The Ghetto Is Public Policy

[Piff Perkins]

Great thread.

Coates has been on a run lately. He's always been a really good writer but his last few articles have really impressed me. One of the infuriating aspects of any discussion of inner city conditions is the automatic attempt to place blame on political parties as well as the people for not working hard/being dependent/etc. Redlining and other racist housing policies weren't democrat or republican ideas, they were the dominant policy to deal with the "negro problem" regardless of who was in power.

If you pack a bunch of people in a box and restrict access to basic services what do you expect will happen? Crime. Bad health. Broken families. The list goes on and on. And then to make matters worse, you start shipping jobs overseas thus killing the middle class jobs at factories/plants/etc that won't employed people. That hurts blacks as well as whites, but it hurts the people stuck in poverty worse. IE blacks in inner cities and rural whites in/near Appalachia. But guess which area gets the spotlight as "the problem?" Guess which area has to deal with pathetic commentators questioning their work ethic, morals, etc?

 

[karim]

We could make it in the caribbean. Loads of islands where are people are doing well.

which islands would that be?

unless you are a money launderer, a drug lord or a tourist, there really is nothing for you in the caribbean

 

[SirReginald]

which islands would that be?

unless you are a money launderer, a drug lord or a tourist, there really is nothing for you in the caribbean

I thought the Caribbean economy was booming. Especially in the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda.

 

[brick james]

Great thread.

Coates has been on a run lately. He's always been a really good writer but his last few articles have really impressed me. One of the infuriating aspects of any discussion of inner city conditions is the automatic attempt to place blame on political parties as well as the people for not working hard/being dependent/etc. Redlining and other racist housing policies weren't democrat or republican ideas, they were the dominant policy to deal with the "negro problem" regardless of who was in power.

If you pack a bunch of people in a box and restrict access to basic services what do you expect will happen? Crime. Bad health. Broken families. The list goes on and on. And then to make matters worse, you start shipping jobs overseas thus killing the middle class jobs at factories/plants/etc that won't employed people. That hurts blacks as well as whites, but it hurts the people stuck in poverty worse. IE blacks in inner cities and rural whites in/near Appalachia. But guess which area gets the spotlight as "the problem?" Guess which area has to deal with pathetic commentators questioning their work ethic, morals, etc?

The idea that people have in their head that if you can't make the American dream work for you that you are lazy is absolutely destructive... and the fact that republicans combine these destructive thoughts with racism and are still running with the welfare queen rhetoric thirty years later just makes me so disillusioned with Americans as a whole... like I got people who I grew up with that went through the struggle only to dismiss everyone else still stuck in the projects as lazy impulsive leeches...

 

[DEAD7]

 

[karim]

I thought the Caribbean economy was booming. Especially in the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda.

a booming economy just means that their gdp is currently growing. if it used to be small and now it's slightly bigger, that doesn't mean people are doing well. then there is the question of why it is booming, what they are producing and how income is distributed. the virgin islands and bermuda have a business model which relies on laundering money and helping large corporations and billionaires to evade taxes. unless you're part of the elite or a well educated expat working for one of the banks, you're not really going to profit from that. plus, the us is increasingly cracking down on tax havens and money launderers for national security reasons, so the question is how long this business modell will continue to function. other than financial services, the caribbean offers tourism and agricultural products. however, the tourism industry is largely dominated by foreigh investors, which means that most of the money it generates leaves the country. and most of the jobs it creates aren't really well paying. prices for agricultural products are low, and it's difficult to compete with larger countries, who profit from economies of scale and are often subsidizing their products. so that sector doesn't generate too much wealth either and the jobs it creates are paying worse than in the tourism industry.

in the end, being an island is always going to be bad for your economy, because it makes both, exports and imports more expensive. plus the caribbean consists of small countries, which means they won't be able to build large, wealth creating industries. that's why the really small islands have turned to financial services.