[nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

Thu Apr 22 22:30:06 UTC 2010

I think it is important to add to what John is saying as he is right on
target.  We all need to remember that before the NFB got the Congress to
grant the blind Social Security, the responsibility fell to charities and to
the families of the uneducated and unemployed blind.  It did not work and
that was why there were blind people begging in the streets.  

What is needed are methods that enable the ready for employment blind person
to move from SSI to work without immediately losing all their SSI until they
earn an amount that keeps them above the poverty level when the SSI is
removed.

The second item that is needed is the need to change the attitudes of the
sighted people who hold the power to hire workers.  These folks contribute
more to the 70% unemployment rate than anything.  As said already, until we
solve this problem, everything else is secondary.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of John G. Heim
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 10:53 AM
To: qubit; NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

Well, trying to stay on topic here, there has been a suggestion that we'd be

better off without SSI and presumably SSDI. Is it likely that a private 
charity could take the place of those programs? Not very. I can more or less

prove that...

The poverty level is currently around $15,000. But lets say the average SSI 
or SSDI recipient could get by with $10,000 a year. Now lets figure the 
average employed blind person makes $50,000 a year. That's probably way high

too. Now lets say the average blind person with a job would be willing to 
contribute 1% of his income to a program to provide jobs for unemployed 
blind people. That's $500 per year. Would the average blind person be 
willing to pitch in $500 a year for his fellow blind citizens? I ckind of 
doubt it but lets say for the sake of argument that he would.  10000/500 is 
20. So that still means you'd have to have 20 employed blind people for 
every unemployed blind person.  So the idea of employed blind people 
pitching in to support unemployed blind people doesn't even begin to work 
until the employment rate is 95%.  If it was that high we wouldn't need the 
program in the first place.

This is basically the same problem Social Security is facing -- too many 
recipients and too few contributors. The solution to the SSI problem is 
fairly clear. We will need to raise the age of eligibility and have a means 
test. But there is no way a program for employed blind people to fund a jobs

program for unemployed blind people can ever work. The numbers just arent' 
there.

Most of what the government does is the same. Its just not practical to 
think that the private sector can take over the functions of the federal 
government. that is a fantasy promoted by libertarians like Ron Paul.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "qubit" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

> Hi -- I may be venturing on thin ice here, but there is one thing I worry
> about.  This is not a material problem so much as a mental/spiritual one.
> One drawback to government run programs that is more a subjective,
> nonquantifiable one: If you give the government the full responsibility 
> for
> taking care of the needy in the country, it has the effect of sweeping
> problems under the rug of "the government is taking care of it" -- kind of
> like the SEP invisibility field in the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
> books--adams fans will know what I'm talking about. SEP stands for 
> "someone
> else's problem" and has such a powerful effect on viewers as to render an
> object invisible.
> I think that this change will attempt to take the responsibility of 
> looking
> out for our neighbors and give it to the government so people will be less
> apt to give in times of need.  In particular, if taxes are high, they will
> figure they already gave to that cause, and maybe try to give moral 
> support,
> but if the government office isn't helping, the person is still in need of

> a
> friend or someone to identify the problem so as to get him to the right
> government office. and there may not be someone there. You can't predefine

> a
> government office for every problem.
> In the case of health care, there is also the question of privacy, if on
> huge monolithic government run health agency pays the docs, then it will 
> be
> easy for people's records to be available for others to view, at least for
> government employees. And in a socialistic society, there are a lot of
> government employees...*smile*
>
> I guess I am playing conservative today.
> Obama's health plan, such as it is, does allow for private medical 
> insurers.
> And I think government programs can be a very good thing for those who 
> need
> them.
> It's just that the change has me worried.
> Take care.
> --le
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get 
> labeled
>
>
> A lot of money gets wasted no matter who's running a program.  What makes
> you think a private charity is more efficient than the federal government?
> You should check out the salaries made by the leaders of most non-profits.
> It is not at all unusual for the President of a non-profit to make half a
> million dollars a year. Not to mention the fact that most of our social
> programs were created in the first place because private charities weren't
> getting it done.
>
> Its simply a myth that governments can't solve social programs. Countries
> like Switzerland and Sweeden have happy, healthy citizens. The USA, on the
> other hand, ranks low on just about every measure of health and happiness.
> Our infant mortality rate is high, our life expectancy is low, our
> unemployment rate and crime rates are high.
>
> The available evidence would tend to indicate that the United States 
> doesn't
> have enough social programs, not too many. Now, you could argue that a
> reduced tax burden and less government interference makes it worthwhile. 
> But
> that would be a value judgement. I mean, you could argue that our
> independence is more valuable than living a longer life. But you can't 
> argue
> that government can't solve social programs. There's just no evidence for
> that.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Amelia Dickerson" <ameliadickerson at gmail.com>
> To: <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: "Nijat Worley" <nijat1989 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 1:25 PM
> Subject: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled
>
>
>> Hello-
>> I'm just going to put my two cents in here. I think that when the
>> government does stuff, it ends up swallowing up a lot of money that is
>> wasted. I have spent several months applying for jobs in the federal
>> government and it has been a bit of a comic sketch. At the same time,
>> we have people in our society for whom we need to care, and the fact
>> is that any point in time, most people end up in that position.
>> Ideally, we would privately take care of this on our own- people
>> within a community would rise up and put together their own education
>> system for their kids and for all of them, we would help people out
>> with food when they needed it, doctors and therapists would take on a
>> few patients and clients pro bono at any one time. But until people
>> choose to do that over buying that brand new car instead of continuing
>> to drive it even though it is no longer the latest and greatest, we
>> need to have the government programs on which to fall back. That
>> doesn't even address the fact that certain communities have a deficit
>> of such resources.
>>
>> At my own church, I am in charge of organizing local community service
>> activities. We have a solid core of people who give generously of
>> their time and energy and money, but there are others who are very
>> much occupied by the things in their own lives and they just don't
>> really contribute to anything. Fortunately, most will give to others
>> in some form, but there are a lot of causes and people out there to
>> give to. I am personally in my mid 20's and my peers are a notoriously
>> self-centered population. I know some people who meet that discription
>> and others who do not. Honestly, I don't know what you would need to
>> do in order to try and meet the needs of others. However, as a person
>> with my masters in counseling and with a lot of personal experience
>> working with people who are needy in both an emotional and physical
>> sense, itt is absolutely not as easy as giving them money for food
>> each month. Talk to me one on one if you want to know what it looks
>> like to try and quote unquote "help" someone with schizofrenia or a
>> personality disorder.
>>
>> In addition, I am currently taking a class on universal media design
>> at the local state university. The principles of the class have to do
>> with  making media and web sites accessible to everyone, whether they
>> are using an old computer on a dial up connection, using a smart
>> phone, the latest and greatest computer with whatever internet
>> browser, they are hard of hearing,  or a use a screen reader. Despite
>> its principles though, I have had to do a lot of self advocacy. They
>> have us learning about java script from on-line clips that do not
>> provide enough information for me to keep track of what is happening
>> in the visual part of the training. Someone asked me to give feedback
>> on the web site for the business association of downtown Denver in
>> preparation for the AHEAD conference here this summer. It is all in
>> flash, and I was unable to get any content off of it. The business
>> association doesn't feel particularly obliged to change their web site
>> at all, even if it also means that people out for the night cannot
>> pull up their site on a smart phone. The conservative principle is
>> that economic forces will convince them to change it, but they aare
>> not yet terribly interested. Along the same lines, the web sites at CU
>> are often times poorly designed to the extent of decreasing
>> accessibility, but as a whole group of sites are looking at being
>> redesigned in the next couple of years, the man in charge of it
>> doesn't know the first thing about concepts such as the W3 standards.
>> I met with him and showed him a bit about what makes his current site
>> that he manages difficult to navigate with a screen reader. Maybe he
>> will be motivated to learn more, butthus far people outside of
>> disability services at the university have been pretty apathetic with
>> regards to making accessibility improvements to sites. All of this is
>> just to say that I don't tend to find that the best ideas win out; too
>> many people are caught up in the concept of how things have always
>> been done and "it works for me, so it's fine."
>>
>> With all of this having been said, I vote we stick with putting
>> concepts out there without needing to label them as being part of one
>> group or another. I am all for innovation, change, and progress. No
>> political group gets to lay claim to those words and my use of them
>> does not put me in any one group.
>>
>> Amelia
>>
>> -- 
>> Amelia Dickerson
>>
>> What counts can't always be counted, and what can be counted doesn't
>> always count.
>> Albert Einstein
>>
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>>
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