Homeless Issue
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Post subject: Re: Homeless Issue |  |
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| watt price tully wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | watt price tully wrote: | Any other reason such as some of those noted above are with all due respect, piss & wind.
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Charming ..... Unlike, of course, the endless demand for more taxation, more spending, more deficit budgeting and more money from public sector workers and their ultra-conservative unions, and the ancillary businesses that support them. That's pure altruistic air and pure water, of course.
Many public sector workers work very hard, and they are often at the sharpest edges of a social dysfunction which increases year on year as we pursue failing policies. We owe it to them to re-think the root causes of the social breakdown which makes this so. |
Allow me to introduce myself. |
I sincerely don't doubt it - though I presume you chose it and you are paid by the hour for it, so I'm not about to hand out a purple heart. I just think that the issues many public sector workers mop up are the products of a malfunctioning society. And a dysfunctional society will evidently not be fixed by more money. We are far richer - at nearly every level, in every class - than our grandparents were. Yet our society is more violent and dysfunctional, and the homeless issue is one manifestation. That is a public policy issue. Talking about that is not "all piss and wind", no matter how hard you work.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Post subject: Re: Homeless Issue | |
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| Mugwump wrote: | | watt price tully wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | watt price tully wrote: | Any other reason such as some of those noted above are with all due respect, piss & wind.
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Charming ..... Unlike, of course, the endless demand for more taxation, more spending, more deficit budgeting and more money from public sector workers and their ultra-conservative unions, and the ancillary businesses that support them. That's pure altruistic air and pure water, of course.
Many public sector workers work very hard, and they are often at the sharpest edges of a social dysfunction which increases year on year as we pursue failing policies. We owe it to them to re-think the root causes of the social breakdown which makes this so. |
Allow me to introduce myself. |
I sincerely don't doubt it - though I presume you chose it and you are paid by the hour for it, so I'm not about to hand out a purple heart. I just think that the issues many public sector workers mop up are the products of a malfunctioning society. And a dysfunctional society will evidently not be fixed by more money. We are far richer - at nearly every level, in every class - than our grandparents were. Yet our society is more violent and dysfunctional, and the homeless issue is one manifestation. That is a public policy issue. Talking about that is not "all piss and wind", no matter how hard you work. |
I get paid by the fortnight & work my proverbial's off. My choice however.
However, the notion of throwing more money etc is a false notion & when money has been taken out of it & over the years not added commensurately when COL has increased exponentially makes the argument about throwing money hollow.
We are inviting homelessness & crime by things like economic policies that produce deliberate distortions that favour the middle & upper classes & operate against the disenfranchised.
Follow the money.
Of course that doesn't mean other things are unimportant however you need a baseline, a safety net which we no longer have. If you don't have the fabric you can make as much policy as you like because people will be dare I say; "pissin' in the wind" 
Additional:
1. The claims of being a more violent society seems spurious as there was no evidence to support this. For example, the depression era was an incredibly violent time in Collingwood, Fitzroy & Richmond (amongst other places) Read "a Bunch of Ratbags" by William Dick (tremendous account of a person growing up in the western suburbs of which tells of an incredibly violent Footscray in the 50's.
2. The claims about greater wealth than at any other time is also spurious notion in my view & may indeed be meaningless without reference to a whole host of variables which would include: what groups & when? Who are the beneficiaries? What is the relative COL etc. Given the ever widening gap between the haves & the have-nots makes that claim less convincing I would have thought.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman
Last edited by watt price tully on Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: Re: Homeless Issue | |
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| Mugwump wrote: | | I just think that the issues many public sector workers mop up are the products of a malfunctioning society. And a dysfunctional society will evidently not be fixed by more money. We are far richer - at nearly every level, in every class - than our grandparents were. Yet our society is more violent and dysfunctional, and the homeless issue is one manifestation. That is a public policy issue. Talking about that is not "all piss and wind", no matter how hard you work. |
Is that really true? Surely when you account for inflation, housing prices, cost of living and so on, many of us are working longer hours for less certainly, when compared to the last couple of generations (perhaps not pre-baby boomers).
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Post subject: Re: Homeless Issue | |
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | I just think that the issues many public sector workers mop up are the products of a malfunctioning society. And a dysfunctional society will evidently not be fixed by more money. We are far richer - at nearly every level, in every class - than our grandparents were. Yet our society is more violent and dysfunctional, and the homeless issue is one manifestation. That is a public policy issue. Talking about that is not "all piss and wind", no matter how hard you work. |
Is that really true? Surely when you account for inflation, housing prices, cost of living and so on, many of us are working longer hours for less certainly, when compared to the last couple of generations (perhaps not pre-baby boomers). |
It was the pre-baby boomers I was thinking of. Crime, drugs, declining respect for teachers, a rising culture of indebtedness, the collapse of the family and the loss of social courtesy and respect in general are the legacy of the baby boomers. More money clearly does not in itself improve social well being unless it is managed through good policy.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ WPT, crime today is no worse than it was in the 1950s ?
Let's use one reliable indicator, the homicide rate. In the 1950s, with trauma surgery far less advanced than it is today, (and therefore incidents at that time far more likely to cause death than they are today), the homicide rate was around 1.4 per 100,000 population. Today it is around 2.1. The number of serious assaults in 1973 was 20 per 100,000 population. It is now nearly 100 (again, this indicates the effect of trauma surgery in stopping serious assault from causing death). In 1950, we had a generation of men who had come back from the war with PTSD and a history of gun use. Yet the homicide rate was ~60% of what it is today, where guns are largely (and rightly in my view) kept from private hands. Think of what those rates mean in human terms.
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/tandi_pdf/tandi061.pdf
Ask anyone old enough to have lived through both eras, and they will tell you that their experience matches the data. It seems very probable to me that the collapse of respect for authority and the collapse of the stable family, and the loss of day-to-day social courtesy lies at the root of our problem, not money. Most ordinary people in the 1950s were poor, compared to today - no TVs, facing a lifetime of debt to pay off a house, buying on hire purchase, generally barely able to afford a car. Throw as much money at public services as you like, the evidence suggests that it is a sticking plaster. Now, we need sticking plaster right enough, but we need a deeper conversation about authority and restraint and responsibility if people in jobs like yours are to have a better work environment.
That will be derided as authoritarianism or fascism by those who can only think in slogans - who know what to think, but never how to think - but it was not fascism in our society in 1960, and it need not be now. Real authority - of parents, police, teachers, magistrates, prison warders and politicians - used constructively under moderate scrutiny - matters.
Unfortunately, the permanent adolescents long ago poked at the rules and found mush, and so they kept pushing, and our society is now reaping the "rewards" of the 1968 revolutionaries in the tragic statistics quoted above.
_________________
Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Thu Jan 19, 2017 1:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Interestingly, it shows death from assault is lower now than the last 3 decades. |
I don't think that it surprising - resus and rescue, medical knowledge and treatment has improved substantially over time - we can now save people who in years gone by would have been unsalavagable and as such DOA.
A more informed stat than just mortality would be to look at major morbidity as well - many with acquired brain injury from assault now live but the quality of their life and functionality is seriously diminished.
Many victims of assault ( particularly with baseball bats to the head - I never realised we had so many baseball bats in this country till I worked in the high dependency neurosurg unit at RMH  ) continue to live per se but cannot function as independent beings and many can manage basic ADLs but cannot function in their previous capacity as for e.g. electricians.
_________________
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
Just added a baseball bat to my shopping list. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Morrigu wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | Interestingly, it shows death from assault is lower now than the last 3 decades. |
I don't think that it surprising - resus and rescue, medical knowledge and treatment has improved substantially over time - we can now save people who in years gone by would have been unsalavagable and as such DOA.
A more informed stat than just mortality would be to look at major morbidity as well - many with acquired brain injury from assault now live but the quality of their life and functionality is seriously diminished.
Many victims of assault ( particularly with baseball bats to the head - I never realised we had so many baseball bats in this country till I worked in the high dependency neurosurg unit at RMH ) continue to live per se but cannot function as independent beings and many can manage basic ADLs but cannot function in their previous capacity as for e.g. electricians. |
Yes, that's the point - homicide statistics should fall sharply if the past was as violent as the present, because medical technology can save lives in a way that was unthinkable even twenty years ago. Instead, it has been steadily rising - like serious assaults such as those you mention - since the late 1960s. Our society is far richer and clearly far more violent.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| Morrigu wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | Interestingly, it shows death from assault is lower now than the last 3 decades. |
I don't think that it surprising - resus and rescue, medical knowledge and treatment has improved substantially over time - we can now save people who in years gone by would have been unsalavagable and as such DOA.
A more informed stat than just mortality would be to look at major morbidity as well - many with acquired brain injury from assault now live but the quality of their life and functionality is seriously diminished.
Many victims of assault ( particularly with baseball bats to the head - I never realised we had so many baseball bats in this country till I worked in the high dependency neurosurg unit at RMH ) continue to live per se but cannot function as independent beings and many can manage basic ADLs but cannot function in their previous capacity as for e.g. electricians. |
Why don't they just train them up to be surgeons? |
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Morrigu
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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^ because they have some social skills and some ability to think laterally and adapt to change
_________________
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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The plan is now to introduce a law to ban people sleeping on the streets. Great idea, arrest them and fine them and send them to jail, that will work. 
This is going to get ugly.
Note: I saw one guy who is Russian and is homeless. If he is Russian and cannot support himself how is it he is allowed to stay? |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Acknowledged. What did it look like to you? |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Morrigu wrote: | | ^ because they have some social skills and some ability to think laterally and adapt to change |
harsh but fair
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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