Category Archives: economy

House repubs omit food stamps from bill

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Report here.

Republican leaders said food stamps, traditionally part of the farm bill, would be handled later and that, for now, they needed a way to start negotiations with the Senate over a compromise bill.

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If you believe that, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Indiana I want to sell you….

No doubt these members of Congress will go to church Sunday and puff their chests out at what good Christians they are…

I’m not going to comment any further because I’m too upset and I’ll say something I’ll regret later.

Walmart: Always low wages…Always

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…was on a sign protesting their continued more-for-us-less-for-you campaign.  Thankfully, they were unsuccessful in their bullying tactics.

From the first link:

“From day one, we have said this legislation is arbitrary, discriminatory, and discourages investment in D.C.,” Alex Barron, a general manager for Wal-Mart whose region includes D.C., writes in a company statement. “It means most shopping dollars will stay in the suburbs, unemployment will remain in the double-digits in some neighborhoods and underserved communities will continue to have disproportionate access to affordable groceries.”

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I followed the last link to this:

The company’s hardball tactics come out of a well-worn playbook that involves successfully using Wal-Mart’s leverage in the form of jobs and low-priced goods to fend off legislation and regulation that could cut into its profits and set precedent in other potential markets. In the Wilson Building, elected officials have found their reliable liberal, pro-union political sentiments in conflict with their desire to bring amenities to underserved neighborhoods.

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I just can’t understand the thinking that losing Wal-Mart is a bad thing?  Good Riddance to a big box store that pays poor wages, encourages employees to apply for food stamps, guts entire towns that were once full of independent small business owners, and imports cheap plastic crap from China, where again, people are paid low wages (which I know are beginning to rise, but still…).

 

Food is….Life…and Love…

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I love this!  Instead of encouraging women to break the glass ceiling in the corporate world, here is an article about them breaking into farming–traditionally viewed as a man’s work.  (Although anybody who knows farmers know that the the entire family helps and that women had traditionally helped in the fields, along with taking care of the household.  You know the old tale that great grandma gave birth in the morning and plowed the back forty in the afternoon…)

Farming means independence in so many ways–owning your own land, growing not only your own food, but earning bucks selling to others, playing in the dirt is always fun :), and just being out in the fresh air uplifts the spirit.   During the last Depression, folks were very poor, but they could still feed themselves if they had enough land to grow food.  This time around, things have changed….making people more dependent on food stamps, IMO.

When I worked on the farm that summer a few years ago, it was such a great experience.  I could be planting, when a butterfly floats by…or a grasshopper hops past…we would see clouds rolling in and wait until the last possible moment to make a run for it.  If it wasn’t lightening out, we would just continue to work (as long as it wasn’t a downpour).  Just being out in the fresh air away from office cubicles (and office politics) is so freeing.

And if you needed to, you could bend the farm schedule around the family needs.  And then there is the sense of community that is a part of farming–farmers know one another and will help another out.  I’ve heard stories of a farmer being injured and unable to get the crop harvested, which would mean losing the crop, their income and their farm…and the other farmers would come to his aid and harvest the crop.

And the wonder of watching a seed planted grow and eventually produce food is nothing short of a miracle.  You never know when drought will occur, when torrential downpours will wash things out, or when overbearing heat will scorch the plants….and on…farming is not for the faint of heart.  It’s an art. A craft borne of experience.

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Here is a neat story on a man from Bangladesh whom now calls the U.S. home.  He started his own restaurant and began growing fresh food to supply the restaurant.  He wanted to expand that with emphasis on food justice and found it with the help of Julia Nerbonne of the HECUA (Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs).  This ambitious project seeks to have fresh food brought to restaurants from nearby farms…and I love the idea of rickshaws bringing it to market.  As the story states, though, winter is the hard part–not only the end of growing season, but difficulty in transporting food to the restaurant.  It’s an interesting idea that I hope grows and takes hold.

Here’s to good food! And the farms that do it sustainably!

 

 

$382 million withheld from affordable housing funds

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A lawsuit has been filed alleging that millions of dollars have been withheld from affordable housing funds.

More from Housing Authorities around the country:

New York.  Okay, I’m a little confused, because the folks in Fort Wayne were having budget cuts even before sequestration….some forty percent was reported.  It was supposed to be nationwide, so I’m wondering why NY wasn’t cut previously?

Seattle, Washington.  This report is more in line with what Fort Wayne is going through–they have had to close the Section 8 (Voucher) program many times because they are just flooded every time they open it up.  They have had as many as 4,000 people on the waiting list (If I recall correctly, that was for both  Voucher and Public Housing).

From the report:

At the same time, the waiting list for Housing Choice Vouchers remains closed, and the agency is unable to issue new vouchers at all. Nearly all vouchers are in use (99.6 percent), and the 1,552 households still on the waiting list remain stuck there. Total waiting lists exceed 25,000, and 884 new households were added in January alone. At a time when need is growing dramatically, the Seattle Housing Authority is unable to expand to meet that need.

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Here’s a good article from The Nation on the stupidity and callousness of cutting a housing budget when there is so much need.

From the article:

Although housing assistance takes only one penny of every federal budget dollar, right-wing ideologues since at least the Reagan years have long used “deficit reduction” as a pretext for achieving their dream of eliminating government housing aid. Reagan infamously slashed the housing budget at a time of recession and the emergence of modern homelessness, while the deficit exploded. There’s no question that when it comes to housing assistance, the Reagan legacy lives on. This year the Cato Institute outlined a plan to tackle the budget deficit that would, among other things, “terminate” the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And Reagan’s Tea Party descendants in Congress promise further chops of the budget ax for housing and other safety net programs.

If you read on down, it mentions the Trust Fund created in 2008….but yeah, no funding.  Cruelty by dangling a carrot to the caged rabbit.
3.5 million homeless Americans….

Rewriting history

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Is what seems to be happening in the last few weeks of the “George Love In”….with the *cough* George W. Bush library that re-programs, er I mean, explains to the public  how it really was when he was president…

The dirty nine

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Nine state legislators were flown on a chartered flight and…well, you can read the rest here.

From the article:

The tar sands of Alberta are estimated to be the third largest reserve of crude oil on the planet. But the process of turning the tar-like bitumen into a refined product that can be used as fuel is extremely energy intensive and highly polluting. The former NASA scientist James Hansen, warned that the extraction and use of Canadian tar sands would mean “game over” for the climate. TransCanada is the operator of the proposed KXL pipeline, which would carry the tar sands to Texas for processing and likely for exports to markets abroad.

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I think it’s really important to highlight NASA scientist James Hansen’s statement on this because most folk think that folks who believe in climate change are “fringe” liberals, when they’re not.  Dr. Hansen is a prime example of that.

More:

TransCanada, which is a member of ALEC, sponsored ALEC’s Spring Task Force Summit in Oklahoma City in May 2013, alongside other corporations with tar sands interests including BP, Devon Energy and Koch Industries. TransCanada’s Vice President Corey Goulet presented to legislators at the conference during a session called “Embracing American Energy Opportunities.“

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Dimon stayed in touch with Adams’ office over the proceeding months, providing his staff with further materials about Keystone XL, including a set of talking points stamped with the TransCanada logo.

By February 14, Adams had an updated draft that had been reviewed by the Ohio legislative service commission, the non-partisan body that assists legislators with drafting legislation. Adams staffer Ryan Crawford sent this language to Rob Eshenbaugh, a lobbyist with Ohio Petroleum Council, the state affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute. “Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,” Crawford wrote to the lobbyist. Eshenbaugh responded with some requested changes, which Crawford then incorporated into the bill.

 

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So…yeah….pretty glaring examples of not so subtle bribery.  Unethical. Unethical. Unethical.

I have something of a quibble with the story saying that the XL has become a national issue….where were you when Enbridge was getting the northwest Indiana pipeline approved even though it runs near Lake Michigan and other sources of water?  Does anyone know why Indiana is ignored?    I’d like to know why we don’t matter….somebody tell me, please.

 

 

 

 

Solid Canada

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Color me shocked:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-24-2013/money-boo-boo—the-canadian-banking-system

Canada has NEVER had a financial crash. Yep.  Even during the Depression here, they were solid….because they were…wait for it…REGULATED.

Unbelievable, eh?

Listening to the American Tabacco’s *cough* joke at the end kind of tells of his mindset not only of women, but of those he perceives as weaker.

(….and anyone not willing to profit at others’ expense is…weaker….in his sociopathic view.)

 

 

…and it gets worse…

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common dreams has this up on the Big Brother-spying-on-Big Brother program…the dark side showing its paranoia and utter control of information and those who might actually uphold the law…you know, the Constitution, not the Patriot Act.

The program could make it easier for the government to stifle the flow of unclassified and potentially vital information to the public, while creating toxic work environments poisoned by unfounded suspicions and spurious investigations of loyal Americans, according to these current and former officials and experts. Some non-intelligence agencies already are urging employees to watch their co-workers for “indicators” that include stress, divorce and financial problems.

“It was just a matter of time before the Department of Agriculture or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) started implementing, ‘Hey, let’s get people to snitch on their friends.’ The only thing they haven’t done here is reward it,” said Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security law. “I’m waiting for the time when you turn in a friend and you get a $50 reward.”

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If they start paying people to turn in one another, we’re toast as a country (not that we’re not there on the ledge, already).

In this economy, folks facing a quandary of feeding their families/paying the mortgage/keeping the lights on and turning in a coworker that really hasn’t done anything wrong, but…

The Salem Witch Hunts on steroids…

…..it’s worse than we thought…