Forum Post: Gov. Must Freeze Rent and Mortgages During Outbreak
Posted 4 years ago on March 14, 2020, 9:58 p.m. EST by elf3
(4203)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I think the majority of people will do the right thing. Will the government? Other countries are freezing rent and mortgages. This makes sense so restaurants and businesses and people can self-quarantine to keep the virus under control and when all is said and done they can re-open the doors instead of going under. As well as people won't be homeless. The banks over the last decade have been gifted bail outs and tax breaks and on it's time for them to pay it forward to the hard-working people of this nation. This one issue will decide the outcome of our economy and people for decades to come. We must push for freezing mortgages and rent as other countries in Europe have.
Maybe homelessness is to be used as ... A Voter Suppression Tool?! Too far fetched? Consider..
A dark epiphany dawns on me that US GOPlite Democraps may actually want Voter Suppression too!
OMG!
I think Blackstone wants to own all of the housing. I think I said this in the beginning: Are they going to line people up to go to the tent cities after they become homeless? Maybe this is why they are suddenly funding national parks? The greed of the one percent has turned truly NUTS - it's like they have no limit for what they believe they deserve - American Psychos running our country. DISBAND BLACKSTONE!
I believe passive income is immoral and modern slavery. CEO's, Wall Street, Landlords, Bankers have destroyed our way of life. Neo Libertarians like to talk about how much smarter they work - but also generally forget to mention their pre-got inheritances.
My hero on all these issues is Snowden because we do have a way to defeat it. Because technologically speaking the real people running the show are the coders and software engineers. Sure everyone needs to work we get it we have to pay dues accept what we can't change etc. Do coders and scientist not have a responsibility however to Do No Harm? And to blow the whistle on the things they witness? It takes a scientist to create Round-Up and glycosphate, it takes an it engineer to create a wall street trading system. The real evil being done here seems to remain hidden. Snowden stood up - the rest are still quietly ruining the world. WITHOUT their help these corrupt psychos could not be doing all this harm. The one percent is being aided and abetted by a skilled army of automatons.
Yes, "The one percent is being aided and abetted by a skilled army of automatons" .. and sadly this and many others things, are now adding up to the ...
e tenebris, lux?
(from darkness, light?)
Gig economy workers at most risk. Exceptions need to be made to ensure that people who work in the cash economy have pay during this period. This is critical.
Moratorium on rent and mortgage payments, student loan payments, utility turn offs, etc.
Increase Unemployment Insurance, mandatory sick pay.
Gov't needs to make sure people have the money to buy the groceries and medicines they may need.
''America Is Acting Like a Failed State'' by Derek Thompson:
''Many businesses, local governments, and individuals are doing what is necessary to beat back the coronavirus—with little help from the White House.''
spero meliora ...
Know Your Rights. Read H.R. 6201, FAMILIES FIRST CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE ACT here:
https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Families%20First%20summary.pdf
Apparently "The legislation provides paid leave, establishes free testing, protects public health workers, and provides important benefits to children and families" .. but then also please try to consider that ...
at spes non fracta ...
Detroit bus driver dies from coronavirus days after making angry video about coughing passenger. This is just too sad but we have to face what has happened here.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/detroit-bus-driver-dies-coronavirus-trnd/index.html
NOW we're being told to wear masks, but it's too late for Jason Hargrove.
https://truthout.org/articles/health-care-workers-on-front-lines-of-covid-19-outbreak-lack-key-protections/
The Truth Out article is just maddening. So obvious what healthcare workers need but unbelievably:
"Last Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) further weakened a guidance for hospitals responding to COVID-19 due in part to shortages of N95 face masks and other protective equipment. The guidance lays out standards for isolating patients and providing protective gear to nurses and health care workers at risk of exposure. Last week, a coalition of unions warned the CDC that weakening the guidance would decrease the level of protection for health care workers and encourage the spread of COVID-19. Nurses held protests across the country on Wednesday.
“This rollback is completely outrageous,” Castillo said."
Imagine that! The CDC lowering it's standards to fit the lack of equipment! Outrageous!
''Minimum-Wage Workers Are Dying to Keep Everyone Else Alive. They Deserve More", by Wm. Rivers-Pitt:
"Low-wage workers are standing between our society and calamity ... they deserve health care and a living wage now." Thanx for your strong excerpt & important link about the Detroit Bus Driver. It's now incontrovertibly true that the lowest paid amongst us - are doing some of the most important jobs that must be done to keep society as we know it, going: OF COURSE THEY DESERVE A LIVING WAGE!
ergo - quid pro quo?!
Demand Change Post-COVID19!
From truthout:
"Things will be different on the other side of this pandemic. Before COVID, many middle-class and wealthy people would glide by low-wage workers doing menial jobs. Today, low-wage workers are some of the few people standing between our society and calamity, and awareness of that fact has exploded. The billionaires and the celebrities aren’t saving us. The minimum-wage workers bagging groceries are.
On the other side of this, we must utterly reorganize our priorities, so that such heroes do not have to make lethal personal choices to survive this hypercapitalist system. The woman behind the plexiglass at the grocery store register deserves to have health care and a living wage even if she’s too scared to brave COVID and come to work. So do her co-workers. So do we all."
We shouldn't take these workers for granted. It's never good to take anything or anyone for granted. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Take our food supply for instance, it isn't as secure as we think it is and perhaps it's time the press starts reporting about this instead of the gotcha moments they love so much. We need real information, but when the press is for profit they look for gotchas to increase readership and ratings, meanwhile, our food supply may not be as secure as we think.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/13/833110486/u-s-meat-supply-is-perilously-close-to-a-shortage-ceo-warns
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-may-cause-some-food-shortages-says-government-document-223308504.html
For sure "We shouldn't take workers for granted" and on top of food issues - there's the matter of water:
''The lack of water access comes as nearly 1,500 people in Michigan have died from COVID-19" & further consider the fact that so much of US' water supply is basically unpotable! As such, consider:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/19/looming-us-water-crisis & also - this question:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/08/us-unsafe-water-crisis-unite-americans
ad iudicium?
COVID19 deaths will be higher than predicted.
They say 3000 people will die every day in the month of June in the USA. So, what does this mean? Does this mean people are still getting infected. It must mean that.
So, therefore, people in Detroit who don't have clean water and can't wash their hands very easily are at a total disadvantage to the virus. The Michigan governor has been maligned for her detailed shutdown but don't we want to save lives? Isn't that what she is doing? Isn't that a good thing?
What have we lost of our humanity if we no longer care about saving lives and we decide to put economics in front of lives?
Why is our government bailing out corporations and not people. Surely, if we bailed out people they wouldn't need to return to work and we as a collective could stay shut down longer and save our fellow citizens' lives?
All rhetorical questions btw. Bail out human beings! so they don't have to go to work and we can stop the spread of this vicious virus that affects some people so badly that they die! Get it? They die!
Re.C19 note "The Big Picture: spreading the message about the 1918 pandemic" .. by Tim Adams:
So YES, "Bail out human beings! So they don't have to go to work and we can stop the spread of this vicious virus that affects some people so badly that they die! Get it? They die!" but don't expect those closest to the POTUS like Stephen and Katie Miller .. to understand what U say!! Or, why you say it!!!
respice; adspice; prospice...
They did better in 1918 than we are now in 2020!
"Official advice insisted: “Wear a mask and save your life! A mask is 99% proof against influenza”. This was supported by advertising campaigns and jingles" - from:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/03/the-big-picture-spreading-the-message-about-the-1918-pandemic
Why have we developed such hubris, idiocy, arrogance and cold-heartedness that we can't even be bothered to protect ourselves, our own selves!, let alone other people! Why do we no longer care about other people? WTF? Where's our humanity?
Then there's "Trump and DeVos’s Plan to Reopen Schools Hides a Sinister Agenda" ... by Peter Montagu:
respice et prospice ...
DeVos wants to privatize education system. And, that is indeed sinister.
From the truthout, Montagu, article:
"Why are Trump and DeVos saddling parents and public schools with this impossible dilemma? Trump just wants to win the election November 3 and he apparently thinks opening schools will make everything appear normal. DeVos appears to have a more devious agenda.
DeVos blurted out her coronavirus plan on “Fox News Sunday” when she said, “American investment in education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds. Then give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.”
It’s no secret that DeVos would like to privatize all public schools. If public schools become hotbeds of infection, confidence in public education will diminish; perhaps then more parents would join DeVos in pressing to eliminate the public school system entirely. This agenda should surprise no one — it has been Betsy DeVos’s religious mission for the past 25 years."
It's a formula used over and over in the USA and the UK does it too.
Defund the institution (could be the Post Office, schools, the NHS, highways, etc).
Then when the institution struggles because of the defunding, blame the institution for the inadequacies on the institution itself.
Call for privatization to fix the problems (a ruse).
And, here's where it gets really good. Invest your (the crooked politician's) personal money in the privatization of the institution.
The crooked/corrupt politician becomes personally rich or richer.
NB: "'I Failed My Fellow Americans': The White Women Defecting From Trump" by Adam Gabbat:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/29/women-who-voted-trump-who-regret-decision
& https://truthout.org/articles/trump-and-devoss-plan-to-reopen-schools-hides-a-sinister-agenda/
respice; adspice; prospice ...
350,000 US education jobs slashed in September
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/12/educ-o12.html
"These mass layoffs take place as deadly school reopenings are pushed by federal and state governments across the US, in order to get students back into the classrooms to force their parents back into workplaces. Over 30 school employees and students have already died since schools began to reopen en masse in late July, while at least 42,778 students and educators have been infected and the health and lives of millions of people have been placed at risk."
So, "Get Ready For The 8 Longest Days of Our Lives" ... by William Rivers-Pitt:
multum in parvo ...