Login HereMore and more folks are a catastrophic illness or job loss away from disaster these days.
And with the cost of everything going up, and the supply of food and other necessities diminishing, we are in a world of hurt. Especially with a rapidly diminishing safety net as the pool of need swamps the resources allocated for helping those in most desperate straits.
Well, those of us who haven't married our fortunes together, anyway, eh, Sen. McCain?
I found this video at Kier's livejournal, along with a link to a disturbing piece from Josh Gerstein at the NYSun. Josh did some great digging during the Fitzgerald investigation and the Libby trial, and this is another intriguing piece on an underreported but very real bit of news. If you thought the worldwide food shortages wouldn't touch us here in the good ole US of A, think again:
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
Is anyone else getting that "On The Road With The Joads" feeling?
You want to know what the big issues going into November are going to be? Start with food rationing and tent cities and work your way out from there. It's the economy stupid...again. Funny how that always seems to happen on the GOP's watch, isn't it?
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So!
I love that McCain, Bush and the rest of the GOP are running on the idea that there is nothing wrong with the economy (and that we’re winning in Iraq). It makes it so clear that they have no idea what’s going on in the world.
Well, I know this is all pretty important stuff, but do you think Obama is really an “elitist?”
Good morning Christy!
Tent cities in our country. For shame. Tax cuts make more money for everyone — except when they don’t.
Maybe OT, but I grabbed this from the WSJ this morning. They quote a bit of the debate from Weds. I missed the debate, and only heard about how bad the moderators were, but what the hell is this?
What kind of a way is this to ask a question? What cherry-picked statistics does Mr Gibson think justify his lie that lowering taxes raises revenue? What a bunch of shit!
We should be so lucky.
please excuse the early OT, christy. but i think this is of interest to you too.
looks as though cspan is covering neither of the judiciary committee hearings. will have to stream from the committee’s websites (see links above).
A friend’s day job is selling flour to bakeries, and confirms the severe stress continuing in that market. Simply, while the price of flour has backed off slightly from the peak it hit a month or two ago, it’s still twice as expensive as it was a year ago, and has been since at least January 2008.
Part of the “problem” is in a combination of crop failures and export restrictions which have been imposed by other wheat producing nations - Australia, Argentina, Canada, Russia in particular. The US is the only country which, to all appearances, is selling wheat internationally with few or no restrictions. Add into that the strong Euro, making $12/bushel wheat cheaper in Euro terms every day, and you have a combination for continued domestic US price rises and supply shortages continuing into the foreseeable future.
Not that I can really blame the US government for being asleep at the switch on this. After all, the only things we export any more (for which there is a willing market) are farm crops and the raw products of extractive industries. Our industrial production was long since outsourced to cheap-labor countries, our own domestic plants shuttered, and no one really wants to be buying our war-making any more. The Republicans’ long term project to convert our country into something approximating a banana republic dictatorship is approaching it’s logical conclusion, for which the elites surely have to be congratulating themselves. Something has to be sold into the international market to keep the boatloads of crap your local Walmart sells, arriving from the producers. So, why not sell wheat and starve your own countrymen, George and St. John? After all, if those soon-to-be-starving Americans were really worthwhile saving or having around, they’d be rich and Republicans. If they’re not they can starve, I guess.
oh - the economy is down and people cant get enough pay?? who knew? one would think economy would get more coverage but noooooooooo - its SUCH a downer and why bother…..
And gas went up 12-20 cents this past week alone. Actually McSame is lucky that the election is in November and not later into the winter when the cost of home heating will undoubtedly go through the roof.
It’s well past time to bring the speed limit back down to 55 and get on the conservation bandwagon big time. Harder times are ahead.
Good morning Christy.
There is not one person I know that is not affected to quite a significant degree by the economy and the chimp said yesterday that we are not in a recession but a “downturn” life in a bubble must be grand. As for McSame, how the hell is he going to know squat about the economy. When was the last time he was in a supermarket buying groceries for his family? When was the last time he pumped his own petrol for his SUV? When was the last time he sat down and paid a bill for heating or cooling or whatever. He has a cadre of people doing everything for him accept wipe his ass, I would expect. And Cindy, her with the damn cookbook, when was the last time she was in the kitchen cooking? And even if she did cook what frig of a difference would it make to her if rice (the grain that is) cost $2.00 a lb? And she will never have to go hungry (if she eats or just runs an batteries). The “economy” to them is whether their oil stocks increased.
I’ve been bustling around this am & didn’t bother to turn off MNSBC. Every time I was near the tv, I heard gender, race, Obama MUST tell everyone how patriotic he is & how much he loves this country & blah, blah, blah. I must have been out of the room during those 2 hours when they talked about Clinton/Obama views on economy, war, health care…..
The recession is now smashing on our heads and the depression is knocking on our doors and coming soon to your neighborhood and mine. Attacking the problem with deep and far reaching federal programs to rebuild the US infrastructure is the ONLY way to recover our economic baseline. Only a progressive can accomplish this.
20 cents in one day here. and heating oil is now $4.07/gal (thank goodness it’s spring)
The price will be manipulated down as we close in on the election. I would be willing to bet that you will be able to buy gas for less than 2.50 per gallon by mid october.
“they will make the Reaganites look Amish in their reach and their recklessness”
- some old waitress
December 19, 2000
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart.” Sir, it is obvious your backbone and belly button have not been really close together.
Back in December I wrote about Migrant Mother at my blog and used photos from the Library of Congress collection, including the powerful picture by Dorothea Lange of the mother and her family. In these botox times, it’s stunning to contemplate just how young she was. Those were tenting times too, and not the fancy Patagonian pop-ups, either….
Does that mean an insurance company health decider?
misnbc - all scarborough all the time - what is up with this??
in the dept of cherry-picked statistics, there is no little satisfaction in what’s happened to ABC Nightly’s ratings since that debate. Can you say “backfire”?
“…the powerful picture by Dorothea Lange of the mother and her family.”
One of the greatest photos of all time.
More likely to be someone involved with the Stanford Medical School hospitals.
Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad tracks
Goin’ someplace there’s no goin’ back
Highway patrol choppers comin’ up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin’ round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad
He pulls prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waitin’ for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin’ in the city aqueduct
The highway is alive tonight
But where it’s headed everybody knows
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Waitin’ on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I’ll be there
Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin’ hand
Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.”
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ downhere in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad
Bruce
Remember when Bush told that single mother of three how fab-yoo it is that she works three jobs?
Amazing watching American turn into a Third World country before our eyes.
I can’t afford to fill my tank, but my neighbor is one of those 50 hedge fund managers who earned $29 billion between them.
Says it all.
disagree -
the Extractionists finally have their hands on pharmaceutical grade profits and they know what the outcome in November will be, they are not going to go back to stepped on junk for a losing cause
“manipulating down” is for suckers :D
That will be a neat trick to pull off, but you are probably right. Even so unless fuel, grain, milk, cooking oils and all of the necessities go down as well the economic burden on Joe sixpack will be obvious to all.
I’m not an economist; but here’s my wild-arsed guess: Of course the revenue from these taxes went up when the rate initially went down. Everyone and their mother sold off stock to take advantage of the much lower rate just in case it went right back up again.
Buy a car for crying out loud
Sounds like a good time to switch to CSpan.
yup.
The war ain’t goin down so well either. New Gallup shows the highest percentage ever who say that the war was a mistake- 63%. This number went down for a while during the shrub euphoria about the “SURGE”. Now they are at the highest level ever.
It appears that the shrubbery has squeezed the political value of the surge dry as a bone.
Paying $3.75/gal. for unleaded here on the reservation. I can tell you that hurts, as well as the higher food prices people are paying here in the tiny stores that are already expensive. This is place with 50% unemployment. Maybe the rest of America will catch up with us soon!
If the price at the pump drops bush/MCain can claim they are going “in the right direction” “stay the course” and other crap.
Huh?
joe sixpack is now joe bottlecap..
Man, I have tix for Friday night in the ATL and my wife has a broken leg!
I got it, that is hilarious! Maybe if you had said Hummer!
I expect a big sell off as Clusterfuck leaves office as people see the last chance to take the capital gains hit at a bargain basement price..
The US had billions of dollars of capital gains sitting there waiting to be taxed- it was a huge national asset- Clusterfuck has blown through it- it is surely now only a small percentage of it’s former revenue value….
Like everything else in the economy—boy wonder ate it up!
i watch cspan also….. i’d like to see some news but i guess lamestream media feels we dont deserve any…… and then what little we get is filtered thru center-right prisms….. jus sayin
McSame was quoted on NPR this morning as saying he would “set up free retraining for those who lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA”. Wooop-de-doo and what good will retraining do for someone over 50 who could not a get a job on a bet anyway. Of course he does not believe that NAFTA caused any job loss anyway.
DING DING DING. The sell-off is going to be ugly, and will greatly exacerbate the already insurmountable problems.
By Lowell D. Kern
Most bands expose their fans to lesser-known bands by offering these musicians the slot as the opening act on their tours. As we know, Bruce Springsteen doesn’t have an opening act. But being the huge music fan he is, Bruce has always wanted to share his love of other musicians with his audience. And being who he is, Bruce has always done it in a most respectful way — by sharing his stage with these artists.
Over the past four shows, the E Street Band has been joined by four different performers — Tom Morello both nights in Anaheim, Jon Bon Jovi in Dallas, and most recently in Houston by two renowned Texas acts, Alejandro Escovedo and Joe Ely.
Morello joined Bruce for “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a Springsteen-penned song that Morello’s band, Rage Against the Machine, made their own. Bon Jovi dueted with Bruce on “Glory Days.” But, to my mind, Bruce paid the ultimate compliment to Alejandro (in Texas, he’s instantly recognizable by just his first name) and Ely by playing their songs.
Can you exacerbate something that is unsurmountable? What does that make it, double-unsurmountable?
Regarding price of flour: We went recently to a local mill to buy our usual and literally, the cupboard was bare and there was a sign up saying that they basically could not even source certain grains to mill. It’s not just the inputs..it’s actual production that is suffering now.
McBush is trollin through Pennsylavania and Ohio seein how many fish he can reel in who won’t vote for an african american…the general election has begun.
Clinton being cash strapped despite the announcement today of a new $2 million based on her win in Pennsylvania is a strong indication that the smart (and even not so smart) money has decided that she can’t win the nomination and likely too that her continued presence in the race is damaging to the Democrats. She needed to win in Penn by double digits to sell the argument that she was the stronger candidate. But just as she said that a win is a win, double digits means double digits and she didn’t get them. It will be interesting to see what the fund raising differential will be for the two candidates. I’m thinking it will be even bigger than it is now. (Yes, I know not very insightful.) The real question is how long Clinton will stay in the race and how much damage she is willing to do to the Democratic party and its chances in November. Superdelegates who were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt should as Howard Dean has said make their choices and finish this thing.
“Whenever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Whenever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there . . . . I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’-I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build-why, I’ll be there.”
Its not just the subprime mortgage holders that are going bust, its families dealing with credit card debt, unemployment, helth insurance issues, gas prices, food prices and on and on. I am comforted to know I am not alone, but it is killing me…….
Indeed it was cherry-picked. Because in several earlier cases when capital gains were cut there was not an increase in revenues. In fact, the Bush tax cuts really didn’t increase the revenue proportionate to the losses from the tax (and THAT is what is critical…would it generate more revenue making a cut vs. not making one).
Reagan also cut the capital gains tax, investment was not really stimulated and net revenues declined. Ditto with Bush. Minimal benefits from his tax cuts on capital gains and the wealthy. And if the market had rebounded half as much as it did the actual revenues would have been far higher.
Capital Gains vs. Federal Revenues
And if revenues decline of stagnate or diminish, and expenditures are high…the deficit increases…which simply passes on the debt to future generations…likely via more regressive taxes or inflation.
In addition there are other issues with having little or no capital gains tax. Wealth accumulates at the upper end, so class stratification increases. Rather than be taxed the wealthy shelter it in investments - even when these are unlikely to produce jobs or cheaper or more efficient products. Not all investments are equally beneficial socially. If huge profits can be made in investing in military industries that can lead to lobbying for the government to expend more…with little or no net gain in revenue. Yet those produces may be then encouraged to be “consumed” by those same lobbyists in wars.
Or a wealthy individual may invest in jewelry, or art, or fashion, or other areas that provide little employment other than to other elite classes. Or the investment may go into environmentally or socially debilitating areas.
Thus having a high capital gains tax with exemptions for certain beneficial areas (or the obverse…a high capital gains tax for those areas that are not socially productive) that actually generate revenue or other tangible benefits is quite reasonable.
Cluster-fuck can.
I believe this will consist of giving someone a shovel and showing them which end has the handle. After that, you are on your own.
Good morning Christy;
Hunger in America?
No, not until the Political Classes notice the lack of caviar.
And then, they will blame the ‘help’ as being delinquent in failing to perform their ‘duties’.
It will be only when such necessities are not ‘on the table’, that we may reasonably expect some ‘notice’ of the ‘problem’, otherwise it is ‘business, as usual.’
Afterall, the first responsibility of the Political Class is to their actual employers.
Aite den!
One of the early scenes in Grapes of Wrath has a man plowing under the field and knocking down the home of the Joad family. When asked how he can allow himself to to take the side of the bank over his own neighbors he answers that he too has a family to feed; he takes his pittance of a salary and plows under the life and livelihood of a family no different than his own.
This sounds so much our very own times. The tractor man is like any poor non-union worker or the entire staff of the latest out-sourced company. The difference being only one of scale and technology.
I reccomend the book.
Glad you got it. I still don’t.
(Scratches head)
was hoping you’d show up -
have you seen this yet ??
Lowenstein/NYT - Rating Agencies
set for this Sunday
Re-training: Those programs exist already. It’s tough training for new jobs that don’t exist.
You said you could fill your TANK, like the Army type tank! So he says, get a car!
raven-”Man, I have tix for Friday night in the ATL and my wife has a broken leg!”
hey raven, when my mom broke her foot, she was on crutches, we had tickets with my sister for james taylor at riverbend….we called ahead to find out what to do, we didn’t want her schleppin’ in on crutches, is quite a distance….
you pull up to the area where they help, dropped her off, parked the car, came back, volunteers provided wheelchair, they wheeled her in, offered us ’special’ handicapped seats, good ones, which we turned down because we had aisle seats and they were better seats, and she could handle that, gave her the aisle and she would swing her leg out to let people in…….
they came to get her to roll her out at the end of the concert, no sweat…….we kept calling her the queen….they even come and roll you to the restroom or for food if you need it…..she didn’t need that.
only thing is, we had to get there early, and we had to leave the concert early because that is their policy to get handicapped out without fighting the crowd……
so call and see how they accomodate the handicapped…..it was no sweat for us.
If you like Grapes of Wrath I suggest you read “In Dubious Battle” also set in the Salinas Valley. Like in John Sayle’s “Men With Guns”, the regular people get caught in the middle between the capitalists and the communists.
Wow another song with meaining and a meaningful artist.
I think the implication was you were driving a tank, and might have a smaller gas bill if you were driving a car. Got it now?
Lol. Oh! Right over my head.
No, THAT tank I have up on cinder blocks in the front yard.
I don’t know if it’s the only way, but it sure would be a big part of the solution.
Why both candidates don’t lead with this as a significant and necessary part of economic stimulus in the US is beyond me.
It is comfortable campaign chatter as he, and his fellow right wingers, know that jobs do not exist and therefor there will be no need for such a program. Just more McLies from the forked tongue express
Thx, we have a chair too and we are mullin it over. It’s the whole package that is a little worrisome, a Boss show ain’t no “Sunshine Sunshine” it’s more like “Knockin round the Zoo”!
Someone should ask McCain to provide a list of a few of the jobs that were created from his wife’s share of the Bush tax cuts.
You are not alone.
Yea, well my 66 Chevy pickup with the new 350 ain’t exactly a hybrid!
Once I got it, that was funny!
Beer truck divers…alcoholism is a “growth industry” in an economic downturn.
Perhaps McCain will propose retraining people for this US booming industry:
Just imagine the catchy “become a prison guard” commercials.
Clinton will probably stay in through the primaries in my opinion. It’s only another month until the bloody things are over. She’ll probably scrape up enough cash to make a showing in the few that are left- none of em are in costly media states. After June 3rd—Dean wants the superdelegates to declare- and at that point Obama will probably become the “presumptive” nominee.
Superdelegates want to win in November. They know that they have to take Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also know that these states are very close- and that there is a certain percentage of white voters who will not vote for an african american—-they will try to figure out how large that percentage is.
They also know that if they vote for Hillary- a certain percentage of Obama voters will stay home.
They’ll try to figure out how large that group will be also.
Tough decisions.
seemed like it was a growth industry here last night (on FDL)
I think I read something in the NYT yesterday or today about what bullshit it is - supply side economics. I’m going to look up the link now.
They also know there are a certain number of crazy mofo’s like me that wouldn’t vote for Hillary under any circumstances.
This is an excellent point. Even the Bush Administration admitted that its tax cuts were not offset by revenue growth. What happened with both the rich and corporations is that Bush funneled so much money to them that even with lower tax rates they paid more in taxes. But, of course, this did not begin to recoup all the money he sent their way.
Much of that money ended up in hedge funds and helped to fuel a lot of the destructive speculation we have seen first in the housing market and now in commodities. Oil, gasoline, grains, metals all have increased greatly in price. A good fraction of these price rises have been the result of these sterile speculations.
I thought it was interesting that my public radio station that does a lot of agicultural reporting was reporting that it was running a public forum on how much the futures market in agriculture as a price finding mechanism has been affected by this outside speculation and questioning whether the futures market was even serving this function anymore. I found that very significant because it shows how widespread the concern is if even the farmers are worried.
Naturally, Paulson and Bernanke will do nothing to curb the hedge funds and investment banks no matter how much they threaten our and the world’s economy.
(i didn’t get it either, and i tried for a few minutes, reread it, etc… ROFL)
off to the wva border in a few minutes, have a great day pups!
(and raven, do call about the accomodations, it could end up being ok, and you could end up with really good seats, and annie there by your side–i’ve seen bruce 3 times, long time ago. the idea is to find the drop off areas where THEY help her, and that is what my sister and i were worried about with mom, her getting knocked into, but the way they did it, was fine, completely organized, and if you don’t/can’t use your seats, there are handicapped areas that are separate, and they are usually good seats…..call and ask them.
we were so concerned we almost didn’t go and it ended up being painless and had a blast. we go every time he’s in town. and bruce crowds aren’t ’twisted sister’……lol……plenty of handicapped people go to concerts and the venue has ways to make it a good experience for all.)
bbl
And bushco have been building more and more prisons, I would guess to put “illegal aliens” in and no doubt guarded by “Blackwater-US”
Yep–It’s a numbers game- and they may not have solid stats to figure the thing out.
Thanks fort this post, Christy. On days like today I keep thinking of the old powerful anti-littering advertisement of the native American on his horse looking at what has become of our country. It looks like far too many will shed that tear with him before it is over. Let’s hope it doesn’t descend into complete chaos before it is over…
Do you think their calculus will include the rumors that about 25% of obama supporters and as many as 50% of Clinton supporters will apparently vote for McCain should their favorite not be the ‘chosen one’?’
Here, I found it..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04.....ref=slogin
You, me and my spouse
Cindy McBush will make even more money as we drown our sorrows in Arizona.
Of course. They know that those numbers are overblown- but significant.
If supply-side economics really worked, Arthur B. Laffer would not be relatively obscure today.
For the Republican Party, there is nothing wrong with the economy. Who does the Republican Party Represent? The RICH. For them, they are doing very well. They are winning the class war but then in America it’s taboo to talk about class. A winning technique for those who are rich and control the system.
Have they started rationing cocktail weenies yet?
-G
That’s true- of the general tax cuts. I don’t remember seeing any numbers specifically about the capital gains cuts. I wouldn’t be surprised if the revenue from them DID increase as people cashed in while the cost was low.
I find it amazing that gas is going up 5-10 cents a week, and no calls whatsoever about the obvious upward pressure hedge funds are putting on prices.
But how do you read that?
I read it as it is Clinton who’s getting the disenchanted Republican vote, those who do not want to vote for McCain but feel Obama is too “liberal” (or, sadly, due to his race) and therefore will either not vote or vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee.
Weekend before last, the Costco I go to had signs up saying there was a limit of two bags on rice. (I assumed they meant the really large bags, not the 5-pound size that I’d be looking for.)
Interestingly enough, Kevin Phillips says that the financial players are now mostly in the democratic camp- with Obama being their number one receiver of donations.
What are those things made of anyway?
Bom dia, pups
NPR just reported that Bush intends to name Petraeus to Fallon’s post as head of CENTCOM and Odierno would take over Petraues’ post in Baghdad. Both would need Senate approval. Talk about failing upward. Sheesh! And both are big on the lets blame Iran for our screwups in Iraq. I doubt the Senate has the stones to vote no on these clowns but they should.
That’s too bad. Are Obama’s supporters about unity so long as they get what they want?
That sounds eerily like Bush’s compromise: he’s all for compromise and for working with the opposition…so long as they do what he wants.
link?
Never ask how sausages are made. Especially if they are to be served inside the beltway.
Nha, some of us just are a wee bit concerned with her itchy nuke finger and all
That would be gettin out just in time for Petraeus. The public is rapidly getting tired of his schtick- and Iraq may be ready to blow up again.
what makes me shiver is that I can’t help but believe that that kind of video makes Bush and Cheney smile.
yea,as you know I’m an old rocker but my tolerance for drunken idiots is limited. We went to Bruce’s solo gig a couple of years ago and really liked it. They closed the bar before the show and you had to stay seated! We are most likely gonna go since we dropped $250 and I can’t get half price for them!