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Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

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Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#351

Post by jakelazaroff »

corysama wrote: post #324
jakelazaroff wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is increasing inequality a net win? The situation you've presented is even somewhat zero-sum, i.e. the first family's gain comes at the expense of the second. That's exactly what we should be trying to prevent .

It's not zero sum. One family makes more than before. The other makes the same as before. Net win. The extra money in the pocket of the first family is not coming out of the pocket of the second. It's coming out of Amazon's pocket. The alternative is that no one gets raises. That's would be loss for a large number of families and no change for others.

You are not presenting a scenario in which one family gains and the other stays the same, you're presenting one in which one family makes more money (gain) while the other makes the same amount of money but is less able to find affordable housing (loss).

It's not strictly zero-sum because the gains and losses may not exactly offset each other, but one agent's gains still come at the expense of another.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#352

Post by geezerjay »

jasaloo wrote: post #295
ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

Right. And famine is just a location issue. the 1980s called, bro-- it wants its shoddy Neoliberal think tank talking points back.

If you have no idea how prevalent mental illness is in homeless people, and also its role as the single most important contributing cause, then you are commenting from a position of ignorance. Instead of devoting effort to virtue signaling you'd do better if you educated yourself on the problem.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#353

Post by DoreenMichele »

ageitgey wrote: post #347
cimmanom wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they just have a less visible homeless problem because more of the homeless are sleeping in shelters instead of on the streets.

NYC shelters nearly 95% of it's homeless population. SF only manages to shelter about 11% of it's homeless population (about the worst rate in the country). Thus there are more homeless people on SF's streets despite a much smaller total homeless population than NYC (and NYC is of course also a much more populous city).

My recollection: when I took a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU, the number of homeless in San Francisco was similar to the number in New York in spite of it being a much smaller city.

The most current stats I have indicate that California has about 25 percent of the nation's homeless:

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...?

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#354

Post by ryandrake »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #282
baddox wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in Seattle (I live and work on some of the most conspicuous blocks in San Francisco for homeless drug users), but I'm sure that both groups exist in both cities. I think what's important is for policy proposals to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to "solve homelessness." In my experience in SF these proposals usually only focuses on one set of issues, like minim…

I agree that both are problems worth solving, but one is pretty obviously a more urgent public health problem, and unfortunately, the more difficult one to solve. When people are talking about Seattle's worsening homeless problem, they're talking about the presence of needles and fecal material on the sidewalks, and being harassed, and sometimes even attacked, by clearly mentally ill people, not about people living i…

Maybe the people peacefully living in tents outside of town should instead start being more visible and getting in people’s faces, if that’s what it takes to be a priority.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#355

Post by [deleted] »

old-gregg wrote: post #326
baddox wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in Seattle (I live and work on some of the most conspicuous blocks in San Francisco for homeless drug users), but I'm sure that both groups exist in both cities. I think what's important is for policy proposals to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to "solve homelessness." In my experience in SF these proposals usually only focuses on one set of issues, like minim…

> to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to "solve homelessness." I agree. Add the absence of a healthcare system to that too. Personal anecdote: a homeless man offered to wash my car for money. He seemed intelligent and nice, so I agreed. He told me the story of him becoming homeless. Both he and his wife worked and rented an OK place in OK part of SF. His wife got into a…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#356

Post by cimmanom »

ageitgey wrote: post #347
cimmanom wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they just have a less visible homeless problem because more of the homeless are sleeping in shelters instead of on the streets.

NYC shelters nearly 95% of it's homeless population. SF only manages to shelter about 11% of it's homeless population (about the worst rate in the country). Thus there are more homeless people on SF's streets despite a much smaller total homeless population than NYC (and NYC is of course also a much more populous city).

Yes, exactly. The point is that in a warm climate there may not be more homeless people, just more visible homeless people.

NYC now shelters most of its homeless mainly because state law requires it. We’re spending a ridiculous amount of money putting homeless people up in hotel rooms because the process to get new shelters built is stalled and we can’t even build enough market-rate housing to account for population growth, let alone affordable housing.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#357

Post by throwaway2048 »

gramstrong wrote: post #321
fjsolwmv wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is contradictory. If money is how he keeps score than he isn't going to give any way.

Sometimes you give up a Queen to get to the King :/

or in this case a 1/10th of a pawn.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#358

Post by zouhair »

village-idiot wrote: post #304
zouhair wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of perspective. You can see a thing from afar and know what it is, but when you are in it, it is extremely hard to give it a name.

Surely a few people in the French aristocracy knew they were sitting on a time bomb. But nobody had the will, the skill, and the charisma to defuse the damned thing.

After centuries of a system people integrate their role in it. After a while you really feel that you are the superior or the inferior. It's really hard to get out of it.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#359

Post by fucking_tragedy »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #223
asdfman123 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel people like Jeff Bezos, who already have all the money in the world, are more interested in winning/power and money is only a way of keeping score. Bezos is probably interested in growing Amazon into the biggest business in the world, and part of that strategy is cutting costs to the bone. What I'm trying to say is he's looking for a way to maximize Amazon's growth rate, not necessarily pinch pennies (pinch bi…

That is contradictory. If money is how he keeps score than he isn't going to give any way.

Using money by giving it to the right people or groups of people is a certainly a way to gain or maintain power.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#360

Post by perfunctory »

neonate wrote: post #119
perfunctory wrote: post #114

$2B is ~1% of his net worth. Not that impressive. And much lower than Thomas Picketty's proposed wealth tax rate.

That criticism only makes sense if he never gives anything else.

Even if he gives this amount every year it's still lower than Picketty's tax rate.
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