The latest food stamp data for January of 2010 shows that 39,430,724 Americans are receiving food stamps or are part of the supplemental nutritional assistance program (SNAP). If you make the acronym and name long enough and with a neutral undertoneaverage Americans won’t fret that 40 million of their fellow neighbors are one government debit card away from being unable to eat. Yet this is the new corporate funded recovery and somehow things don’t seem to be improving for the middle class and definitely not for those at the lower rung of the socio-economic ladder. In fact, we may have more than 40 million on food assistance today. Since the start of the recession in December of 2007, we’ve added on average 474,000 people each month to SNAP. Since the data lags a bit and we only have January 2010 data, it is likely we now have between 40 million and 41 million Americans on food assistance.
There is little to doubt where the trend is heading. Even from 2000, this number has been increasing showing that the supposed boom was nothing more than smoke and mirrors fueled by Wall Street debt:
Source: Food and Nutrition Service
You’ll notice that starting in 2000, the number of people on SNAP has gone up exponentially. Last year the government provided $53 billion in food assistance (compare this to $17 billion in 2000, a tripling of cost in a decade). Most of these Americans do not want to be on food assistance. If anything, the above chart is a clear indicator of how the economy is feeling for millions outside of the Wall Street boom. When we hear about thousands of people lining up at Wal-Mart just before midnight so they can enter and shop with their newly charged debit card, we know that something is amiss between Main Street and Wall Street.
Now some people would argue with the cost. But $53 billion going to 40 million Americans makes more sense than giving a handout to Goldman Sachs just so they can increase their bonus pool. Plus $53 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the $13 trillion given to Wall Street.
Just touching base. Intel posts record profits, share markets climbing fast. Crash or depression more unlikely by the minute. I'm still making profits from my shares.
ReplyDeleteha ha ha
ReplyDeletehope you have suspenders
152
it will come when your all in as they say say
3:06 I'll admit I was wrong if things change, but i'm betting things will continue to improve. The stock markets are fast on their way to going back to pre-GFC levels.
ReplyDelete3:06 is right they are waiting for all in lol
ReplyDeletehell i hope your right nobody wants america to fail
ReplyDeletebut fantasy will soon end and the reality
will set in this game was over along time ago
until you are on food stamps then youll realize
then roullete game you were in
there are no high paying jobs in buiseness
you are taxed and illegals who work for nothing
gm aig these are the warning signs
be prepared this will end quickly
good luck
yesterday i received the first legitimate job interview in almost two years. what i noticed from their HR person was a total unawareness of just how bad it is for those who've been downsized or lost their job. this is the disconnect--people still working are living in a bubble, totally unaware of the rest of America. It's really really bad for those unemployed, doubly so for those over age 50. The HR person told me there were laws to prevent age discrimination. I just smiled--just obtuse in refusing the reality of the situation and how employers are extremely skilled in how to avoid hiring those over age 50 or other issues.
ReplyDelete40 Million on food stamps means:
ReplyDelete40 Million potential producers debased into simple eaters - Sheeple.
40 Million unable to produce their own food.
40 Million without access to farmable land, irrigation water, seed crops and other capital items.
40 Million people submitting to Monsanto and their genetic engineered abominations they called "food"
40 Million compelled to take The Mark.
40 Million, and rising.
I sure am becoming sceptical of this depression and recession. I keep getting bombarded from media and friends that all is ok and it is coming back. I am called a doommer and they think I am nuts. Is it really going to crash? When? I have already lost numerous bets, and am looking like a wacko they say.
ReplyDeleteyou dont bet people you buy gold silver coins
ReplyDeleteand then agree with them
and say it could happen
then when it tanks and your assests go up you laugh your ass off and act all surprised
thats what greenspan does
in 2008 it was done on purpose
yes people at the top pulled the plug
the ppt team pulled back
so when you say when its whenever
the rich see loses and pull out so all the sauckers go down
also what jobs
jim kramer said rally last night that it has nothing to do with jobs the rally
so the market could be at 20 thousand and 100 million on food stamps
so who is right
the delusion is if you have a job its good
if your neibour loses his job
fuck him
this is america today
no job no benefits no pension
just illegals goverment gone mad taxes
wars no relief
buy food silver
could be tommorow or 5 years from know
when it reahes critical mass
im not a doomer
the son will come up tommorow
you just might be starveing or rich depends on how you prepared
6:23am and others: I finally quit talking to people, and hunker down. I refer and send out web sites (Celente, EIC or economy in crisis, and this blog)to close friends. If 40 mill. are on the dole, that's serious. Everything, incl. high paying jobs are now outsourced and seems unemployment will rise. Some cities have rising crime, robberies, break ins, etc. America has zero future and sooner or later will collapse.
ReplyDeleteFrom YourDaddy-
ReplyDelete6:23- The current stock market valuation (rise) has absolutely nothing to do with economic reality. All that is required for a stock index to rise is slightly higher buy interest at the margin. Additionally, when you have a media engrained perception that the market will continue to rise, current share holders fear missing another big move more than taking the short-term rise. Remember, the banks were given access to trillions of (virtually) no-cost funds which have yet to be lent out to the public...Not hard to see where those funds have ended up. Ultimately, stock market manipulation cannot sustain itself, as at some point, the rise/gains will be too compelling, and the sell interest will outweigh the buy interest. Once that happens, that "perception" of an ever rising market will quickly turn to panic, and you get a cascading effect. Since this "market" is not built on investment capital, but purely fiat money & speculation, it won't take much for the indexes to turn...
Bottom line:
22% unemployment
40 Million on food stamps
Debt levels (Personal, Federal) unsustainable
Municipal, State & Soverign defaults imminent
etc etc etc..
All indicators are pointing to a hyperinflationary depression...Just quit looking at the stock market as the gauge. Due to the quantitative easing by the FED, the stock market has become completely disjointed from the market it is suppossed to represent.
Unfortunately, your question of "when" will remain unanswered as no one can predict when the catalyst that pushes this in the other direction will arrive. Just remember, you can be 1 year early...You cannot be 1 minute late.
Peace
Dad
I have always been deeply aware of the horrors of poverty. I was in Honduras in 1993. The average annual earnings at the time was $750.00 or $14.50 a week. From personal experience, I can say that if a gallon of milk is $3.00 in the USA, it's $3.00 in Honduras. This means that once papa's work week ends at the banana or pineapple plantation, he can afford nothing more than the most basic foods, rice and beans. "Dulces" Spanish for "sweets" are not candy and ice creme, but a papaya, or pineapple, something the kids almost never see. Even though papa works for Dole, he is not allowed to take home damaged fruit.
ReplyDeleteMany people know the phrase, "The Next 4 Billion". These are all the people of the "third world" that we as "privileged" ones, care little about. They don't want to be poor, they want to work and someday own their own farm or micro-business. They want to buy toothpaste and shampoo for their kids. They can recognize a picture of Mickey Mouse. They also know they will never visit the "Magic Kingdom", called Disneyland.
I once used the example of toothpaste. What if you owned a toothpaste factory and suddenly you had to produce a extra 4 billion tubes monthly, assuming the global poverty level rose just a tiny fraction closer to prosperity and suddenly these people could afford a tube of toothpaste. Or...
- Shoes
- Shampoo
- Soap
- A hair brush
- Tooth brush
The solution to the poverty problem is not difficult. I started a Humanitarian NGO to jump start lives in Central America. I eventually shut it down. Quite frankly, the people of the "First World" did not care about the other 4 billion (potential consumers of goods and services) we share this Earth with.
Now it's all come home to roost. Just like 4:32 said, 40 million Americans are not "living", only surviving, hoping that someday, Barry will fix all of this and prosperity will return to all of us.
I'll leave it to the preachers to remind us that "we reap what we sow".
So America is slipping into the abyss of poverty. I guess I'm glad to know Intel stock is up. It wasn't caused by me. The PC in front of my face is a 4-5 year old P4. I used to be able to buy a new computer every 8 months or so. Those days are long gone.
There are about 5 million people living in Honduras and 4,975,000 live in poverty. Is the USA next?
All the buildings where destroyed in rioting and looting. Society had completely broken down.
ReplyDeleteMy friend was a member of a militia in brooklyn trying to survive, to guard their area against the continuing ravages of societal decimation.
Roving gangs made transit anywhere an unsafe proposition. THen there where the government goon squads out shooting random civilians and looting what they could.
Many people simply disappeared by the goon squads. Arrested, deported, who knew. They where never heard or seen from again.
Brooklyn, September 2011
BTW, anyone that asks about receiving food stamp is entitled to receive food stamp because in the act of asking about food stamp you have used a government service and therefor are already qualified to receive food stamp.
ReplyDeleteFood stamp.
It's what's for dinner.
I for one, just woke up and disgarded my sheeple status a few months ago. I am using 80% of my SNAP benefits to set aside staples and non-perishables for when I no longer get benefits because everything fell apart. My husband is among the jobless not getting unemployment. Who knows how long our country can delude ourselves and the rest of the world?
ReplyDeleteThe market in used camper trailers and cheap
ReplyDeleterural land is going to get real hot.
Brooklyn, September 2011
ReplyDeleteApril 14, 2010 8:18 AM
Here's a link to an excellent movie describing just such a situation. It's a wonderful black comedy directed by Alan Arkin back in 1971. How prescient.
Little Murder
Watch the whole thing if you have the time, but if you don't, watch 14/16 thru 16/16.
Anonymous said.
ReplyDelete“From personal experience, I can say that if a gallon of milk is $3.00 in the USA, it's $3.00 in Honduras.”
And the profit on both sales will flow back to the first world food monopolists.
This is the price reality behind all the bull circulating in the first world that people in the Third world only need low wages because their cost of living even for necessities is “cheap”.
But how was this economic system of a low waged Third World and a rich First World wages system created and maintained?
Could it have something to do with how colonialism ,that a cheap wages system economy was imposed in countries like India in the competition with cheap mass produced industrial goods made in the industrial west?
Could preserving this cheap wages system , after the end of official colonialism, have anything to do with preventing development in those countries by the need to pay off debts created by “aid” or First world militarism and wars for “free trade”