The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Hard Times

    By EmmaZahn on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 6:21pm |

    Like canaries in a coalmine, the poor and near poor suffer the worst effects of an ailing economy. From Associated Press last night:

    Living paycheck to paycheck gets harder - Yahoo! News

    “Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

    “Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.”

    […]

    “Retailers started noticing the strain in late spring and early summer as they were monitoring the spending around the paycheck cycle.

    Wal-Mart and Family Dollar key on the first week of the month, when government checks like Social Security and public assistance generally hit consumers' mailboxes.

    7-Eleven, whose customers are more diverse, looks at paycheck cycles in specific markets dominated by a major employer, such as General Motors in Detroit, to discern trends in shopping. “

    How bad is it? Here are a few factoids from the article.

    “Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said the imbalance in spending before and after payday in July was the biggest it has ever seen, though the drop-off wasn't as steep in August.”

    “From Family Dollar to Wal-Mart, merchants have adjusted their product mix and pricing….”

    “The BedStuy Campaign against Hunger, a church-affiliated food pantry in Brooklyn scrambled to feed 5,000 new families over the past 12 months, up almost 70 percent from 3,000 the year before” and “has seen more clients in higher-paying jobs — the $35,000 range — line up for food.”

    “The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, which covers 23 counties in New York State, cited a 30 percent rise in visitors in the first nine months of this year, compared with 2006.

    “Maureen Schnellmann, senior director of food and nutrition programs at the American Red Cross Food Pantry in Boston, reported a 30 percent increase from January through August over last year. “

    “Food costs have increased 4.5 percent over the past 12 months, partly because of higher fuel costs. Egg prices were 44 percent higher, while milk was up 21.3 percent over the past 12 months to nearly $4 a gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

    I wish there were a way for the free-marketeers and Chicago School economists to find out how disastrous their policies are without the least among us being the first to suffer.

    Comments

    By the summer of 2001 the Bush administration had taken completely

    taken over the media. There are factual changes that can be documented.

    All public agencies were controlled before this.

    If anyone says they trust any government report

    they are a pawn for this administration!

    Economists that supplied cover for this administration should be

    considered co-conspirators.

    Economics as practiced today with no human cost system

    or social science links will be considered

    a tool for propaganda!

    -----------------------------------------------

    Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?

    -Thinking


    by Thinking (not verified) on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 11:21pm

    Thank you, Emma, for drawing attention to this.

    And to add to what Emma and Thinking (above) have written, the poor and the near poor pay an inordinate portion of taxes, whether sales taxes or whatever. And it is upon the backs of the poor, the young, the struggling near poor, that we will be bailing out the big banks who underwrote risky loans and the traders taking big risks in energy, who are driving up prices for heating - all without, of course, adequate federal supervision.

    Under bush the treasury appears to have been raided in many ways, partly through the war and all the privatization of war and surveillance, and also through gutting agencies we depend on for oversight of financial and judicial activity. And the poor and near poor suffer inordinately.

    The articles I link to are from today's New York Times and today's Washington Post. I highly recommend both. One explains the melt-down in the credit market and the likely bailout that is coming. The other explains how energy trading often goes without notice on "private" exchanges. The privatization of energy trading: The next bubble waiting to burst?

    And why do I post this here? Because instead of helping the poor and the struggling in our society, we're likely to take more out of their pockets, to protect the losses of the rich, who are picking the pockets of everyone!

    That we live in one of the richest nations and are at the bottom of the heap in healthcare, daycare, and other social safety nets is a travesty and a shame and hardly bearable for anyone with a conscience!

    Thank you, Emma!

     


    by TheraP (not verified) on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 1:27pm

    You are very welcome and thank you for your kind words.

    I haven't yet read the articles you link to yet because I usually try to reserve my Sunday mornings for more inspirational and hopeful reading.  But I will  get to them later today hopefully.

     


    by Emma Zahn (not verified) on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 2:11pm