Thursday, February 27, 2020



What’s Really Driving the Homelessness Crisis

The homelessness crisis in America’s West Coast cities is beginning to draw national attention. There are now an estimated 166,752 people on the streets in California, Oregon, and Washington, and sensational stories of human despair and the return of medieval diseases have captured the public imagination.

Even President Donald Trump has tweeted about the “very bad and dangerous conditions” in San Francisco and warned that leaders must take action “to clean up these hazardous waste and homeless sites before the whole city rots away.”

There has been remarkably little clarity, however, on the key question: What’s really driving the homelessness crisis in West Coast cities?

For the past decade, progressive political leaders, activists, and media organizations have insisted that housing costs are the primary cause of homelessness. There is some truth to that: It’s obvious that in the largest West Coast cities, where a one-bedroom apartment rents for at least $2,000 a month, it’s more difficult for low-income individuals to afford stable housing.

However, as an emerging body of evidence shows, homelessness in America’s West Coast cities—particularly unsheltered homelessness—is not driven primarily by high housing costs, but rather by three interrelated phenomena: addiction, mental illness, and permissive public policies.

In cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco, residents have complained about rampant public drug consumption, psychotic episodes, and millions of used hypodermic needles that have been discarded on city streets.

Still, despite the obvious visible evidence, progressive political leaders have insisted on the fiction that addiction and mental illness are only a small part of the homelessness crisis. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan insists that only “1 in 4” of the homeless struggle with drugs and alcohol, while Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti does not even list addiction as one of the major causes of homelessness on his official website.

However, as the Los Angeles Times has demonstrated in a recent investigation, “mental illness [and] substance abuse … are much more pervasive in Los Angeles County’s homeless population than officials have previously reported.”

While the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported substance abuse for only 14% of the homeless population, according to a UCLA study, the real figure is likely to be 75%—more than five times higher than the official estimates.

The figures are similar for mental illness. Government authorities have estimated that 25% of the unsheltered population suffers from mental illness, while the UCLA study suggests that the true number is likely to be 78%.

As the Times points out, “the findings lend statistical support to the public’s frequent association of mental illness, physical disabilities, and substance abuse with homelessness.”

Put another way, the politically incorrect perception that homelessness, substance abuse, and mental illness are deeply intertwined is, in actuality, factually correct—and political leaders who insist otherwise are in a state of deep denial, preferring an ideological fiction to the harsh reality of life on the streets.

Unfortunately, the progressive political class in major West Coast cities is compounding the homelessness crisis with a set of permissive public policies.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, homelessness is not a national crisis. In fact, homelessness has declined 14.6% nationwide over the past decade, while at the same time increasing dramatically in major West Coast cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.

In part, it’s because these cities have adopted permissive policies on public camping, drug consumption, and property crime, which has created an attractive environment for the homeless.

In Los Angeles, more than one-third of unsheltered adults migrated to Los Angeles County after becoming homeless. In Seattle, even the former homelessness czar has admitted there is a “magnet effect” because of the city’s policies and availability of services. (As I have reported for City Journal, 9.5% of Seattle’s homeless population moved to the city “for legal marijuana,” 15.4% “to access homeless services,” and 15.7% were “traveling or visiting” and decided to stay.)

If political leaders in West Coast cities truly want to reduce street homelessness, they must first break through their denial about its causes.

Although reducing housing costs is a critical public policy goal, it will not significantly reduce the number of people on the streets. The compassionate response is not to maintain the fiction that homelessness can be solved with new housing developments, but to grapple with the complex human challenges of addiction and mental illness.

SOURCE 





Intellectual Elitism: A Threat to Racial Reconciliation

Why is it that so many liberals assume that blacks have to hate President Trump?

Patrick Hampton
  
On Presidents’ Day, I met a pair of tourists who were enjoying their stroll around downtown Chattanooga. Upon wishing them a “Happy Presidents’ Day” greeting, they proceeded to engage with me about our nation’s origins.

After just a few minutes of conversation with the couple, it was clear that they inherited a liberal mindset. The lady openly expressed her hatred for our sitting president, upon which I explained how I actually support President Donald Trump. (Of course this would lead to being called crazy and ignorant. How kind!)

What was initially a cordial conversation turned into vocalized vitriol. Pleasantries turned into put-downs, as she lobbed a fury of insults toward our POTUS before storming off along the bridge walk. The man continued to engage with me, mentioning the usual mainstream-media headlines. His favorite? Where President Trump’s father prevented non-creditworthy individuals from renting an apartment block. Of course, the gentleman equated this to the fact that these low-income individuals were black.

“So are you saying that blacks are poor?” I responded. Anyone with business sense understands why non-creditworthy individuals may not qualify for certain purchases like a home or a rental property. But because the MSM told him so, the man repeated this without understanding how it made him sound.

The man stammered to provide a response, dancing around the question and using anything to justify the notion that Trump is a racist. Of course, running down a list of Trump’s many achievements supporting the black community didn’t make them flinch a single bit. For these individuals, credibility comes from a television screen and not out of the mouths of regular black people like myself. We eventually parted ways, I with a smile on my face, the couple with an imprint of disgust.

These sorts of engagements are actually quite common. People who are far removed from black people get the only information they know about the demographic from television and social media. This, in turn, leaves their minds at the mercy of the programming they receive. Which is why they repeat the hottest headlines without fail. Yet despite their limited knowledge and interaction with actual black people, they always seem to have a remedy for what ails our communities. This hypothesis is often replicated as Democrats come into urban communities and make them worse at the expense of minorities. (From the hills, these wealthy liberals and progressives rule over the black and brown people they live far away from. But I digress.)

We black conservatives are waging a sort of unknown war. But it’s not against other black liberals or the black community at all (like many liberals erroneously believe). The battle is against a sort of intellectual elitism — often dealt by white democrats who vote based on what television and mainstream media tells them about the black population. While some are individuals are well-meaning yet uninformed, others simply possess a profound lack of faith in minorities. This intellectual elite abhors and rejects those who think differently — this includes black conservatives and Republicans who don’t fit the narratives that the elite write for them. To engage with one of us — like the couple engaged with me — would trigger a total meltdown every single time.

The fact that black people largely overlook this is baffling. Are we, as a demographic, okay with intellectuals assuming our political ideas? Are black people happy that white liberals are speaking on their behalf, regardless of whether these people know any black people at all or have our interests at heart? What has the intellectual elite done to earn our undying trust? But most importantly, what happens if we disagree? Will your individual views be respected? I don’t know. Let each of us ask a liberal and find out for ourselves.

SOURCE 






Calorie labels on food packages aren’t as precise as they seem

Changing numbers on nutrition labels reveal inexact science

NEW YORK — Almonds used to have about 170 calories per serving. Then researchers said it was really more like 130. A little later, they said the nuts may have even less.

Calorie counting can be a simple way to help maintain a healthy weight — don’t eat and drink more than you burn. And the calorie labels on food packaging seem like an immutable guide to help you track what you eat.

But the shifting numbers for almonds show how the figures printed on nutrition labels may not be as precise as they seem.

Last month, Kind said it was lowering the calorie counts for its snack bars, even though the ingredients weren’t changing. The company cited studies that indicate nuts have fewer digestible calories than previously believed.

Conducted by government researchers with funding from nut producers, the studies show the inexact method of determining calorie counts established more than a century ago. The widely used system says a gram of carbohydrates and a gram of protein each have 4 calories, while a gram of fat has around 9. Companies can also subtract some calories based on past estimates of how much of different foods are not digested.

But based on anecdotal comments, researchers suspected more of the nutrients in nuts may be expelled in the bathroom than previously estimated.

“If they’re not digested, then maybe the calorie content is not correct,” said David Baer, a co-author of the nut studies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funded the research along with nut producers like the Almond Board of California.

To test the hunch, Baer and colleagues gave 18 people meals with and without raw almonds and instructed them to return daily with their urine and stool packed in dry ice. The contents were analyzed to calculate that a serving of almonds has about 130 digestible calories, rather than the widely used figure of 170.

A few years later, in 2016, another study by Baer and colleagues also looked at the effects of food processing. They found cooking and grinding helped break down cell walls in almonds, freeing more calories for digestion. Roasted almonds had slightly more digestible calories than raw almonds. When the nuts were ground up into almond butter, nearly all the calories were digested.

Notably, the second study also found raw almonds had even fewer digestible calories than suggested by the first study. Baer attributed the discrepancy to variations in how people digest foods and natural differences in almonds themselves.

“It’s unlikely you’re going to get the exact same number every time you repeat the experiment,” he said.

The almond studies are among several Baer has co-authored on the digestibility of nuts. Another last year was funded by the Global Cashew Council and found cashews had fewer calories than estimated.

Despite his findings, Baer said he thinks the calorie counts used for most other foods are fairly accurate. And even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lets companies use different methods to determine calorie counts, the agency says products aren’t supposed to have more than 20% more calories than what’s stated on labels.

That’s why health experts said the calorie counts on nutrition labels are still valuable: They offer general guidance for people trying to keep their weight in check. But it’s even more important to pay attention to overall diet and not get hung up on small caloric differences, experts said.

“That’s not what’s going to make or break someone’s attempt at weight management,” said Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, a University of North Carolina nutrition professor.

Mayer-Davis said the studies on the calories in nuts wouldn’t affect her general advice that they can be part of a healthy diet. She said it’s more important to pay attention to how they’re prepared, such as whether sweeteners are added.

Kind’s founder, Daniel Lubetzky, said he hopes the studies will help overcome the reluctance some might have about eating nuts because of their relatively higher calorie counts. The studies also mean the company’s most popular bar can now drop from 200 to 180 calories, which could be a marketing advantage that sways decisions at the grocery store.

“It can’t hurt,” Lubetzky said

Mars, which took a minority stake in Kind in 2017, said it doesn’t have plans to update the calorie counts for M&M’s with almonds. The Almond Board says it’s not aware of other companies yet using the lower numbers.

SOURCE 





Activist chief executives are ‘stealing’ from shareholders

It's not their money to spend on "good" causes

Every other day a corporate chief somewhere will declare, in sombre tones and often for applause, that business must take a stand on an issue for the sake of the community. These big-noting corporate chaps justify their grand plans for humanity in many ways.

They claim businesses have a legitimate interest in matters affecting the wider community in which they operate. Political leaders are not doing enough, they say. Workers and consumers want us to do this, they assure themselves.

While it is not evident how they canvassed the views of workers or consumers, it is patently clear these new activist chief executives are endearing themselves to other activists with the same ­visions for the planet.

These reasons for corporate activism were, more or less, laid out last week by John Denton, the first Australian to head the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. He waved away as “completely ridiculous” the notion that corporate leaders should stick to their knitting. “This is our knitting,” Denton declared.

This is also the same tedious click-clacking sound emanating from many self-important business people who make up the Business Roundtable in the US, and swan around at Davos. They imagine their own beliefs are so brilliant they form a modern-day list of corporate commandments.

Like the harm that’s done to the human body from ingesting too much sugar, Denton’s attempt to encourage corporate bosses to be more activist is loaded with so much corporate saccharin it threatens to kill off the company as a vehicle to pool people’s money.

If activist chief executives, and their Paris-based spokesman, are impatient with politics, they could, of course, stand for parliament and spend other people’s money as a politician. In choosing much ­higher-paid gigs running companies and managing shareholders’ money, credibility comes from ­explaining how, at law, an activist chief executive fits in the company model. But this is where modern-day ­corporate preachers fall silent.

When was the last time any chief executive, let alone the bloke running the International Chamber of Commerce, discussed the agency costs of activist chief executives?

When did any of them last mention the importance of rules that govern how managers spend other people’s money?

Talking about such matters is painfully dull compared with setting out your vision for ­humanity. But the bigger reason they don’t ­address this dry issue of agency costs is that it might cramp their activist style. If chief executives admit to the agency costs they have created for shareholders by spending shareholders’ money on issues that have nothing to do with running a company, they might have to stop doing what earns them applause from their friends

There is a deadly serious issue. Soon after the earliest companies were formed, separating the ownership of business ventures from management, agency costs were recognised as a critical issue.

How do the owners of a ­company stop management using shareholders’ money to feather their own nest? Or to put it more simply, how do owners stop ­employees stealing from them?

While some agency costs might be inevitable, others are ­entirely avoidable.

Doctrines of fiduciary duty evolved to regulate how managers use shareholders’ money. While managers learned they shouldn’t use shareholders’ money for their own benefit, they grew more creative about how they used shareholders’ money.

It was clearly wrong to take money from the petty cash tin and use it to buy yourself a new TV. And it was equally wrong for a manager to use the petty cash tin to pay for a romantic dinner with a lover. But what if the manager used shareholders’ money to pay for a big party for employees? This was probably legitimate because keeping employees happy makes for a more successful business. Similarly, using shareholders’ money to sponsor a local football or netball team might be good advertising, buying local goodwill that helps a business thrive.

But, of course, that way danger lay. As shareholders’ money began to be used in a wider range of ways, it became even clearer that some red-line rules were needed to separate legitimate uses of shareholders’ money from ­illegitimate ones.

To deal with these agency costs, company law established some sensible rules for managers, imposing duties on them to act in the best interests of shareholders, and the company, and basically preventing them from using other people’s money to line their own pockets.

Importantly, English and Australian common law dating back to the 19th century recognised that managers needed some flexibility to use shareholders money in a way that doesn’t directly benefit shareholders but does benefit the business, and thus shareholders, indirectly.

Courts apply the notion of shareholder primacy to separate legitimate from illegitimate uses of shareholders’ money by management. It means that the financial benefit to shareholders of expenditure for social purposes does not need to be immediate or direct or even terribly obvious — but it does need to exist, and be able to be demonstrated.

It is a deliberate furphy when activist chief executives and their spruikers claim that shareholder primacy must be dismantled because it ­requires managers to seek short-term profits. That is a straw man concocted by those who want no rules restraining chief executives from their glorious plans for the world.

The other straw man put up by activist chief executives is the claim that capitalism needs a clean-out. In fact, the clean-out is needed among the vainglorious chief executives, and their chamber of commerce boosters, who are creating a new, and egregious, set of agency costs for shareholders.

They want free rein to use other people’s money, not to line their pockets but to warm their hearts, and to earn kudos from other people like them.

Frankly, it is theft — idealistic theft, perhaps — but still theft. The fact Robin Hood stole money for noble purposes did not change the nature of his act: taking money from others without their consent.

Managers could ask shareholders to donate the profits they receive as dividends to a climate change fund. But to simply use company money on management’s pet causes without so much as a “by your leave” from shareholders is theft.

If activist chief executives think society should be putting more money into climate change or other noble causes, they should use their own money rather than shoving their sticky fingers into the retirement nest eggs of superannuants and ­investors.

And let’s be honest here. Much of the confiscation of shareholders’ money is done not for noble causes. There is a sizeable bullshit factor where chief executives seek self-aggrandisement rather than tangible outcomes.

It is not at all sexy to talk about rules that manage, and minimise, agency costs inherent in a public company where ownership is divorced from control. But this is a critical issue. And not just to protect today’s shareholders from a new form of theft.

If we allow chief executives and other activists to chip away at these foundations, they will end up destroying the company as a proven way to pool money from many people in order to do business.

SOURCE  


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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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