Gimme Shelter

A friend has been made homeless - as a result of a bout of illness, he got behind with his rent payments. One morning his landlord just turned up with a heavy friend and dumped him and most of his belongings outside without a key.

While this is clearly an illegal eviction (the landlord should have taken the court route), my friend is unable to defend himself because he's still not well and besides, he's sure that no-one will believe his version of events. Well, it is fairly monstrous.

Today he rang Shelter to try to obtain help (having already had a pretty hopeless interview with the emergency housing office in his borough - they took the attitude that since he didn't have a court order evicting him, he must have made himself intentionally homeless). He reports that he got an answerphone message that began "Welcome to Shelter. Please note that we cannot provide accommodation..."

Well, what on Earth is Shelter for then?

I am also disappointed that The Salvation Army was unwilling to help him - I have been supporting it with a regular monthly donation for years as I was under the impression that it provided help to the homeless.

Why people think it's OK to cheat / steal

Dan Ariely has given a brilliant talk about this and how it impacts the global economic crisis. Watch this on Ted - it'll be 16 minutes well spent. Good insights into human psychology and behaviour.

Predictably Irrational: the international financial crisis

My eternal gratitude to Dan Ariely and his Predictably/Irrational blog for pointing out the existence of a radio programme and its transcript in PDF, which for the first time properly explained to me why we're in such a mess. I wonder what collective idiocy is next up.

It also provides a sobering reminder that it's usually a bad idea to throw money at a problem. In this particular instance, Gordon Brown's fantastic idea to "save the world" by hosing all our cash and then some into the banks' pool of money supply was such a bad idea that it must stand as one of the most monumentally stupid decisions of all time. Read the transcript yourself to find out why.

Anyone without the requisite quarter of an hour to hand can refer to this very much more succinct, but necessarily less thorough, tale. It seems prescient, having been posted in 2005!