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America Celebrates Positive NFP Surprise And Wealth Effect With Another Foodstamp Record
As some Americans managed to find part-time and temporary jobs in March, some other Americans dropped below the poverty level threshold. 105 thousand in one month to be precise. The total foodstamp participation in January hit an all time record 44,187,831 according to the USDA. But fear not, here's the bullish spin... sorry, there is no way to spin this.
And while there is no positive spin, here is the negative: the average monthly benefit on a per person and per household basis, has been declining for two years straight and is now at the lowest it has been since April 2009.
In summary: more Americans than ever are living on government subsistence, but at least the amount these people are receiving is the lowest since 2009, or $132.81 per month. Unfortunately, America's attempt to recreate communism may not be working out all that well.
And now back to your regularly scheduled episode of BTFD.
h/t John Lohman
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Wait a minute...they fall off the rolls, but they get to keep eating?!
What is this country coming to?
My girlfriend pointed out how the latest rage at all the pizza places is to sell you an unbaked pizza!! ie, capture the foodstamp sales. And y'all said there was no TARP for main street.
16" cheese pizza @ sam's made fresh is $6.50
Those pizzas aren't bad but fruits and vegetables at Sams can be horrid. Somehow green bananas purchased their have brown spots on them the next day. They seem to skip the "ripe" stage somehow.
Absolutely, notice the same exact thing. Their meats are pretty solid though and generally at or slightly below the going rate... the $5 cooked chickens are solid... and the bags of trimmed chicken $11.50/6lbs. are pretty good... The $5 kiwi box is also pretty solid (if you're looking for potassium) and lasts longer than the bananas... I generally stay away from their fruits... but they do have cheap salad in bulk that is vastly better than its walmart counterpart...
uh.... isn't that a 'store' where you have to pay them to let you in? Is it like Amsterdam or something going on I don't know about? Otherwise I damn sure ain't paying to get in some stupid store.
yearly membership... I think it's ~$30... just depends on how much you buy whether it's worth it. They are also routinely $.03-.05/gallon cheaper on gas... doesn't take long to pay for itself...
Well I respect anyone's individual choice in a free market (even if a free market exists only in theory) But I can't help my personal opinion that it is silly to pay a store to let you in when hundreds of stores are marketing you hoping you come in every day for free.
It's pretty easy to calculate whether there will be net savings given your general spending habits...
My wife do the shopping and I enjoy the fattest asses in town.
Geez, no one can make pizza at home any more?
$6.50 sounds pretty steep for a pizza.
Wow, it's so interesting you mention this. I went out to a Baskin Robbins the other day and noticed that, next door, there was an "unbaked pizza" joint! My wife and I were like, "WTF?" Now it makes complete sense!
Yes, ma and pa PDs (pizza dealers) getting their share of the POMO (pepperoni / olive / mushroom / onion) cash.
All this talk of OTC food stamp trading desks is making me hungry.
Seriously made me laugh hard with that one..
LOL
It's cute how pervasive poverty and unemployment are a big joke to ZHers.
I suppose since the apocalypse is [always] tomorrow, all of you can sleep soundly knowing you did nothing about it but snarkily trade bigoted jokes, bad investment advice and poorly conceived conspiracy theories.
Alleviate some suffering, then: http://www.worldvision.org
I think I'll do my part without the bullshit religious dogma/profiteering. Stycho -- you look foolish promoting a company that even Oxfam [who has their own house to clean] has strongly criticized.
Glad you are entertained, prole. I hope you were joking when you mentioned paying for 'content' here on ZH. If not, the joke's on you.
Oh come on. Who junked the researcher? That was funny as hell. I mean as long as we are paying for these posts at least we should be entertained. Put in for a raise researcher.
The take and bake pizza is the only decent pizza in Minnesota, and they have beena round and taken food stamp cards long before TSHTF.
There is also the commuter aspect. By the time I can get home with a pizza, it will have cooled off quite a bit. Instead, our local pizzeria has unbaked pies in the grocery stores, so I can have the best local pizza, piping hot at home.
Many of us live our lives as worker bees so we get treated as disposible citizens - perhaps (as much as I hate to say it) as individuals we are.
Unfortunately, we worker bees make up the middle class, and as a whole are essential to the functioning of the economic hive. Kill enough worker bees and the queen dies too.
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2010/08/11/bourgeoisie-vs-proletariat-ii-escaping-the-worker-bee-trap/
Have you considered that it's merely a way to sell the part of the pizza with the best margins while not spending money on inflating energy costs to do the baking? You can also hustle a lot more of the unbaked ones in an hour since you don't have to wait until they're done, pay a delivery guy, etc.
So far 6 people have declared themselves incapable of parsing sarcasm.
Far be it from me to point out that decreasing UE and increasing EBT means someone is "half-baking" their stats.
And unemployment is down - go figger.............
Unemplomynet is down ONLY if you believe in the birth/death adjustment. Many have put this number in context and see that nearly half of the "created" jobs were just that, created piece of fiction.
true Mr. Head, er Dick, , should have added <sarc> after my post
I wasn't sure one way or the other about whether sarcasm was intended or not. I figured I would toss that in there so as to help all of the newbies I have been directing here through LinkedIn.
I remember what I was like before ZH and I needed me hand held like Bush did for the Saudies and Obama continues to do.
By the way, you can call me Dick Head. Everyone else does, including my two year old.
Fuck the BLS! Fuck the Fed! Can't wait till this system is dead.
To Dick Head.
When you got old enough to care, did you tell dad thanks.
HAHA. My parents named me something else, but everyone kept calling me a dick head.
I knew a guy who was Richard Jr. He said they started trying to call him Little Dick.
I'm glad my parents didn't name me Richard. My last name is Kless(no shit)...I probably would have come home from school at age 12, grabbed my shotgun and the old man and said 'Dad, we need to have a talk about my name..."
Klessnoshit....is that Polish ??
Kless is German. But I'm half Polish so that must be the 'noshit' part...
I'm really pissed off about it. Dick was a perfectly good normal nick-name for Richard until about the sixties. Then some dickhead decided that dick would mean penis. Very traumatic. How would you feel if that happened to your name. Anyway, I changed it to Henry. Try messing with Henry and I'm coming with both barrels blazing.
USSRessurection bitchez
Best form of stimulus out there...starving people need spend all of it right away on first day of the month at Wallmart.
Posititive spin - duhhh.
Ah I have just worked out why the markets always go up on the first of the month... it is the surge in food stamp use....
Plus, they always go up on Mondays and Option Expiration day.
I read on the Yahoo Message Boards that expriations are now weekly. Anyone know about that?
Looks to me like they're daily, so-to-speak. :)
Does seem lately that the price of stocks are pegged to some option price. Usually around an even price. Almost appears like the whole day and a stocks price is to sell options all day. More trading on options than the real market.
Ya think these folks got it bad now, wait till that "serious" inflation hits Wal-Mart. Add to the already downsized yet more expensive products another 10 to 20%. Nice. They not only thin your wallet but your wasteline as well!
"Yes we can! Yes we can!"
What a sad reality-- welcome to crony capitalism at it's finest. Let's give Obama another Nobel prize.
In 'econnomics' this time? It worked out so well, the last time.
(sarc>off)
Everyone gearing up for Summer of Recovery round 2, and all that awaits is nuclear winter.
hookers, cocaine, and food stamps, oh my!
praise be the bernank! may the good numbers be gooder forever!
US future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEQDllvuy1I
(notice the bankers who eat their POMO)
Will the Apple store accept my stamps?
of course they will because, as we all know, I-Pads are edible....and oh so nutritious!
I understand Micky D's accepts food stamps, and I hear cc companies make money on the food stamp debit cards. WTF?
It's good business, food stamps. We just gotta get more of the country using them, but how?
> Will the Apple store accept my stamps?
No, but they will gladly take the money you didn't spend on food.
Just as soon as they finish the iEat app.
So 70 billion dollars per year.
go long generic food companies
Soylent Green is people.
Hey that's my line!! :)
And so is the furniture...people, that is.
Leigh Taylor-Young in soylent green:
http://www.tcmuk.tv/images/blog/LTY.jpg
Nice!
However, unfortunatelly so is:
Opra Winfrey is Soylent Green
http://www.celebritysmackblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/oprah029385...
.
If only there was a bank that profited from the issuance of these food stamp cards...could there be...I wonder...Hmmmm....nahhhh....it couldn't possibly...
Reminder to self: go long JPM
It's probably how they hedge their silver shorts.
20K DOW bitchez!
SPX
Divergence, anyone?
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/99er-charts-0
Ben - "Let them eat block of cheese."
Go long the poverty trade-- buy JPM b/c revenues gotta be screaming with all the foodstamp processing.
a lot of (marginally) eligible recipients are probably joining the ranks, it's not that tough to qualify, and the stigma is lessened. Not sure if there is an inflation guide to benefits either. I know a lot of people who could be on this program, who aren't but as the economic recovery falters, they will reluctantly join.
Man, when I first read that I thought it was "(marginally) edible" which was pretty friggin' funny...
****gobbles down a pot roast****
Wonderful - my coworkers are now wondering wtf I'm laughing at.
everyone apply for food stamps. Buy non perishable food so that you can say the govt helped you get ready for when SHTF.
Should show the charts in "months to buy an ipad".
New highs in the Dow today . Anyone here BTFD last week ?
Wow, the government is trying to feed more people with the same pie. I guess we need a bigger pie or start killing people.
Well The Bureaucracy failed at the free market what makes them think they can do Communism any better. Especially trying it on the fly?
Good thing food is cheaper these days...
America's attempt to recreate communism may not be working out all that well.
+1
I dunno, seems to be working out as all attempts at it have actually.......not good in the long run
Watch out for the well armed and dumb as rocks youth corps.
The "Cityyear" kids in the red jackets all over the downtown area, or the kids with the clipboards wanting you to sign up for greenpeace, gay rights, or whatever the leftist cause of the day is?
But the program to revive ph.@.scism is proceeding largely according to plan. After all, they've had MUCH more practice at that. (No sarc)
So you're on food stamps--could life get any worse? Yes--you could be purchasing groceries with a credit card.
/still paying off Thanksgiving
When you start seeing suburban house moms with signs saying "Will Fuck for Food" the uprising will commence, after I finish.
Yeah, I'm expecting to see more action once they see the size of my...garden...
When I see those "Will Fuck for Food" signs, I will participate in the free "to fuck your mom" market then. Milfs for Milk... I'm ok with that.
Please share gifts of food wth those less fortunate, remember our elderly that BERNANKE has turned his back upon.
Seriously, that's a good point. If your city has a food bank, get your well-fed keister down there.
I volunteer in a mission and can tell you that food banks are turning people away these days. A lot of people who used to donate now need to receive.
I am seeing the same thing at our local food bank. We are in a rural area and with spring/summer coming we get local grown food coming in, that will help. Lots of "first time" people in real need and hungry.
Are you implying we should feed the elderly to the less fortunate?
++good - I do not know how Mr. Bernacke sleeps at night -
Vampires don't sleep at night.
Scott Brown betrays Tea Party supporters once again!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52367.html
Time to take to the streets America. Take back your government!
Calling for real revolution!
too bad my friends don't give a damn. They are so apathetic towards this BS.
I, however, will never give up.
I want to look back and remember I fought as hard as possible to "take back America".
Third World hell awaits us all, otherwise.
The remaining survivors of "the greatest generation", for whom I still have enormous respect, must often be thinking: "Why did we even bother? (sigh)."
Food for thought, SNAP (food stamps) is run by JP Morgan
Blythe Masters evil plan to manipulate commodities by using SNAP proceeds. As The Bureaucracy and the FED force commodities inflation to put more people on SNAP cards. All while not expanding the SNAP entitlement pie to accommodate new recipients.
Elitist circle jerk extraordinaire!
Bread and Circus - mortuus republica imperii Vivant!
Another Festivus miracle!
This is ghastly, and with gas rising fast the squeeze is on. $132 won't put food on the table for more than a week for a family. The other three weeks you can beg borrow or steal. Anecdotally, I see lots of arrest reports here for shoplifting and store security jobs being advertised. Employee interest in reviewing my receipt on the way out is at an all time high.
We are all Jean Valjean.
And who would be your Etienne Javert?
Victor Hugo believed in revolution against injustice. Valjean stood up for himself and for what was right. Will the disaffected US populace do the same or will they continue to self-medicate on their preferred "Soma" and numb themselves with the modern "opiate of the people"...television.
By the end of summer $132 should get you a small potato...or a tortilla...
What?
"Computer...extrapolate, at $139.81 per month, how many Ipads can the Average middle class American eat per week in order to benefit from the Dudley/Bernank deflation wave loose in the country? Report."
Sorry Captain, the crew has eaten the computer's memory core.
LOL^2
Dammit Misean...we need more Ipad memory space in the next hour or Apple will fall another .03%...and people will call it a correction...and BTFD!
Divert distraction power from the Sokol and use the UnicornDew fuel rods...NOW!
Anybody feeling the pinch at the grocery store should invite themselves over to dinner at Bernanke's place. Hey how about a flash mob on his front lawn where everyone nibbles an ipad (mine would be cardboard facsimile - beef favoured).
Rumor has it Treasury is going to allow the use of Food Stamps to purchase both equities and Treasuries. Bite the Fucking Dip!
Massive resistance ahead for Nifty
http://markettechnicals-jonak.blogspot.com/
No way.. the recession ended TWO YEARS AGO!!!
The second chart is somewhat deceptive. The drop of $ received looks large but is only less than maybe 2% per person and per household. Not a well proportioned chart--- like maybe a government chart to make it look better.
HOWEVER, for those at ZH or those who actually go to the store to buy food, it is blatantly apparent that the chart is not in purchasing power. With the fall of the dollar and the huge increase in food prices, the food stamp recipient is getting a small reduction in the # printed on the food stamp and a huge reduction of the product that # will buy.
Food stamps are decreasing the amount of food being brought into the home. Times get harder, you eat less. I do not defend the food stamp fraudsters, and unlike the fraudsters in NY and DC, I am sometimes in back of them at the check out register. It does tend to piss one off.
However, this is a pressure cooker. What appears to be a reduced agriculture production with associated unfriendly weather patterns coupled with reduced food availability now, and will raise food costs and make some food products restricted? That applies to food stamps or no food stamps.
Many of us do not understand the voodoo tricks/criminality of Wall Street or the Fed and do not voice loud or effective complaints. FOOD is a cat of a different volatility potential. Obama will have to ratchet up the spin that personal bad times are caused by the individual not having enough education. This will have to be taught in the school system so that kids can ask Dad at the table why he does not have adequate education to put food on the table. This will need a great deal of spin—Responsibility Shift, too further fool the sheeple.
Isnt that the idea sold to every American? That the rich are rich solely because of their talent? If you're poor its because you're a personal failure and God doesnt like you. If you dare suggest things arent equal you must be a commie agitator..
Well said!
Dad will say "I fucked up and went for the Masters Degree son, so now I am overqualified for the only jobs available. McDonald's and Walmart.
What do you mean? This is extremely bullish. Can only be bullish. All that extra income to JP Morgue will certainly trickle into the stock market. Bullish all the way!
I hear all you have to show at the grocery store now for your foodstamp order is one's EWI card.
"sorry, there is no way to spin this."
Sure there is. JP Morgan services the SNAP cards. Weath effect. Rock on.
Robo traders mom could you please post a chart of the apple slaughter or can I find it on yahoo
Interestingly I see from Ran Squawk that BMW's U.S. sales are up 21.7% (luxury brand) while Toyota's (value brand) are down 5.7%. I think that the unequal and unjust recovery has a little further to stretch but sooner or later it's going to give. Even Mohammed El whatever his name is said yesterday on Tom Keene that it's in no one's best interests to create a society with so much disparity between rich and poor. P.S. BTFD on the IWM while you can !
It is very much in the Revolutionaries interest to continue to pry the distance apart. A hug base of poor at the bottom of the Pyramid, and a tiny apex of elite. The missing middle WAS the middle class. How else can our articulate, fresh, young Fascist bring about substantive and meaningful change for his Bankster pals without revolutionay conditions?
A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution.
Vladimir Lenin
If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.
Vladimir Lenin
Who cares? It's not like you can eat food stamps!
Fiatscos bitchez!
The numbers are all bogus to make it look like Bernanke and Obama should keep their jobs.
Unemployment is hidden because people stopped looking, and anybody that does get a new job is paid half what they used to earn. We're doomed. Santelli is right to rant.
$19.00 will still buy 50lbs of rice at Costco. Buy enough for yourself and enough to give away to a foodstamper to balance out his bag of Cheetos.
Suggestion, try volunteering at your local food bank so you can "put eyes" on the actual families that are hungry, Cheetos are NOT on the menu of these families!!!! <Moron>
can someone post that EBIX research report from about a week ago?
Market turning down. No POMO boost...
I love it when a plan comes together. Well done, Braack!
Your BFF,
George
Wonder if I can get food stamps. I have to spend all my cash on gasoline. Oh the humanity.
http://www.TheAngryGrapes.Com
The Greatest Mind In Keynseian Printing Paul Krugman burns his many and powerful brain cells to bring this:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/been-down-so-long/
"We need much more than this." Paul Krugman
My shrine to Krugman grows by the day. If only they had printed more money right Kruger?
The higher that graph goes the more prosperous the nation become, at least according to the logic of Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service:
Aww SNAP!
Ah yes. The old 'if I spend your money I create more stimulative (multiplier) effects than if you spend your money' logic. Good observation. H/t Milt
subsidize the essentials and you free up discretionary spending. (teenagers have the most disc. cash). I started the Free Gasoline for Everybody Party a few years ago. I went back in time and diverted the trillion dollars we were going to spend in Iraq to energy subsidies. That would be a trillion more spendable consumer discretionary dollars and roughly 10% of that would come back in tax revenue, immediately. I was really surprised when Obama diverted all that money to the banks, why does he hate the economy?.
That's Nancy Pelogic for you...
The processed foods are what seem to have increased the most in price. I was shocked to read in a USDA report that the average time the American family spends in food preparation is about 15 min per day.
If you make your meals from "scratch" your cost per meal drops substantially. For example, it cost me about .35 cents to make a loaf of bread (estimating energy input, varies because I will combine cooking of other foods and make several loafs at the time) a loaf of bread cost between 2 to 3 dollars in the store (and it's crap compared to my bread). It takes me total of 10 min (excluding raising/baking time) to make several loaves of bread. Point being maybe our culture will change yet again, higher unemployment and processed food prices equals more time to "improve" the quality of your life.... lol <said tongue in cheek>
I have never heard of "processed food" is that like "dog food?" But I can tell you that roma tomatoes are 3$ a pound in my locality. I can remember just the shortest time ago they were 1$ to 1.50$ per lb. Avocado $2 per (avocado). Full dosclosure potato chicken beef still pretty cheap. And with 100% of those likely to hit the streets = getting free credit cards from big brother which gives them free magic food forever, seems our Mubaric is much smarter than the real Mubaric. What difference can food prices possibly make when they aren't paying for the food anyway it's free.
And you's don't revolt..??? What a pathetic bunch of losers. Without letting the Banksters steal your hard earned dollars and buliding thier very own "super power" to protect what they have stolen from yous your country would really be a joke. Ya got NO democracy,and NO freedom,but hey,you got a Big Military to protec you from the bogie man....
Make me puke...!!!
I'm ready.
Don't start the Revolution without me!
nevermind all that, what are you wearing?
<3 u Trav, my favorite ZHer. (Been reading your posts on ZH for well over a year now;)
Those darn foodstampers sitting on their long crude positions, eating government provided bonbons and ipads. For shame.
...baby_Blythe for President
You go girl....
Sounds like some of these so called guys could take a lesson or two from you.
In other news, there might not be a 4th Season of Jersey Shore...
Snooki & friends are DEMANDING more worthless fiat currency!
Maybe the dollar will collapse before they set to shoot, making the whole 'situation' irrelevant!
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/the-cast-of-jersey-shore-...
Best use for your TV is as a fishtank...or for target practice. I mean if you want a revolution you better know how to shoot...
I am liking Medvedev right now! Bitch.
Describe FIAT Giggles!
Sounds like"Jersey Shore is a T.V show(series)
T.V makes people brain dead.
I chucked my T.V 16 years ago and it felt GOOD...!!!!
Why doesn't the government hand out "Stock Stamps" every month, too. These will be easily handed over for shares in S&P 500 companies. That gives the recipients a stake in America.
$283 a month?!? That's a one week food supply for a family of 3
I always chuckle at these types of claims. If stimulative efforts actually resulted in positive net benefits, why would it only be used during 'bad times'. Just spend 500 trillion on snap, it'd create 900 trillion in activity, right? It's magic!
I think this whole inflation thing, downsizing portions, upping energy costs, etc etc is a secret way to solve the largest problem we face as nation. Fat fuck America has to learn the hard way. Starve some people to death...sorry.. but make a shit load of other people lose a shit load of weight. They then consume less when they weigh 200lbs less. If they consume less they actually help the world because they no longer hog the resources. I have 3 close friends who are paramedic/firefighters. When I hang out with them they all admit that the poor fat unhelthy fucks of this world are sucking this ocuntries healthcare resources and taxpayer dollars dry. They all work in different cities within California.
I say let food inflation skyrocket!
[America's attempt to recreate communism may not be working out all that well.]---TD
PM Thargaret Matcher[sic]: "The problem with communism is that you eventually run out of crony capitalist trade nations."