[SeaGypsy]

I work in the health sector in Australia, in several different roles.
Specializing in behaviour managment, I often work with people who are physicly able but mentally/ socially dysfunctional to the point of needing assistance.

This assistance comes almost exclusively from the Guv/ via taxes.

I am right now sitting on a train going to look after a very large autistic young man who has a mental age of 18 months. It takes two of us to take him out safely, 6 hours at about $50 an hour. Every weekend this happens, both sunday and saturday, So this 1 guy's respite costs the community $600 a weekend.

Another friend in the same sector gets $120,000 a year to look after 1 juvenile delinquent, after he stabbed several members of his family and was non compliant with treatment after 3 years of incarceration.

Obviously these kinds of spendings are not sustainable.

The nuclear family reality has put people in a situation where they expect and depend on services like these to support them.

I also spend a lot of time in rural Philippines. There is absolutley none of this kind of support. If people can't behave, they are either locked up or summarily executed with a point blank bullet to the temple. I'm not making this up, it has happened twice in my village in the last 12 months, both times involved lunatics with knives. In Australia they would have got disability support, drug therapy, perhaps not even a day of jail.

My question is how long do people think this kind of spending will go on once things get seriously tight?

Like the other day reading that it costs millions of dollars per death row inmate (in the US) to achieve something which is achieved for not much more than the cost of a bullet in many other parts of the world.

I know all the arguments about social inclusion. However it seems utterly obvious that wasting a fortune on incurables is not realistic. In the long run it has to end.

The average cost of a mentally ill person to the tax payer in Australia is $140,000 a year. 90% remain dependent for life.
Their families expect this support. They feel entitled to it.
They will have no idea what to do when it is cut. They can't neglect the person to death, that is a crime.

Will natural justice come back into play in current first world countries as economies bite the dust? I very much suspect so.

What do others here think?

[DomusAlbion]

In Nazi Germany the less desirable where assigned to group home/institutions where some time later an epidemic of small pox, measles, or influenza would pass through and not surprisingly most of the patient/inmates would die.

I wouldn't classify these poor unfortunates as "dregs". To me the dregs are those who have, through their own bad behaviors, caused their afflictions; drunks, druggies, ... There's no helping them; they be dying by the thousands either through self-abuse or from crimes they commit or have committed upon them by their own ilk.

[SeaGypsy]

Yes Albion but that included 'undesirables' of such types as 'Gypsy' or homosexuals, Africans. Rediculous arbitrary tags. I am talking about people who do real actual harm to others, who do not respond to treatment, but continue to inflict harm.

There are still plenty of crazy people in the streets in the Philippines, although I would say a far smaller proportion.
Everybody knows that you can get drunk and raise your voice a bit, but picking up a machete and swinging it at people will almost certainly get you shot. This fear seems to keep most people in line. By comparison the system in Australia nursemaids these people.

[DomusAlbion]

... but picking up a machete and swinging it at people will almost certainly get you shot.

I believe we'll see this method adopted more and more as the world becomes harsher by necessity. Also we'll see the death penalty return and the number and types of crimes that "warrant" it expanded.

[SeaGypsy]

The death penalty as applied in the USA is massively inefficient when compared to what happens in China for example. A few days trial followed by a quick execution and a bill for the bullet to the family. For those who think this is extreme, compare to many other places in Asia where there wouldn't even be a trial, just summary execution followed by an official whitewash.

The 2 guys this happened to in my home town it was done in front of numerous witnesses by the local police, acting alone and without higher authority. Nobody saw a thing. The death certificates state these people died from 'heart failure'.

Whilst there is plenty of potential for corruption in the justice system in all countries, there is always going to be an argument that innocents can be falsely accused and killed. This being the case, even absolutely clear convictions are able to be contested for decades based on the possibility of doubt or mistrial.

There are cases where the best thing for the community is instant justice. I agree Albion, we will see more of this as the cookie crumbles.

[SeaGypsy]

Here is a guy worth a $3 bullet:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-23/g ... ge/2807456

[pedalling_faster]

The Dregs ?

Congress will recess, and go on a taxpayer financed vacation.

Israel will continue stirring up Sh!t & running a concentration camp occupied by 1.5 million Palestinians.

[PrestonSturges]

Burroughs considered about 15% of the population to be beyond rehabilitation, many of them churchgoers.

We have observed that most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus. Now a virus is an obligate cellular parasite and my contention is that evil is quite literally a virus parasite occupying a certain brain area which we may term the RIGHT center. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we must make a diagnostic distinction between the hard-core virus-occupied shit and a plain, ordinary, mean no-good son of a bitch. Some of these sons of bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone.

[Lumpy]

SeaGypsy -
You do raise a relevant question -- it's not so "out there" as some would have us think, either.

I have been practicing psychiatry for many years, now, and long ago (when I was doing residencies in prisons and jails) began to bemoan the loss of the huge mental institutions of old -- which were disbanded in the 1960's in favor of "community based mental health." What has evolved (or devolved) out of that is that the jails/prisons of today have become the de facto mental institutions of old -- without the true specialized psychiatric help that could be offered.

But I digress from your post, and my thoughts on it.

I have a family member who has been in and out (mostly in) of mental hospitals since 1997. He is now 40, and has been able to live in a group home for almost two years without rehospitalization. His parents see this as progress. I understand why they would. He has even been able to come to visit them twice this summer for the first time in ... I don't know how long. He takes a lot of meds, but the fires of his mental illness are burning less hot ... the embers have been banked down. This is not unusual ... many people with his type of illness will have it "burn out" in their 40's and more so in their 50's ... and they will live out peaceful, quiet, but probably subsidized lives.

HOWEVER, during his late 20's and early 30's his was a wildly assaultive human being, whose existence was defined by his raving lunacy and the fall-out therefrom.

I love the person this man once was ... and is sort of turning back into. But do not see a way for our society to continue to tolerate behaviors like his were for over 10 years, AND house and feed and care for him.

It is a simple fact of life ahead that people with illnesses we once could not treat, then could, will begin to die again of those illnesses.

A lot of people like this family member of mine will die by bullet ... when they assault someone in a crazed frenzy. (I've seen him like that -- it is not pretty and it IS damn scary.)

Similarly, we are not going to be seeing a lot of heart/lung transplants happening, either.

The great die off will manifest in many forms.

Lumpy

[vision-master]

Our life here is short

Are you prepared for what comes next?

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Will you suffer death for eternity?

no more money, no more fancy dreSS
this other kingdom seems by far the best

Why iS 'evolution' good for you?

[AgentR11]

I suspect it will vary from culture to culture, with Asian cultures generally doing as SeaGypsy describes; European cultures have a long history of preferring to permanently lockup the dangerously broken. I suspect the US will fall to this mode as well, we get squeemish as heck executing people, but even today if someone is locked up "life without parole" in a 5'x5' box, the case instantly is forgotten as uninteresting. Latin America, probably the same as us; they dislike executing people even more than we do, but don't think anything of throwing them in prison to kill each other.

Either way, as funds do get tight, I think this gentle compassionate treatment of the dangerously broken will come to an end. They can have a box, and some daily food. After they die, open the box, hose it out, ready for the next.

[vision-master]

Are we nothing more than beasts of burden?


The path to Love

Worry for others

Pray for everyone

Give your blessings to one and all

Listen to those who YOU have cast away

Forgive your transgressors

Work towards a brighter future

vm

What will the Christians do?

[Fishman]

"What will the Christians do? VM, I've worked with them in very poor third word countries. They do the best they can with the resources they have, with far more compassion than most.
Lets refraise the question, what will we do with those that can't function in society can no longer be protected from themselves? Go to Williamsburg, Va, visit the Psych hospital. You function in the mainstream, you function on the edge, or you don't function. The consequences with minimal meds and resources is institutionalization with decreasing amenities, or living on the decreasing scraps of of society, or death. Not a value judgement, just a statement of fact.

[Pops]

I don't know anything about mental illness. But obviously if we don't find another cheap energy solution to provide the surpluses we in the rich world have become used to then lots of luxuries will go away and not just for the very handicapped. But you have each touched on what will probably happen first, most of us will simply not be able to walk away from family and put them on ignore.

Maybe related somewhat is this:
As ScienceDaily summarized the study: "In 1969, only about 10 percent of men in their early thirties had wages that were below poverty level. By 2004, the share had more than doubled. Overall, the share of young adults in 2005 living in poverty was higher than the national average."
And that was before the recession...

Which brings up this chart of adults living in Mom's basement/home ownership:


Another thing that will have to happen will be some adjustment in the mandatory sentencing and "Just Say Jail" approach to drugs. It's pretty silly to sell the one requisite to produce crank over the counter because one pharmaceutical company will be hurt and then throw the thousands of tweakers that result onto the justice system for the tax payers to support when they spin-out.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/1 ... 95185.html
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

[Lumpy]

.... as funds do get tight, I think this gentle compassionate treatment of the dangerously broken will come to an end. They can have a box, and some daily food. After they die, open the box, hose it out, ready for the next.

I am sure you are right about the compassionate treatment of the dangerously broken (GREAT PHRASE!) -- and that each culture will handle it differently.

I think a bullet is more humane than the box, myself. Seriously!

Lumpy

[Sixstrings]

What will the Christians do?

Christians ought to consider what Christ said:
"As you do unto the least of these you do unto me."

Buddhism says the same thing, phrased differently as "buddha nature" -- even animals have buddha nature, if you're cruel to an animal you're really hurting yourself.

So that's where I stand. I don't care if the Nibiru asteroid is hurtling towards us and all the oil is gone and I haven't eaten for a week -- I'm still going to be a good person. I'm going to keep my morality.

More on point with the OP.. the best answer would be to figure out an optimal percentage of healthcare costs vs. GDP. Costs are indeed out of control in the US -- we spend twice as much as Europe but don't live as long. I suspect this has to be going into corporate profits because our home health aides aren't making $25 an hour. I see ads paying $10 an hour (and our dollars are worth less than Aussie).

Corp profits and millionaire dentists are one thing, but at the nursing level how is that a waste of money? Healthcare is one of the few job fields my state has left. People need work to do, what's so bad about caring for the sick versus a job that involves scamming people out of money.

Maybe the real question of this thread should be.. what happens to all of us after hedge funds and billionaires and banksters and the rest of the top 1% have taken all the money.

[bluekachina]

What will the Christians do?

Christians ought to consider what Christ said:

"As you do unto the least of these you do unto me."

Buddhism says the same thing, phrased differently as "buddha nature" -- even animals have buddha nature, if you're cruel to an animal you're really hurting yourself.

So that's where I stand. I don't care if the Nibiru asteroid is hurtling towards us and all the oil is gone and I haven't eaten for a week -- I'm still going to be a good person. I'm going to keep my morality.

Maybe the real question of this thread should be.. what happens to all of us after hedge funds and billionaires and banksters and the rest of the top 1% have taken all the money.

+1

Martin Niemoeller, a priest and Member of the Council of the German Protestant Church, who spent himself 8 years in Nazi concentration camps, said this on the Nazi era: "When the Nazis started arresting the communists, I remained silent, for I was no communist. When they arrested the social democrats, I did not speak out, for I was no social democrat. When they imprisoned the trade unionists, I kept my mouth shut, for I was no trade unionist. When they took the Jews, I said nothing, for I was not Jewish. When they came to take me, there was no one left to speak out.

The response will be to disenfranchise one group after another. As different groups are excluded from the economic pie, there is more left for the select group. The blond blue-eyed Aryans remember the years running up to WWII and through 1942 as a wonderful time of plenty.

[Outcast_Searcher]

This is what drives me crazy about the system, and why I disavow BOTH parties.

The "Christian Right" wants to jail them, or kill them and throw them in the ditch, while proclaimin to represent "moral" behavior. Meanwhile, they fight new taxes at every turn, AND want to start a war with anyone they're afraid of.

Meanwhile on the hard left, they want EVERY social program in sight, and refuse to prioritize. You can't for example, afford to have fantastic lifelong health care for the mentally ill, AND "free" healthcare for all with things like no limits, no meaningful copays, etc, AND do things like have unlimited unemployment for anyone who says they can't find a job.

Neither side will set priorities. In setting priorities, you many have to make some hard decisions though. Is well upwards of $100,000 a year to make life a bit better for a lifelong mentally ill patient more important than utilizing those resources to inexpensive and effective preventative medical care for MANY young poor people, for example?

I don't pretend to have the right answers. I WILL say that we need to actually have serious discussions, set priorities we can afford, and live within them. If we don't like them and things change -- then we can let them evolve.

What we have now is an arbitrary mess where those with the smallest lobbying group get the least help.

[bluekachina]

The answer is to outlaw public ownership of companies and outlaw investment/lending.

If all companies must be privately owned, and the only way to make money off your money is to own your own business, you solve the whole mess.

When there is no way to make money off your money, no place to put your money, there is less incentive to accumulation, only to fund your own business, creating jobs, and enhancing real competition in the marketplace.

When public ownership is eliminated, it puts a natural cap on the size of businesses. It also creates a clear chain of liability. Every business will have a private owner who will ultimately be responsible.

Investment bankers are the scourge of the world and need to be eliminated.

[SeaGypsy]

That's part of what will inevitably happen, only not as a result of legislation, but as a natural response to failure of the current system. Not for the life of me can I see any govenment heading towards this deliberately.

I don't see the emergence of anything radicaly new on the way down Olduvai's slope. I am more proposing the re-emergence of values common to pre oil age societies Unacceptable behaviour aross the board was dealt with in a very different manner Whether capital or incarceratve punishments they were efficient and generally effective in getting people to tow the line morally and ethicly.

We still see primitive justice and health systems operating often simultaneously to the modern system in places, real justice if it exists at all is a privelege of the rich. Real caring cannot be bought or paid for and is the privelege of the loved