The cost of not tackling poverty is high

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Think the correct link intended (from the same source, but a post just before the one referred to) is After “War on Terror” and “War for Oil” comes “War for Food”?

P.

as far as gas goes, I wonder what steps folks will be taking to try to keep those costs down?

I’ve read that part of it is speculators in the oil market.

So, the recent congressional hearings where the big American oil companies were warned they needed to invest more in Green could help. By diverting more of their capital into productive investments instead of just returning the money to investors, they make themselves more useful and yet less profitable in the short-run and take the steam out of speculators bubbles. Gotta puncture those bubbles early.

We also probably need a war-time oil industry windfall profits tax — not just on oil companies!

Food for thought.

The worst part of watching what is going on is the feeling of helplessness, of being unable to do a thing about a catastrophe which is clearly coming, has been building towards an awful inevitability for some time, but yet, remains invisible to most people.

This invisibility is not the result of stealth tecnology, it is the direct result of numerous layers of ‘magical thinking’.

The deliberate semantic evasion of reality on the part of so many of the most-powerful ‘players’ in this pathetic drama is part of the problem – the political-business classes (Eisenhower’s ‘Military-Industrial-Complex, grown ‘up’) have profited immensely and have benefited enormously from the gutting of this nation. The media have colluded with the worst of the deceits and creaky old mythologies, of being ‘exceptional’, of being God’s chosen people, of that bright and shiny ‘Dream’, golden, it is believed, in its bloom, but stunted and dimmed in its future, serve to reassure the ‘majority’ that ‘everything is okay. In fact, everybody over the emotional age of ten, knows in their hearts and in their bones that things are NOT hokey dokey, no matter how they are sliced, diced, seasoned or spun.

News Flash!!

‘They’ took ’shelter’ and ran it up a flag pole, next they will do it with food and water.

Can you imagine what might happen if the ‘people’ were to really learn that they’ve been played for suckers?

‘Tain’t gonna happen…

The times are going to pass us by like we’ve been standing still (that big Whoooooosh!! was the rest of the world leaving the ole USA in the dust).

The Good Times done rolled. They done gone and rolled right (and I do mean ‘right’) outta here.

Henceforth, we are riding much closer to the caboose, and we haven’t got any tickets to ride …

Opportunity done left the station; hope you are ‘first-class’, because everybody else is in a whole lot of trouble, more than most can imagine.

Oh! Happy Daze!!

The question isn’t ‘are we there yet? No, the true question is ‘where’ is ‘there’? (Heaven or Hell?)

But then, I often dfiscover that I unintentionally annoy people when I ask them, ‘What have you done to increase happiness in Paradise, today?’

First, some are taken aback! I suggest that religion and all that sort of thing are but fairytale stories, the real story is that we very fortuitously find ourselves on a hospitable little planet, which is just the right distance from a second-class star which we call ‘the Sun’ (with due and proper reverence) and most all things necessary to a happy human existence all available to us.

Great Balls of Fire!

There is water, in the proper amount, well, until recently, good air, excellent for our bodies’ needs, until recently …

and so on.

You get the picture here, of course.

So?

Just about the time human kind pokes its collective head up to marvel at ‘reality’, it turns out we’ve been doing our best to destroy,(however unintentionally) the capacity of planet earth to support (or tolerate) our very existence.

Should we now, not begin to err on the side of caution, examine our collective plight, and honestly face the most challenging threat to our exitence that we have yet managed, all those wars and empires, and tyrannies, were just for practice.

Reminds me of an old tome, entitled, ‘The Human Race’ by Willy Maykit and Betty Wont.

And I don’t necessarily think the problem is the price of food – it is the distribution of income.

That’s another way of looking at “high prices”.

There are certain imbalances of power in America and the world which are leading to economic imbalances and that’s leading to real human suffering.

If incomes cover costs, then people don’t suffer.

If companies don’t have sufficient power over people to hold their wages down, then they have to pay better and people can pay their bills and not suffer.

If the Rich don’t buy politicians or legislation, then they find it harder for their companies to gain sufficient power over people to hold wages down (partly by killing the union movement).

If our political system gave everyone equal voice, then the Rich wouldn’t have undue voice and influence in government and couldn’t just buy politicians or legislation…

“et cetera, et cetera, et cetera” — The King, in the King and I

Fortunately the Internet is helping to rebalance the political arena. Thanks Al!

Enjoy false dichotomies much? Certainly there must be a sane middle ground between communism and rampant profiteering.

I think what you suggest is a false dichotomy, at least in one way.

Communism, as it has been practiced, was as much about rampant profiteering as the worst Free Marketing Capitalism.

Any system where power is so concentrated in a few hands, as the Soviet or Chinese Communism or in a 3rd-world banana republic or as America sometimes seems headed, you’re going to see rampant profiteering in one way or another.

It’s the imbalance of power which becomes more like a mugging than a fair-market transaction.

AG Dept is showering money on people to not grow food.

Why are they interfering with people’s private commercial interests? We don’t need government taking money from the many to give to the few when there’s no national interest or crisis/disaster to take care of.

What’s the logic, except political?

http://www.thecollegevoter.com…..akin-rich/

Atrios linked to an article today on how Youngstown, Ohio is reconciling itself to being half the size it was during its heyday. The city’s pulling down old abandoned houses and putting up parks and community gardens, and allowing citizens to have farms as big as six acres within the city limits.