Xi's visit to US is making US streets cleaner, with less feces.

[Hamartia Antidote]

I’m amazed at the levels of homelessness in some parts of America. I was watching a really great documentary on Flint, Michigan.

My goodness there is so much poverty and disenfranchisement of segments of society in the US.

Insanity.

The problem is most people have no sense of desperation. They know the government will just hand them free money so they won't starve to death.

This makes people (and more importantly politicians) incredibly short-sighted if they don't have to worry about people dying.

30+ years ago I'd ask my inner city friends where they plan on going to college or what trade were they interested in and they'd laugh that this wasn't needed as they would "easily figure out a way to get by". No plan..nice!

Even today we have younger posters here on PDF saying previous generations are living off the silver spoons given to them by their parents...remember that @Gomig-21 ? We are still waiting for that dividend...you know the people today with the standard $800 iPhones...laptop computers..and other nice stuff that was a pipe dream for many of us. A generation that thought getting a single $20 game for their Atari 2600 on their birthday was a dream come true. Whose parents bought them clothes at Bradlees and Caldors (worse than Walmart quality). Remember all those "dividends".

 

[etylo]

Ha Ha, so superpower US becomes supa powa India now.

 

[RescueRanger]

The problem is most people have no sense of desperation. They know the government will just hand them free money so they won't starve to death.

This makes people (and more importantly politicians) incredibly short-sighted if they don't have to worry about people dying.

30+ years ago I'd ask my inner city friends where they plan on going to college or what trade were they interested in and they'd laugh that this wasn't needed as they would "easily figure out a way to get by". No plan..nice!

Even today we have younger posters here on PDF saying previous generations are living off the silver spoons given to them by their parents...remember that @Gomig-21 ? We are still waiting for that dividend...you know the people today with the standard $800 iPhones...laptop computers..and other nice stuff that was a pipe dream for many of us. A generation that thought getting a single $20 game for their Atari 2600 on their birthday was a dream come true. Whose parents bought them clothes at Bradlees and Caldors (worse than Walmart quality). Remember all those "dividends".

I completely agree with you.

 

[Ali_Baba]

I was born and bred in the UK and the first time i have seen true poverty at scale ( other than an "occassional" homeless person ) was during a business trip to San Franciso - streets and i mean - multiple streets full of homeless drugged up people.

Dont get me wrong - the UK has its problems - but what i saw in San Francisho was an eye opener to me..

 

[Darius77]

US is now the official western hemisphere India. Both have taken to street crapping with a gusto. Millions of homeless in streets, but waging wars everywhere, while India can't even master toilet/sewage technology which the Persians, Greeks and Romans did 5,000 years ago, but India is the number one weapons importer from the west now.

 

[Gomig-21]

Even today we have younger posters here on PDF saying previous generations are living off the silver spoons given to them by their parents...remember that @Gomig-21 ? We are still waiting for that dividend...you know the people today with the standard $800 iPhones...laptop computers..and other nice stuff that was a pipe dream for many of us. A generation that thought getting a single $20 game for their Atari 2600 on their birthday was a dream come true. Whose parents bought them clothes at Bradlees and Caldors (worse than Walmart quality). Remember all those "dividends".

Hahaha, most definitely, bro. I had an allowance of $5 a week from 6th grade to 9th grade, then it went up to 20 actually that was Egyptian pounds not dollars loool which at the time I think 1 dollar was worth 3 or 4 pounds? Now one Egyptian pound is worth.......ready........0.032 US dollar loool.

You got $20 Atari games! Dang I was lucky to get a GI Joe or add a matchbox car or motorcycle to my collection! And I loved putting models together too. I would get on my knees and beg my mother to let my dad give me 2:50 pounds to buy a Mirage III model and I would milk putting it together loool. And my father God bless his soul in heaven ISA was a financial administrator for the United Nations. So we weren't exactly poor, but we certainly weren't spoiled and taught the value of property and earning & learning and hard work and all that stuff. It's a totally different world today,

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Hahaha, most definitely, bro. I had an allowance of $5 a week from 6th grade to 9th grade, then it went up to 20 actually that was Egyptian pounds not dollars loool which at the time I think 1 dollar was worth 3 or 4 pounds? Now one Egyptian pound is worth.......ready........0.032 US dollar loool.

You got $20 Atari games! Dang I was lucky to get a GI Joe or add a matchbox car or motorcycle to my collection! And I loved putting models together too. I would get on my knees and beg my mother to let my dad give me 2:50 pounds to buy a Mirage III model and I would milk putting it together loool. And my father God bless his soul in heaven ISA was a financial administrator for the United Nations. So we weren't exactly poor, but we certainly weren't spoiled and taught the value of property and earning & learning and hard work and all that stuff. It's a totally different world today,

So my father was a big model builder and he'd get himself one and give us one too (hmm).
He was into building smaller scale planes like 10 inches long and would give us the bigger scale sized ones.

We still have like 3 shelves full of built Revell military planes and ships in the attic of my parent's house.

We had more but to make space on the shelves we threw a lot of the crappier made ones (almost all non-military) out the window or put them on the ground under the windows and would drop stuff on them from the attic window.

Next time I'm over I'll try and remember to snap some pics.
Straining my brain I can highlight some noteworthy big ones

Almost all aircraft and ships, no tanks or trucks.

There's a Stuka, numerous bombers/battleships.

Actually I think we still have the Star Trek phasers, communicators, and tricorders.
So there are some non-military ones left.

I won't comment on the Gi-Joe collection...but we had one of these..

But dad ended up pulling the spring out to stop us from shooting at each other. That thing could shoot pretty far. You wouldn't want to be standing infront of it.

 

[gambit]

I’m amazed at the levels of homelessness in some parts of America. I was watching a really great documentary on Flint, Michigan.

My goodness there is so much poverty and disenfranchisement of segments of society in the US.

Insanity.

The real estate industry will tell you that there are factually more vacant houses and apts than there are homeless people, and most of those vacant places are economically affordable. What we are seeing is the utter failure of Democratic governance, and most here hates Republican, no?

If you say that your city welcomes the homeless and will not make the homeless do anything to address their problems, what do you think is going to happen? How about homeless people from all over the region, let alone the country, will flock to your city? Policies and their consequences. Defund the police, another stupid Democratic idea. What do you think is going to happen to the crime stats? Going up, maybe?

So more like YOU should be amazed at how stupid Democratic pols are, and am sure you hate Republicans, no?

 

[RescueRanger]

The real estate industry will tell you that there are factually more vacant houses and apts than there are homeless people, and most of those vacant places are economically affordable. What we are seeing is the utter failure of Democratic governance, and most here hates Republican, no?

If you say that your city welcomes the homeless and will not make the homeless do anything to address their problems, what do you think is going to happen? How about homeless people from all over the region, let alone the country, will flock to your city? Policies and their consequences. Defund the police, another stupid Democratic idea. What do you think is going to happen to the crime stats? Going up, maybe?

So more like YOU should be amazed at how stupid Democratic pols are, and am sure you hate Republicans, no?

Fair point.

 

[nahtanbob]

I was born and bred in the UK and the first time i have seen true poverty at scale ( other than an "occassional" homeless person ) was during a business trip to San Franciso - streets and i mean - multiple streets full of homeless drugged up people.

Dont get me wrong - the UK has its problems - but what i saw in San Francisho was an eye opener to me..

Silicon Valley has more economic and technological power than whole of UK. Just because we have the money it does not mean we have to bail out every no good piece of shit.

Median home prices in the Bay Area exceed $1 million. Majority of the home owners own the properties outright. To the degree they are drugged up people - they are victims of their own actions and to some degree unfortunate circumstances. For starters you can make $25 doing a haircut or working at a fast food joint. There is no substitute for hard work.

To be fair and not to sound callous there are plenty of options available to homeless people who want to come out of their situation.

 

[gambit]

Fair point.

Here it is...

Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness In the U.S. - United Way NCA

Many overpriced homes sit vacant while populations experiencing homelessness continue to grow in the U.S. See which cities have the highest disparity here.

unitedwaynca.org

• Over 580,000 Americans are experiencing homelessness. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S.

But let us cut that figure in 1/2, out of economics and finances, to 14 vacant homes for every homeless person. That is still a gross mismatch between available homes and the homeless. The problem is one of perception and misleading the public by partisan hacks. Then add in stupid Democratic ideas about violating human rights if we do anything about mental health among the homeless people. There is no 'rampant' homelessness in America, just a concentration of the homeless in a few prominent cities, including that of the US capital city Washington DC. An embarrassment, for sure.

 

[MH.Yang]

I don't understand why Biden is doing this. Did he think it would be a demonstration to the Chinese?

Sorry, but firstly every Chinese city is clean and virtually homeless, and secondly, we know what the real America is like, and Americans don't know the real China.

The real estate industry will tell you that there are factually more vacant houses and apts than there are homeless people, and most of those vacant places are economically affordable. What we are seeing is the utter failure of Democratic governance, and most here hates Republican, no?

If you say that your city welcomes the homeless and will not make the homeless do anything to address their problems, what do you think is going to happen? How about homeless people from all over the region, let alone the country, will flock to your city? Policies and their consequences. Defund the police, another stupid Democratic idea. What do you think is going to happen to the crime stats? Going up, maybe?

So more like YOU should be amazed at how stupid Democratic pols are, and am sure you hate Republicans, no?

I can vouch for you very sincerely. At least every member of the PDF from China is more supportive of Trump.

btw: Biden's nickname in China is "Emperor of Shit Pants (稀宗)", Trump's nickname in China is "King of Omniscience (懂王)". Obviously we respect and like Trump more.