Better to Have a Few Rats Than to Be One

[K1052]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_poverty_county

It's not that those cities don't have plenty of poor people, it's that they don't have as high a proportion of poor people as compared to the total population.

Oh I apparently misremembered it being 3 when its really 4. Yikes.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm not a fan of the death spiral approach because it's a lose lose deal. It can't end in a good place. When Trump spouts off his stupidity, he's shooting himself in the foot. Better to give him more ammunition and hope his aim improves.

Well, that was the general strategy to defeat him in 2016. ...well, we can't fairly spend our time addressing his clear mental issues because that would be deemed "bias" or unfair by all of his supporters. So maybe better to just air all of his crazytown fascio-speeches and rallies and just let him destroy himself.

I mean, it seems OK on the surface, but the miscalculations piled up: This simply gave him billions of dollars in free media airtime and exposure. Once you reach a certain amount of exposure compared to competitors, there really is no relevance to "positive" or "negative" when looking at the impact of that exposure. As bad as Trump is and as negative a force that he represents, the simple overwhelming presence just outweighed any kind of counterbalance, and that continues to this day.

Further, the media and American in general simply underestimated the number of abjectly racist, inhuman, ignorant pieces of shit that essentially came out of nowhere to support this next-level piece of scum. This is a demographic that, outside of antebellum south, really has never had such a prominent public avatar to represent their core value of plain white supremacy. It doesn't matter if Trump denies this or many of his supporters honestly aren't white supremacists: the avowed and proud white supremacists are exactly that and they expressly condone Trump and champion him as their chosen leader and representative of their core vision of the type of USA that simply doesn't exist. It matters, on any fundamental level, what the actual admitted Nazis of the country think about this man. When Nazis (hell, even those in Europe) champion Trump, that is fucking important.

Trump does not represent general American values in any shape or form. He simply doesn't. Not in his words and especially not in his actions. The only history available of Trump--words and actual actions--is that he is an avowed white supremacist that works to serve his own needs in any way possible, and especially to the detriment of the middle class, especially in and all minority populations. That is the simplest, easiest analysis of his entire history of a very public crook and con man. That is how he operated his secret, non-public family "business." It is specifically why he refuses to allow any public disclosure of his operations as any kind of real corporation or real business (Trump's is not a real business--it is fundamentally a front for money laundering for various international criminals and bankrupt enemy dictatorships) is required to do. Trump guards not so much his wealth as he guards all knowledge related to his wealth. This should tell you or anyone else all you need to know about the kind of criminal he is.

 

[trenchfoot]

I LOVE IT when Trump supporters and Trump republicans in congress, which face it includes all republicans in congress, I LOVE IT when they try and try again to defend Trump and claim what Trump does or says is not racist.
Or when appearing on TV news shows, these trump idiots either deflect from answering to what Trump has said and tweeted, or they go off into some other off-subject.
They claim Trump is not a racist. Well.... Trump is indeed exactly that.
Even a child could figure that one out.
Trump is so bad that he doesn't need to use racist code words in his racist rants. Trump is not concerned about hiding his racism. Trump knows republicans will back him up, including the one Black republican in the US house.
Take Texas Rep Will Hurd on ABC's THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE, July 28th.
The only Black Republican in the US house.
When asked if Trump's words against Rep. Elijah Cummings were racist, Rep Will Hurd would only answer, "well, I myself would not use his words". Or, "we should focus on other issues". Blaw Blaw Blaw....

I swear, the day will come when all of these Trump cult members regret having defended Donald Trump.
Hopefully, that will be before the next WWIII and not after our total inhalation.
The clan must be LOVING THIS.

See, Trump has this habit of making himself look the incompetent idiot that he is leadership-wise. That he's an accomplished grifter writ large and a not so very convincing chronically afflicted liar does not make up for the former, it only exacerbates it.

That he does this on a regular basis makes him reliable in this regard, but is being reliable that way a good thing? Well if you ask most any of his supporters, well hell yeah, although when asked why, what you get back are a list of talking points issued to them by the GOP Ministry of Propaganda that says a whole lot without saying anything at all. You know, just like what Trump does when he throws accusations about his racism right back at his accusers and call them racists for calling him one.

Makes sense? Doesn't have to. It really doesn't have to. Does it make Trump and many of his supporters look like stubborn jackasses that won't take a hint? Yes, but apparently that doesn't matter too.

So here we are with Trump fashioning for himself a dictatorship right smack in the middle of a so-called democracy and he's doing this because he can't run things any other way.

Yes, he's that stupidly clever. It's the only way I can describe him and why he hasn't been impeached yet.

 

[zinfamous]

Really? Can you give me a list of the policies Kushner put in place specific to Baltimore that caused the city to be shithole?

Kushner owns something like 12k or so properties in that district, many of them noted for multiple violations of safety regulations. So, it's not the policies that are the problem, it's asshole pieces of shit like yourself and Kushner and Trumps that treat policy violations as some badge of honor in some exclusive boyscout tribe of racist, shitfuck assholes, then turn around and blame the policies that you explicitly ignore anyway for creating the conditions that you chose to create.

In summary: fuck off, you disingenuous, incurious, malignant piece of semi-organic scum.

 

[dainthomas]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_poverty_county

It's not that those cities don't have plenty of poor people, it's that they don't have as high a proportion of poor people as compared to the total population.

And a lot of the people there lack health coverage, hence the epidemic of rural hospitals closing. How are Mitch and Rand fixing this issue for their constituents? Or the opioid epidemic that's killing those communities? Spoiler alert: They DGAF

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_poverty_county

It's not that those cities don't have plenty of poor people, it's that they don't have as high a proportion of poor people as compared to the total population.

I just did that above. It's also how US law defines it.

So you're telling me that populous liberal cities like Chicago, NY, LA, etc..... don't have 20%+ of the population that is below the FEDERAL poverty line? Last I checked, the federal poverty line doesn't take into account COL adjustments - of which in liberal cities is at peak highs. Seems a bit hard to believe.

I'm sorry but in all those cities I mentioned, I guaran-fucking-tee 20% of the population is broke as shit and 1 car repair away from being hobos.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm sorry but in all those cities I mentioned, I guaran-fucking-tee 20% of the population is broke as shit and 1 car repair away from being hobos.

That's true of America in general. It's what happens when we let the financial elite have their way with us too much for nearly 40 years. The effects are cumulative.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

That's true of America in general. It's what happens when we let the financial elite have their way with us too much for nearly 40 years. The effects are cumulative.

lol as someone that has lived in a middle-class blue collar neighborhood in my life, I can tell you that isn't the case.

The case is, their garages were filled to the brim with tons of useless shit because we live in a consumer whore economy of dumb fucks that are too stupid to know what marketing is. Instead they just fall victim (as the low IQ people they are) that you MUST have this AMAZING device. How will your life ever be the same without it?

 

[K1052]

So you're telling me that populous liberal cities like Chicago, NY, LA, etc..... don't have 20%+ of the population that is below the FEDERAL poverty line? Last I checked, the federal poverty line doesn't take into account COL adjustments - of which in liberal cities is at peak highs. Seems a bit hard to believe.

I'm sorry but in all those cities I mentioned, I guaran-fucking-tee 20% of the population is broke as shit and 1 car repair away from being hobos.

For 4 consecutive decades? No. Their poverty rates have gone back and forth due to economic cycles or other pressures like housing cost (a big driver in LA's rate). A lot of red America suffers from long term (decades long) systemic economic stagnation which most urban areas don't generally.

I grew up in downstate IL. Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck with virtually no savings. Many Americans can't afford even a minor emergency.

 

[fskimospy]

For 4 consecutive decades? No. Their poverty rates have gone back and forth due to economic cycles or other pressures like housing cost (a big driver in LA's rate). A lot of red America suffers from long term (decades long) systemic economic stagnation which most urban areas don't generally.

I grew up in downstate IL. Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck with virtually no savings. Many Americans can't afford even a minor emergency.

Not to mention that but also measures like this tend to understate the true level of poverty that rural areas face. By this measure it's the same if you're $1 below the FPL or $10,000 below and the rural southern areas that dominate your map tend not to just be poor, but desperately, desperately poor.

Conservatives may not want to hear it but the most dire poverty in the entire country is in blood red, rock-ribbed Republican rural America.

 

[Moonbeam]

Poverty creates stress and anxiety, the bedrock of fear. Fear creates conservative brains. Liberal thinking arose in societies in which advancements created self confidence and wealth. Liberal thinking unleashed the courage and creativity that propelled these societies to advance further. If you take a conservative and try to suggest liberal thinking as the solution to his or her problems you cause a state of terror. For the conservative brain, all change is retrograde. When you are holding on for dear life to the cliff, even one finger moving may cause a loss of grip and cast you into the pit. This is why the Okies that migrated to California from the Dust Bowl are now all flaming liberals. You can only be a liberal if you know you have a pot to piss in.

 

[zinfamous]

So you're telling me that populous liberal cities like Chicago, NY, LA, etc..... don't have 20%+ of the population that is below the FEDERAL poverty line? Last I checked, the federal poverty line doesn't take into account COL adjustments - of which in liberal cities is at peak highs. Seems a bit hard to believe.

I'm sorry but in all those cities I mentioned, I guaran-fucking-tee 20% of the population is broke as shit and 1 car repair away from being hobos.

let's clear something up here:

You fucking ingrates have no idea what hobo means. It really grinds my gears!

A hobo is a hobo by choice. Hobos have actually left a comfortable, generally well-paid, busy life for one on the road. They are purposefully getting out of the rat race, and it was/is rarely a permanent choice. They travel from town to town and actually seek work for minimal pay, just to sustain their nomadic life. They don't panhandle. They have their own language that you will find on fence posts and telephone poles to inform other hobos of valuable local information "Good food," "jackass shop owner," "willing farmer's daughter" etc....
Don fucking Draper was a hobo! (Yes, he is a fictional character, but happens to be a very accurate representation of what hobos are)


hobo /= bum. A bum is a fucking bum, and overall when it comes to homelessness, chronic homelessness is actually quite a rare occurrence, and is almost exclusively related to serious mental health issues

 

[Jhhnn]

Not to mention that but also measures like this tend to understate the true level of poverty that rural areas face. By this measure it's the same if you're $1 below the FPL or $10,000 below and the rural southern areas that dominate your map tend not to just be poor, but desperately, desperately poor.

Conservatives may not want to hear it but the most dire poverty in the entire country is in blood red, rock-ribbed Republican rural America.

Job Creator Activity, my boy! Pumped & dumped, just like Detroit, Baltimore & a lot of other places in this country. And, from their perspective, they don't owe the rest of us a damned thing. Rentiers rule.

 

[conehead433]

Now it's shithole cities. LOL

 

[Jhhnn]

Kudos to Rev Al for this zinger- "As far as me being a con man, if he really thought I was a con man, he'd be nominating me for his cabinet."

 

[esquared]

Now it's shithole cities. LOL

Yeah, he's just not trying to hide it anymore.

 

[DrDoug]

Yeah, he's just not trying to hide it anymore.

He barely did in the first place...lol! Donny Two-Scoops has made it clear that his 2020 election is going full metal racist, hoping to ride to victory as a white supremacist president. The Republican party has circled the wagons in defense of Dollhands Donny in the hope that his open racism will carry them to wins across the country.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Riiiiiiight. I refuse to invent racism where there was none, I refuse to help you be a victim of your imagination. I don't see it like you, so I have no credibility. If the only people you ever believe are people that think just like you, what do you think that does for your world view and finding the truth?

go repeat trumps tweets verbatim to some African Americans, preferably at work, specifically the ones about infestation, or go back to your country, but you won't. Coward.

 

[Jhhnn]

Google "race baiting". You don't even have to type in his name for it to be all about Trump. He's putting his brand on it! That boy is on a roll, I'm tellin' ya!

 

[MrSquished]

So you're telling me that populous liberal cities like Chicago, NY, LA, etc..... don't have 20%+ of the population that is below the FEDERAL poverty line? Last I checked, the federal poverty line doesn't take into account COL adjustments - of which in liberal cities is at peak highs. Seems a bit hard to believe.

I'm sorry but in all those cities I mentioned, I guaran-fucking-tee 20% of the population is broke as shit and 1 car repair away from being hobos.

You think those cities got so big and expensive cause they were librul?

 

[zinfamous]

He barely did in the first place...lol! Donny Two-Scoops has made it clear that his 2020 election is going full metal racist,.....

that might be the on Anime that crests "entertaining" enough for me to watch.

 

[zinfamous]

Google "race baiting". You don't even have to type in his name for it to be all about Trump. He's putting his brand on it! That boy is on a roll, I'm tellin' ya!

dude you just proved that google is biased and stuff.


dude.


math is hard.

 

[FirNaTine]

I've seen several folks (including published opinion pieces) quoting income figures for Baltimore to rebut the problems in Baltimore City.

It's a bit of a red herring. The income might be above average compared to nationally, but it's well below the metro area it's in. Several nearby counties have twice median household income (or more) than Baltimore City itself.

It's actually behind all but a few much more rural counties in the entire state (MD income is one of the highest in the country also) but the rural areas have much lower costs of living. And worse it's a very unequal distribution for what is there. You have high income neighborhoods (with actually pretty low crime rates) and very poor neighborhoods with very high rates. I'll try to dig up some "heat maps" for crime and the difference is quite drastic sometimes only blocks away from one another.

I've felt safe (well as safe as other public places) in Fells Point at way after dark. I've also felt really unsafe in the middle of the afternoon in others.

While the crime rates do have some correlation to racial make-up of the neighborhoods (high income low crime neighborhoods tend to be whiter than the average) I've seen plenty of violence in poor "white" neighborhoods as well.

One of the other things getting confused is Baltimore City crime vs Cummings 7th district. Citywide violent crime is roughly 5 times the national average, and it's murder rate through the first half of this year is about 16 times that of NYC. (NYC has roughly 14 times as many people, but less total murders)

But, thanks to heavily gerrymandering of the maps, while a lot of Baltimore City is in his district, not all of it is. And a large portion of his district is in high income, low crime, well educated portions of Howard and Baltimore County.

So watch what numbers folks are spinning. The City is in bad shape overall, but pockets are much better or worse than the "average" City numbers. And those numbers are very different than the 7th District numbers.

 

[zinfamous]

I've seen several folks (including published opinion pieces) quoting income figures for Baltimore to rebut the problems in Baltimore City.

It's a bit of a red herring. The income might be above average compared to nationally, but it's well below the metro area it's in. Several nearby counties have twice median household income (or more) than Baltimore City itself.

It's actually behind all but a few much more rural counties in the entire state (MD income is one of the highest in the country also) but the rural areas have much lower costs of living. And worse it's a very unequal distribution for what is there. You have high income neighborhoods (with actually pretty low crime rates) and very poor neighborhoods with very high rates. I'll try to dig up some "heat maps" for crime and the difference is quite drastic sometimes only blocks away from one another.

I've felt safe (well as safe as other public places) in Fells Point at way after dark. I've also felt really unsafe in the middle of the afternoon in others.

While the crime rates do have some correlation to racial make-up of the neighborhoods (high income low crime neighborhoods tend to be whiter than the average) I've seen plenty of violence in poor "white" neighborhoods as well.

One of the other things getting confused is Baltimore City crime vs Cummings 7th district. Citywide violent crime is roughly 5 times the national average, and it's murder rate through the first half of this year is about 16 times that of NYC. (NYC has roughly 14 times as many people, but less total murders)

But, thanks to heavily gerrymandering of the maps, while a lot of Baltimore City is in his district, not all of it is. And a large portion of his district is in high income, low crime, well educated portions of Howard and Baltimore County.

So watch what numbers folks are spinning. The City is in bad shape overall, but pockets are much better or worse than the "average" City numbers. And those numbers are very different than the 7th District numbers.

right, and it remains true for any metro area for the most part. I'm sure the median income in Oak Park would put that in Chicago to shame. Let's not bother about Menlo Park or Palo Alto or many towns south of SF, or just on the other side of the GG bridge.

Chevy Chase or Potomac or Cabin John "outside" of DC...

 

[FirNaTine]

right, and it remains true for any metro area for the most part. I'm sure the median income in Oak Park would put that in Chicago to shame. Let's not bother about Menlo Park or Palo Alto or many towns south of SF, or just on the other side of the GG bridge.

Chevy Chase or Potomac or Cabin John "outside" of DC...

It's a little different than that. Baltimore City is the third largest jurisdiction in the state (soon to be passed by Anne Arundel which it shares a border with to be 4th), and is roughly comparable in population to several of the counties that surround it. I'm comparing it to those other counties, like AA as a whole, PG as a whole, Baltimore County as a whole.

Not small enclaves of wealth. Baltimore City is third or so from the lowest income in the state.