Only Mostly Useless

This is in part because some people are scared of visible signs of poverty-unwashed/groomed bodies, torn clothing, etc., but also in part because a non-trivial fraction of homeless people are extremely disturbed, drugged out, aggressive, and treatment-avoidant and/or -resistant. I.e., serious and real threats to public safety!

The municipal governments, being under a lot of contradictory pressures (respect the homeless! Don't incarcerate them! Defend the police! Keep public space safe! Remove unsightly things!), and often not particularly competent, frequently blame the business for the problem instead of doing something expensive and/or controversial!!

Often, the business is not part of a large chain which can absorb losses and trouble, and so is deathly afraid of a municipal nuisance abatement or similar action! Often, municipalities have little oversight over their actions, particularly where they can plead "public safety" as a justification!

So when the police or planning department come around and say "we've had a lot of complaints about the homeless being a nuisance, we need you to help do something about it," the business owner cooperates!

david fucking frum dragging fox news for hysteria today and trying to explain to people what the emergencies act actually means

Invoking wartime powers to attack a trucker protest that is demanding restrictions and coerced injections forced on them by the state be removed is fascist as fuck.

People like Frum operate in vacuum devoid of ethics or principles.

Who spent the previous two years arbitrarily “blocking commerce”? The state, under the “elected government”, with no precedent and no governing law required.

Chef’s kiss that ass.

1. The Police

2. Uber

3. The horrifying union between neoliberal governance and capitalism (that’s the main one)

For a woman in the developed world, having a baby is definitely a choice, not an unpredictable, unavoidable, life-ruining catastrophe, so there's no reason to pay for it with insurance instead of just, like, saving up for a while.

Insurers and some employers have long tried to sidestep paying for maternity care, which includes prenatal, delivery and postpartum services. Individual plans typically refused to pay for pregnancy-related services until the Affordable Care Act established that maternity and newborn care are both essential health benefits that must be included in individual and small group coverage.

The reason the government refuses to even entertain student loan forgiveness is because of something called SLABS. What are SLABS, you ask? Good question. Because the world of finance really does not want you to know this! SLABS are Student Loan Asset Backed Securities. Sounds like a bunch of confusing terms that regular people can’t understand, right? It’s supposed to.

A lot of you were too young to remember what happened in 2008, and what exactly the crisis was that brought the entire economy to its knees. 1 million people lost their homes. It’s because the mortgage industry was taking the mortgages (loans) that individuals opened, split them into tiny little pieces, bundled them together with other tiny little pieces of other people’s loans, and sold them off. A huge industry was created that not only bought little pieces of people’s mortgages, but also made bets on whether or not those underlying securities (pieces of mortgage loans) would fail or succeed. It didn’t take long before the bets on the loans outsized the actual loans themselves - sometimes by a magnitude of thousands.

I know this is complicated, but hang in there. Here’s Selena Gomez in “The Big Short” to explain that betting a little better: 

Okay, so you’ve got lots of people betting on mortgages. See what happens next, is that the banks run out of qualified people for mortgages. There’s only so many people who had jobs that paid them enough and credit scores high enough to be deemed worthy. But they want to keep their cash cow going! What to do?

Of course, the way this problem was solved, was to hand out mortgages to everyone like free T-shirts. No job? No credit? No way to pay that mortgage we just gave you? No problem. They were making more money on the bets than on the underlying loans. They didn’t give a shit if you defaulted. They were making money on you whether you paid or not. And they didn’t care if you destroyed your life and your credit and your family because the financial industry was raking in massive piles of cash by selling and betting on people’s home loans. Eventually the house of cards came tumbling down, there was a massive foreclosure crisis, the industry was found to be operating completely fraudulently, and a million people lost their houses. Large financial institutions received a bail-out that we the taxpayers paid for. The individual families who got exploited and fucked? Got nothing.

So what does this have to do with student loans? Excellent question. The same thing that happened with mortgage loans being split into tiny pieces, bundled, and sold off has also happened with student loans. These bundles are called SLABS. Student loan asset-backed security. But wait! “Asset-backed”?? What asset? The asset is ostensibly...your degree.

This is now a potentially bigger problem than even the housing crisis in 2008: because back in ‘08, if you defaulted (stopped paying) on your mortgage loan, there was a physical asset to seize: your house. You can’t seize somebody’s English degree if they stop paying. This is why it’s nearly impossible to discharge any student loan debt, ever: because the industry making money off of student loans is making outsized bets that are larger than the underlying assets. Just like in 2008. If student loans were forgiven across the board, the ripple effect would capsize the domestic economy. Your $20,000 in student loans? Could represent $2 million in bets made on that loan.

This has already become an enormous hot potato between financial institutions as student loan repayment was paused during the pandemic. Suddenly there’s no payoff for these bets institutions are making on your student loans. There’s also no collateral they can repossess. What they thought was a profitable bet to exploit students and keep people in wage slavery forever, is shakier and shakier. When it finally bursts and goes tits-up, you can bet that the people who bought tiny pieces of your loans and then gambled it away will be the ones receiving a (tax-payer funded) bail-out. Not the students. And it’s already starting to go tits-up.

>after someone specifically explains why government interference is the problem

An Example:

This rakish mf'er is General Charles Ferguson Smith (1807-1862). He graduated from West Point in 1825, and thirteen years later came back to serve as Commandant of Cadets, a post he held from 1838-1843. Officers he taught at West Point included:

Three Generals in Chief of all Union armies (U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, and Henry W. Halleck), two Union Chiefs of Artillery (William F. Barry and Henry Hunt), and the Union's Chief Engineer (Joh Newton)

The commanding generals on both sides of the First Battle of Bull Run (PGT Beauregard and Irvin Mcdowell), five other Union army commanders (George Thomas, Don Carlos Buell, John Pope, William Rosecrans, and Edward Canby), and one Confederate army commander (Earl Van Dorn)

The Confederacy's Chief Engineer (Jeremy Gilmer), Quartermaster General (Alexander Lawton), and Chief of Ordnance (Josiah Gorgas)

Eight Confederate corps commanders (James Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, Gustavus W. Smith, A. P. Stewart, "Fighting Dick" Anderson, William Hardee, who also wrote the book on infantry tactics that both armies used to train during the first few years of the war, Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, and Carter L. Stevenson)

Seven Union corps commanders (Horatio Wright, James Ricketts, William B. Franklin, John Reynolds, George Sykes, Nathaniel Lyons, and the mathematical prodigy EOC Ord who, before the War also surveyed Los Angeles and Sacramento)

Eleven Union division commanders (Isaac Stevens, William Hays, Albion P. Howe, Israel "Fighting Dick" Richardson [yes, there were two "fighting Dicks" in the Civil war and one wasn't even named Dick] Abner Doubleday, Christopher Augur, Isaac Quinby, William T. H. Brooks, John Peck, George Getty, and the amazingly named Zealous B. Tower)

Eight Confederate division commanders (Lafayette McLaws, Franklin Gardner, John P. McCown, D. H. Hill, James Martin, Abraham Buford, Mansfield Lovell, and Bushrod Johnson)

He then served in the Mexican-American war as commander of an artillery battalion, and was placed in charge of policing Mexico City during the occupation.

When the Civil War came around, he was one of the four officers who Winfield Scott suggested would be suitable to command all Union Armies - and the only one who stayed loyal to the flag. The other three were Albert Sidney Johnston (who died commanding the Confederate Army at Shiloh), Joseph E. Johnston (who commanded several armies for the Confederacy) and a dude named Robert E. Lee.

He wasn't offered overall command, but instead was sent out west to command a division in the army of his former student, U.S. Grant. During the battle of Fort Donelson, Smith led a countercharge against a Confederate attack, screaming at his troops: "Come on, you damned volunteers, come on. You volunteered to be killed for love of country, and now you can be. You are only damned volunteers. I'm a soldier, and so don't want to be killed, but you all came to be killed and now you can be!"

All of that to say: this was a serious badass. So it was extra ridiculous when he died shortly before the battle of Shiloh: two weeks earlier he had skinned his shin jumping out of a boat. The scratch got infected and killed him. Nothing anyone could do.

Meanwhile several of his students got shot multiple times and lived. James Longstreet got shot in the fucking throat and lived. Richard Ewell lost a leg and then returned to duty and got shot again! James Ricketts got shot twice and had his horse fall on him.

Jeff found a genie in a bottle Who said, “I can give you anything you ask” “You can have your wishes three And a million more for free It’s unlimited, just set me to the task.”

Well, Jeff thought a while, Said, “I want houses, “I want boats, I want fancy modern art, I want tickets to the Met, I want my own private jet, And a rocket into space just for a start.”

Well, the genie waved her arms and made it happen His every wish bolted from the blue And folks all over town grew enamored, gathered ‘round To admire the man whose wishes had come true

They said, “Let’s hear it for the man who has everything! By good fortune he’s been set so far apart.” “Yeah, let’s hear it for Jeff who has everything! ‘Cause his wishes are only at the start.”

Well, Jeff heard their shouts and he grew worried He said, “Everybody’s getting in my way.” The genie smiled as before, “You’ve got a million wishes more. You can even give a bunch of them away.”

Well, Jeff got confused and sorta quiet ‘Til he finally said, “I have just one wish more.” “I am satisfied, so I wish that you would die So you cannot grant wishes anymore.”

Well, the genie’s eyes got big and sad and shiny ‘Til she finally said, “Your wish is my command.” And with an effervescent sigh, she disappeared before his eyes And no wishes were ever granted there again