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FoodStamp Nation
The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service released a new report on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as Food Stamps) earlier this week with some fresh data on the program. Given our earlier note on Mr.EBT, we thought the following brief clip from Bloomberg TV on the $82bn-per-year program would provide some rather shockingly sad insights and then Nic Colas' recent focus on the SNAP report provides some much more in depth color. First and foremost, there are 46.5 million Americans in the program as of the most recent information available (January 2012), comprising 22.2 million households. That’s 15% of the entire population, and just over 20% of all households. Moreover, despite the end of the official “Great Recession” in June 2009, over 10 million more Americans have been accepted into the program since that month, and the year-over-year growth rate for the program is still +5%. The USDA’s report is, not surprisingly, very upbeat on the utility of the program. Fair enough. But what does it mean when 20% of all households cannot afford to buy the food they need for their families? To our thinking, it highlights an underappreciated new facet of American economic life – one that will be felt everywhere from the ballot box to the upcoming Federal Deficit debates.
Food Stamps – The Long Shadow Of The Great Recession
Nic Colas, ConvergEx.
Like most people in finance, I have been trained to think about information that occurs “At the margin.” Yesterday’s price for a stock plus today’s information yields the closing price at 4pm. The same holds true for macroeconomic data as it relates to bond prices, levels for commodities, and so forth. There isn’t time to revisit everything that happened in prior days and weeks and months – we take it for granted that asset prices have that all figured out. How many times have you heard “Oh, that’s old news; it’s in the stock.”
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, as the old saying goes, and assuming that the past is the past is fine until it’s not. There wasn’t much about the Financial Crisis of 2007 that wasn’t knowable in 2006; you just had to have a reasonable imagination and a respect for the irrationality of markets once the system began to break down. But one lesson of the last five years – and there are many – is that you shouldn’t just assume that “It’s all in the stock.” Reality checks on anything and everything are worth the time and energy.
One topic I personally find worth re-examination is the question, “How has America changed in the past five years that will cast a shadow over the country’s history over the next 50 years?” Think back to the Great Depression and you’ll find the seeds of programs such as Social Security and even Medicare/Medicaid. The deprivation of that decade convinced America that it wanted a society that actively tried to make life better for those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Take care of the old with a stipend from Social Security. As the generation that lived through the Depression reached older age, they realized that they needed health care as well. Enter Johnson’s concept of a Great Society and health care for senior citizens and the poor – Medicare and Medicaid.
The modern Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which most of us know as Food Stamps, also got its start in the Great Depression. It was an effort to link the surplus food of the agricultural system with the poor in the nation’s cities. Those in tough economic circumstances could buy “Stamps” that would entitle them to buy both regular foodstuffs as well as discounted surplus produce. The program went dormant during World War II but President Kennedy resurrected it in 1960, altering it from a pay-for-stamps system to a straight entitlement. With some tweaks and alterations, this is the program we have today – a nationwide system of evaluating those who at risk of food insecurity (typically making less than 130% of the poverty line) and giving them money to purchase food.
The trouble, as I see it, is that the SNAP program has become wildly successful. That is not a slam against the people that use it – I personally agree that no one, especially a child, should go to bed hungry in America. But it’s not hard to see where this program is creeping its way from counter-cyclical stimulus and support to a lasting entitlement program that will be very hard to change.
The USDA division that provides the infrastructure for the SNAP program, which is technically a joint Federal/State effort, put out an interesting report earlier in the week that gave me a chance to think through the program’s goals and consider its role in American society. A few points from the report as well as the basics on the program here:
- As of January 2012, the most recent month available, there are 46.5 million Americans in the program. That equates to 22.2 million households. To put these numbers in perspective, that is 20% of all households in the country. If the “Food Stamp Nation” were it state, it would be the largest one in the Union. If the adults enrolled in the SNAP program (about half the total) all voted for one Presidential candidate in the Fall, they would represent over 2x the margin of victory in the last election.
- SNAP is not supposed to be the only source of food purchasing power for a household in the program. The calculations used by the USDA to determine the amount of the benefit assume that SNAP participants will spend 30% of their income on food. Keep in mind that the food component of the Consumer Price Index is 8%. The average household in SNAP receives $277/month; the average participant receives $132/month.
- The typical SNAP participant is a child under the age of 18. This demographic accounts for 47% of the program. Households with children account for 71% of all demand for SNAP. Surprisingly, the elderly are only 8% of the program.
- Households in the SNAP program are overwhelming reliant on other government transfer payments to make ends meet. Earnings only represent 30% of their income. The remainder comes from Social Security (21%), Social Security Insurance/Disability (21%), child support payments (10%), and other mostly government payments.
- It’s hard to know how long the current cohort of participants – those who started receiving benefits in the last 3-4 years – will be in the program. Those in the program in the early-to-mid 2000s seem to stay enrolled for long periods of time – 7 years on average. Over half of those who left the program returned within 2 years.
- Less than half of the SNAP benefit paid monthly goes to buy food. This is an unexpected finding, but the math behind it shows that when a household starts to receive SNAP, they shift spending patterns. If the SNAP benefit for a given household is, for example, $100/person then the typical increase in food purchases is $14-47/person/month.
I could go on and on – the link to the full report is included below. There’s some surprising stuff in there, like the fact that typical Democratic states are much worse at ensuring that their poorer citizens are enrolled in the program than all those supposedly heartless Republican enclaves. Or that, contrary to what you’ve read in the press, EBT cards (the credit card-like method of payment used by SNAP) can’t be used at ATMs in strip clubs and casinos. That is another program entirely.
But my key takeaways are that a large percentage of the population – 20% of households is a big number – is locked into this program. There are endless studies in the world of behavioral finance that show that people are very quick to budget increases in disposable income as permanent. And don’t forget that by the USDA’s own numbers, most of the benefit is effectively NOT being spent on food. In the narrowest sense, the money spent on the SNAP program is tiny relative to the Federal budget - $6 billion a month, or a drop in the $270 billion/month government spend.
But this is where I wonder about the long shadow of the last recession. Have we reached a point where Americans want a clear and potentially permanent social safety net? And how far should it go? Again, the current SNAP program is a cheap way to provide this, so from a budgetary or societal standpoint it is hard to argue that it breaks the bank. But what if it is an emblem of something greater? In many ways I think this is a big chunk of what the November election will be about, and at least the Food Stamp program seems to show that Americans have made up their minds.
Report: http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Published/SNAP/FILES/Other/BuildingHealthyAmerica.pdf
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You know, if we'd just spent the 'war funds' on food and sent it over to those countries, we'd probably have a bunch of fat, happy Brown people who fucking love us...and maybe $2 a gallon gas.
/sarc on
But where's the fun in that?
/sarc off
I'll do you one better. Pay farmers to actually grow food and then send the shit overseas to either sell or give away. Right now we are paying farmers not to grow, and we are giving money to poor brown people to buy food elsewhere.
Not to grow? Some farmers are lucky, they get $6bn a year in subsidies to grow corn for ethanol. Will the subsidies really end in Dec 2012?
We want our free shit now and that's that. I ain't payin' the mortgage, screw the bank, I want free healthcare, give me a student loan I don't pay back, and don't even think about takin' that EBT card away from me. Other than that, I'm all for individual responsibility and free markets.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
"Have we reached a point where Americans want a clear and potentially permanent social safety net?"
You reached that point in 1932. That is how Roosevelt got elected.
Feeding all the hungry children in America costs less than what Goldman Sachs top executives paid themselves in bonuses. Money well spent.
Agree. I say mothball an aircraft carrier, and spend the money on feeding people.
How about parking the aircraft carrier near the people and let them chop it up for parts and scrap metal to sell? It's like teaching a man to fish ... and they get to keep their dignity.
/sarc>
Like in Pakistan where they actually do this. Lot's of dignity there.
They probably don't mess with the SNAP numbers (like they do with BLS data) because they like to dangle them in front of the hungry voters ! "There once was a lady from the Azores.....Whose body was covered with sores.....The dogs in the street, would snap at the meat, that hung in festoons from her drawers !"....Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity limerick ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Nostalgia Nostrums
I wonder how the strong the correlation is between the 46.5 million on SNAP and the leaderboard on Bejeweled at Facebook?
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, spend some time studying SNAP and the government agencies that run it. The amount of publically available data on this program can be read in an afternoon. If you want to crunch numbers and do some modeling based on those numbers be prepared to hire a lawyer. Here is my point.
1. We really have no idea about the number of people going hungry in America. I've read a few studies that indicate that only 68% of the people eligible for these programs are actually signed up.
2. There are no audits of the program. Is SNAP really helping the poor or is it just another backdoor payment to the banksters who make the EBT cards?
3. If this program is ever cut or cancelled we will see people in the streets starving or rioting.
4. Federal law makes it really difficult to get any information on SNAP. You really need to be a detective to get data that you can use for all like of cool statistical analysis.
More importantly, what are the administrative costs?
Who the hell knows? I sure can't find out any information on that.
JPM administers this program. Don't count on ever learning anything more than that.
Not that you or any one else would / could do anything anyway.
Bullshit. Resistance to tyrants is obediance to GOD.
Fuck foodstamps, BRING BACK THE SOUP KITCHENS!!!!!
And then... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihd4G9XxJOc
ALSO, A PerpetualWar Nation. And I think that costs a bit more....
If you think this is bad, wait to see what is over the horizon. This is nothing.
46.5 million Americans, that's nice voting block.
Of course if they don't get fed we could be a few meals from anarchy...
Problem is, they dont vote. Hell they dont even get up till noon.
That's why the current administration buses them to the polls...
Still pretty much irrelevant, the voters dont matter. The bankers already have picked who they want in there. My guess is contrary to popular belief ObaMao is a shoe-in, I believe they want a white republican face back in there for the collapse and world war.
Voters matter if you want to keep up the facade...
The facade of what, the wall of lies? Big deal.
voting is a safety valve, keeping the pot from boiling over. You get to vote, just like everyone else, because that's fair. Your guy didn't win? Well, it was close... it was a Good Try! You can vote again in four years.
We need a Great Levelling. Darwin has been denied the part he got correct for far too long. Feeding the useless, preventing them from suffocating in plastic bags, eating silica gel packets and drowning their spawn in 5 gallon buckets has brought us to this place.
Just like the markets, there are levels in society. When these levels are artificially inflated, you get bubbles. We're going to see a huge social bubble pop before much longer.
Just swipe yo EBT card, bitchez!
I wonder how many of these SNAP recipients have student loans?
and paying rent, cannot afford medicare! this is the grand plan! we shall all bow before the great ones'! NOT!!!!! before the foodstamp program is cut off, and it will be, lampposts will be adorned with new windchimes!!!
That won't happen until the food stamp program is cut off. Then when people get hungry maybe they will direct their anger where it needs to go. My suspicion is that we will have us a good hi body count war before that happens.
SAD SAD
Some busts for fraud happened yesterday in Boston and maybe other places in NE.
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220420raid_of_ebt_card_chea...
The DeValuator says it is just anecdotal, though.
- Ned
The average balance in all 50 million 401(k) accounts is just over $60,000, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Even people within 10 years of retirement have saved an average of only $78,000, and more than a third of them have less than $25,000. More than half of U.S. workers have no retirement plan at all. With Social Security averaging $14,780 a year for individuals and $22,000 for couples, many Americans will exhaust their savings in just a few years.
http://theweek.com/article/index/226886/how-401ks-are-failing-millions-o...
Bullish!!! The banksters and the paper-pushers still have (50,000,000x60,000)=$3,000,000,000,000 left to steal. That ought to keep things going for six months to a year.
And what little they have is going to get wiped out ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Bubble Up Poverty
In one recent survey, 43 percent of workers between the ages of 45 and 54 said they weren't currently saving for retirement at all.
some people have no one to blame but themselves looks like....but I suspect they will use OPMs to support them using EBT and SNAP.
Actually makes sense. Lots of people get 'retired' by just getting laid off for being over 50 and then can't get hired anywhere else. Paying for medical or medical insurance in such a situation, with probable pre-existing conditions, will quickly consume any savings someone making under $50K could reasonably have accumulated. Might as well just spend it while you are young and go bankrupt a couple years sooner.
Yeah why can't they save some money out of all those high paying jobs out there? (sarkylert)
I'm planning on working until I die just to show those fuckers.
Hear Rush's program today ? A reporter with camera man goes to Eric Holder's precinct and wants to vote as Eric Holder ! Long hair poll puke checks voter registration list and says OK ! Reporter says he forgot his ID and will have to go home and get it ! Pool puke says no, no, no problem....you don't need it ! Any one got the link ? I don't have a staff ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Baltimore Beat
thats a few weeks old. search you tube and you'll find.
I believe the film maker is O'Keefe.
Thanks !
Pelosi calls this stimulus. How insane is that.
I call it unsustainable. What do you call it?
There was an article from Maine last year where the SNAP users buy a case of water at a liquor store, dump out all of the water outside of the store, walk back in with the empty bottles, redeem them for the bottle deposit, and then buy some beer with the cash.
http://bangordailynews.com/2011/08/19/news/state/food-stamp-%E2%80%98water-dumping%E2%80%99-scam-continues/
arbitrage...
It sounds enterprising to me, a bit of a poor return on assets though...
"The Bangor Daily News put a spotlight on water dumping in August 2010 after a pair of men purchased $86.79 in bottled water from the Shaw’s in Bangor, dumped it out behind the store and returned the empties for $24."
cut cut cut...
whatever the progrom, it is just a subsidy to allow people to live beyond their means and avoid real life decisions.
I am will to wager the number of people on this program with a smart phone or plasma TV is high.
So if at some point in your life you could scrape up $300 for a TV or maybe less to buy one used and could pay $30/month for a phone, you never need any help? What do you recommend, they should sell their tv for $50 first? Then they got no reason to stay home and will be walking around the street more. Once you sign a phone contract, you're stuck with it for a while and you need a phone to get a job.
I like how they forecast a reduction starting immediately going into 2015. I wonder what math was used for that forecast.
That's the BLS "Bell Curve" ! Monedas 1929 Sometimes I make shit up....but usually I don't have to !
By 2015 World War III they forecast should be well underway so a large portion of the population will be suffering from radiation poisoning and won't require food stamps...
That 46.5 million will shortly increase by one (1) debt-serf. Namely, me. A newly minted PhD, in a dead job market, overloaded with 165K of student debt, compounding at 6.5% a year, while the Vampire Squid can borrow at 0.25%.
There are no goddamn jobs out there, even for those of us with degrees from topnotch universities. This economy is a cruel, sick joke, a predatory monster which pulverizes the 99% for the benefit of the 1%.
This summer, it's either food stamps, or I starve to death. Literally. Starve. To. Death.
That's how bad things are.
To the 99Percenters on this list: love and respect, keep fighting The System.
There's always roadkill.
damn! You should have went to that DeVry course on automotive electronics after all, instead of getting a degree in post-modern macrame fashions at the University of the Unshorn Sisters of the Apocalypse.
Try the dumpsters out back of McDonalds. I hear they have the shortest shelf time on their swill so you'll be getting the very best.
Please tell us what subject your degrees are in and which universities you attended.
Send me a private message. I may have a project for you...unless it is a Ph.D is basket weaving. Deprogram yourself. All that learning has made your mind soft.
Remember the words of Al Swaringan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Q7YRDL90E
Don't be a pussy!
Maybe practice the following in front of the bathroom mirror-
"Would you like fries with that?"
Is you doctorate in womens/ethnic studies or poli sci?
go get A job... start your 20 years to clicking... it's going to be a long 20 year sentence...
You might also consider government or nonprofit work to help mitigate the pain... (all things considered, you could take a substantial decrease in salary if they'll forgive the loans).
Just out of curiosity... at what point in your studies did you figure out that you had made some terrible decisions?
I'm sorry you are in this predicament. I'm sure it is disheartening. But DON'T become a slave to the system! My parents grew up poor during the Depression. They always taught me, do whatever you have to, but DO NOT take the dole! They did whatever they had to do to stay self sufficient....even if that meant working 3 low paying jobs. Why should younger generations feel too good for that approach? You will end up being tired, but able to look yourself in the mirror without shame. If you take SNAP, you are basically telling the banksters (and the corporate education system as well!) that they have won....that they have achieved their goal of making you their little slave bitch! Do you really want that?
Try to think outside the box...something the endless years of institutional education has successfully removed from your soul. I'm not saying it will be easy....au contraire...but you will salvage self respect in the process.
PhD in what, may I ask? We need to make sure no other ZHer (or their kids) major in that field.
Yeah this is a critical detail. If they wasted that much on Ethnic Gender Studies or Buddhist Literature they dont deserve any sympathy.
I also didnt notice any statement that they are physically crippled and unable to work a labor job at $8-10/hr.
Wouldn't you love to see a CBS disclaimer: "Sometimes we make shit up....just to keep our viewers honest !" Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Dan Rather Moment
The New American Dream: Rent, Don’t Buy
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/01/04/The-New-American-Dream...
i'm hearing that Buy, Don't Pay Mortgage is even better.
Get the bail out money back from the banks (let the fuckers fail) and take back the bonuses that the ass holes paid themselves for nearly blowing up the financial system - Then take all that money and feed the folks that are going to bed hungry, help out the families living in cheap hotel rooms get back on their feet, and with dignity, help out the elderly and the infirm. Also, start a research program looking into what industry of the future could put as many people as possible into MEANINGFUL, DIGNIFIED HIGH PAYING WORK. In addition, excepting the wealthy, take everyone's debts ( student loans, auto loans, credit card debt and home mortgages) and wipe the slate clean. Then working people would have a fighting chance at a better life while they are working two and three 'shit bag' jobs that combined, just barely are allowing them to keep their heads above water as they watch food, gas, clothing costs head higher and higher - THANKS TO BEN "FUCK'N A" BERNANKE. Not perfect solutions but a start.
I'm raising a family of four below the poverty line without SNAP - so far we don't need it, don't want it and don't like the idea of being any more dependent on government than we already are (EIC, Pell grants and occasional Medicaid are keeping us afloat, though).
Someone else might need this assistance more than I do, so let them have it. Once I get employed somewhere again, I'll go back to being a productive, contributing member of society - if there's still any left by then (see: financial crunch, currency collapse, etc.)
Go for 'em with Monedas' blessings....quickest way to bring down the beast ! Report back to us your experiences ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Egalitarian Gall
No you misunderstand. The money doesn't exist. It is created when you spend it. If you don't spend it then you are reducing the GDP, reducing inflation and making it more difficult to pay for the existing pile of debt. The purpose of these programmes is to move private debt on to the public books freeing up the private sector.
Hope and changes bitches.
Anyone who voted for the current administration needs to see a shrink.
Anyone thinking about voting for them this trip around needs a beating.....
That's the exact same thing I said about BushCO.
I as well....doesn't seem to be getting any better nomatter the party eh road.
Maybe it's time to make a real *change*.
No one that anyone votes for is going to do ANYTHING to change ANYTHING ! Every election year it's the same old shit - X politician promising all sorts of everything - but once they get into office those promises go right out the window. What I find truly pathetic though, is that each election season people line up at the show just like a 'Pavlovian Dog' ( gullable, stupid dumb asses) and swallow all the shit they are told and seem happy to eat it all up -It's a sickening cycle that just keeps repeating every 4 years and nothing seems to change.
So go wave your flags and blow your horns for the next white house occupant that will once again ride into town on empty promise.
Just think, if the Banks and Wall Street had not fucked over the world people would still have jobs and not need food stamps. And if business paid a living wage that kept up with inflation and people could save money then the half of Americans that "pay no income taxes", would be in a paying bracket.
If the Government can not protect the People from the criminal financial terrorists then they should at least have to keep the people who are getting fucked over fed and with enough money in their pocket to survive. And they HAVE to, otherwise, revolt.
roadhazard,
The "goverment" is complicite in the fraud.
HERE HERE ! You're on a roll
There are many in high place guilty of treason but they will never be prosocuted. They have the keys to our nation's treasury and friends in very high places.
Most small businesses, which hire most of the people, pay their employees based on the prices of the products and services they sell. If you want businesses you frequent to give their employees more in wages and benefits, ask them to raise their prices. And while you are at it, quit shopping at Walmart. I'm going to guess you like pontificating about wages and benefits but have never paid them. If you don't know what you are talking about, don't talk.
Maybe we should start teaching people how to grow their own food. Oh wait, what? Monsanto and the big box chains like Walmart and the big grocer chain stores (including the left-leaning "Whole Foods"), wouldn't like that?
And just give money to some corrupted government official to enforce said rule and voila! You've just created a higher demand for food stamps (which can be bet upon on the NYSE)!
http://abcnews.go.com/US/vegetable-garden-brings-criminal-charges-oak-park-michigan/story?id=14047214
- some Jesus guy
I heard that jesus guy let 12 other dudes eat him.
Can't we just feed the people on foodstamps with "Green Shoots?"
There's no indicator of how "poor" you are from food stamps anymore. Hell, the USDA has an ongoing campaign right now to award "creative" people for thinking up ways to get folks to "set aside their pride" and get on the program. Government stats and figures are meaningless now, you can 100% rest assured that ANY shit that comes out of government statistical or weepy anecdote wise is merely to assure that whatever agency is pushing it won't get cut (cut = have annual increses lowered). It's nothing but job insurance.
Way back in the 80's I worked at a place that took food stamps, but everybody I saw use them always bought a piece of hard candy or pack of gum with them and then used the cash change (which I don't believe you can do now, but people barter/trade items purchased these days) to by beer and smokes
I went to SNAP wesite to do a food stamp calculator. I get $0 assistance.
my income is not even clost to a average middle-class. I feel left-out.
The ebt'ers should organize under the we are the 22% banner.
And now just imagine what happens when the budget has to take cuts bigger than Greece...
Six billion per month??? Whoa now!!! Haha...
That's pocket change for Uncle Scam. By far the cheapest and most practical peace-keeping tribute handout. Besides, it's the least he could do after allowing the bankers to extract all the wealth.
I don't advocate dependence, and it won't last anyway, but to think you can allow the bankers to rape everyone and not give a little back to keep the peace (for the time being) is "French aristocracy" kind of arrogant and clueless.
I give Bernanke all the credit!
Here are your choices Bitchez. And they are stark:
1. Either you pay for food stamps thru taxes, and allow lazy and/or irresponsible breeding fuckers to mooch off of you
OR.....
2. The animals will break into your shit and rob you blind while you are at work.
Which do you choose?
Door #3- Get out of debt and the system as much as possible, refuse to pay or bleed into it to the maximum possible extent, swap for as many goods and services as possible, and be ready when it starts imploding.
It's becoming more apparent each day that all it will take is a charismatic leader to step forward and lead the downtrodden, lewdly-screwed masses on a march to the "gated communities" and "country clubs" of America to reclaim their wealth. Torches and pitchforks, bitches!
http://capital3x.com/trades/performance-week-of-20-april-2012-capital3x-fx-portfolio/
Capital3x has its 7th consecutive weekly gain as Forex and futures portfolio rises by over 635 pips with
remarkable accuracy.
How much is this program per year? 300M people x 15% of population x $132 per person-month x 12 months per year = $71.3B per year. Now the banksters were given $16T. That would fund this program for $16T / $713M = 224 years.
Fuck it. Let them starve.
I think the food stamp program is the 2nd least likely federal program to go away, with the 1st being defense. The elite won't get rid of the banksters army, but they also know from history, that when the younger people go hungry, they revolt.
Res publica mortuus est, vivat imperium!
This is what a recovery looks like. Now lean the f**k forward and see it...
We's all niggas now ! Cheat this fucking socialist beast any way you can ! This is Ayn Rand's producers on strike ! No more "Randian Filth" working harder, having smaller families, doing back flips to bail out the socialist beast and lick his hole ! Apply en masse for every govmint service, don't pay your taxes, don't even file, waste their time, Occupy Washington Street ! We's all niggas now....take care of us ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Rand's Raiders
Jon Corzine Still Bundling for Obama
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/jon-corzine-still-bundling-obama_640...
Instead of Bailouts for Banks, how about Bail-Money for Bankers ... which they earn at $0.93 per hour with their own hands in the Gulag.
Hmm, consider the comment from the article, "There are endless studies in the world of behavioral finance that show that people are very quick to budget increases in disposable income as permanent." Wouldn't the same logic apply to the wealthy? In which case, just as the poor come to "budget increases" in welfare, so do the rich come to "budget increases" in welfare. If this is so, then the author of this article's focus on the poor alone exhibits a telling bias in terms of which human beings the author values more.
Alternatively, if welfare is eliminated for all classes, then can anyone do what she or he desires? Is this "war of all against all" what the author of the article values? If not, then some sort of legislative and police function must exist. Do these functions engender budgeting "permanent" expecations, especially by the wealthy? Or, perhaps, does the author feel the only humans who should have legislative and police functions are the wealthy, because they can afford to buy them privately?
Indeed, is not budgeting "permanent" expectations the defining condition of society? If so, then does not civilization itself reach "a point where [humans] want a clear and potentially permanent social safety net?" Is the author rejecting civilization itself? If not, how far should the "safety net" constituted by the very existence of society go? Is the author of this article at war with the Enlightenment itself, the notion that humans can construct a harmonious society based on mutual reason, rather than the sword?
In fact, does not the privately acquired security and legislative ability of the wealthy not constitute "permanent" expectations composing a "potentially permanent social safety net?" Indeed, on the author's logic, only the Hobbesian state of "mutual war" provides no potential of "permanent" expectations. Even here, though, there is a "permanent" expection, the expectation of a life which is "poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
This is the problem with "slippery slopes," for assuming a universe in which everything is related to everything else, being of anything presents a potential slippery slope. As to where the limit of extension from a to b is drawn, that is the purpose of value theory, a subject little studied by economists. It is also the substance of legislation, another subject little studied by economists since their abandonment of political economy.
Yes, it is true economists study utilitarianism, but a utilitarian calculation is possible only within finite limits, when the universe is infinite. To define limits, then, is deontological, a function of intrinsic values. Which values are justified and which not is the subject of normative ethics, again a subject little studied by economists. Although so, it should be, not only by economists, but the author of this article. For it is deontology, the sense of intrinsic right and wrong, which limits the slippery slope reasoning the author, along with the American right wing, seems to so fear.
Excellent post.
is not budgeting "permanent" expectations the defining condition of society?
Considering that the great majority of human beings appear to be wired to DISLIKE CHANGE, yes, this would be a reasonable assertion. One of the reasons we coalesce into "society" in the first place is to reduce the threat of constant change in how we must live. I think it's something like 95% of people don't like change, and 5% do. Obviously the 95% are going to dominate in any even vaguely "democratic" form of self-organization.
So...society itself is largely a construct intended to prevent nature from occurring.
For it is deontology, the sense of intrinsic right and wrong, which limits the slippery slope reasoning the author, along with the American right wing, seems to so fear.
This, in my view, is a good example of the threat to actual survival that purely commercial calculations obtain. The "ideal" (or perhaps "idealized") businessman, fixated SOLELY on the interaction between flows of money and legal proscription, makes a great effort to stamp out the influence of his own "sense of intrinsic right and wrong"--unless such a sense can be used to improve results of the commercial transactions he engages in.
I don't think I'd go so far as to say this is specifically a feature of the "American right wing," but for sure there is a sub-component of loud right wing voices which attracts much of the attention, and has already completely captured American "libertarian" debate.
So - as wealth continues to accumulate for a small minority of the population who don't actually need it, large numbers of people at the bottom - who are too inefficient ie. requiring wages higher than the minimum that can be found somewhere else on the planet eg. Chinese peasants, are deprived of jobs and therefore income and therefore food, and would die in the gutter if not for the assistance of (evil) big gubmint.
Thank you, financial geniuses! What a brilliant plan for our society! (and not at all selfish, either :)
You've obviously never been rich, and never will be. Who's to say they don't "need" it? Don't be so judgmental until you have walked a mile in my John Lobbs (British, £2800+VAT, and Bespoke, of course).
Concerning, "Who's to say they don't 'need' it? Don't be so judgmental until you have walked a mile in my John Lobbs (British, £2800+VAT, and Bespoke, of course)," "Who's to say [the poor] don't need it, until you have walked a mile in their shoes?" Indeed, "Who at all is to say who doesn't need what?" On your solipsistic reasoning--other's unable to judge your "need"--no one can judge another's need. Since I can't "have walked a mile in . . . John Lobbs" shoes, on your reasoning I cannot know your "needs." Indeed, how can I know your "needs" from your "desires?" How can I know when you are conning me by your expressed "needs," and when not? I can't on your reasoning. Being so, I need not consider your "needs," because I cannot know, and thus trust, them. I only can consider my own needs. Only these I know. Since this is the case, to hell with you and everyone else. I'll take what I "need" when I "need" it, and everyone else be damned.
It is to this your reasoning comes. Certainly, John Lobbs, I hope you have not a family, because they cannot trust you.
I would walk in the shoes of the poor, but they stink and they would chafe my tender feet because they are not sized right, so I will do the economist thing and simply assume that I am poor, if only for a minute.
I just got an ad on here from the Department of Benefit Support... Always looking for more 'customers' I see.
Yeah I got those too. Since '08 especially; the free phones, the free food...the bennies just keep getting pushed in people's faces. They're running ads for the programs like they're selling iPads. I was on a commuter train in Philly a few years back and probably every 3rd ad was for some 'benefit program'. Worst part was I had to put up with some loud mouth ranting about 'slave reparations' and how she was going to show people 'how to spend the Benjamins'. It was surreal...
The government cannot distinguish those who can't from those who won't. All well intentioned programs are designed to help those who can't. Once implimented, those who won't go to work gaming the system. Inevitably, they get qualified for the program, enter the program, wind up outnumbering those who the program was designed for and because of their inclusion, render all program participants piriahs. When those who are forced to pay for the program rebell because of the hijacking of the program by those who won't, the bleeding hearts all trot out the those who can't in an effort to make those rebelling look heartless. The poor in this country aren't getting the shaft and neither are the well off. It's the working stiffs who show up for work everyday, for whatever wage they can get, give it their all, hoping they can make a better life for themselves and their families not understanding their government is putting another rock in their backpack everyday that they never determine is there until the weight of the backpack puts them on the ground (sorry, a Palin sentence) By then, it's too late. Who's standing up for them?
Out of all the fucked up federal programs in this fucked up country, I have the most sympathy for food stamps. Bear in mind it's relative, though.
Starvation is riots in the streets, people. Followed by a totalitarian response. That's generally not good.
Of course, in the end it's a zero sum game. The more government spends on food stamps, the less it will have for the military or sickcare or corporate subsidies.
We aren't little children. We can't "have it all." But Americans act as if they can.
we don't have much left in terms of fossil fuels safely recovered. but we have food. mountains of it. but please - read my post. snap cards should be for unprocessed foods. not double bacon cheese burger at some crap hole.
and it brings the family together. they have to prepare food and do dishes and eat together at the same table.
if there is one take away from what the powers that be learned - they broke up the slave familys to create an underclass with no values, and then they realized they could do the same thing with the middle classes.
team work. somebody goes to work. somebody goes to the market. somebody comes home and cooks. somebody sets the table. everybody eats together (without i-sucks). somebody does the dishes. everybody interacts. people watch mature elders and learn. the family exists for the benefit of all.
I'm having great difficulty believing only 4% of recipients are legal immigrants. The only people I see using EBTs here (Oregon) are mexicans that can't speak english. They might be legal, but I doubt it.
I don't have any problem with helping children and citizens, but paying for migrant farm laborers is an agricultural subsidy, not a social safety net.
my personal peeve is this. snap should be used for buying UNPROCESSED FOODS. if i have a family - and i have no employment, i have time. i can bake potatos and cook rice and make apple sauce. but that's not the case. the multi-nationals accept the snap cards and these deprived familys are shopping and eating garbage.
No argument here. Last year I was traveling and stopped at a supermarket to pick up some food. I got in the express line behind a mexican woman w/child and she was buying 30 (I counted) of those cheese and cracker pack thingees, and all I could think (beyond the fact that she obviously couldn't understand the sign that said less than 12 items) was that the kid was getting zero nutrition. It was a real WTF moment.
I knew folks on food stamps when I was a kid, and I remember the government cheese and milk. Processed foods were not allowed, and forget fast food. I sometimes wonder if SNAP is designed to help people survive or corporations.
You may be misinterpreting what you saw. Best not to be too quick to leap to judgment.
She may be buying those to sell on the street. It's very common in NYC. Candybars, too.
Perhaps. I'm not sure there's a big market in Vancouver Washington for that sort of thing, but I suppose it's possible.
I didn't intend that as rebuke, just a comment. I spent a good chunk of my life as a bit of a "hatah"--OF COURSE I knew what the poor were doing with their resources, and OF COURSE they were making bad decisions.
I eventually spent a few years with the very poor. (Ok, ok, actually I WAS one of them.) I was delighted to find that virtually every assumption I had previously made about them turned out to be WRONG. (I was correct that most of them had very limited academic education. That was one of the few assumptions that was accurate.)
More impressive to me: many poor folks also use "extra" SNAP benefit money to provide charity to other poor folks.
A cheese'n'crackers pack in the purse is a great offering to the homeless guy who asks for a dollar.
snap is now for corporations. and yes - i remember my parents friends scammed the system - and it was cheese, milk, eggs, huge cans of peanut butter and soy oil and bags of flour and rice and real staples. 70's.
46.5 million Americans or 46.5 million residents?
Grains and legumes are not food for humans bt they certainly are what the government/agro-business want us to eat. Eat primal. That will both make you healthy and kill the present corporatist system.
Ruling class sent the jobs to China. Increased support system while American's "adjust" was supposed to be part of the deal. Instead it's been cut back. 82 billion is only $300/person. Not that big a deal. Gas tax is $400B at 18 cents a gallon so 5 cents a gallon more would pay for this. Well worth it.
What fucking moron McDonnell is. Does he really think that those mexican legal and illegal immigrants are going to vote republican? Hell no! They will vote for whoever gives them the most handouts.
McDonnell, I repeat. You R a FUCKING MORON! The republican party won't exist 30 years from now because of dimwits like you!!!