4 ms·

India's wealth gap is absolutely jarring. There are beautiful fenced mansions with manicured lawns and just outside the fence homeless kids setting up fires for

India's wealth gap is absolutely jarring. There are beautiful fenced mansions with manicured lawns and just outside the fence homeless kids setting up fires for the night.

javiramos 9y ago
Same in SF, you see Ferraris driving along Market St. while homeless people shoot up or defecate on the sidewalk.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  And the bigger problem is Americans are becoming immune to the suffering. Hell--there's a handful of you whom are rationalizing the homelessness problem right now. "If they just didn't do whatever?" We used to be appalled, but now a head could come following out of an alley, and oh well? I'm embarrassed to admit I've become hardened a bit too. My hope is we go back to being appalled,and not just at the usuall nations that we don't quite get, but ours. I don't see that happening. I just see more laws, roadblocks, and "educational will cure the problem." Many of you in tech will feel the cold reality when this party dies down, or maybe there's a sympathetic parent that will offer a basement? I hope for the latter--a lot of you come from living, responsible families. (We need to immediately build restrooms across America. F--- the Wall. We need places to chit, and wash our hands. When ever I have to go to SF, I actively think about my colon. Everyone should have the right to use a restroom.)
- barney54 9y ago
  No, it's not close to the same. There is homelessness in SF, but the level of poverty in India is breathtaking.
  - j45 9y ago
    Places like India have a much wider spectrum of extremes between incredible poverty and incredible wealth. North America has a subset of that spectrum. If you don't believe this, I challenge you to drop yourself into 0-star in any place like India and see how it stretches you.
- hueving 9y ago
  That's a mental health issue in the US. Every city has shelters, food kitchens, etc so if you are mentally stable, clean of drugs, and not too proud to take charity you don't need to be on the streets for long. Where the US system fails is with mentally unstable people and drug addicts. This is nowhere near the same thing as an entire lower class of 10s of millions willing to work that are still homeless.
  - geodel 9y ago
    Not just willing to work, substantial number of them are working. It is just that income is too low or any kind housing is too expensive.
- dkarl 9y ago
  Very much not the same. In the United States sleeping on the street is associated with addiction and mental illness, or in teenagers with abuse. In India it is commonplace for high-functioning people to sleep on the streets on in illegally constructed shacks with no water or sanitation, for purely economic reasons. There are a lot of articles published saying half of New Yorkers are a single paycheck away from homelessness, 60% of Americans are a single emergency expense from homelessness, etc., but every month lots of those people lose their jobs and have emergency expenses, and they aren't flooding onto the street or into emergency shelters. Those alarming-sounding numbers come with really important caveats like "without relying on family" and "without relying on friends" or even "without going into debt." Having access to those resources is a really important aspect of social class. Even the people shitting in the sidewalk in San Francisco, a lot of them have friends and family who have money and would love to help them if they could figure out how. The difference when you're homeless in India is that everybody you know is either in the same circumstances as you or knows so many people who are that it doesn't make sense to single you out for help.
  - itissid 9y ago
    There is a safety net here, if for example you get homeless after working or are disabled. There is no such thing in India. Sure you can have an employee contributed benefits plan(if you are lucky to have one of those employers). If you became poor after 20 years of working you are in the same boat as some poor kid teen who was born on the street.

India's wealth gap is absolutely jarring. There are beautiful fenced mansions with manicured lawns and just outside the fence homeless kids setting up fires for the night.

javiramos 9y ago

Same in SF, you see Ferraris driving along Market St. while homeless people shoot up or defecate on the sidewalk.

icantdrive55 9y ago
And the bigger problem is Americans are becoming immune to the suffering. Hell--there's a handful of you whom are rationalizing the homelessness problem right now. "If they just didn't do whatever?" We used to be appalled, but now a head could come following out of an alley, and oh well? I'm embarrassed to admit I've become hardened a bit too. My hope is we go back to being appalled,and not just at the usuall nations that we don't quite get, but ours. I don't see that happening. I just see more laws, roadblocks, and "educational will cure the problem." Many of you in tech will feel the cold reality when this party dies down, or maybe there's a sympathetic parent that will offer a basement? I hope for the latter--a lot of you come from living, responsible families. (We need to immediately build restrooms across America. F--- the Wall. We need places to chit, and wash our hands. When ever I have to go to SF, I actively think about my colon. Everyone should have the right to use a restroom.)
barney54 9y ago
No, it's not close to the same. There is homelessness in SF, but the level of poverty in India is breathtaking.
- j45 9y ago
  Places like India have a much wider spectrum of extremes between incredible poverty and incredible wealth. North America has a subset of that spectrum. If you don't believe this, I challenge you to drop yourself into 0-star in any place like India and see how it stretches you.
hueving 9y ago
That's a mental health issue in the US. Every city has shelters, food kitchens, etc so if you are mentally stable, clean of drugs, and not too proud to take charity you don't need to be on the streets for long. Where the US system fails is with mentally unstable people and drug addicts. This is nowhere near the same thing as an entire lower class of 10s of millions willing to work that are still homeless.
- geodel 9y ago
  Not just willing to work, substantial number of them are working. It is just that income is too low or any kind housing is too expensive.
dkarl 9y ago
Very much not the same. In the United States sleeping on the street is associated with addiction and mental illness, or in teenagers with abuse. In India it is commonplace for high-functioning people to sleep on the streets on in illegally constructed shacks with no water or sanitation, for purely economic reasons. There are a lot of articles published saying half of New Yorkers are a single paycheck away from homelessness, 60% of Americans are a single emergency expense from homelessness, etc., but every month lots of those people lose their jobs and have emergency expenses, and they aren't flooding onto the street or into emergency shelters. Those alarming-sounding numbers come with really important caveats like "without relying on family" and "without relying on friends" or even "without going into debt." Having access to those resources is a really important aspect of social class. Even the people shitting in the sidewalk in San Francisco, a lot of them have friends and family who have money and would love to help them if they could figure out how. The difference when you're homeless in India is that everybody you know is either in the same circumstances as you or knows so many people who are that it doesn't make sense to single you out for help.
- itissid 9y ago
  There is a safety net here, if for example you get homeless after working or are disabled. There is no such thing in India. Sure you can have an employee contributed benefits plan(if you are lucky to have one of those employers). If you became poor after 20 years of working you are in the same boat as some poor kid teen who was born on the street.