We don't want to believe these places are growing in numbers and size... but they are. So many are far removed from them, yet touch them one way or another every day.
We encountered this one first hand on our most recent trip to South America this past December.
There are numerous terrible things about these 'villages'... the most frightening of all is that this is the future for untold numbers of people as the world careens off in the wrong direction. These people are displaced here because there is no life for them elsewhere.. as their numbers keep growing, the types of problems they pose are only going to get much worse.
There are numerous terrible things about these 'villages'... the most frightening of all is that this is the future for untold numbers of people as the world careens off in the wrong direction. These people are displaced here because there is no life for them elsewhere.. as their numbers keep growing, the types of problems they pose are only going to get much worse.
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More and more people are being left behind in economies divided ever more starkly between haves and have-nots. (More out of work than any time in history, and the top 1% taking in half the profits in the U.S. markets).
And a good portion of the citizenry is not aware, or yet owned up to the scale of the economic crisis confronting this country and others of the world as well.
Depending on whose numbers you use, 15 to 20 million are unemployed in the U.S. (and scarey as it would be, it might even be higher). For a variety of reasons, there are not enough tax revenues being generated to pay for the basic public services...(while billionaires pay little or nothing in taxes). State and local governments have eliminated 407,000 jobs since August 2008, with the unthinkable likelihood of matching numbers to come...with essential services being drawn down.
Illogical and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to consume insane amounts of our tax revenue, and add to our already outrageous national debt. And along on a upwardly spiraling path marches the military industrial complex -MIC, taking over ever more of our economy and dwindling resources.
Corporate profits and the stock markets are way up. Businesses are sitting on mountains of cash... much a result of aggressive cost cutting through layoffs, and ponzi-style financial maneuvering.
And ever more alarming, for larger numbers of American corporations, the emphasis is increasingly elsewhere in the world. The CEO's and corporate headquarters might still have homes here, but their interests are no longer the same as those of their workers, or the country as a whole.
These corporations don’t need America anymore. Ever on the rise, more than half their revenues come from abroad, and their products increasingly come from overseas as well. And with the huge potential for growth outside the US that is not going to change for quite some time. Standards of living for the people on the wrong side of the economic divide are being driven lower, and although no one wants to admit it, they will more than likely remain that way for years to come.
Forget the tall tale rhetoric of the politicians, as both parties are perversely in bed with corporate lobbyists. Their hollow assurances are in fact harmful, as they dangerously obfuscate and delay much needed information from getting to the general public... to fuel 'our revolution.'
New ideas on a grand scale are critically needed. The U.S. can’t recover, with so many of its citizens condemned to shrunken standards of living because they can’t find adequate employment, or shackled with a government clandestinely controlled by corporate power grabs and greed.
Long-term joblessness is a surefire recipe for a society to destabilize... and without a dramatic change of direction, will undeniably be a part of our future.
Where we go from here is anyone's guess.. but one thing's for sure, it's going to be a very rough ride... and it's coming quicker than anyone foresaw, or ever dreamed possible.
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Couldn't happen in the U.S !!... really...
...not as large, but growing in numbers and size every day... Obamaville Shanty Towns...
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(4 minute video)
