The hidden agenda behind evictions, foreclosures, deportations and imprisonments

The "economy" as defined by practice and operating dogma throughout the world counts on much private individual misfortune to achieve "profits" which may show up in public view as a stock market price rise or other "favorable" event. This article will seek to describe the process in detail with examples.

Forced move to smaller quarters

Individuals and families finding themselves faced with this disaster typically make the unhappy decision to relinquish some of their possessions to the garbage dumpster. This may be partly due to the fact that they habitually suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder and can not muster the courage to try to sell their things or give things away, preventing waste of the belongings. After completing the move, and a period of time to rebuild their lives, they may buy over again some of the same kinds of things they previously had owned and gave up. This adds an inadequately researched percentage to the profits of manufacturers and marketers who may in turn "sense" a need to support government policy and laws which increase the frequency of such forced moves, and to support the candidacy of legislators who, once elected, would support such policy and laws.

Deportation

An individual captured by this fate may not have time or option to do anything about protecting the majority of their possessions which are often discarded by an apartment building owner or succeeding occupant, who is often unlikely to be interested in retaining any or much of the property.

Imprisonment

Anger and prejudice directed at the allegedly guilty person may lead those remaining behind, even family members, to throw away his or her possessions in a punitive spirit of cleansing the household of disgrace or contagion. Words like "dirty" and "bad" abound in the culture for excusing such trashing behavior. At some future time the punishee may again have the funding to buy replacements, feeding profits.

Remedies

Ideally, at the risk of accusations of "socialism", there ought to be a more extended system for sharing goods that anyone for whatever reason cannot hold onto. An example would be recycling and creative-reuse collection centers to which things can be donated, which should be present in greater abundance especially near public housing projects where much waste of clothing, toys, furniture etc. is observed on a regular basis as vulnerable persons undergo psychological impacts and lose their grip.

Creative reuse workshops

In every neighborhood there should be a center to which orphaned belongings can be donated, where they may be shelved and exhibited and put up for sale-- or, as needed, worked on, adapted, repaired, rebuilt into a new product. Past efforts to establish such an institution have often failed due to not getting beyond the first idea, simply exhibiting for resale, good though that is. Often the failure resulted from not sorting out the materials by type, size, etc. as employees are trained to do at any big bucks store.

Shelving

A key missing ingredient is enough shelving of size and type to organize the stock on-- so that an obligatory aspect of this enterprise would be to have an attached or adjacent woodworking shop where foundling boards and bars are made into shelving. By one estimate 13% of all contents of landfill are lumber products, which could have been saved, trimmed, sanded, made into transitional "housing" for goods which will need to be mounted in such a way that they are visible and accessible to reworking staff, shoppers, reusers. Making the shelving would be a highest priority item in the education part of the "recycling plus education" paradigm-- training shelfmakers can make this idea exportable from an initial exemplary start to other neighborhoods. A high percentage of all the goods is likely to be small enough that they can be stacked loose or in boxes on shelving which has spaces of roughly a foot height and depth and a yard or so width. The 3/4" boards used to make the shelves would in this case be about a foot wide and a yard long. A portable stackable shelving set would have three boards enclosing two spaces, and four such units stacked against a wall would provide the shelving needed in a room of average ceiling height. Four boards up to two feet long and six inches wide could be used as the standers left and right, and pre-drilled bars about 2 x 12 inches nailed or screwed to the stander boards to hold the stander boards together and support the shelfboards. One or two further wood pieces may be used as bracing behind the shelves, and also as protection against objects falling off in the rear. _________________________________________________________________

In the next days further ideas will be added to this article, plus hopefully an instructive diagram related to how to make the shelving.