Scary Economy... Are spectrum people more vulnerable?

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By summer, gasoline is supposed to average around 4 dollars a gallon. Other prices are rising and rising but jobs are less and less.

What do we do? A social worker told me that there are already plenty of homeless aspies. Will there be more? Any ideas?

Locally, I'm trying to get us to act as an autism community so that we can do more for each other, share what we've discovered that helps, or resources, act as safety nets for each other when we can.

Beating overpopulation is the only good fix for this. However, getting the population growth to zero or below is made difficult by stupid humans.

It is a valid concern. Right now, my Aspie daughter, age 25, is homeless. She receives benefits, but is constantly getting into conflicts with other tenants wherever she rents, and I have lost count of how many times they ganged up on her and got her evicted. Same with part time jobs. She tried living in group homes, when younger, but the same thing happened. Since she was an undiagnosed Aspie at that time, the staff there didn't understand her issues, and kicked her out of the program. She refuses to move back home, and I'm not sure my own landlord would approve anyway.

I go in and out of homelessness about every 12 years. I have no doubt ( though I don't look forward to it) that I will be homelss again. I just thought that was how everyone lived, although intellectually I knew they didn't. I happens to a lot of us. Think of the Aspies out there that still don't know. . and will never know, sleeping under bridges, huddling in homeless shelters, sleeping in tents ( I slept in a tent for 3 years not two years ago, no electricity let alone a computer, etc.)

Merle

It is definitely a valid concern - as the job market shrinks, competition increases and little things that don't usually make a difference suddenly become a deciding factor.

I've always believed the United States is way too reliant on free enterprise and the private sector. It costs lives for a start (you only have to look at the lame reaction to Hurricane Katrina for proof of that!) and increases poverty in general as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

This is why the US needs the Democrats back in the Whitehouse. Bill Clinton may have his critics, but if I recall correctly he put taxes up on the rich. It didn't make him very popular with big business, but he made sure the tax hikes showed something. Bush did completely the opposite and it's why the US is facing a recession as we speak.

It's funny (not the laughing kind) but in Australia we have a similar issue with tax cuts. It was intended to encourage saving, but people spent instead and pushed up inflation, and consequently interest rates - killing the benefits of the tax cuts for the middle classes.

The price of oil is really the fault of oil producers - mostly from Saudi Arabia. They know that global warming is a threat to their hip pockets and they are pushing prices up to counter that - knowing that we aren't yet ready to switch to other fuels, and maybe trying to get the regular person to go back to oil and forget global warming (pipe dream on the Saudi's part!).

In the US, they need more rail services and make the existing ones safer (New York for example). If private enterprise won't foot the bill, the government has to. Here in Victoria, Australia, we've spent a huge amount of money on rail infrastructure - and people flooded to the trains. So much so it overloaded the system! And an Aspie like me who prefers some room on the train isn't very happy about it either right now - although I understand why it's happened and so forth.

Sorry for the long rant, but this struck a number of pet subjects of mine!

Its best to ask an economist this question because they understand much better than I do from my view point.

Last edited by JerryHatake on 08 Mar 2008, 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, that's completely untrue. Your formula is not applicable to this issue. First of all, oil is overvalued right now. Second of all, crude oil futures being priced highly does not indicate that the money the US receives is increasing when hardly any oil is produced in the US. Investments in energy are frequently carried out as a hedge, which would indicate the opposite.

On another note, I personally think the US should heavily tax gasoline sales to create even more of an incentive to use public transportation.

In my limited experience around autism spectrum meltdowns, insecuiity attacks, paranoia attacks and anxiety attacks, just reacting reassuring and as a calm understanding safety net puts out the fires and reassures everyone else that aspies are sweet teddy bears who can have big, huge meltdowns. I wonder if we had programs where mentors were trained to manage those homes you described if it would work. I think that older aspies who have been through a lot and now have deeper understanding would be good mentors.

I live in a semi rural area. My neighbors live for their horses. They like the idea of cars going away and horses playing a bigger part in transporation again.

NM

Scary scarce Economics topic

Jeepers, Hartz, no wonder you have been upset lately. My heart goes out to your daughter. I know what I was like at 25, even if I was looking after a 6 year old child. It took a long time to sort things out. People do want to be independent. A parent's job does not end just because the kids fledge.

It is easier for NTs. My 34 year old daughter is a city bus driver, and my 16 year old son has had a part-time job since he was 14. He works enough hours a week to get benefits! My 13 year old wants a job as soon as she is 14. They are lucky.

Many differently abled people are poor because our economy does not value them. If you are not fast enough, smart enough, social enough or young enough, then you might be rejected. We on the Spectrum are excellent employees who work twice as hard as our NT Spectrum counterparts. Give us a chance.

The price of oil has gone up because investors are seeking higher rates of return that they can't get in other areas right now. Stock, bonds, the dollar and real estate are all down right now. Because of his investors are pouring money into commodities right now. The price of oil is in a bubble and it will burst just like stocks did after 9/11 and real estate did last year.

Thanks, sartresue. It's difficult to talk about, cause it hurts so much.

Some of the solutions to Oil dependence (electric power, biofuels, etc.) generate their own problems, because the fundamental issue remains, dependence on availability of a fuel of some sort. If we all switch to electric cars, energy output would need to double from our powerplants, and many generators rely on non-renewable resources, or NRRs (some new powerplants being built in North America will rely on Natural Gas - an NRR in decline in North America). Switching to Biofuels means arable land will be used more for Biofuel production and less for Food production, at some point we would simply run out of land for Biofuel production (or maybe the Multinationals would ignore this and let the poor starve), and some Biofuel production generates at least the same amount of Greenhouse Gas as Oil.

We need to shift back to a lifestyle like what we had pre-industrial revolution. As mentioned in "End of Suburbia", We post-modern era is the only era in human existence when people have to travel vast distances to do almost anything, whether collecting food, water, clothing and supplies, etc. Even getting more fuel for the car can mean traveling far, which uses fuel! We need to move away from suburbian living, back to a lifestyle when everything you predominantly needed in the short- to mid- term could be gathered without having to drive a car.


And our species does need a smaller population. We cannot survive long-term in the numbers we currently have (not without something radical, such as space colonisation).

People seem to be less willing to hire us, as well. We can do the job. It's just that a lot of us aren't that good at job interviews. The companies want to hire people, who look powerful.

ive been homeless before and im shure i'll be homeless again at some point in my life. it doesnt really bother me exept i dont like being dirty