly Hepatitis A outbreaks caused by a booming homeless population and usually do so by taking even more from those who actually work. The cycle will continue: socialists governments will put a cheap band-aid on the gaping wound they created themselves.

Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process. – FEE

The one thing government has are programs to help those in poverty. But those have proven ineffective. And the one thing that will work is the very thing government refuses to do: Climb off the backs of those they pretend they want to help.

Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets.  – FEE

Imagine just how much more money the working poor would have if the big government in California wasn’t stealing over half their income to implement the very rules and laws that continue to make “scraping by” even more expensive.

World"s First Vending-Machine For The Homeless To Be Unveiled In UK In December; LA, NYC Next Year

This is a first, a new charity in the UK called Action Hunger plans to install a vending machine for the homeless in December. The organization describes itself as a charity with a “new approach to combating homelessness.” The initial plan will be installing a machine in the town of Nottingham in the December time-period, then a second machine in Manchester sometime early 2018. If all goes well, Action Hunger plans to do a full release across the UK in attempt to alleviate poverty and hardships– something the government is having trouble in doing.

Action Hunger is working with Tesco and other partners to stock the machines with water, fresh fruit, energy bars, crisps, chocolate, and sandwiches, as well as socks, sanitary towels, antibacterial lotion, toothbrush and toothpaste combination packs, and books. A majority of the food will be provided by a localized network of regional food vendors who will donate excessive food waste.

The charity has partnered with The Friary, an outreached centre in the city, to oversee the people’s access to the vending machines. The machines will operate 24-hours a day accessed by a special card given out by the Friary and can service up to 100 homeless people per day. Key cards are programmed to permit up to three items per day, which offers a low-cost automated solution in dealing with the poor.

Action Hunger explains how the process works: 

According to the Independent, homelessness has increased 34% per cent since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, partly due to benefit cuts and welfare changes. A new study reveals that 300,000 people in Britain are now homeless, with the crisis growing as much as 13 per cent last year alone.

Number of rough sleepers across England on a given night

Number of homelessness applications made to local authorities

Action Hunger is targeting Nottingham and Manchester, two areas where homelessness is out of control.

Across England, housing market affordability is once again above 2006 to 2008 levels— signaling that house prices are once more outpacing income.

Besides the exploding homelessness situation in the UK, there is an even larger market in the United States, where Action Hunger will be installing the vending machines next year in Seattle, New York, and LA.

In August, we reported 1 in 7 New York City Public-School students is homeless. On top of that, NYC shelter officials have admitted a record number of homeless to shelters each night.

In a preview of things to come, automation in the form of vending machines seems to be the short term solution in dealing with the homeless in the UK. The next step for Action Hunger appears to be a multi-city rollout in the United States targeting a much larger homeless population as the middle class deteriorates.

For our American audience, an automated vending machine for the homeless is coming to a town near you. The dying middle class will no longer be able to shop at the Dollar Tree nor Walmart, as they will resort to automated vending machines. The future is bleak.

Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos And Warren Buffett Have More Money Than The Poorest 50% Of The U.S. Population Combined

The problem is not that we have a few people that are rich – the problem is that we have so many that are poor.  As you will see below, three extremely wealthy individuals have as much money as the poorest half of the nation combined.  In a free market capitalist society, there are always going to be some that do better than others, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But in our society today, there are so few that are doing well.  At this point a majority of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and “one in five households have zero or negative net worth”…

In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth.

Those are just several of the striking findings of Billionaire Bonanza 2017, a new report (pdf) published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that explores in detail the speed with which the U.S. is becoming “a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.”

That means that if you have no debt and a single dime in your pockets, you have more wealth than one-fifth of the entire country.

Okay, so let’s talk about the three men that have more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the U.S. population combined.  Those three men are Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Warren Buffett.  I don’t want to take anything away from what those three have accomplished, because we need more risk takers and entrepreneurs.

Sadly, the level of small business creation has fallen in every presidential administration going all the way back to George H.W. Bush, and the percentage of Americans that are self-employed is hovering near all-time record lows.

As a nation, we desperately need to return to a culture that encourages free market capitalist thinking.  We want young men and women to create, invent, innovate and start new ventures.  But instead, today our culture encourages young people to become dependent on the government and on the big corporations, and as a result the middle class is evaporating.

As I discussed above, at this point 20 percent of all U.S. households have “either zero or negative wealth”…

The rise at the wealthiest end of society comes as one in five US households live in what the report’s authors call the “underwater nation”, with either zero or negative wealth. Inequality is even more stark among minorities. Three in 10 black households and 27% of Latino ones have zero or negative wealth, compared with 14% of white families.

In recent years, unprecedented intervention by global central banks has created an absolutely enormous stock market bubble, but the real economy has continued to struggle.

Just look at what is happening to Sears.  This week they announced that they lost between $525 million and $595 million during the 3rd quarter of 2017.

How in the world do you do that?

If they had their employees doing nothing all day but flushing one dollar bills down the toilet, I still don’t think that they could lose that much money in three months.

Sears is going to sell 140 stores in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, but many believe that this is simply delaying the inevitable.  In fact, one prominent analyst named Bill Dreher believes that Sears will never be profitable again…

One Wall Street analyst is beginning to doubt whether Sears Holdings will ever be profitable again, as the 124-year-old retailer struggles for liquidity and same-store sales evaporate.

“Sears’ operational performance is clearly NOT improving, and we grow increasingly concerned whether the company will ever return to profitability,” wrote Susquehanna analyst Bill Dreher in a note to clients Wednesday. “Further highlighting the company’s weakened position is the reality that manufacturers are increasingly demanding tighter payment and/or withholding products.”

Once upon a time, Sears was the number one shopping destination for the middle class.

But like the middle class in America, the best days for Sears are now long gone.

If we want to restore our economy to greatness, we need a vibrant middle class.

And in order to have a vibrant middle class, we need to have a system that encourages entrepreneurs and small businesses.  Free markets work if you allow them to, but unfortunately today we are strangling our entrepreneurs and small businesses with rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation, and until we change our ways we are going to continue to get the same very poor results.

The post Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos And Warren Buffett Have More Money Than The Poorest 50% Of The U.S. Population Combined appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Happy Holidays – California City Demands Church Stop Feeding the Homeless

By Vic Bishop

It’s tough to say when our societal values shifted so dramatically, but for some reason now, government at large has decided that charity for the homeless is a crime. In a society with such stunning abundance, efforts to feed the homeless are being met with legal challenges and even police action in America. This is a disturbing trend which has been gaining steam in recent years.

In the latest publicized event, authorities in California have demanded that the United Methodist Church in Malibu, CA stop its meager yet hope-giving program of offering hot meals to the city’s homeless. The church has been giving away only 100 meals a week, on Wednesdays, since 2014, which is a relatively small humanitarian contribution in a wave of homelessness which has descended on the West Coast since the housing crisis of 2008 and now spurred on by the excesses of the regions tech industry.

“It’s a safe place,” said Michah Johnson, who is homeless. “And everyone is welcome. And the food is really good. It’s home-cooked. And there’s TLC involved.”

“The church is very helpful,” he added. “They keep my spirits up. They keep me accountable. When you’re homeless, it’s very easy to slip off and become jaded.” [Source]

This is nothing new, as we have seen for the last few years authorities have been cracking down on efforts by citizens around the nation who attempt to help the homeless by providing food for them. Without the help of churches, citizens and other devoted organizations, our homeless neighbors are left to scavenger for sustenance, as noted by a member of Malibu United Methodist Church.

“I think many of them eat out of dumpsters and trash cans when they aren’t eating with us,” said Kay Gabbard, who also works with the United Methodist Church. “We can’t pretend like (homelessness) doesn’t exist in our backyard. We can’t pretend that it only exists outside Malibu.” [Source]

When contacted by CBS Los Angeles for comment on this issue, the Mayor’s office in Malibu did not respond with a comment, and as of now there is no clear reason why this policy is to go into effect. Nevertheless, given the track record in cases like these, cities claim that feeding homeless people puts others in danger and causes a public nuisance, which is a wholesale denial of the depth of the homeless problem.

In 2014 it was reported that some 33 U.S. cities had enacted restrictions or outright bans on feeding the homeless, and this has only continued to increase in subsequent years. Charity workers in Florida and other cities have even been arrested for efforts to support the homeless in their communities. And a major crackdown on feeding homeless earlier this year in San Francisco made headlines.

Read more articles by Vic Bishop.

Vic Bishop is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an observer of people, animals, nature, and he loves to ponder the connection and relationship between them all. A believer in always striving to becoming self-sufficient and free from the matrix, please track him down on Facebook.

This article (Happy Holidays – California City Demands Church Stop Feeding the Homeless) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Vic Bishop and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement. Please contact WakingTimes@gmail.com for more info.