The Changing Face of Poverty CNN.com

[Guest guest]

I think that these numbers are much lower than the reality. Most

people are one or two paychecks away from a house of cards falling in.

 

Even most of the people who are considered so called " well fed " are

well fed on nutritionally deficient, dead food, that has been

processed, disected into food parts, is basically junk, most grown by

subsidized large agribusiness, patented genetically modified

frakenfoods, poisoned by chemicals when grown, processed, cut into

food parts, divested of most parts that have nutrition as they may

" spoil " , recombined and made out of " food parts " instead of real

foods, etc. Most people are malnourished and nutritionally deficient

in one way or another in the usa and to some degree in most of

western civilization.

 

Most of that big money in the agribusiness is the same money that is

in the chemical company business (also the energy, gas, oil, etc

business) and also the pharmacuetical business. They win when they

sell you that deficient food, as a lot of that same big money grows it

, makes the pesticides for it, makes the false fertilizers with

chemicals that fertilizes it instead of real fertilizer, they win when

you become sick as that same big money makes the pharmacueticals that

suppress the symptoms of your illneses and the unsuspecting public

goes along generation after generation, electing the same politicians

owned by those same big money interests.

 

By the way those big money interests usually pay no very little or no

taxes on those billions in profit. They get the politicians to shift that onto

the clueless middle class. They use much government money though in subsidies,

low income government benefits for their low payed employees, get exempted from

paying taxes in one way or another, get laws passed that tilt the

playing field even more in their favor to stamp out any small guy

competition in their David and Goliath game. Pass laws to keep the

average joe from learning about it all or having any other real

options. And you the average taxpayer pays through the nose for all of

that corporate welfare (much more than spent on any programs that

benefit the average citizen). They also tilt the playing field against

real wage growth and try to make wages go down. We taxpayers get to

pay for our own demise while the big money interests suck the public

money out of the government treasuries as if they had vacuum cleaners.

The average person is screwed from every side whenever he looks up

and is in the dark about most of it. He is mainly too busy working day

and night to try and keep up and not go under. Those same money interests set in

motion actions that dumb down the populace and try to keep it that way, but

provide lots of inane diversion in the way of celebrity news, sports, scaring

the people by wars on crime, drugs, terrorism, etc. Let them eat cake and give

them circuses.

 

So the average citizen gets bad food along with his bad water and air

while he may work in a low paying contaminated workplace and when he

gets sick he gets more damaging high priced Big Pharma poisons. But

he thinks that because he has insurance he doesn't really pay for it

as the insurance pays. That is just another slick way to suck 15% of

all the money spent in our society out of it in an indirect manner

(they also suck up a lot of government money to subsidize their

" research " and other bogus programs) and since it is a layered payment

system with the consumers being removed one or two layers away from

cutting the check and don't see the money coming directly out of their

pockets miss the whole scam, and it is sucked out of everyones

pockets indirectly through high premiums, taxes, government costs,

etc. we don't directly see most of it go so we think that someone else

(who?) is paying for it.

 

And if that isn't bad enough, the young among us are then expected to

become cannon fodder for those same big money interests when they want

to muscle some other country for some economic reason or those young

people are declared unpatriotic and all that comes with it.

 

Most people will not get what I am talking about.

 

 

" We have met the enemy and he is us " .

 

Frank

 

 

 

 

 

The Changing Face of Poverty CNN.com

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/22/news/economy/poverty_ov...

 

 

snip

 

Fear and hunger walk hand in hand with poverty, and

last year 12.6 million American households -- 11.2

percent of all American homes -- were afraid they

might not be able to put enough food on the table,

according to the Census Bureau. That's up more than

1.6 million households from the year 2000.

 

How are these families coping? They eat less varied

meals, visit shelters and get food assistance from

food banks and emergency kitchens. Of these families,

3.9 million said that one or more members of the

family actually went hungry last year -- an 18.2

percent increasie from 2000.

 

A recent report by the outplacement firm Challenger

Gray and Christmas found that many food banks are in

" crisis mode. " In Ohio, for example, the Ohio Food

Bank has seen the number of people requiring

assistance jump 17 to 20 percent this year, " with a

significant increase in the number of working poor. "

 

Millions of working Americans are struggling to find

adequate food, health care and housing for their

families. Unable to earn a living wage, many have

resorted to food banks and community centers for help.

But according to the Challenger report, many of those

institutions say that making the increased demand even

worse is the fact that " donations and government

funding are at all-time lows. "

 

 

 

====

[Guest guest]

On Dec 31, 2004, at 3:17 AM, califpacific wrote:

 

> We taxpayers get to

> pay for our own demise while the big money interests suck the public

> money out of the government treasuries as if they had vacuum cleaners.

 

Frank, thanks for your long post. I want to ask you a couple of

important questions:

 

What can we do about this stuff besides not voting for the Republican

party?

Where can I learn more besides here?

 

I have been reading, " Confessions of an Economic Hit Man " , and am

looking for more Progressive stuff to read.

 

Thanks

Kathy