Re: I spoke too soon

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:46:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

krw wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:32:49 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:18:55 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

<snip>

In
those cases it becomes important to have someone in their life whom they
can fully trust. That doesn't have to be a parent and beyond some age it
can't be a parent anymore. But it needs to be a person who is willing do
such a phone call for him, and show him how it's done.
Let me tell you just one short story about one such person (feel free
to ask for more, or more details about this individual.) I was being
shown around by the Associate Director of a disabilities program in my
state and he took me to the apartment of one lady. She lives alone
but does (supposedly) get looked in on, on occasion. When we walked
in, that late afternoon, she immediately asked us to help her. She
didn't know how to replace the vacuum bag in her vacuum cleaner, which
was full, and there were several other 'issues' she truly needed help
with. One of them was the fact that she didn't have any heat and she
felt very cold. Now it turns out that his selection to show me her
place was entirely random. It fell out of a discussion we were having
which had triggered him to suggest the idea. I immediately set about
helping with what I could do and he immediately made some cell phone
calls to get the heat dealt with.

But what would have happened to her had we not visited? Well, chances
are that within a day or two she'd get another visit and in the
meantime she'd be cold, unable to use her vacuum cleaner, and would
have had to live with a few other things I helped with when I was
there. Probably, the heating issue was the most serious and urgent.
But she needed help and, as it turns out, she doesn't get enough even
just to stay warm at night, sometimes.

She is one of many people with modest mental capabilities, who do get
some support, and who are otherwise emancipated and assumed able to
deal with many issues that, to be honest, they really cannot handle at
all. But our society really also cannot afford to take care of them,
there isn't a sense of community in US society that would otherwise
handle things, and are left to drift from time to time on their own.

There used to be such sense of community and in some areas there still
is. Personally I'd always favor those regions regardless of mental or
bodily capability. This usually means not living in large cities.

The "community" has been replaced by government.


IMHO that doesn't work in the long run. We can't offload all this onto
the goverment, plus it will hardly be as effective as an old-fashioned
community.

You know that and I know that but the leftists running the country
don't or don't care.

They are able to secure credit and often do, misunderstanding most of
what it means and completely lacking the skills to deal with issues
should they arise. Chances are, they won't even know to ask for help
UNTIL they have already gotten so deeply into trouble that the
solutions are far between and very difficult to manage well.

Can't there be a fraud alert put on the case of people at risk, along
the lines of "before issueing credit talk to so-and-so"?

No, not without their consent. As Jon said, they are of the age of
majority and without a court order their freedom, even to do
themselves harm, cannot be restricted. This is another result of the
"mainstreaming" of the '70s.


That's where the old community and family concepts come in. Or should
come in. Only they can reasonably convince a mentally challenged person
that this would be better.

....and then the next huckster that comes along can have the decision
reversed.

(For cripes sake, I'm still dealing with a minor case of credit fraud
in my name that took place back in 2003! And I am supposed to be
capable, I like to imagine at times. [T-Mobile are bastards, but
that's another story for another time.])

IMHO the onus with credit applications should be more with the banks.
They are way too sloppy in their due diligence. Of course Wall Street
has a huge lobby so chances for that to happens are slim.

"Sloppy"? In what way *could* lenders be more diligent? They go by
the numbers. People aren't in the loop.


Very simple: By actually checking and verifying those numbers. It ain't
rocket science but they didn't do it. "Pick your income and we believe
it" does not work. As has been evidenced by the mortgage meltdown.
Which, to put it arrogantly, I knew was going to happen.

Sure, we all did. I don't think the issue here is checking income,
rather there is no (lower) income limit. To have such would be
"discriminatory". Credit is scored *only* by computer so there is
less likelihood of being charged with discrimination. People are
intentionally left out of the loop.

Our society does NOT fund nor does it have people providing the kinds
of services you are talking about. They fund the basics, mostly. And
that is about it. If that. And far too many of these people are
ignored by family (only about 15% get regular visits -- and by this, I
mean once a year or more often), ignored by social services, and many
pretty much left to live on the street. The lucky ones get by. But
that's about all I can say.

Society can never fund this fully. We as a society must re-learn to take
responsibility and not expect the government to handle everything. Part
of that process is IMHO church although it probably can also be
re-learned without it (by very few). People must learn again what
sacrifice really means. It can and usually does lead out of your comfort
zone, like with the down-syndrome guy we used to visit and give rides
to. That was the easy part. The out-of-comfort-zone part was that he
lived in a rather scary part of town where we would normally never go.

Sadly, we're going the other way. Government is the answer, no matter
what the question.


And that's plain wrong. It will lead to ever increasing taxes,
bureaucracy, waste, system abuse and ultimately to budget meltdowns as
we are seeing in CA right now.

No, we're seeing it in the entire country now. CA and NY (and MI on
another front) are simply showing us where we're all headed.
.

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