Homelessness 'Path'

 It's not rocket science, but it's hard for the average American to understand what happened on the west coast to advance homelessness.  So I'll tell this shorten version of the 'saga'.

Somewhere along the 1970s/1980s....suburbs reached a point where they felt enough construction had been done, and put political pressure on various city councils....to lessen construction.  In effect, the 'boom' came to a much lesser state of being at that point around places like LA, SF, and Seattle.

Even if you were a property speculator.....you found that deals were now much less in terms of size and development.  Apartments for lower income folks?  That really started to cease.

Rents then started to escalate, and the average waitress or short-order cook....was pushed to the limits.  

In this same era....housing or forced hospitalization of paranoid schizophrenia folks ran into issues.  

Also in the same era....came drug usage.  

These three took a non-existent problem and made it into a rocket-science situation. 

The final problem was that people felt the west coast had opportunity....so if you were a loser in Chicago, Dayton, or Tulsa.....you might get this crazy idea to haul your stuff out to the west coast, and hook onto some success there.  Over the past twenty years....this giant magnet existed and just complicated the overall problem even more.

So there is a new agenda of problem approaching.  Various 'help-groups' want to come in and fix all of this?  Their stumbling block?  Well....they want to force cheap housing to be built.  Added to this....the jobs just aren't there.  And finally.....with various rehab efforts underway, if you deliver the cleaned-up guy to a zero-job situation....then he falls back into the pit.  

There's tons of money to be wasted, and no one really understands this angle of the whole deal.  

Viewing the 6th of January a Year Later

 There are three issues that I see:

1.  The person responsible for security in the capital building....is Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  On carrying out her function....it's a zero.  I don't think she even grasped that she's the person accountable for the make-up of the security for the building.  

I generally believe the time has come to make the Speaker position into a full-time non-voted individual, and hold them accountable for the functionality of the capital building.

2.  It's just odd....out of three-hundred-odd people who stormed the building....there's just one single person who seems dead because of actions on that day, and it's a Air Force vet gal.  That's it.  The one cop who died?  That's hours later, via a heart attack.

3.  Finally, from the three-hundred characters that the FBI put on wanted posters....three individuals who were leaders of this posse-group or Oath-Keeper crowd....who churned up the crowd to enter.....aren't arrested or charged-up.  The appearance that they might be agent-provocateurs?  Well....the longer this goes on and the fed prosecutors refuse to charge them....it just looks like a made-up operation to get folks hyped up....to commit a crime.  

How things will end?  In spring of 2023, I expect some House committee (Republican led) to go and investigate the whole thing, and bring the three 'leaders' in for questions.  Connections back to the FBI?  Probably, and at that point....all of the charged-up folks will be given some type of release, and civil suits will follow.  It wouldn't even shock me if the FBI ends being disbanded to some degree because of the lack of trust going on.  At that point....'agent-provocateurs' will be on our mind a good bit.  

Observations

 1.  This I-95 'stranded business' in Virginia.  If you went and reviewed regional weather forecasts....around six hours prior to the 'delivery' of the snow business to I-95....the weather guys were already chatting over the extent of the problem.  Responsible people (including truckers) should have taken the warning, and simply picked a quiet safe spot to hunker down for 36 hours and then proceed on.  That didn't happen.  

Around 25 years ago, I was on a base where they made a ice-call at 11 AM....saying everyone that lived more than 30 minutes away from base needed to leave by 1:30 PM.  I had a project and didn't leave until 2:30 PM.....clearly running into the mess as they had predicted.  I didn't get home until 7:00 PM that evening.  So my advice....listen to the weather guys and act accordingly.

2.  The odds of Ghislaine Maxwell's case now being dumped?  Since two jurors stood up in the talk-phase and mentioned their situation with abuse in their life....I'd give Maxwell a 90-percent chance now of having the case thrown out.  The prosecution folks?  They have to be furious about what happened and the idea of a whole repeat.  

3. 'Don't get tested'.  The Florida surgeon general had to go out and urge people.....if you don't have Covid symptoms....don't go and get line to be tested for Covid.  

No one says the numbers but I remember the initial period in 2020 in Germany where doctors absolutely refused to administer the test unless you confessed to one of four key symptoms.  They kept that stance up for at least three months.  People are just inclined to think they have something....when they don't have anything.

4.  NY Times and Omicron.  Well....in simple terms, they more or less compare it to regular flu.  I never thought this day would come.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.  

Yeah, He Said That

 "Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism. It's exploitation."

-- Joe Biden

Couple of days ago, President Biden got into some discussion over meat prices, and eventually uttered this quote....that competition is evil and exploits people.  

The problem here...there is no capitalism to exist without competition.  

It's hard to say if Joe is aware or this, or just saying anything that comes into his head at this point.

Four Things That Joe Biden Ought To Do

 1.  For all of 2022, he should avoid phone-call chats with regular Americans, period.  

2.  It would be helpful if President Biden only made one single appearance per week.

3.  He ought to convince the Democrats to release Pelosi as Speaker of the House and install VP Harris as the new House Speaker (House rules allow for the Speaker to be a non-member).  This way....he could pave the way for Harris to be 'gone' and get a new VP.

4.  Finally, Biden ought to refuse all live interviews.

Geographically Controlled?

 It's an interesting story.

Back in September, the Biden administration decided that the federal government needed to 'control' the market of monoclonal antibody treatments....using the Department of Health and Human Services to "help maintain equitable distribution, both geographically and temporally, across the country."

This has drawn a fair amount of attention. 

Is there an unlimited amount of the monoclonal antibody 'material'?  No.  And I should add....it's not cheap.  But it's a product that was already 'controlled' (before this DHHS order came along), and you can only get it via a prescription from your doctor.

The thing is....they wrote this odd order about 'geographically-controlling' things. This means if you have x-amount of monoclonal antibody treatments....you have to divide in some way along 50 lines.  So if you have ten states with intense high numbers and ten states with almost no serious bouts of Covid....the ten states with the marginal Covid will still have their supply of monoclonal antibody sitting there in some government warehouse.  The ten states with intense issues.....will be facing a shortage.

Begging for a court battle?  More or less.  But if you had some relative in an intense state who gets Covid, and dies because of a lack of monoclonal antibody....it's possible you might get mad enough to hire lawyers and start suing DHHS health folks....in a personal way. 

So this brings me to this odd point....where exactly do you want the government to be in the middle of some funnel, and controlling things?

Some examples:

If we have x-amount of Mountain Dew, do we want President Biden to issue the order to geographically control Dew through the 50 states....even though folks in Montana, Idaho and Maine rarely drink it?

If we had x-amount of Viagra, do we want President Biden to issue the order to geographically control Viagra through the 50 states....even if folks in Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island rarely use it?

If we had x-amount of peanut butter, do we want the President to issue the order to geographically control it through the 50 states? 

Does President Biden even grasp the order given?  It might be interesting to ask that question.  I'm just waiting for an added part to this discussion....where the antibody is only issue/prescribed.....to vaxed-up people. 

Urbanization

 From Townhall.com, I noticed a piece written by Jeff Crouere, entitled 'A Year of Living Dangerously in American Cities'.

More or less....he makes the case that major cities have become 'little-war-zones' and maybe the draw of living in a highly urbanized city is evaporating now.

From the five major cities on the west coast....I'd generally regard the living standards and safety elements to be mostly marginalized now.  Looking around the NE of the US (particularly NY City)....I can say the same.  

There might be some features in Tennessee, Florida and Texas going on....where the urbanization is acceptable.  

The bothersome part of this....if you lived there in the 'war-zone' for your entire life, and now reaching 60....what exists for a reason to stay there in retirement?  I can't think of a single reason that I'd stay in Portland or Seattle.

I remember talking to some Air Force guy around 2003 who'd returned from duty in the 'Green Zone' of Iraq.   I asked him to describe the 'zone' and he spent around thirty minutes going in significant detail about security, the threats, and how you valued each day that nothing much happened.  

I see this 'Green Zone' mentality existing today.....going into major US cities, and continually thinking about where you are, the threats, and not willing to venture into normal places anymore.  

Getting resolved?  How?