
Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston - Caveman_Coder
http://ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533&LangID=E
======
GuiA
The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience
living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a
European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me
because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless
population, I witness it on a near daily basis:

 _" I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of homeless
people to move on but having no answer when asked where they could move to"_

As I said, I witness this extremely regularly just outside of my apartment. It
ranges from a patrol car stopping for a few minutes to just give a talk to the
homeless people that amounts to "hey, we're the police, we are letting you
know we're here and we've got our eye on you... we know you can't magically
stop being homeless but please stop looking so homeless", all the way to 4-5
cars + a firetruck/ambulance on standby while the officers make the homeless
people take down camp, pat them down, etc. with sometimes a city sanitation
pickup truck taking away all of their possessions as garbage (it seems that
many homeless people are hoarders).

I'm not sure what's going on "behind the scenes" here. Is it an irate neighbor
that calls the police complaining about the homeless people and asking them to
do something about it, which they then do their best to? Or is interacting
with the homeless population an actual, documented part of their job? If so,
is it tracked? What are the outcomes they hope for?

What I observe is that when they make the homeless people leave, they'll
typically be back a few days/weeks later, so clearly this is only shuffling
the problem around, rather than actually solving it in any meaningful way.

My hunch is that this is all essentially theater - the police/fire department
know they can't do anything, but have instructions from above to do
"something" about it, so they just end up doing what they can, even if it is
utterly pointless and ineffective. But at least the irate neighbor is
satisfied that there are no more homeless people outside their window for now.

It's all very sad.

~~~
alexandercrohde
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and
that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this
not the case?

~~~
vkou
There aren't enough beds, and many homeless people prefer sleeping on the
street, then in a shelter, for a number of logical reasons.

1\. They are more likely to be assaulted or robbed in a shelter. Shelter staff
may or may not do shit to help you.

2\. Shelter admission hours can be limited - they may be incompatible with
their job.

3\. You are expected to be drug and alochol free in a shelter. For someone
with an addiction, this may not be something they can accept. [1]

[1] Before anyone suggests that the solution is for those people to just quit
their addiction, please keep in mind that there are many wealthy, intelligent,
mentally sound people in a stable, supportive environment, with a loving
family are unable to break their addictions.

~~~
mschuster91
> 3\. You are expected to be drug and alochol free in a shelter. For someone
> with an addiction, this may not be something they can accept.

There's an addition to this: pets, especially dogs but also rats. For many
homeless people their pets are their only living companion - but shelters
accepting people with pets are a rarity even in Europe. Of course, because
multiple dogs in the same space will lead to all night barking, territory
fights etc. - this is why unconditional (!) housing first policies are the
only thing that works.

------
rayiner
> 2\. My visit coincides with a dramatic change of direction in US policies
> relating to inequality and extreme poverty. The proposed tax reform package
> stakes out America’s bid to become the most unequal society in the world,
> and will greatly increase the already high levels of wealth and income
> inequality between the richest 1% and the poorest 50% of Americans

Really hard to take this seriously. I don’t think anyone in the US needs a tax
cut right now, so I oppose the tax reform. But the fact is that before the
Trump tax cuts, US corporate tax rates were higher both in theory and _in
practice_ than in Germany, France, Australia, Canada, etc.
[https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-
the...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the-u-s-have-
the-highest-corporate-tax-rate-in-the-world)

Our taxes are also far more progressive than Germany, France, and Sweden:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/ameri...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-
taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-
least/?utm_term=.a05b599f3342). Trump’s tax plan won’t change that: the cuts
in the top rates are very small and even most people in the top 1% won’t be
able to take advantage of things like pass through treatment.

~~~
wsxcde
Could you explain how the statement "before the Trump tax cuts, US corporate
tax rates were higher both in theory and in practice than in Germany, France,
Australia, Canada, etc. [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-
does-the...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the...")
rebuts the professor's claim that the tax cuts will "greatly increase the
already high levels of wealth and income inequality"?

~~~
rayiner
It’s more the “bid to become the most unequal society” framing of the point.
That makes it seem like the US is doing something different than everyone
else. The entire OECD has been cutting corporate tax rates massively over the
past few decades: [https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/corporate-tax-cuts-
and-...](https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/corporate-tax-cuts-and-tax-
revenues).

------
ultimoo
Philip Alston
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Alston](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Alston)

------
downandout
_" The proposed tax reform package stakes out America’s bid to become the most
unequal society in the world, and will greatly increase the already high
levels of wealth and income inequality between the richest 1% and the poorest
50% of Americans....It is against this background that my report is
presented."_

It's interesting that he is a law professor (not an economics professor) and
yet he stated this as if it were incontrovertible fact, with no facts to back
up his prediction, and then went on to base much of the rest of his report on
it. That statement may turn out to be true, and it may turn out to be false,
but it is certainly not settled fact.

It renders this entire report meaningless, as it is based on nothing more than
speculation on the part of a clearly biased author about what the outcome of
recent tax policy changes will be.

~~~
WaylonKenning
It's interesting that you're an Entrepreneur (not a Special Rapporteur on
extreme poverty and human rights) and yet you've rendered this entire report
meaningless, in-spite of all the additional body of evidence considered in the
report.

~~~
downandout
I read it. He presents no evidence that the recent tax reform has exacerbated
the wealth gap. Of course, he couldn’t have, because the reforms were only
recently passed, and thus it is not possible to know what the long-term
outcome will be. By his own admission, he framed the entire report in light of
his false statement of fact made at the beginning.

So, while there are some interesting factual tidbits sprinkled throughout the
report, any conclusions that it reaches based upon those facts are
meaningless, because they are colored by the false statement of fact.

~~~
arcticbull
"stakes out America's bid" implies that this is intention and not result yet,
so he's not claiming that it's happened yet.

------
Zelphyr
Apologies for going off topic but what the hell did the developers of that do
to the keys? If you scroll down and then use the down arrow you're taken to
the top of the page and, paradoxically, one of the nav items opens. Can't use
Command-Left Arrow to go back in the history. Just does nothing. Did they do
that on purpose? Who thought that was a good idea? One I hope doesn't spread.

~~~
mschuster91
> If you scroll down and then use the down arrow you're taken to the top of
> the page and, paradoxically, one of the nav items opens

I can't reproduce this one, but cmd+r and then using the arrows does not work
- only after clicking with the mouse once in the text.

The HTML output of that page is an utter, utter mess including MS Office
comments revealing part of their internal infrastructure and workflow (look
for www-edit.in.ohchr.org in the source). Jeez.

------
mc32
I don't doubt the gist of most of the report. We could do much better with the
money we spend on Health...

but this sounds odd: "Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are
increasingly common in the USA"

Given that a few years ago it was unheard of disease by most professionals.

~~~
dominotw
Not sure what point he is tyring to make with that

> 424 symptomatic Zika virus disease cases reported*

> 414 cases in travelers returning from affected areas

> 4 cases acquired through presumed local mosquito-borne transmission in
> Florida (N=2) and Texas (N=2)

> 6 cases acquired through sexual transmission

There were ~10 cases were people got infected by zika while in united states.

How is spending more money on public health going to prevent people getting
infected while overseas.

[https://www.cdc.gov/zika/reporting/2017-case-
counts.html](https://www.cdc.gov/zika/reporting/2017-case-counts.html)

------
arturmakly
video talk :
[https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJkLD_s9pYaYteD-3LxQd2f...](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJkLD_s9pYaYteD-3LxQd2fIGakaf3_Fq)

------
davidcollantes
Interesting, and sad to read. Our America has many problems, many of which
shouldn't exist on a nation as rich as ours. What amazes me is, did he gather
all that, first hand, within two weeks?!

------
protomyth
_US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world_

This is a common stat thrown around, but there is a non-obvious caveat. How
this is counted differs between countries (even different in different EU
countries). Wikipedia has a pretty good summary.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality)

~~~
sjg007
It's not reporting: "the differences in reporting are unlikely to be the
primary explanation for the United States' relatively low international
ranking. Rather, the report concluded that primary reason for the United
States’ higher infant mortality rate when compared with Europe was the United
States’ much higher percentage of preterm births.[72]" from the wikipedia
article you cite.

The question is why does America have a higher "percentage" of preterm births.
I'll give you one reason, lack of affordable health care.

~~~
hnburnsy
Doesn't this explain why?

"A non-viable live birth in the US could be registered as a stillbirth in
similarly developed nations like Japan, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, the
Netherlands, and France – thereby reducing the infant death count. Neonatal
intensive care is also more likely to be applied in the US to marginally
viable infants..."

~~~
sjg007
"the differences in reporting are unlikely to be the primary explanation for
the United States' relatively low international ranking."

and

"Many countries, including the United States, Sweden and Germany, count an
infant exhibiting any sign of life as alive, no matter the month of gestation
or the size, but according to United States some other countries differ in
these practices."

------
dominotw
> often make their profits purely from speculation rather than contributing to
> the overall wealth of the American community.

Wondering what some of these speculations are. Stock markets?

~~~
tmnvix
Property is a big one.

------
gwright
That report starts out with the ridiculous statement that "40 million people
continue to live in poverty" in the US.

If you spend just five or ten minutes trying to understand where that number
comes from you can only include that Mr. Alston is either unimaginably
incompetent in understanding poverty statistics or he is being massively
disingenuous in his reporting.

A little googling will show that the 40 million number is based on cash income
that doesn't excludes massive amounts of government assistance (housing
assistance, food stamps, and so on). It is an absolute useless statistic to
use as a primary statement about "poverty" in the US.

Here is a good take down of this misleading report:
[http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018/1/30/completely-
tak...](http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018/1/30/completely-taken-in-by-
the-poverty-fraud)

~~~
shkkmo
A little googling will show that "there is no international consensus on
guidelines for measuring poverty".

I agree that "40 million people continue to live in poverty" is a claim that
needs an accompanying definition of poverty and and description of the
measurement methodology to really convey information. However that number is
the Official US estimate of its own poverty rate. I agree that our methodology
of measure poverty in the US is laughable and needs improvement, but you can't
blame Mr. Alston for that.

Your assertion that this claim is "ridiculous" and that Mr. Alston is
"unimaginably incompetent" or "massively disingenuous" for using the US's own
measurement of poverty is thus clearly beyond hyperbole and more than a little
ridiculous and quite disingenuous itself.

~~~
gwright
So you agree that the statistic is meaningless without context and yet you are
OK with that being the lead in the report?

~~~
shkkmo
I would have preferred to see context provided with the statistic (as it
should be with every statistic). I don't think that usage of that statistic
without context is meaningless given that it is the official US estimate of
poverty. I certainly don't think the usage of that statistic without context
warrants anything close to the vitriolic language that you used.

~~~
gwright
I did use strong language. The statistic as used is extremely misleading. So
far I haven't seen anyone discredit that conclusion. Pointing out that it is
an official statistics isn't a rationale in favor of its use in this way. It
happens to be just _one_ of the measures of poverty published by the US
government. There are lots of other poverty statistics that could have been
used and so I can only assume the use was intentionally misleading.

~~~
shkkmo
You could have come in here and made a constructive comment about the number
and the associate methodology of measuring poverty. Instead you made unfounded
and unwarranted attacks on the author and made zero constructive contributions
to the conversation.

If you want to make people more aware of better measures of poverty, you
should have come in here with a critique of the measurement without the
vitriol and ideally with examples of better measures that can be used.

~~~
gwright
You are right, I could have done that and probably should have done that.

I have a certain amount of frustration that resulted in me venting rather than
contributing. The misuse of the official US poverty stat is not something new.
It has been floating around for a while and has been criticized quite a bit --
yet it is still used to put forth misleading arguments out of ignorance most
often but not always. Here is a link on this very issue from 2011:

[https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-
inequality/report/under...](https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-
inequality/report/understanding-poverty-the-united-states-surprising-facts-
about?_ga=2.139130678.443965254.1519341692-1519354153.1479182938)

It is one thing for a misleading statistic to be repeated in tweets, online
discussions, comment streams and so on. It is a completely different thing for
the misleading stat to be coming from an "authority". They _should_ know
better.

