Category Archives: poor

Farm bill 2012

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Environmental Working Group’s take on Farm Bill 2012. (hat tip to organic consumers)

Instead, legislators created an expensive new entitlement program (called “shallow loss”) that guarantees nearly 90 percent of the income of farm businesses already enjoying record profits. It also leaves untouched a bloated $9-billion-a-year crop insurance program that pays about 60 percent of farmers’ crop insurance premiums, no matter how large the farm, and sends billions to crop insurance companies and their agents.

Most of the benefits of these proposed programs would flow to the big five commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice and wheat) that provide feed for livestock, raw material for processed food and corn ethanol fuel for our cars. Not only would these proposals be highly inequitable and wasteful, but the new revenue guarantees, combined with unlimited insurance subsidies and high crop prices, will create powerful new incentives for growers to plow up fragile wetlands and grasslands and erase many of farming’s recent environmental gains.

 

I like that it at least adds monies for food stamp recipients to purchase locally grown food at farmer’s markets.  Great idea.  I actually made the suggestion to our housing authority folks to help us get some land to plant our own vegetables to raise organically.  *crickets*

 

Link to Craig Cox, of Environmental Working Group’s statement on it here.

Afghan killings, the poor, bankers, etc.

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Common dreams has this link up on yet another killing of innocent Afghanis’ who were minding their own business. Meanwhile, support for the war from the people who are paying for it, is at a new low.  Where’s my representation, again…?

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Meanwhile, the repubs continue their “Eat Shit” campaign against the poor, elderly, and disabled in this country…because, you know, we have to be over in Afghanistan or whatever country has our oil in it, and we can’t be bothered with either creating jobs or feeding people if there are no decent paying jobs available so they can feed themselves….

The comments section brings up the involuntary servitude of the Prisons for Fun and Profit scheme.

The most telling paragraph is this one in the Reuters clip:

The Ryan bill also takes aim at financial reforms, eliminating the government’s powers to shut down large financial institutions, as well as cutting funding for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A tort reform plan to end frivolous lawsuits included in the measure would lead to lower health care costs, according the CBO.

There is the heart of this, folks.  I’m reading The Indebted Society by James Medoff and Andrew Harless in which they assert that the economy of this country has been manipulated by the bankers/financial institutions for their own benefit.  Bankers need low wages so that people will borrow.  The book stated that wages have remained stagnant (which we already knew) and that people were borrowing just to maintain their lifestyles as far back as the eighties.  However, those things they were borrowing money for–luxury items–were not necessary for life and if they had to let them go back to the bank for lack of payment it wasn’t a big hardship.  However, with this current economic situation, the borrowing was not for luxury items, but just to survive–they refinanced their homes, or borrowed on credit cards to buy groceries and needed items…that sort of thing.  And that is why we saw so many folks “hit the wall”.  Their wages were no longer able to meet the very basics of life.

Medoff and Harless are blaming the Federal Reserve for not wanting inflation to rise–bankers don’t like inflation because it hurts their bottom line.  And they heavily influence the Fed, as much as the Fed would like to deny it.    Medoff and Harless say that there has been too much emphasis on consumption, and not enough on investment.

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And, just to shed light on the media campaign by the sociopaths–I was flipping through the radio the other night, and there was Sean Hannity.

Hannity actually made the claim that “socialist spending has gotten us into this economy.”   Say whaaat?  No, it’s not taxing the top 1% at a fair tax rate, and even reducing their taxes while starting not one, not two, but three military conflicts and/or wars, it’s feeding the poor and the elderly!  God these people drive me crazy.

Oh, and they’re quick to bring God into the conversation to justify their un-Jesus-like selfishness:

Overheard on a rightwing station here in FW (they’re pretty much all rightwing, just some to a lesser degree)–

“Be obedient to God–get out and vote.  Be obedient to God–politically you’re either conservative or liberal.  You have to decide which way is obedient to God. ”

Yeah, so wouldn’t following  “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “Thou Shalt Not Covet thy neighbors’ stuff” (this includes oil, folks) be obedient to God?   How about “Do unto others as you would have done unto you?”

 

 

 

…and so it goes on…

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Also on the Indian Country website is this depressing article.

Overcrowding, lack of indoor plumbing or potable water, mould-infested homes and crumbling infrastructure all play a part in what constitutes “inadequate housing.” It is also a factor that is rarely something the families in question can directly control. Attawapiskat recently provided stark evidence of this.

Aboriginal children and their families are being punished for being faced with unacceptable living conditions that no one living in Canada should have to contend with.

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So…they’re being punished for….being poor.   And let’s not overlook the underlying reason–their spirituality and their refusal to stop…being Indian.

Stephen King on the one-percenters

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….is also Mad as Hell…so refreshing to read a one-percenter going off on his own…

“I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing “Disco Inferno” than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar”

Hilarious.  And really, not too far from the truth-that’s the scary part.

From the article, it appears that King was stating that Mitt Romney had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Perhaps I’m reading it wrong, but that’s the way that it reads to me.  Romney was never poor, as his father, George Romney, made $$$ by cheating the poor while he was head of HUD.  (See reference to Barlett and Steele’s investigative reporting on the subject.Interestingly, a quick scan doesn’t mention George Romney’s having properties deeded in his name after the poor abandoned the properties.)  Romney was born rich and couldn’t care less about the poor.

….and Mitt would like to abolish HUD altogether.  Great.  Toss more folks into the streets.  A glaring omission in the article below is the fact that HUD provides monies to Housing Authorities for them to provide decent housing to folks who cannot afford to pay the high rents nor could they afford mortgages.

Link here:http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbarro/2012/04/16/romney-is-right-abolish-hud/

 

Republicans to the poor:

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Eat Shit.  Because we’re going to cut food stamps by 11 percent.  Never mind that you can’t afford to buy food for an entire month on what you’re given right now–you’ll have to resort to eating shit to survive….

One of the commenters mentions the Titanic.  I watched it over the weekend on the anniversary of the ship’s sinking.  I couldn’t help but picture Mitt Romney as Billy Zane’s despicable character, a wealthy sociopath…

…and how much today’s economic times reflect those of that period.  And people talk as if those times were permanently relegated to history….ignoring what is happening all around them.

And I don’t believe for a second all the glowing reports of a recovery.  I don’t see it where I sit.  And I find it a little too convenient now that we are in an election year–that suddenly we’re in an upswing of jobs?  And jobs alone aren’t the total answer–GOOD PAYING jobs are the answer.  Martin Luther King was promoting the idea of a guaranteed income before he was murdered…everyone would have a minimum income.  Of course, he preferred that everyone have a decent-paying job.

I found this living wage calculator from Pennsylvania State.  I went to Allen County, Indiana, and found their low allowance for food: $236 per month for a single adult appalling.  Only if you eat unhealthy food: processed meat like bologna, hot dogs, etc., and if you stay away from organic and fresh vegetables can you afford that piddly amount.  Indiana only allows $200 per month in food stamps as it is…if the republicans get their way, it will be $178.