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Guest Post: 30 Blocks Of Squalor - Government Built It, But They Didn't Come
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform blog,
I haven’t provided a 30 Blocks of Squalor update in quite a while. I generally don’t like to repeat myself, so I wait until I see something particularly disturbing, stupid, or outrageous. The well is now filled on all accounts and I’m ready to unload. The joys of West Philly are multi-faceted. I’ve been getting off at the Girard Avenue exit of the Schulkill Expressway for six years on my way to work.
The Philadelphia Zoo parking lots are located directly in front of the exit ramp. I then proceed to 34th street and take my little shortcut through the hood. About one year ago, a construction project began on the existing parking lot at 35th and Girard Avenue. I had no idea what they were building and why. Before long it became evident they were building a big ass parking garage. I was stumped. The zoo had multiple existing parking lots that were NEVER filled. As the months went on I realized they were building the Shangri La of parking garages with a majestic glass tower in front. This is the final result.
I began to wonder who came up with the money for this monstrosity, because the Phila zoo is a money losing non-profit that depends on donations for its continued existence. As I was driving down 36th Street a couple weeks ago I noticed a brand new sign telling me I was entering the Centennial District. That’s funny because I thought I was entering the slums of West Philly where no one works and everyone has a iPhone. This would be a more appropriate sign.
It all began to make sense when they installed the enormous signage naming this parking garage the CENTENNIAL INTERMODAL TRANSPORTATION CENTER. Orwell must be so proud. Liberal Democratic politicians now give grand flowing names to parking garages.
Now that I had a name for this unnecessary albatross I was able to do a google search to find out how much this 683 space, union constructed parking palace amidst squalor actually cost. I was flabbergasted to find out it cost $24 million. You can be sure it could have been built for $16 million if it had been built non-union. For some perspective, IKEA builds 300,000 square foot retail stores for $18 million. Now for the best part. YOU paid for 30% of this porkulus project. Your Federal tax dollars funded a major portion of this project. Here is the breakdown:
- Federal Transit Agency/Federal Highway Administration: $7.18 million
- Pennsylvania state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program: $8.25 million
- Philadelphia city capital program: $0.7 million
- PNC Bank loan: $8.25 million
Pennsylvania taxpayers got a double dose of pork fever. Their Federal taxes paid for 30% and their state taxes paid for another 34% of this project. Of course, the rest of the cost was covered by debt. Think about this craziness for just a minute. The zoo had sufficient parking. The Federal government is running deficits in excess of $1 trillion per year. The State of PA is being bankrupted by government employee pension obligations. The City of Phila is a fiscal disaster. Three bankrupt government entities join forces to spend taxpayer money they haven’t collected on a project that isn’t needed. This is Keynesian idiocy at its finest. They should have named it the Krugman/Obama/Nutter Ultra-Liberal Phallic Center for Union Workers. You’ll also be happy to know they have plans to paint a huge mural of black people doing great things on the side of this waste of taxpayer dollars.
Now for the funny part. I stumbled across the architectural rendering of what this albatross would look like. Please note the beautiful foliage, as if this parking garage was in the middle of Valley Forge National Park. Also note the dozens of white people strolling along Girard Avenue. You also see the a portion of a modern trolley in the shot. Having passed this location every morning and evening for the last six years, I can assure you there is no beautiful foliage. There are scraggly diseased trees amidst garbage, debris, needles, and dead bodies.
The picture doesn’t do justice to this West Philly oasis of poverty, squalor and crime. The picture is missing the crazy black dude begging at the off-ramp. The actual trolley smells of urine and was built in 1963. The streets are crumbling. Water mains explode frequently. Every building is covered in graffiti. And 90% of the people on the streets are black, and the other 10% are walking really fast.
The Trayvon hoody wearing populace of West Philly aren’t interested in new parking garages or getting a job at the Phila zoo. They prefer EBT cards, armed robbery and drug dealing.
This is the reality of Girard Avenue. Gorgeous architectural renderings and gleaming glass encased parking garages paid for by taxpayers will do absolutely nothing to change the dynamic of West Philly. This is just another mal-investment by liberal do-gooders whose policies have created this shithole over decades.
Speaking of mal-investment, this brings me to an update of Mantua Square. It is located two blocks from the zoo parking garage. I’ve written two previous articles about this monument to government pork, false promises, Keynesian idiocy, and your tax dollars:
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=27516
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=18696
Mantua Square continues the legacy of the welfare state begun in the 1960s by LBJ and his Great Society programs. There were thousands of low income high rises built in the 1960s and 1970s to provide subsidized housing for poor people. Mantua Hall was an 18 story taxpayer gift to Philadelphia’s poor.
As with most of these tenements, it quickly became a rat infested, crime ridden, drug paradise where even the Philly police would not approach. It became a dangerous crumbling disgrace. It proved that giving ignorant, lazy scumbags free housing with no strings attached and no requirements to work or keep their homes in any semblance of order leads to really bad consequences. So what did the liberal Democrats that run Philly do? They imploded the 18 story drug house in 2008 and started over.
Obama’s 2009 $800 billion porkulus plan spread your money far and wide to his minions in urban shitholes across the land. The Democrats in Philly were rewarded with millions for Keynesian make work projects for their union brethren. Mayor Nutter and West Philly Congressman Chaka Fattah commandeered $10 million of “stimulus” and another $18 million from HUD to replace Mantua Hall with a 101 luxury townhouse low income housing gated community in the heart of the West Philly slums. These corrupt government politicians never learn, or they don’t want to learn – is more like it. The Feds pay them off and they pay their union cronies off , assuring their re-election. Mantua Square opened in 2011 with balloons, ribbon cutting and promises of community redevelopment and a retail renaissance. I have to admit that it is a beautiful oasis amidst the squalor. Of course, at a cost of over $250,000 per unit to the U.S. taxpayer, it should be beautiful. How many hard working married American couples can’t afford a $250,000 townhome? I’ll go out on a limb and say, most. Why would a resident of a taxpayer funded $250,000 townhouse have any incentive to get educated and obtain a job that would make them ineligible to live in that townhouse?
This gated oasis was built with 8 retail stores totaling 7,400 square feet. The government drones were sure that if they built it they would come. It is now two years after opening and I’m sorry to say – NO ONE CAME. All 8 storefronts are empty. Not one West Philly entrepreneur has stepped forward with a fantastic retail idea. Shocking!!!! Maybe someone should have realized that with a median household income of less than $20,000, Mantua will NEVER sustain a single retail store, let alone 8 stores. You have less chance of opening a successful store in Mantua than finding a female with a wedding ring or a male with a school book in West Philly.
Maybe someone should have checked out the available facts before building these 8 retail stores:
http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Mantua-Philadelphia-PA.html
Some interesting tidbits:
- There are 7,854 people living in the area and 90% of them are black
- The median household income is $19,765 versus $50,000 in the U.S. (this means 50% of the households make less than $19,765)
- Only 14% of the households are occupied by married couples versus 48% in the U.S.
- 30% of the households are occupied by single mothers.
- 36% of the residents did not graduate high school, with another 35% not going further than high school.
- The average value of the decaying row houses in the neighborhood is less than $40,000.
- Over 43% of the population is living below the poverty line.
- The crime rate is three times the national average.
- The true unemployment rate is above 60%.
The statistics confirm my observations of squalor. I’ve driven past Mantua Square virtually every day since it opened. I can honestly tell you that the neighborhood has not been redeveloped or revitalized. Mantua Square is still surrounded by dilapidated, boarded up, rat infested hovels. There is no new retail. There is no community revival. A row house one block away simply collapsed during Hurricane Sandy. There are brand new union built wheel chair ramps on every corner of West Philly, paid for with the Obama stimulus funds. Of course, the sidewalks between the wheelchair ramps are crumbling, so someone in a wheelchair could never utilize them. But that’s OK. Wheel chairs are old school. I see many West Philly residents tooling around in the streets in their Hoverounds. Their practically free, don’t you know.
The local bar, next to the middle school, seems to be doing good business as there are usually 10 or 15 twenty something black men milling around outside when I pass by at 5:15 pm on my way home from work. They must accept EBT cards. Do you throw trash, garbage and beer bottles on your front lawn? The people in this neighborhood seem to think this is acceptable behavior. Monday is trash day in West Philly. This week I saw a leather couch that was nicer than my living room couch out by the curb. Last week I saw a big screen TV in the trash. I must really be doing something wrong. The amount of trash outside these low income townhouses is two to three times the amount we generate in a week.
It does appear that Obama’s subprime solution is working its magic in West Philly. How else can you explain the 20 something black man driving an $80,000 BMW 750 I saw yesterday in West Philly? I have seen the power gates of Mantua Square open and BMWs, Jaguars, and Cadillac Escalades departing. How can low income occupants afford such vehicles? The neighborhood around Mantua Square is filled with new model Lexuses, Cadillacs, and a particular favorite – Chrysler 300s. The hovels all have satellite dishes. The unemployed peeps all have cell phones.
Everything I’ve noted could not have been accomplished without the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve. The money printing of the Federal Reserve with no anchor to gold has allowed the welfare state to grow to immense proportions. It has allowed politicians to buy votes by spending taxpayer dollars on multi-million dollar Keynesian zero return albatrosses. It has allowed politicians to enslave black people on a welfare plantation of entitlements. Bernanke and his cronies reward mal-investment through their policies. They reward bad behavior (borrowing & spending), while punishing good behavior (saving and investing). West Philly is a testament to failed economic policies, government waste, lack of personal responsibility, corrupt politicians, excessive union costs, and the delusional belief that government can create economic growth. The 30 Blocks of Squalor is descending further into squalor and it will accelerate as Bernanke’s policies further destroy what remains of capitalism in this country.
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And Alexander Hamilton stating "I didn't think anyone would take my ideas on central banking seriously and actually implement them!".
Thanks - I really needed to have this great inspiration of how well my money is spent and who it is spent on to get me through my taxes this weekend.
i was a mechanic down in a buffalo ny hood for years. way to damn many cadillacs. way to many vehicles i fixed and billed the state while there was a bus stop right there. but they need to get to work , right?
first week of the month, we'd be slammed when 'the eagle shit'.
i think neutering should go hand in glove with an EBT card.
Who is John Galt?
Linda Green? ;-)
The most hated man in America.
Pop quiz - Who is talking to who in this quote?
"Bitch better give me my money. I SAID BITCH BETTA GIVE ME MY MONEY!"
Wayne Brady?
ROFL!
"Give Dave some money".
Indeed true, but I was thinking in the context of this article. Plus 1 anyways.
Easy answer... Goldman Sachs of course!
"Pennsylvania taxpayers got a double dose of pork fever. Their Federal taxes paid for 30% and their state taxes paid for another 34% of this project. Of course, the rest of the cost was covered by debt"
I've got news for you Jim...it was all paid for by debt. Neither Pennsylvania, nor the federal government has any "money". Everything we do in this "debt equals money" society is paid for by future labor.
No debt - no money.
It's a crazy world we live in. People who walk around with fiat in their pockets think they have money. Well, no they don't..they have an I.O.U.... debt.... debt that is used like money to pay all debts public and private. The irony of which is in order to pay off said debt then more money has to be borrowed into existence.. If we paid off all the debt there would be no money...A completely screwed up system.
Someone who understands! It was not until I read What Is A Dollar by Edwin Vieira, Jr. many years ago that I was able to fully grasp this concept and it's implications! You have basically summarized his long, well worth the read, monograph into a paragraph! http://www.fame.org/HTM/Vieira_Edwin_What_is_a_Dollar_EV-002.HTM
Bingo...
Yo, What yous talkin about??
How bout them soft pretzels?
Really sad. One very minor correction if I may. On the median income one should consider what the 50K for the working stiff nets to and what the on the dole 19K nets to.
quite right...both are 40,000
I love this guy!
This news is irritating, but the alphabet fed agencies buying 2 billion rounds of hollow points is frightening.
Well, at least "you didn't built that!" Or, maybe you did and you just don't realize it...oh well.
This is not about racism. It is about indoctrinating an entire racial group as oppressed and entitled. There was a moment in time when black Americans had a shot, when opportunities truly became available and before the indoctrination began. The simple fact that you cannot be black and be a conservative proves to me that cultural, racial and sexual differences will be the bludgeon used to destroy the remnants of our society. It will get worse before it gets better. It has now infiltrated into the Hispanic groups. They are now victims of white slavery through immoral abuse of their illegal status, and need a protected status. Special immigration rules, identity fraud and tax compliance. They have been evolved into another left leaning voting block and all those who oppose them are not true Hispanics anymore than a republican can be are real black person. Build them nice homes, parks and shopping areas, using evil "white " money that they will ultimately destroy while hating us for providing it.
With all respect:
a) You are right.
b) Nonetheless a) is just another curtain, prepared for you to see the wizard, and not the little man behind it ...
The trolley is a PCC, for President's Conference Car, a design created by owners of trolley lines in the 1930's to compete with buses.
And yes, at 35,000 BennieBux per space, the garage is overpriced by 1/3. Half if you hired a private developer to deliver the project like a real project. But then, no real developer would touch anything in the City of Brotherly Love without armed guards and surveillance to record the demands of the pols and the proles.
You know, math doesn't lie.
what's the common denominator in this place and any other shithole in similar straights?
hint: It aint the fucking Mennonites.
i know no one cares but an old man like me (delgreco was a childhood hero of mine when he played for the phillies) but this is not what keynes wanted this is what those like ben & barry who corrupt his ideas want
We're getting an INTERMODAL TRANSIT STATION here in Rochester, NY. It must be good because it's in the shittiest neighborhood in the city, is going to cost $24 million and congress-woman Louise Slaughter is being praised for having brought the project to us.
All hail, Louise, the reverse carpetbagger (she's from Jaw-Jah, originally).
FUCK YOU LOUISE, YOU COMMIE PIECE OF SHIT. FUCK YOU, O-BLAH-BLAH, AND YOU TOO BERNANKE, AND JACK LEW THE JEW.
I do miss the Midtown bus station. That was suck a joy to catch the Greyhound on my way back to college way back in the day.
Also, the Hotel Cadillac was great for a quickie and real close (always wrap the shit outta it) to catch the bus.
I think it is a subject for discussion if the government policy required the Fed's free money or the Fed's free money enabled the government waste.
It is probably some of each.
Bottom line is that the socialist hard left started this craziness, the ideas espoused by Marx and the French revolution are reality for us all now. Whatever the true motive of those setting the agenda, altruistic or nefarious, the result is apparent for any who bother to look. My guess is it all started out with some good intentions, but has morphed into a destructive free money frenzy. This has literally destroyed a large swath of people (addicted to free-lunch ) and empowered a group of folks (career politicians, coddled government workers and slick financiers). With a few notable exceptions, penury of most of us is the final result.
Satan himself could not have done better … hmm, maybe he was at work all along.
sschu
payback for 300 years of slavery of 12 million blacks is a bitch..not sure why (Pa and ) Philly and other major towns are a focal point for receiving such high levels of corruption though UNLESS those areas are being fast tracked to receive the proceeds from the theft of money by this corrupt Federal government (in the form of taxes and pork barrel this is how you buy power/votes spending).
I guess LBJ was right: "i'll have those naggers voting democrat for 200 years."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII
Lets not forget those ACORN stair lifts. Aha. Ahaha hahahahhahahahahaha hahahaha hahahahahahaha hahahahahaha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MfX4Jl1j-8
If this is Philly, then all contractor money goes to Vinny and Mario, the neighborhood gets nothing. They build $1 billion taxpayer funded white elephants in most major cities so that entitled scum can watch Black players shoot hoops form front row seats.
hooligan-"not sure why Pa and Philly and other marjor towns are focal point for receiving such high levels of CORRUPTION though UNLESS those areas are being fast tracked to receive the proceeds from the theft of money by this corrupt Federal government (in the form of taxes and pork barrel this is how you buy power/votes spending)."
Please read my post about LBJ and see attatched video. This is and has been the plan by those who want power via the govt. if you can keep a certain percentage of the population dumb, addicted, entertained, dependent, and entitled then you can get them to vote for you for the next 200 yrs. Epecially if we control the education system and tell them that its the evil republicans who were the KKK rather than the Democrats from the confederate army. Then blame the evil republicans who are the greedy wall street capitalists who just want to keep you poor.
How did Jay-Z escape the ghettoooooooo? Captialism. He provides a service and people pay him. Although he still CRapps about hood/thug life when he has escaped it and has shown the way to get out of it. Go to fucking work!
Democrats who want government don't want people, especially blacks, to learn how to take care of themselves and become self sufficient.
As for payback, you could've given them a deal of no federal income taxes for 50 yrs and let them keep more of their money and watch them flourish. Working for yourself and seeing the success would open their eyes more then some used car salesmen/women known as a democrat to tell them not to work because you cant get ahead because of discrimiation and slavery.
Purposefully Intentional. Do not forget that.
yes...aboriginal peoples may be children of a higher god..that doesn't believe in socialism
As a former resident of SW Philly, I recently did a Google street view of the old neighborhood. It is heart-breaking to see what has become of it. It actually makes the views of west Philly in this story look like a paradise.
I lived in downtown Baltimore for years -- the exact same thing. They had the idea in Baltimore to integrate townhouses with rent controlled apartments that from the outside look like townhouses. HUD built. Shitty construction. Cracks in some walls after 3 years.
What's funny is that you can see the awesome cars in the driveway and most of them didn't own kitchen tables. There was a local deli that had the brilliant idea to accept EBT, business went through the roof. Line out the door.
The townhouse I rented was a 2200 sqft duplex. In 2006 it was purchased for $450k!!!! Within a few blocks there were the projects in the Wire. Rats wouldn't come down to my street often because the vacant buildings are much nicer.
I live in Locust Point... the only white community left in Baltimore City. They are doing everything in their power to drive us out. I'm outta there in a year or less and will just wait and watch as it crumbles.
The deli you speak of, if it's owned by the Jewish family that makes a helluva corned beef sandwich & has been in Baltimore forever, then yeah they're doing everything to keep the system intact. They are big time libs that are well connected to the city & that cocksucker of a Governer O'Malley. If the sandwichs weren't so damn good, I'd love to see that delapadated building crumble.
Don't perpetuate the system by giving them your FRN's.
That's the one. I didn't know that about the family. I couldn't understand why the Camden Yards one closed.
I really liked LP when I lived there. Quiet by what were my standards. Miss the O's, but getting rid of the state and city income taxes was nice.
In the end, with this ongoing sheer madness, EVERYBODY loses - including the oligarchy. Perhaps the human race is destined for extinction. So be it.
Nice to see you here Gordon. I really enjoyed your recent blog post!
if drug dealers had to operate under the same rule of law as legitimate business (cough,hack,gag) and pay taxes, take out a license, and keep books, these neighborhoods would look pretty good. if you wanted to gentrify every slum in america, they don't need to legalize drugs, god knows most of the services and products already sold should be illegal, but if they legitimized drug dealing, then this economy would take off.
Actually, drugs, marijuana and cocaine in particular, are really quite cheap. If marijuana was generally legal including cultivation it would have a street value equal to hay by the bale. As a practical matter there would be a chain of supply into the ghetto but it would be very short and the money involved relatively minor. (Dis)organized crime is only attracted to drug dealing because prohibition keeps the prices high. After prohibition of alcohol was repealed organized crime completely dropped alcohol manufacture, importation, and distribution.
methinks that if corporate america got involved they would figure out a way to turn a profit, with the absolute must have product. and since the product is cheap, there is a lot of room to levy hat product, seems Obama was once in favor of legalizing POT, he used to toke a few himself.
Catherine Austin Fitts talked about the same thing happening when she was with HUD in the seventies. When she analysed the projects she was working on she came to the conclusion most of the money was wasted and in some cases the community was worse off than before HUD started.
So she mapped out a better system for spending the money. Her boss told her to forget it, there were too many entrenched non profit organizations, unions and contractors depending on the HUD money and there was no way they could change anything.
Then in 1997 the head of CALPERS told her she was wasting her time trying to change anything, the PTB had already written off the US as a going concern and were moving their money and business to Asia. From there on out, they no longer regarded the US as a going concern to be milked for profits but a 3d world country to be exploitted and torn apart like a Christmas turkey.
I was just trying to remember Catherine Austin Fitts name to write something similar to what you said. I will embellish a bit. She relates how she used to receive death threats for trying o expose the corruption in HUD, etc. She also goes on about the drug trade. I used to think that she hav gone off the deep end saying that the US government sponsors drugs, but lately I have come around. That is what I wanted to touch upon.
The velocity of money is much, much larger than what is published. That is because it is run through the drug trade. The urban poor already are the real losers. Doesn't the average black male live to about age 40? Some 30% (?) of black teens die violently between the ages of 15-30. They exist to consume drugs. The drugs are paid for with the ATM cards which are funded with Bernanke's press. JPM bank exists in part to run the ATM business - from India. The folks at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms exist to suppress the drug trade. They get paid through Bernanke's printing press. The army in Afghanistan exists to suppress the drug trade - or perhaps facilitate it. They also get paid from BSB. Of course the banks get their "vig" handling the drug money. Round and round it goes.
None of this produces wealth. Sooner or later it will stop and we will relaize that half the population does nothing productive, and can't. Society has gotten as far as it has on cheap oil and miracles in agriculture. There will be little more growth in agriculture. Cheap oil (not to be confused with peak oil) is far in the rearview. Things will get ugly.
Ms Fitts is very interesting to listen to. She and Dr. Roberts are very informed and can state the facts without screaming and using pejoratives to make their points.
How is this different than any place blacks are left to their own devices?
They would turn Eden into a ghetto within a generation
For illustration purposes, what do you suppose the results would be if all the Whites in America were sent to afreeka and all of afreeka's blacks were sent to America?
Does anyone doubt that within 30 years afreeka would have First World cities and abundant food while the blacks starved in ghettos on dirt roads in the former breadbasket of the world?
In 1950 more black teenagers had jobs than white teenagers and most cities had a thriving black business community.
What would be the result if all the Whites lost their jobs and went on welfare? What would their family life and work life look like in 20 years? You are about to find out.
NOTHING rivals the violent crime or illegitimacy rates of the "jews" footsoldiers, the negroes
Both the "jews" and the blacks are racial crimewaves and plagues
Good article Jim. Wait until the house of cards collapses and all these people who are used to having Escalades, iPhones, and satellite tv suddenly can't get those items any longer. The golden horde and great die off will be monumental.
There are very few gated communities that would stop them. But the 1% are prepared for that, we're not.
The Jews are using the blacks to destroy America.
"jews" use brown people as cultural, political, economic, and biological weapons of mass destruction to wreck White, Western countries and to further their lust for global communism completely devoid of any Natural Law/Rights.
Meanwhile they enjoy their own seperateness and "jew'-only isntreal
Balkanisation.
No,no... the blacks are using the Jews to destroy America. Or wait.. the fembonazis are using the homos to destroy America or is it the latinos are using the crackheads to destroy America.. What about the Muslims? Asians? I'm getting a headache.
$50,074: Gov't Spending Per Household EXCEEDS Median Income...
Man you guys have absolutely no fucking idea. 40 years of the Labour (socialist) party in Glasgow, Scotland:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/19/1303...
http://i3.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article1538476.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/...
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/5/14/1337...
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Deprived+Areas+Inner+City+Glasgow+mvG...
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Deprived+Areas+Inner+City+Glasgow+mvG...
http://nfs.stvfiles.com/imagebase/176/623x349/176622-volkswagen-golf-set...
This is the local school.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jeffzycinski/2008/02/images/rogerfield.jpg
The pictures are of Easterhouse in Glasgow in Scotland, there's more. The Gorbals, Partick or Castlemilk for instance, also in Glasgow but it's too fucking depressing to continue.
Socialists create "housing schemes" for the poor, they put them all in the one place (nowhere near where they personally live of course). They create planned schemes which which will never be wealthy, which will only ever become slums as the money for the upkeep runs out. Then they will knock all these slums down and start another slum cycle.
Socialists like these places because they are guaranteed votes.
Oh and for all the fucking retards going on about blacks and jews. Shut the fuck up, it has absolutely nothing to do with race. It's circumstance.
So we got that to look forward to. Great.
Liberal Plantations world wide.
Forget about saving; I'm spending my money now.
You know what? It isn't liberal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
You know what? It isn't Classical Liberal, and it is liberal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Yes, it is liberal. Unless the flux capacitor started working again and sent us all back to the 19th Century.
Why is scotland ruled from londonistan?
Circumstances.
Scotland has it's own parliament with it's own budget. Glasgow Council has a multi billion pound budget and they created this, and other similar shitholes.
The deprived areas I mentioned are all white. It has fuck all to do with race. You (like the socialists) are simply a lazy thinker.
looks like youre being replaced on your own island by africans and pakis
ENJOY!!!!!!
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files2/stats/seminars/10-pams-seminar-oct2011-phil-rees.pdf
Lazy thinking. A large percentage increase of a very small number is still a very small number.
The number of blacks in the UK, Scotland is insignificant. There's a minority asian population who imigrated in the 1950s & 60s and their offspring, but you know what, they're doing just fine and they'll still be a small minority in 40 years.
No pressure to join the EU? Which international bankers are opposed?
Scotland is already in the UK which is already in the EU. What's that got to do with anything?
EU redevelopment grants and loans? Wanna see what a socialist council does with those?
It builds useless vanity projects:
http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/The-Armadillo-Theatre--sco...
http://airticket-ua.com/sites/default/files/800px-glasgow_squinty_bridge...
http://www.archicentral.com/wp-content/images/talking-science-glasgow-sc...
I went to taxpayer funded Veterans Stadium in 1988 and it was cutting edge in that it was cutting edge in its ability to be a souless shithole only 25 years after having been built. Beaten only from my experience by the Big O (Olympic Stadium) in Montreal. This parking lot will be lucky to exist in its current form for 25 years, and if it does, it will be a urine soaked, crumbling piece of shit 25 years from now.
I feel confident in stating this having never laid eyes on this place.
edit: Veterans Stadium was funded by a bond issue I should point out rendering my above rant moot, although accurate in its conclusion.
Duh, they couldn't have artist rendering of Humvees and Prisoner Trollies.
Inter-modal to the showers.
BULLISH CONSHOHOCKEN!!!!!!!!
Just another shitty article that totally ignores the results of decades of free trade policies, tax cuts for the wealthy, and corporate welfare. Sure, the POOR are the problem. Fuck you.
I agree with your point, I don't feel envious in general about the poor and ghettos when I see a nice 750 BMW in one or the fact they have satellite tv, its a waste of resources, but I don't feel envious of them. I cringed when the author took that attitude towards the people that lived there. The people born in ghettos haven't been led to education or programs that would actually help them in the long run, like gardening, how to build a house, raise animals, they're sent to shite violent public schools to learn crap from the age of 5.
For generations now people are born and live their whole lives in ghettos so depressing its amazing anybody at all makes good and gets out. They're not designed nor function as a platform to help people move on, they're to keep people in as the poster above mentioned in his/her links about Glasgow Scotland.
"Our culture has been trained to look down at those poorer than ourselves and scrutinize them more closely for such infractions on the slave work ethic. That way we aren't looking higher up the ladder to see who is defecating on us. It's a nice trick that works well for the owners and their minions."
“If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs,” explained the late Gary Allen. “Communism or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.”
And off-shoring.
LazerTag franchise. It could happen.
easy credit?
Fuck Obama and the US gov - buy gold -fuck usd and Dow jones welfare state etc...... But this is Racist and if you don't realize it than I pitty the shallowness that you live life with -one of the biggest shortcomings of the "forward" thinkers i read on this site -- a lot of you are old fogey xenophobes -- how about exposing this construction fraud perpetrated by government without dragging the brotherman through the dirt -- like what black people petitioned for this garage.. You lose all cred repping bigoted hatred - to an educated multicultural person you are little more than a fool
Educate your multicultural self
http://www.reversespins.com/pcmarx.html
Educate myself by reading an British professor at Leeds university? I'll take my life experience living and working all around the world and around the usa in different racial and socioeconomic groups instead and like I say pity your angry ignorance that you are part of the problem and actually think you are spreading truth - where are the black libertarians?? They must not like freedom ..... Oh right the movement is so angry and xenophobic there are none ---- peace fucko why don't you drag native Americans through the dirt --- don't think you are amateur than you are
Is that incoherence supposed to be English?
You know you are using an ad hominem attack, one of the logical fallacies, by attacking my syntax and not the idea I presented ---- oh thats right you are a hater.... That's all you can do because you are wrong and logic proves you so
The idea that you presented is that your brainwashing is so well set that you refuse to examine any other viewpoint. Perhaps your logic is not entirely complete.
Educated multicult person.
I think you just defined the root of our troubles to a tee. Educated in "areas of study" that comprise a bunch of feel good about your self coupled with its all whiteys fault. Basketweaving degrees to bolster self-worth and vanity and inflating egos beyond capability.
Then put these delusional people in charge of real world systems, let them dole out the resources and here we are boys, right in the middle of this fucked up mess.
Malthus has solutions. Brave new world sort of shit. You won't like fighting for food, any of us, but before the end we'll be doing it.
we're going to play Mad Max before this gets fixed, you know.
Why the regular perjorative digs against unions? Would you rather they built your parking garage using minimum wage workers with none of the labor laws like time and a half for overtime that unions helped institute?
lets see. Fat, lazy, indolent, socialist, vote as a block like they're told sheep.
did i miss anything there, trumpka?
Corrupt, serving only as controlled opposition, profit laundering, criminal.
"Would you rather they built your parking garage using minimum wage workers?"
That's a trick question: If you read the article -- and weren't a member of any of the unions who got money to build that parking garage -- you would understand that it should have never been built in the first place.
You want to see a similar situation in NYC, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago...just hop in a cab and ask the driver where he doesn't want to drive after 10:00pm. This kind of crap exists in every major city.
What's the point of this article? That our government is screwed up? Don't we already know that...? WHAT'S THE SOLUTION? And please...don't suggest that we hire different politicians. WE NEED TO FIND A SOLUTION TO THIS CRAP. We need more people offering how to resolve the problems instead of telling us about the stupidity of corrupt politicians.
My solution: Rip off the band really fast. aka Stop the flow of money from DC to the cities for this kind of shit.
Who knows what the solution is to the underclass in America........which happens to be black. In other countries the underclass looks more broadly similar to the overclasses but much else is the same between the impoverished here and in other countries.
America has tried racism (which is an actual social solution, however harsh) in dealing with the underclass and its tried the welfare state. All in all the latter has had only a slightly better outcome. And, on a cost benefit basis, flat out repression via all white police forces who brutalized ghetto troublemakers when racism was in fashion, was certainly a lot more cost effective if that measure is really appropriate to use.
One reality is that in all other immigrant classes, Hispanic, Asian, the arrivals come from a place where an organized family structure and value system have played a role in their early upbringing. So new arrivals come to America with a sense of stabilizing social structure built into themselves and with this social knowledge recreate it once they arrive in the new country.
By contrast 99%+ of all black people you see in the US are the descendants of slaves. There was never a wave of voluntary black immigration into the US as with all other common ethnic groups (Italians, Germans, English, Irish, etc.). Because slaves were routinely split up, bought and sold, whatever social structure they had in Africa was completely destroyed once they arrived in the US. After a fashion the black race in the US has been trying, over the last 150 years to build a cohesive culture from near scratch. Something that white immigrant cultures to the US achieved many many hundreds of years before.
Then you add in the very problematic but real issue that the average intellectual capacity of blacks is verifiably low relatively to white and asian culture. I know there are some issues with cultural bias inherent in various tests and obvious problems testing poorly educated older individuals. But when you adjust for all biases the differential between white and black average intelligence as measured on tests is about 15% and there is measurable variation in ability to defer gratification between the races as well. I happen to hate the fact of this fact but acknowledge that it is both a reality and likely has a direct negative impact on underclass blacks ability to break the poverty cycle within family lines.
The only thing I know for sure is that in economic down cycles whatever was a mess before the decline gets worse and the trend line and reality contintues until things turn around for the over culture.
There's lots of reasons for the decline of America other than your racially tinted analysis... The whole American populace have overspent, underproduced and underpaid for all of the entitlements.. Pork barrel projects, destructive foreign wars, bankster malfeasance, corporate criminality, malinvestment in 2nd class education... and on and on and on.
Congress is bought and paid for by corporate and military lobbyists, the myth of democracy is a sham... the administration of jhustice is corrupt and favours the wealthy and connected. And not a black face in sight (well maybe one). Next to these guys (don't forget the "religion" hawkers) one welcomes the sight of a crazy black man panhandling... give the poor guy a reefer and consider ways to get your bankster on the next street.
The critical subject here is that the establishment of a republic on these shores created an opportunity for all people of all colors from all bakgrounds that had never been offered before.
And, now, this miracle is to be dashed, is to be ground into the dirt, because of what happened to some of our ancestors. To destroy this dream for a symbol, to grind it down with a welfare-state policy, with an unqualified president whose personal distaste for the principles that founded this country, is to discard the opportunity of all people.
And by the way, there is no people who could better profit from the principles of freedom and opportunity than the black people. Unfortunately, at the moment, America has no higher office for the blacks to obtain than the presidency.
As for slavery, read the Bible. There’ve been whites held as slaves for several thousand years before the blacks were enslaved. There have been slaves in most every ancient culture, worldwide, from the Greeks and Romans – there were millions of slaves in Rome including Greek slaves as well as slaves from England and Gaul during St. Paul’s ministry -- to the Europeans and the Asians.
But in America, where the mantle of freedom was thrust into the hands of all people, to dwell on these past abuses and ignore the sacrifices by Americans to right them, is to contribute right now, right this year, to the complete destruction of this republic.
Really? That will do it? An honest discussion of the facts will bring down the republic? Darn, I thought the thing was a lot tougher than that. Who knew?
The culture, which is managed by the currency that flows from the Federal Reserve, is a culture which promotes the dominance of a welfare state; Nancy Pelosi is hardly IQ deficient. She’s one of the trickiest, most clever manipulators that’s every walked the halls of Congress. But yet she’s a lightning rod for the welfare state and for racism, be it black, Hispanic or Zionist.
And to achieve her ends, she and people like Bill Clinton and the NAACP, always play the race/slavery card as their trump; they use it as their weapon to get the black vote as support for their gay rights, gun control, war, wealth transfer, ec cetera.
And, at this point, the blacks have a president who can do anything and they will support him.
All I’m saying, ableman28, is that to establish their top controlled socialist state, it’s past time for the country to stop accepting the victim-status cards, such as slavery, played by the blacks, Jews and Mexicans if the people don’t want a top-controlled socialist state.
But, no, I do accept an honest discussion of the facts; it will bring back the republic. So carry on. :-)
Out of wedlock birth, two parent families and employment were all much stronger before the left decided to "save" them. Much of the cultural blight that afflicts black Americans today has occured in the last fifty years.
I've worked in Federal Housing Projects like that - just as bad or worse than described.
Chicken bones and needles in the bushes, 12 year old kids selling drugs, the old men getting drunk, the mothers with 5 toddlers in tow and a baby in her arms (all from a different father), the broken windows, the trash everywhere, and all Blacks.
It's a cliche but I have seen it with my own eyes and it's true. They had to send in a white guy foremen with a crew of Mexicans to get the work done; the Latino crew members could not believe it.
A black guy on public assistance living on the dole tells me, as I'm digging with a pick-axe to install a drainage pipe in 99 degree sweltering heat that "you white folk got it easy". Oh the irony.
Civil rights and Martin Luther King were great. However, telling someone who is black that they deserve something because of their skin color is the same as enslaving them to pick cotton because of their skin color.
“I’ll have them niggers voting Democrat for the next two hundred years.”
Circa 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s vow after he signed into law civil rights legislation
How about "We'll lose the South for a Generation." And he was wrong, it's a Generations and a half and still running.
A thousand +'s...absolutely brilliant.
White people actually have the audacity to blame black people --- Obama doesn't have black people's back??? Are you crazy? He is the one feeding you this class hatred and the rich libertarian crowd sucks it up -- have fun suckers - the whole world hates white Americans - buy guns you'll need them if you can't face up the truth
"the whole world hates white Americans - buy guns you'll need them if you can't face up the truth"
That is because of the nation wrecking, communist "jew"
I blame OJ, you know, the Juice.
I think you miss the point. Most see the black poverty circumstances as a symptom of white corruption. The blacks like most other "groups" have been manipulated with economic programs that destroy culture and breed dependency. I don't know if its racist to do this or if its just the normal way that people in power seek to solidify and enhance their power. Its just wrong but there is no law to prevent it.
Your best effort in a long time, and I am impressed that you were so brutally honest about the race issues involved. Bravo.
Glad to see my 4% city tax going to good use...can't wait to move out of Philly
There's also a .5% tax on revenue for businesses in Philly. Which explains a lot about why the place looks like it does.
Confucius he say- He who pisses in his boots won't have warm feet for long.
Just think, everyday from now on that the market goes up is a 'new market high'. Imagine how fucking old hearing that is going to get!
Horrible fucked up US economy, enemies threatening nukes, all our fearless dipshit leaders can do is fight about gun control and fuck us over. You know what NK..........go ahead and nuke DC. Unfort they are on the wrong coastline.
Hahaha... Tyler seems to think that liberals care about outcome. Silly rabbitt, it's all about intent, you know, show for the low-info voter.
Outcome is for capitalist, bourgeois pigs.
So what are you folks going to do who live in, around, and near shitholes like West Philly? ....when TSHF?
Why do you think I moved out here to Montana? I left the Eastern VA shithole I lived near right after 911.
Ugly won't begin to describe the violence that will ensue after TSHF.
The article is excellent. Thanks. The best way to destroy families and entire cultures is to GIVE THEM A FREE LIVING. Welfare destroys people. That is not an opinion. Look at Indians, Aboriginals. It robs people of dignity, the honor of being a contributor to society. Once on it, people resist getting back to self reliance. They feel that society owes them food and lodging. Next, they want steak instead of porridge. Then colour TV instead of a radio. But now that there are more voters who are dependent than not, society will continue to decay until collapse comes.
Could the truth be because we stole their land and violated every agreement they ever signed wtih the US Gov't, put them in the most geographically isolated and useless piece of lands that you couldn't even substience farm in most cases, provided them with no or completley inadequate primary education, and then allowed all kinds of dupliticious traders and others to trade with them?
Could it be that unless you are willing to fight to the death for your freedom, you will be destined to poverty and slavery? Governmental promises are worth today as much as they ever have...a warm bucket of spit.
Fantastic! Unless you want to be free maybe you deserve to be a slave.
If you want an accurate view of what America is going to look like 200 years from now, just look at Tijuana and Mogadishu.
I couldn't tell the difference between pre and post earthquake haiti
It's as if the contents of a giant dump were shifted around and its one building crumbled
$80,000 BMW 750 black dude (with gold chain?) this was a drug dealer. Is a Philly drug dealer the fault of Obama and Bernanke?
Who took jobs that these people once had out of the country, Obama and Bernanke?
It is one thing to describe political patronage at the ZOO. It is one thing to describe the reality of neighborhoods turning into shantytowns, as they will where there is no work. It is quite another to go on for pages ranting about how this is all the fault of Obama and Bernanke. Dude, get a grip.
Nobody complained when we had a "goldilocks economy" with labor flushed don the toilet and end demand propped up by rampaging financial fraud. Corporate profits soared, capitalism was triumphant. Now that the country is actually falling apart, as all sorts of people said it would, it is all the fault of that black socialist.
I do not like Obama or Bernanke. Still, dude, get a grip.
it's the "tyranny of poverty". That's what caused it, right?
bullshit.
And yes, the politicians are at fault. Time for a Walken quote:
"Buckwheats, all of them."
Another racist piece of @hit. I grew up with a lot of peckerwood trash in PA and I couldn't wait to leave. The word is a tough enough place and you will meet plenty of people who don't get along with but using racial ones is just ridiculous.
I don't even know where to start with this post. Yeah there are wide parts of West Philly that are holes and there are some areas where there are pretty much open air drug markets. It also completely ignores what has gone around University City, other parts of West Philly especially along the Schuykill River, and the huge changes in the Overbrook section since the M.O.V.E. bombing in '85.
You can tell in a heartbeat this guy lives somewhere out in surburbia (my guess in Chester or Montgomery County), has a clear racial agenda, and presents alot of his off-observations as certified fact. He's is grade full of BS on a lot of facts including the high-end cars in West Philly. I drive through their frequently enough and trust me you can see the poverty and what the effects of 40-50+ years of deindustrialization have done to it.
You're so full of shit it's coming out your eyeballs. I report EXACTLY what I see. I grew up in Delaware County and went to college in West Philly at Drexel. I lived in these shithole neighborhoods. I drive through them every fucking day.
Don't you tell me I'm not seeing Mercedes, BMWs, Escalades and Lexuses all over West Philly. You're either a lying liberal douchebag or a blind idiot.
50 Years of DEMOCRATIC single party rule of Philadelphia is what caused this. Deindustrialization my ass. Great Society welfare programs, outrageously high taxes, unions, and corrupt politicians.
Liberal assholes always scream racism when people tell the truth about these urban kill zones.
Go fuck yourself
There are tons of late-model luxury cars in West Philly? Yeah right. Maybe Society Hill or some of the parking lots around Rittenhouse. Until relatively recently, I worked down on Spring Garden St. and you are just shoving a line of BS.
Philly does have huge problems and Democratic politics have been a big issue but like anything there are alot issues on why Philly is struggling. It also has some things going for it too and the area as a whole as more pluses/minuses yet.
You must be pissed that more blacks are moving out to Delco. Maybe start a local white power chapter of aging seniors.
I don't frequent Rittenhouse Square. I work in West Philly.
You actually worked? I'm surprised you haven't joined the Obama Free Shit Army.
You seem to be in a tizzy over the FACTS I've documented in my article. Ultra-lib Obama lovers are so angry.
I back up my observations with facts. Assholes like yourself just scream racism. It's a tired tactic of left wingers.
Luckily the intelligent people who read ZH see through lightweights like yourself.
Drive down 37th street near the zoo and open your fucking eyes and you'll see plenty of luxury wheels.
What facts did you document about black culture in West Philly? You cited two specifc examples with plenty of personal antedotes/observations which are somehow supposed to be representative of the entire populace of West Philly? Do you make such assine statements at work?
I have no love for Obama and I am a registered independent. There are plenty of racial issues in the city but your racist BS just seethes through everything you post and you view things.
Is you faded picture of Frank Rizzo cut out from the Philadelphia Daily News still up on your fridge at home?
I guess you don't consider demographical data with a link to where I got the data as facts. Assholes like yourself sell storylines and lash out with your racist bullshit whenever someone reports the reality of the inner city slums and why they are slums.
You're a registerd dumbfuck.
You must be a government public school graduate of Philly based on your grammar.
I've got a picture of Michael Nutter on my Fridge cutting the ribbon on a new bike lane in West Philly that will never be used because bikers are too afraid to be shot.
I never tire of kicking the living shit out of ideologue pea brained morons who spout gibberish and scream racism as their ONLY argument.
That's one section of West Philly and yeah it is poor as shit. So are other sections of Philly wiht the poorest one being Kensington in the entire city. You not kicking the shit out of anyone. Just yelling and screaming into the ether.
Wrong again. Do you ever tire of being wrong?
North Philly on Broad Street near Temple is the poorest, deadliest slum.
You know how you tell the poorest slums in Philly? They have the most murals of black people doing great things.
You haven't told me where you live. I want to do a demographic analysis of your town.
30 Blocks of Squalor brought to you by your local Ku Klux Klan.
This is the typical kind of cr@p you see from white people who live in surburbia in almost either never come into Philly or only come into restaurants in Center City or sporting events at the Sports Complex. He brings up some valid criticisms and lord knows the city government in Philly has all kinds of issues especially regarding the pension and residental tax system/records system.
Philly is weird in that it is still stuck in amber and defined by the black-white racial dynamic because of demographics (Philly is a black city with whites concentrated in Center City and some other adjacent areas). There is plenty of racism by groups towards one another and it is almost as if the days of Frank Rizzo as the Police Commissioner only happened yesterday.
The bigger issue for Philly is that a bunch of the 1st generation suburbs in NE Philly and adjacent to SW Philly and West Philly are becoming the new ghettos.
Yesterday in Center City Phila. Fuck You.
300 Teens Riot in Philly: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know posted21 hours agoby Paul Farrell Heavy.com
A large-scale riot has broken out in Center City, Philadelphia, amongst 200-300 teens, there are no serious injuries but 14 teens have been arrested.Here’s what you need to know…
1. It was a 3 Pronged Attack
Three large groups of teens collided in a massive melee. One group was congregated 16th Street and Chestnut Street, another had assembled at 16th Street and Broad Street, and a third group was milling around 15th and Market Street, reports CBS News.
2. It Appears to Have Been a School Rivalry
Overbrook High School in Philadelphia
ABC 6 reports:
The difference in schools is the only definitive difference between the groups that has been released by police. Bottles and improvised missiles were thrown between the groups, and injuries have been reported.
3. The Philly PD Underestimated the Crowd
Police arrived on scene, but soon found themselves overwhelmed by the crowd. It was only when backup arrived that law enforcement began to get a hold on the situation, at around 4:05 p.m.
Yeah and the point stands that it was the first one in 2 years and that the Philly Police along with Nutter have done a much better job of handling and responding to this. There is obviously no talking to you. Blacks are savage heathens, blah blah blah.
Oh yeah. Nutter has done wonders. Only 331 MURDERS in Philly last year. The most since 2008.
The police are doing a bang up job.
Who committed 90% of the murders in Phila?
Tick Tock Tick Tock
I was talking about the flash mobs and there has been a huge improvement on that and Nutter has publicly spoke against that in a big way. It's one area where he has actually improved things a bit.
Yippee!!!
Maybe he should have spoken against murder instead.
The mind of a moron is a terrible thing to witness.
Are you this much of a dickhead at work?
Are you this stupid at work?
Is there a KKK branch in Philly?
Hell, i live in Redneckistan myself and there's not even one here. Strange time we live in, you have to go to the big city for everything I guess...
And btw... it's whitey's fault. All your failings, I engineered those, had some help from a freckled red-head. Sat and thought them into existence. For the lulz.
You hate-filled cowards don't even have the courage of your own convictions.
Just be patient ... your own chances for poverty are coming. Your children will curse you and wish you had never been born.
If the author hates blacks so much, why doesn't he move up to somewhere in the coal regions up Route 61 or a more rural area where you will only have whites. Oh that's right those areas have huge concentrations of poverty too and the reality is that the poorest parts of PA are in the coal regions scattered through out parts of the northern part of the state or SW PA which is basically Applachia/part of WV.
Yeah, and they have flash mobs there, too!
I think they call them "Tent Revivals" or something like that. Dancin' with the Rattlers, and such.
That was the first one of substance in 2 yrs and the Philly PD dealt with it promptly. That is one thing they have done a good job of cracking down on the past 2 years.
These kind of threads always bring out the racist scumbags on here. I would bet that at least 30-40% of the audience who reads ZeroHedge subscribes to this crap.
warms the heart, doesn't it!
to know that so many other taxpayers are waking up from the somulent buzzing of the MSM and realizing that they've been duped.
hard rain a coming.
Where are you on all of the waste that is defense related or the corporate welfare laden in the system in the form of writeoffs/credits/etc? I go back to PA to visit my parents and I am still amazed at how backwards a$$ most of the people are in Berks County and PA in general. I imagine you are one of them.
that's where you went wrong twit. Imagine.
As in the song, the mentality. Dumbass do gooder, you think life is unfair and everyone is equal? The first part is correct.
And when I was in the service there were more poor motherfuckers from PA in there than any other state. The only welfare it was providing was for them to learn a trade skill and get a leg up on life.
No, not PA myself either.
So are they backwards assed (you can type that here, no one will smack your pee pee) because they don't enjoy high culture, art, fine music and tv shows about faggots?
It's so fortunate that you got out of there! Greenwich Village was a much better fit for your "lifestyle", I'm sure.
No they were backwards MFs like yourself because they hated people simply due to their race and sexual preference and somtimes religion. It has nothing to do with what cultural things they like or what their cultural preferences were. There is there own business and to each their own. I may like some of these things (fishing and gardening which I do regularly today) and not others.