One trend I still see, which started back in the late nineties of bulky and overpriced cellphones, is the notion that homeless people with smartphones means they are wasting taxpayer dollars. When it started it was almost understandable, cellphones were expensive, but when thinking clearly it begs the question: how else would a homeless person get a phone call for a job?
The problem is in the thinking that homeless people are inherently lazy, or unwilling to work at all. This is a stereotype started by the media, if you have been paying attention then you know the media is controlled by the wealthiest people, the very people who pay no taxes at all and collect welfare masked as "subsidies."
In the eighties, and most of the nineties, the media controlled all the information, they literally controlled how society thought. Today they still control the majority, who are delusionally ignorant, but are slowly losing their poisonous influence in information. This is thanks to the internet.
So now they still decry poor people, in other words the very people who listen and obey the media, owning anything beyond old technology. Anyone with half a brain knows why this is a very stupid stereotype, anyone who has had to pull themselves out of the gutter knows why this is a dangerous one.
First, again I ask, without a phone of any sort how are homeless and poor people going to get calls for jobs? A homeless person has to have a mobile phone, they don't have a home for the cables required for a landline!
The poor person is forced to run through appointments, almost daily, just to keep their home and feed themselves, spending little time at home as it is, then if they are going to interviews they have less time at home. Most often they cannot afford a car, so they have to walk or take the bus, both are very time consuming. Essentially, being poor is a full tine job which pays less than liveable wages and has zero chance of promotions.
Okay, that was the basic logic of the situation, and now the part that shows why media, Republicans, inbred hillbillies, and most religious people, are total idiots. The numbers.
I had a landline with internet access, internet is now required to apply for most jobs today, so it is as essential as a phone, perhaps more so as many businesses worth their name allow for email communication. The total I was paying, when I finally got fed up with the ever increasing cost, was almost 80 USD.
I found offers online for unlimited data, voice, and the nearly obsolete text, starting at 30 USD per month, prepaid. You could pay for that with change from your couch, but what about the phones, those must be expensive, right?
Wrong, so very wrong. The prices of technology have been effect by a very rare phenomenon, and inversion of value. Due to the false nostalgia and novelty of the old phones, I have seen phones that were considered junk in the 80s on sale, yes on sale, for 100+ USD. Most poor people cannot afford that, without saving up for a few months, even today.
The inversion effect made modern technology cheaper, smartphones for 100 USD were comparable to desktop computers costing 500 USD, and many times you could sign up for service and get the phone for free, or in small payments. My smartphone, I got to see if I wanted to even bother with the transition, cost me 15 USD and was delivered in three days at no additional charge.
My smartphone is not top of the line, but it's only last year's model so it's not an antique yet either. My unlimited plan is 55 USD for 2gb at 4g and the rest at 2g per month, that includes taxes.
Now let all that sink in a moment, wireless is becoming more affordable than the landlines for one important reason, one that neither the Democrats nor Republicans like. Lack of regulation and a huge amount of competition is keeping wireless services at prices everyone can afford, and allow homeless people a chance to drag themselves out of the gutters they have been swept to by a society which cares only about appearances.
The so called conservatives in the USA often say too much regulation stifles competition, which is correct, but then they vote for the ban (ie regulation) happy Republicans. Republicans are not conservatives, they are right wing liberals, they prefer government control based on an archaic ideology.
Democrats are becoming more conservative these days, as they vote against many bans, though a single party government is a bad idea. The problem is that there is no opposition, the third parties are often too specialized to be viable replacements for the Republicans, and we cannot afford to keep the Republicans any longer.
Personally, this seems almost orchestrated, in the same manner that the media was controlling information before the internet. What scares me is: if this is orchestrated then the very people who are openly pulling the string of the Republican puppets are the ones who want people to vote Democrat.
To close, the ignorance enforced by religion has allowed our society to be manipulated so easily as to make everything appear to be a conspiracy, even the mundane things like the price of a cup of coffee. But when you are in a mudslide, you have little choice but to grasp the nearest root and cling to it in hopes of not being washed away again.
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