Breakdown In Civil Order

[RVonse]

(1) lack of
affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, (4) mental illness and the lack of needed
services, and (5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.43

https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf

If average americans could purchase a small home for less than $1 million they would also afford other subsistanance without going out on the streets.

And there is no reason why a home in Seattle should cost so much other than to make other people rich. There are many ways the local government could and should help home prices be much more affordable.

 

[ZiprHead]

(1) lack of
affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, (4) mental illness and the lack of needed
services, and (5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.43

https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf

If average americans could purchase a small home for less than $1 million they would also afford other subsistanance without going out on the streets.

And there is no reason why a home in Seattle should cost so much other than to make other people rich. There are many ways the local government could and should help home prices be much more affordable.

Causes of homelessness
 Insufficient income and lack of affordable housing are the leading causes of homelessness:
o In 2012, 10.3 million renters (approximately one in four) had “extremely low incomes”
(ELI) as classified by HUD.35
In that same year, there were only 5.8 million rental units
affordable to the more than 10 million people identified as ELI.
36
o Additionally, only 31 out of every 100 of these affordable units were actually available to
people identified as ELI.37
 After paying their rent and utilities, 75% of ELI households end up with less than half of their
income left to pay for necessities such as food, medicine, transportation, or childcare.38
 The foreclosure crisis also played, and continues to play, a significant role in homelessness:
o In 2008, state and local homeless groups reported a 61% rise in homelessness since the
foreclosure crisis began.39
o Approximately 40% of families facing eviction due to foreclosure are renters; the problem
may continue to worsen as renters represent a rising segment of the U.S. population.40
 For women in particular, domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness.41
 According to the most recent annual survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, major cities across
the country report that top causes of homelessness among families were: (1) lack of affordable
housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, and (4) low wages, in that order.42 The same report found
that the top four causes of homelessness among unaccompanied individuals were (1) lack of
affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, (4) mental illness and the lack of needed
services, and (5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.43

..

 

[RVonse]

Causes of homelessness
 Insufficient income and lack of affordable housing are the leading causes of homelessness:
o In 2012, 10.3 million renters (approximately one in four) had “extremely low incomes”
(ELI) as classified by HUD.35
In that same year, there were only 5.8 million rental units
affordable to the more than 10 million people identified as ELI.
36
o Additionally, only 31 out of every 100 of these affordable units were actually available to
people identified as ELI.37
 After paying their rent and utilities, 75% of ELI households end up with less than half of their
income left to pay for necessities such as food, medicine, transportation, or childcare.38
 The foreclosure crisis also played, and continues to play, a significant role in homelessness:
o In 2008, state and local homeless groups reported a 61% rise in homelessness since the
foreclosure crisis began.39
o Approximately 40% of families facing eviction due to foreclosure are renters; the problem
may continue to worsen as renters represent a rising segment of the U.S. population.40
 For women in particular, domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness.41
 According to the most recent annual survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, major cities across
the country report that top causes of homelessness among families were: (1) lack of affordable
housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, and (4) low wages, in that order.42 The same report found
that the top four causes of homelessness among unaccompanied individuals were (1) lack of
affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, (4) mental illness and the lack of needed
services, and (5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.43

..

It is also worth noting here that many of the reasons that property values are so insanely out of wack in Seattle is because of local liberal zoning and ordinance. Those liberal governments need to learn from their conservative counterparts in Florida and Texas. Home prices in Texas and Florida are not out of wack with reality...at least not yet.

 

[Jarhyn]

Causes of homelessness
 Insufficient income and lack of affordable housing are the leading causes of homelessness:
o In 2012, 10.3 million renters (approximately one in four) had “extremely low incomes”
(ELI) as classified by HUD.35
In that same year, there were only 5.8 million rental units
affordable to the more than 10 million people identified as ELI.
36
o Additionally, only 31 out of every 100 of these affordable units were actually available to
people identified as ELI.37
 After paying their rent and utilities, 75% of ELI households end up with less than half of their
income left to pay for necessities such as food, medicine, transportation, or childcare.38
 The foreclosure crisis also played, and continues to play, a significant role in homelessness:
o In 2008, state and local homeless groups reported a 61% rise in homelessness since the
foreclosure crisis began.39
o Approximately 40% of families facing eviction due to foreclosure are renters; the problem
may continue to worsen as renters represent a rising segment of the U.S. population.40
 For women in particular, domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness.41
 According to the most recent annual survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, major cities across
the country report that top causes of homelessness among families were: (1) lack of affordable
housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, and (4) low wages, in that order.42 The same report found
that the top four causes of homelessness among unaccompanied individuals were (1) lack of
affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, (4) mental illness and the lack of needed
services, and (5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.43

..

It is also worth noting here that many of the reasons that property values are so insanely out of wack in Seattle is because of local liberal zoning and ordinance. Those liberal governments need to learn from their conservative counterparts in Florida and Texas. Home prices in Texas and Florida are not out of wack with reality...at least not yet.

Part of it has to do with "fuck you I got mine", part of it has to do with foreign investment practices, most of it has to do with capitalistic views on land distribution, and all of it can be ended with public policy that is not immediately self-serving, if ever such a thing has ever been done.

But the sorts that find seats of power seek them, and most often people seek power for self-aggrandizement.

 

[SimpleDon]

But we don't police these crimes with the vigor that we apply to street crimes.

Which is why Bernie Madoff got off scot free, right?

Any BS to justify deflecting from violent and property crimes (whether motivated by politics as in by #BLM and Antifa or just motivated by avarice) in US cities that is being largely neglected by the so-called "progressive" DAs like Boudin, Garcon, Foxx, Schmidt etc.

Bernie Madoff was investigated many times by the SEC without them discovering his massive Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. He was finally turned in by his sons. Why didn't the SEC discover Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme?

It might have been because of the SEC internal policies not to investigate people like Bernie Madoff. See this, in Rolling Stone, Why Didn’t the SEC Catch Madoff? It Might Have Been Policy Not To. (in all three cases here I made a simple google search of a question, in this case, I searched for "why didn't the sec discover bernie madoffs ponzi scheme?" and took the first reasonable result.)

I said the crimes committed by the upper class have largely gone unprosecuted. Because of reduced funding by Congress of IRS enforcement. Because of executive orders to the IRS to redirect enforcement audits away from the upper-class tax forms. Because of many fewer anti-monopoly cases being investigated and filed, especially in the Republican administrations.

It is not BS deflecting from Antifa and BLM crimes to point out that the enforcement of white-collar crimes has become increasingly lax in the neoliberal period of the last fifty years. The Republican party bills itself as the law and order party. And yet most of the laxity in the pursuit of white-collar crimes can be traced to Republican administrations. However, the Democrats don't fare very well either, while they didn't initiate the laxity in enforcement, they did little to roll back the Republican lead efforts to relax enforcement of white-collar crime when they are in power.

From the Wall Street Journal, High-Income Tax Avoidance Far Larger Than Thought, New Paper Estimates.

WASHINGTON—The top sliver of high-income Americans dodge significantly more in income taxes than the Internal Revenue Service’s methods had previously assumed, according to forthcoming estimates from IRS researchers and academic economists.

Overall, the paper estimates that the top 1% of households fail to report about 21% of their income, with 6 percentage points of that due to sophisticated strategies that random audits don’t detect. For the top 0.1%, unreported income may be nearly twice as large as conventional IRS methodologies would suggest, the researchers wrote.

The caption to a photograph of the IRS building, Citing the research, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig contended that each additional dollar spent on tax enforcement could yield $5 to $7 in revenue.

(The article is behind a paywall and I let my subscription to the WSJ expire. It was ten dollars a week.)

Tax avoidance is even worse for the estate tax. From the New York Times, which I still have a subscription to, For Wealthy Americans, Death Is More Certain Than Taxes. Read it for yourselves.

 

[Derec]

Bernie Madoff was investigated many times by the SEC without them discovering his massive Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. He was finally turned in by his sons. Why didn't the SEC discover Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme?

But he was caught, prosecuted and received a very long sentence - longer than many violent criminals, including murderers.

It might have been because of the SEC internal policies not to investigate people like Bernie Madoff. See this, in Rolling Stone, Why Didn’t the SEC Catch Madoff? It Might Have Been Policy Not To. (in all three cases here I made a simple google search of a question, in this case, I searched for "why didn't the sec discover bernie madoffs ponzi scheme?" and took the first reasonable result.)

"Might have been" == author is speculating. Also, a music magazine? Really?

I said the crimes committed by the upper class have largely gone unprosecuted. Because of reduced funding by Congress of IRS enforcement. Because of executive orders to the IRS to redirect enforcement audits away from the upper-class tax forms. Because of many fewer anti-monopoly cases being investigated and filed, especially in the Republican administrations.

How do you define "largely"?
In any case, I still think violent crime is far more destructive than white collar crime.

It is not BS deflecting from Antifa and BLM crimes

This thread is about "breakdown in civil order". The widespread (and often unchecked by local authorities) rioting, looting and arson perpetrated by #BLM and Antifa is far more apropos to the topic than some financial crimes. As are violent crimes in general.
This is for example from my city of Atlanta, that did a good job after the Olympics and through 2000s in reducing crime and revitalizing intown neighborhoods. Now we are going backwards - thanks Keisha Lance-Bottoms!

Lindbergh Taco Mac closed permanently due to rising crime in Buckhead

They mean violent crime - shootings, robberies and the like - and not somebody running a Ponzi scheme of something.

This is also why some in Buckhead want to secede from Atlanta and make their own city.
The Buckhead Debate | Is cityhood a viable solution to fight crime?

From the Wall Street Journal, High-Income Tax Avoidance Far Larger Than Thought, New Paper Estimates.

WASHINGTON—The top sliver of high-income Americans dodge significantly more in income taxes than the Internal Revenue Service’s methods had previously assumed, according to forthcoming estimates from IRS researchers and academic economists.

Is it "tax avoidance" (which is legal) or tax dodging (which is illegal). Rubin talks about underreporting income, which is illegal, but then also about partnerships and pass-through entities, which are generally not. Then I hit the pay wall and could read no further.

Overall, the paper estimates that the top 1% of households fail to report about 21% of their income, with 6 percentage points of that due to sophisticated strategies that random audits don’t detect. For the top 0.1%, unreported income may be nearly twice as large as conventional IRS methodologies would suggest, the researchers wrote.

I wonder if these researchers also looked at tax dodging by the less affluent. EITC fraud is common. Sure, those collecting EITC make less and individually dodge less, but there are many orders of magnitude more of them than of the 0.1%ers.

The caption to a photograph of the IRS building, Citing the research, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig contended that each additional dollar spent on tax enforcement could yield $5 to $7 in revenue.

I have no problem with increased tax enforcement. It has little to do with breakdown of society due to violent crime and rioting/looting/arson every time a black thug is killed by police (or, as in Minneapolis, when a thug kills himself before police can arrest him).

 

[TSwizzle]

Crazy stuff in Seattle;

A Seattle couple - with a two-week-old baby in their car - was attacked by a mob of homeless people before running over and killing one of the men as they tried to escape, according to published reports and a recently released shocking video. The wild July 27 altercation shows the couple arrive at one of the homeless encampments that dot the city to retrieve items that were stolen from them, according to KIRO-7 News, which aired the video Aug. 13. The couple got out of the four-door sedan and the female passenger proceeded to get into a bare-knuckles brawl with another woman - but not before first opening the back door to apparently check on the baby sitting there, the video showed.

DailyMail

Is this fixable ?

 

[KeepTalking]

Crazy stuff in Seattle;

A Seattle couple - with a two-week-old baby in their car - was attacked by a mob of homeless people before running over and killing one of the men as they tried to escape, according to published reports and a recently released shocking video. The wild July 27 altercation shows the couple arrive at one of the homeless encampments that dot the city to retrieve items that were stolen from them, according to KIRO-7 News, which aired the video Aug. 13. The couple got out of the four-door sedan and the female passenger proceeded to get into a bare-knuckles brawl with another woman - but not before first opening the back door to apparently check on the baby sitting there, the video showed.

DailyMail

Is this fixable ?

The Daly Mail?

No. You should stop reading them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But the very first Seattle, and other coastal cities should be doing is getting the price of property lower. It is the price of property that has caused this problem in the first place. You get the price of house where it should be and everything else goes away.

The problem with this is that it is in very limited supply. There's also the problem that as you increase the density you need to increase the infrastructure--and things like widening roads in built-up territory is very hard.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Crazy stuff in Seattle;

A Seattle couple - with a two-week-old baby in their car - was attacked by a mob of homeless people before running over and killing one of the men as they tried to escape, according to published reports and a recently released shocking video. The wild July 27 altercation shows the couple arrive at one of the homeless encampments that dot the city to retrieve items that were stolen from them, according to KIRO-7 News, which aired the video Aug. 13. The couple got out of the four-door sedan and the female passenger proceeded to get into a bare-knuckles brawl with another woman - but not before first opening the back door to apparently check on the baby sitting there, the video showed.

DailyMail

Is this fixable ?

The Daly Mail?

No. You should stop reading them.

I've heard of the case from elsewhere.

 

[Elixir]

\(\)What American right-wing authoritarians say they want:
Freedom

What American right-wing authoritarians say they don't want:
Lawlessness

What American right-wing authoritarians don't understand:
Irony

Freedom is when people who look and behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

Lawlessness is when people who don't look or behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

It's the American way!

QFT.

Steve, Derec and every other right wing poster here will ignore the simple truth stated above.
There is no possible response, because it is simply re-phrasing what freedumb-loving conservatives keep saying ad nauseum.

 

[Keith&Co.]

\(\)What American right-wing authoritarians say they want:
Freedom

What American right-wing authoritarians say they don't want:
Lawlessness

What American right-wing authoritarians don't understand:
Irony

Freedom is when people who look and behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

Lawlessness is when people who don't look or behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

It's the American way!

QFT.

Steve, Derec and every other right wing poster here will ignore the simple truth stated above.
There is no possible response, because it is simply re-phrasing what freedumb-loving conservatives keep saying ad nauseum.

Freedumb is that i do what i want, you do what i want, and i face no consequences about anything we do.

Stragely, this also describes Trump's theory of the office of President and the powers held by its inhabitant. When HE was President, not when lawless senile tricksters steal it from the lawful senile trickster who should hold it....

 

[Jarhyn]

\(\)What American right-wing authoritarians say they want:
Freedom

What American right-wing authoritarians say they don't want:
Lawlessness

What American right-wing authoritarians don't understand:
Irony

Freedom is when people who look and behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

Lawlessness is when people who don't look or behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

It's the American way!

I am not a capitalist, authoritarian, nor conservative, nor right wing.

Lawlessness is not "freedom", and "freedom" is not lawlessness. Lawlessness is when there are no rules governing the acceptable manner by which people can pursue mutually exclusive goals, or to prevent goals which are widely mutually exclusive altogether. Freedom is being able to pursue goals arbitrarily.

It stands to reason that some manners of law allow more diverse and more useful freedom.

I can't talk to anyone in the world if there are not laws preventing people from just digging wherever, whenever.

Freedom is the "Power to do X".

What conservatives want is to have "Power over others".

They very much want lawlessness, for themselves.

 

[KeepTalking]

The Daly Mail?

No. You should stop reading them.

I've heard of the case from elsewhere.

Undoubtedly. I wasn't making on a comment on the veracity of the case, but rather on the fixability of the Daily Mail.

 

[Swammerdami]

But he was caught, prosecuted and received a very long sentence - longer than many violent criminals, including murderers.

That ONE financial fraudster was prosecuted means that ALL financial fraudsters are prosecuted? Is that your logic? The scope of his crimes would make a short sentence nonsensical. Anyway, since he was 71 years old when sentenced, it was doubtful he would have to serve the entire 150-year prison term. (His sons were almost certainly also guilty, but got off scot-free.)

Prosecution of Madoff did not begin until AFTER his fraud became a public scandal! But ...

The scandal was incredibly embarrassing to the SEC, which had failed to investigate Madoff despite being tipped off in extraordinarily detailed fashion by investigator Harry Markopolos over eight years before.

It came out that Madoff had not merely stolen from his clients but not conducted any trades at all, simply bilking money in the most primitive conceivable Ponzi scheme. This meant that the SEC would have been able to uncover the fraud with even the most cursory examination at any time during the fund’s existence.

"Might have been" == author is speculating. Also, a music magazine? Really?

Am I correct in guessing that all you read was the article's title? The author provided hard evidence.

The author was Matt Taibbi, an award-winning investigative journalist (and one of my favorites). That you disparage him because he writes for a "music magazine" — and can't be bothered to click the link — tells us much about you, but not about Taibbi nor his article nor the magazine.

TrillionS of dollars are stolen annually in financial crimes. Even if crimes of violence are the priority, financial crimes should get more attention than they're getting. (I just read that foreign-based criminals stole hundreds of billions in Covid benefits, "the largest financial crime in history." It isn't helpful that GOP legislators have consistently underfunded agencies investigating such frauds.)

 

[Harry Bosch]

That ONE financial fraudster was prosecuted means that ALL financial fraudsters are prosecuted? Is that your logic? The scope of his crimes would make a short sentence nonsensical. Anyway, since he was 71 years old when sentenced, it was doubtful he would have to serve the entire 150-year prison term. (His sons were almost certainly also guilty, but got off scot-free.)

Prosecution of Madoff did not begin until AFTER his fraud became a public scandal! But ...

"Might have been" == author is speculating. Also, a music magazine? Really?

Am I correct in guessing that all you read was the article's title? The author provided hard evidence.

The author was Matt Taibbi, an award-winning investigative journalist (and one of my favorites). That you disparage him because he writes for a "music magazine" — and can't be bothered to click the link — tells us much about you, but not about Taibbi nor his article nor the magazine.

TrillionS of dollars are stolen annually in financial crimes. Even if crimes of violence are the priority, financial crimes should get more attention than they're getting. (I just read that foreign-based criminals stole hundreds of billions in Covid benefits, "the largest financial crime in history." It isn't helpful that GOP legislators have consistently underfunded agencies investigating such frauds.)

Well, government resources (police, courts, jails, prosecutors, and etc.) are tight. And we have always prioritized violent crimes over financial crimes. Secondly, prosecutors like to go after the easy win. And frankly, it's very difficult to go after many white collar criminals. First off, they all have lawyers. Lawyers are very good at defending. Thirdly, often times financial crimes are nebulous and open to interpretation. Violent crime is very black and white.

 

[Elixir]

Am I correct in guessing that all you read was the article's title? ... The author provided hard evidence.That you disparage him because he writes for a "music magazine" — and can't be bothered to click the link — tells us much about you, but not about Taibbi nor his article nor the magazine.

I can appreciate that you haven't been around here all that long, but - REALLY?

 

[Elixir]

... government resources (police, courts, jails, prosecutors, and etc.) are tight. And we have always prioritized violent crimes over financial crimes. Secondly, prosecutors like to go after the easy win. And frankly, it's very difficult to go after many white collar criminals. First off, they all have lawyers. Lawyers are very good at defending. Thirdly, often times financial crimes are nebulous and open to interpretation. Violent crime is very black and white.

That point is well taken. But simple one-step regression tells us that if it were otherwise - if white collar mega-theft was dealt with - then the wealth and income disparities that give rise to a huge percentage of the low level property theft and even murder and domestic abuse that IS prosecuted, could be mitigated.
I know - knowing that doesn't really help make it easier to accomplish.

 

[Angry Floof]

Here's some breakdown in civil order for you: California man kills his children, refers to QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories

 

[Derec]

\(\)What American right-wing authoritarians say they want:
Freedom

What American right-wing authoritarians say they don't want:
Lawlessness

What American right-wing authoritarians don't understand:
Irony

So many things wrong here. For one: authoritarians are not really about freedom. Whether they are on the right or left, they want to control what other people do with their lives.

Freedom is when people who look and behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"
Lawlessness is when people who don't look or behave like me say "fuck your rules, you can't tell me how to live!"

Bullshit! Your freedom is about how you live your life, it does not give you the right to destroy somebody else's property or to assault people etc. Freedom and lawlessness are not the same thing!

It's the American way!

In what way? Please elaborate?

QFT.
Steve, Derec and every other right wing poster here will ignore the simple truth stated above.

QFL you mean? It is not a truth, but it is simplistic. So right up your alley!

There is no possible response, because it is simply re-phrasing what freedumb-loving conservatives keep saying ad nauseum.

I am not a conservative for a reason. The left and right fringes are actually rather similar. Proud Bois and January 6th rioters are no different than the #BLM and Antifa. They just wave different flags and mindlessly spout different idiotic slogans.