LA Shanty Towns
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- harlequino
I don't normally post or participate in the socio-political bluster around here, but this touched a nerve. Largely because this is coming from the BBC rather than a domestic media outlet. It's turned any remaining shred of confidence in mainstream reporting into dust. Also because I had a real "Holy shit that could be me" feeling.
Have any west coast QBNers seen these anywhere? These are shanty towns in the LA area that have sprung up due to the subprime fallout.
- migy0
blimey that is bad
- Bluejam0
is the american government actually doing anything about this? i can imagine george sitting in the oval office, munching on pretzels and sharing 'poor' jokes with dick
- harlequino0
I mean, seriously, despite your feelings on the level of responsibility people need to assume in their financial choices vs. the practices being used by lending institutions, this is pretty fucked up.
- mrdobolina0
this is what happens when there is no regulation.
- dtan0
ya, the current presidency has been a fucking joke for 8 long, grueling years.
"Oil? who's cookin'?!"
- Iggyboo0
La's always attracted alot of homeless because it's warm. But this is depressing. What's more important our way of survival or an ideology that only some perscribe too. For many who are privlidged this is not a weighed debate, but for those affected this is scary.
Wish the best to everyone.
- detritus0
Mm, I posted this in the arse end of the Vid of the Day thread a coupla days back, and was surprised at the lack of feedback - but, I guess, it was the arse end of the Vid of the Day thread.
I'm shocked - genuinely, really very shocked. I appreciate that all first world countries have their ..horrible term, but.. 'under class' hidden from international public view - and, I think here in Euroland we've always had a suspicion that America is a lot more socially divided than it lets on (we know about poverty in the Deep South, the problems of inner city violence and ghettos, the lacklustre Katrina response, etc etc) - but this was a step beyond anything I'd ever envisaged for your country. It makes me so sad - see, it's your model that Britain has been following for the past coupla decades and it's the one we're now projecting, via Sarkozy and the so-called AngloSaxon model, onto the French and further into Europe, particularly the Eastern side - and for what? For the Rich to get much richer, the poor to get poorer and the middle classes to wander, blinkered through it all, their rights and powers increrasingly chipped away or diluted.
I wish I knew what I could do. I feel impotent in the extreme - but ever angrier, because this is not The Way.
- harlequino0
I hate to sound paranoid in all this, but how can these results NOT be part of the grand projection spreadsheet that was set up by lenders, bankers, investors, and whomever else involved when setting up these business practices? All the way down to the lowest rung brokers, they fucking KNOW there's collateral damage. There's no way they don't.
And what is the real end game here? Is it just simply the approach of "Fuck it man, we're quadrupling our profits in two years and yeah, oh well, a few tens of thousands of people get fucked. Shoulda known better. I'm gonna be CEO before I'm 40." Is that all it is?
Or, is it really that outlandish to think that maybe there's been a growing sensibility among the top eschalon of the affluent for the past thirty years akin to, "hey, more of us are on the same page now. If we can whack away at the middle class, eventually there will be so few left, it will be a country of 10% of us with the money and assets, and the other 90% working for us and owing us money. Best way to keep the blacks, hispanics, and sub par whites in check, really."
is that truly outside the realm of possibility? :/
- God no, its just too blankly put - these people have never ever ever seen the world any other way. its a non revelation.kelpie
- Austin0010
I live in the LA area and have never heard nor seen anything like this. From the looks of the scenery it looks like Riverside area where there are a lot of people getting hit. But like I said I have not seen nor heard of any shanty towns here.
- lvl_130
just go down by long beach and the big factory next to the ocean (totally spacing the name of it). peer down the banks of the water inland and there are a lot of tents and make-shifts up and down the whole area.
this is sort of the area i am talking about: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&…
- The_CCG0
I live in LA as well, and no, this is not the normal fallout of the Credit Crisis that's going on. LA has always had a HUGE homeless population, last I heard it was 75,000 people living in LA that were cited as "homeless." What you're seeing here, if true, is an incredibly small % of the affected people that the media hypes. The important thing is that it highlights some of the 10,000's of people that never should have, in a 1000 yrs, bought the homes they did at the prices they did.
LA has become a crazy $$ place to live, no thanks whatsoever to the people, perhaps like these people, who got into a home loan on a place that elsewhere in the country would sell for $200K, but in an armpit like the RIverside area, is $500K (at a very minimum), all of which was made with a household income of ~$75K . 5th Grade level math would tell ANYONE that these homes were beyond their means.
So now the rest of us are going to suffer the economic consequences of the "American dream" that Bush sold these people on.
Sorry if anyone out there has been affected, but a lot of us have very little sympathy for the mass of people who were trying to "keep up with the Jones."