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Letters: Home sales, green tech, shelter
Letters in a computer with red mailbox flag
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: Yes it's a new year, but we start today's letters back in good ol' 2009. A couple of weeks ago we told you about an unexpected decline in new home sales. It was especially baffling because a report just a day earlier about used homes had been pretty good.
Analysts and economists alike were left scratching their heads. Not so Kristi Johnson who, she points out, lives in a 1923 Spanish Revival home in Minneapolis, Minn.
KRISTI JOHNSON: New versus used is a ploy by the construction industry to denigrate everything that came before this very moment. What would this planet look like if we all were convinced to have brand new construction?
Well, about that brand new construction. In that same show we reported that some money from the economic stimulus package -- specifically the part that is designated for green technology -- might eventually go to foreign companies. They've teamed up with American firms to get green projects off the ground.
David Kersting, from Norwalk, Conn., says that's mostly OK with him.
DAVID KERSTING: The government should tax U.S. companies the difference in savings that the corporations are receiving when they outsource. That way the only benefit for a company to outsource would be if they're having trouble finding a particular skill-set, not to save a buck by putting another American worker in the unemployment line.
Our New Year's Eve broadcast brought us something new. The big stories of the decade in one rhyming Marketplace Minute, courtesy of our morning host Bill Radke.
That inspired John Donovan from Alpharetta, Ga., to respond in kind.
JOHN DONOVAN: Now that I know what went wrong in the "oughts," my folio will reflect I've been well Radke-taught. I'm headed for riches, a Beemer -- I'm legit! And, gee, all it took was a Marketplace Minute.
Finally this week, a story we did just before Christmas at Union Station -- a homeless shelter right outside of Los Angeles. About how families are becoming the new face of homelessness. Better put, that would be families without teenage boys. One of the shelter's clients had explained to us the difficulties she had in finding space in a shelter because of her 15-year-old son.
That prompted Eric Hurley of Des Moines, Iowa, to write and wonder whether it was gender discrimination or whether all 15-year-olds are excluded?
Well, we asked, Eric. The perception is, real or not, that boys over the age of 10 can cause trouble. But there are some family shelters that cater to single fathers who have kids.
"A more relevant [question] is, is the reason for discrimination borne out by the evidence?" Are you serious? You are allowing that all homeless boys older than 10 years may deserve their lot. You suspect there are misbehaving 11-year-olds and are willing to consider that therefor all members of that demographic should be discriminated against accordingly.
I say you are walking down the same path of demagoguery as those who thought all Irish-Americans were hot-headed drunkards, that Japanese-Americans were barbaric, that Catholic-Americans were going to bring "antichrist" Papal rule, and that no women could do math and science. All false stereotypes born of lies, fear, hatred, oppression, and arrogance.
Yep, speculates the writer, perhaps all boys are nasty brutes and should be shunned from all services in their need.
Why has it become so difficult to see unjust discrimination when the victims are male?
We need to walk ourselves back from this hateful precipice before we destroy the lives of generations of boys and men.
Thank God for mothers like Pauline who rejected the faux family shelters that rejected her son and found Union Station where she can continue to care for and raise both her son and daughter. I wish that family the best.
In re Eric Hurley's comment: Profiling and discrimination are not necessarily unjustified in all cases. We applaud profiling when the police use the knowledge that the perpetrator of a specific crime escaped in a specific model of vehicle. The government discriminates when it refuses to issue driver's licenses to the blind, as do crisis pregnancy centers if they don't offer their services to women. Whether homeless shelters discriminate is not the only relevant question. A more relevant one is, is the reason for discrimination borne out by the evidence?
Interesting, "boys over the age of 10 can cause trouble" is the reason to exclude all boys from services when families become homeless. That is blatant stereotyping or profiling.
Try applying that policy with a few substitutions, such as "Irish can cause trouble" or "Hmong can cause trouble" or "African Americans can cause trouble" or "Jews can cause trouble" and therefor they can be denied services when their families are homeless. There would be appropriate outrage and these so-called family shelters would be picketed and hounded.
Are boys now the official last group we can stereotype and actively discriminate against.? Apparently so.
And I've been blind to seeing it. Thank you for so clearly, if inadvertently, reporting this discrimination.
I have following response about taxing savings for companies that outsource.
How about taxing the capital that is borrowed from outside the country. That way govt. and private entities will be forced to borrow from within the country to fund the trade/budget deficits. If you have problem outsourcing the why dont you have problem borrowing capital from other countries?
