Frozen Out

Trey Smith

Joe White was this close to making it.

A 50-year-old California man described by relatives as a “loving father and a doting grandfather,” White had been living on the streets of Hayward for years. He wanted to work and was able to find odd jobs here and there, but it was never much or consistent enough to afford a place to live. Hayward has no emergency shelter with beds for single men, so White slept outside.

But things were looking up. Last Saturday, White was second on a long list to get permanent supportive housing in Hayward. He had been waiting in line for months and it seemed as though he might finally catch a break.

White died on Sunday.

Temperatures in the Bay Area plummeted to near-freezing on December 10, an uncommon occurrence in a region generally known for its lack of inclement weather. White’s body was found in the old Hayward City Hall courtyard. He’d been beaten up and robbed by multiple men, who took the new winter coat White’s sister had given him on Friday. He was wearing just a hoodie and shorts. His cause of death is still being determined, but police speculated that his death was weather-related.

White is now the seventh homeless person in the Bay Area to die in the cold since November 28. The others were Daniel Brillhart, 52; Enrique Rubio, 56; Andrew Greenleaf, 48; Daniel Moore, 53; and two men in the East Bay and Peninsula whose names have not been released.
~ from 7 Homeless People Freeze to Death in Wealthiest Area of the Country by Scott Keyes ~

Seven doesn't sound like that large of a number. For those who live in colder climes, the figure probably is much higher. But that's not the point.

We live in a nation in which corporate profits are soaring to record heights and those who are reaping these rewards concurrently are pushing to lower their responsibility to the community -- via taxes -- by even more than they already are. The deaths of these 7 individuals represent blood on the hands of the elite, but they don't give a damn.

Their sole focus is on the welfare of themselves and their kind. They don't care about the rest of us. Any way one looks at it, that is sad. Tragically sad.

BP - Is the Budget Deal Really an Austerity Budget?

How "Thinness" Leads to Obesity

Trey Smith

It has been noted by many that the US has a weight problem. Simply put, a significant number of Americans are fat! This unhealthy situation knows no bounds. It affects rich and poor, male and female, young and old. While obesity crosses many categorical demarcations, it remains true that it touches the poor more than any other group.

On the surface, it sounds like a contradiction in terms. Obesity -- which often erroneously is equated with little more than overeating -- would seem to be the kind of issue at the opposite end of the spectrum for those who struggle to find enough to eat. When we think of the malnourished in the developing world, the pictures we see are of individuals who look like matchsticks! In the US, however, the malnourished often are grossly overweight.

How can this be?

It ends up working out this way in America because of the simple fact that good food is far more expensive than worthless crap. If you are financially poor -- I write from experience -- purchasing organic produce on a regular basis is out of the question. In fact, buying fresh produce of any kind -- including the majority which has been bombarded with all sorts of noxious pesticides -- is vastly more expensive than buying starchy and salt- and/or sugar-laden processed food devoid of much nutritional value.

To make matters worse, while a record number of Americans have signed up for Food Stamps, the program itself has been cut significantly -- you might say said program has been thinned. And so, with less food assistance, even conscientious consumers like Della and I (as of Jan. 1, our monthly Food Stamp allotment will drop to $158/month -- less than $40 per week for 2 adults) are being forced to purchase less nutritious foodstuffs than we would like.

It really comes down to pushing back against hunger. If we were to continue to purchase as much produce as before, we would end up missing a lot of meals each month. The rate things are going, I may turn into the vegetarian who eats few fresh vegetables!

BP - What Would Jesus Do with the Banksters?

TRNN - US Student Homelessness Up 10% Since Last Year

Blacnk Friday

Trey Smith

One of the great advantages to being financially impoverished is that you really can't get sucked up in a time-honored American spending orgy: Black Friday. Today millions of Americans got up at the crack of dawn to race to various stores to take advantage of big sales and massive discounts. Some of these purchases will be for items truly needed -- most of them won't. No, most purchases will be for worthless crap that will be forgotten about or tossed aside a few weeks after Christmas.

When we were still moderately poor, it was hard not to be pulled into the vortex of consumerism. We all are bombarded by imagery that suggests in the strongest terms possible that it is purchased things which define us to others and even ourselves. You can't be happy UNLESS you own one or more of the current "must have" products.

Yes, we continue to be peppered with this same vulgar message, but a certain level of poverty provides needed refuge from the "infection". Simply put, even if we wanted in on the feeding frenzy, we just don't have the money AND we refuse to buy on credit. While others are out wading their way through crowds of discount-mad fellow shoppers, we aren't going anywhere. Aside from dodging the occasional harried motorist, today will be a typical Friday.

BP - Killing the Poor...Part 2

BP - Killing the Poor...

"An Alternative World"

Trey Smith

When I read a rundown of military assets being sent to rescue survivors and deliver supplies, I feel grateful for the logistics officers marshaling their expertise, but also struck by the fact that the tools we're using were designed to fight wars and are being temporarily repurposed. I wonder what a fleet as well-funded as the U.S. military's would look like if it were optimized for natural disaster response.

How many victims would have been reached already?

The stories about inaccessible areas of the Philippines, where authorities haven't yet seen the damage — let alone helped the survivors — makes me reflect on the global drone fleet, and imagine an alternative world where it was optimized and expanded to spot victims rather than insurgents, delivering drinking water rather than Hellfire missiles.

I don't mean to go all John Lennon on you. This isn't a naive call to eliminate the U.S. military and spend its entire budget augmenting the International Red Cross.

But given how predictable it is that there will be deadly storms, catastrophic earthquakes, and other natural disasters besides, you'd think we'd spend more on preemptive measures that would help lower the death toll and speed help to survivors. Alas, our psychology as individuals and nations is to dig into our pockets only after the fact, when the descriptions of mass graves and hunger reach us.

It is good to act then. It would be better to act sooner.
~ from Is This the Best Humanity Can Do for the Philippines? by Conor Friedersdorf ~

If asked to sum up in brief the primary reason I started this blog in January 2005, it would be because of my desire to imagine "an alternative world", one aptly expressed through the eyes of Laozi and Zhuangzi. As far back as when they (or others) wrote their famous tracts, humanity has wrestled with cultures fixated on satisfying the egoic desires of the elite. In "an alternative world", ALL of this planet's creatures and life forms would be valued and war would have no purpose.

A report is out that survivors in typhoon-ravaged central Philippines stormed a government owned rice warehouse because...they were starving. It is a sad commentary that there are people in this world who starve everyday despite the fact that enough food is produced to feed everyone. Though there is enough fresh water, there are folks who die of thirst. There are people who are born into grinding poverty and, when death comes (sooner than it should), have never had the opportunity to escape its grip.

I don't understand how ANYONE could be satisfied with the kind of world we have created. It is a world of a few mega winners and a wide swath of mega losers. To sit by silently is, to me, the greatest sin of all.

It's Not Truly a Cut, But...

Trey Smith

Emergency food providers in the US are preparing for an influx of struggling families across the country who have been warned their Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits, will be cut on [Nov. 1]. Feeding America, the hunger relief charity, describes the scale of the cuts, $5bn a year, as representing about 2 billion meals a year and warns that the effect will be "close to catastrophic".

The cuts are the result of the expir[ation] of the fiscal stimulus legislation of 2009, which increased Snap benefits to provide a spur to the economy. The cuts will be unprecedented in depth and breadth, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a non-profit thinktank, and they will happen automatically, affecting every household in the US which qualifies for SNAP.
~ from US Emergency Food Providers Brace as $5bn Food Stamp Cuts Set In by Karen McVeigh ~

Americans -- not just the mainstream media -- treat every expiration as a "cut" or a "hike". It doesn't matter what the situation is. This situation with SNAP is just like the discussion around allowing the temporary Bush tax reduction to expire. In that case, it was said that, in allowing the expiration, Obama favored raising taxes on the well-to-do.

If we are at all honest, both declarations are disingenuous. In both cases, a temporary measure was adopted -- the key word here is temporary. By allowing the measure to expire, we return to the base. In other words, in terms of SNAP, there was a base formula utilized and the stimulus money simply increased benefit amounts for a fixed period of time due to the struggles within the US economy.

It would be like a golfer with a certain handicap. Because of recent knee surgery, this golfer's mates agreed to increase his handicap by several strokes while the golfer worked himself back into shape. Once his knee was healed and he regained his form, the extra handicap would be removed. Would he then complain that his mates were treating him unfairly?

My point is that this cut in SNAP really isn't a cut at all; it just brings us back to where we started before the temporary increase.

As a recipient of SNAP, you might then think that I have no issue with allowing the expiration of increased benefits to occur. 

Aah, but I do! 

My problem is that the President and Congress seem quite okay with allowing temporary measures that aid the poor to expire as scheduled, while continuing temporary measures that benefit the rich. The economy for the Wall Street has rebounded quite nicely since the economic downturn, but the economy of Main Street remains in the doldrums. So how is it that temporary measures that benefit the upper class become more or less permanent, while temporary measures that benefit the poor retain their temporary character?

Taken From the Mouths of Babes

Trey Smith

Food assistance benefits for over 45 million Americans will be slashed starting this Friday, in the first-ever nationwide reduction in benefits under the US government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), popularly known as food stamps.

The cuts total $11 billion over the next three years and amount on average to a month’s worth of food assistance. They will mean yet more privation for millions of working people, including the poorest and most vulnerable members of society — children, elderly people, the unemployed, the disabled and new mothers.

That this brutal cut takes place under conditions of continuing mass unemployment and economic slump, with record numbers of people living in poverty and homelessness and hunger on the rise, testifies to the ruthlessness of the American ruling class. The callous indifference of the media and the entire political establishment, beginning with the Obama White House, to the suffering of broad layers of the population is reflected in their virtual silence on the imminent cutback in benefits.

As far as the corporate-controlled media is concerned, snatching food from the mouths of hungry children is not even worth reporting. As for the politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans are saying virtually nothing because there is a bipartisan agreement to impose the cuts.

Meanwhile, the government bailout of Wall Street and corporate America continues unabated. The Federal Reserve is expected this Wednesday to announce the extension of its $85 billion-a-month subsidy to the stock market and the banks in the form of its “quantitative easing” money-printing operation. Trillions of dollars have been pumped into the financial markets and interest rates have been kept at near-zero to drive up share values to record highs in the midst of the deepest crisis in the real economy since the Great Depression.

This channeling of social wealth into the coffers of the super-rich has produced the highest levels of social inequality in nearly a century. The American financial aristocracy is choking on its own wealth.
~ from Cutting Food Stamps: The Ruthlessness of the American Ruling Class by Andre Damon and Barry Grey ~

This is yet another example of a snippet in which I don't have anything to add. The authors have expressed the indignation over this issue about as well as one might expect.

DN - Super-Sizing Welfare Costs: Low Wages at McDonald's, Burger King Cost Taxpayers Billions

TYT - McDonalds Employee Confronts CEO

Will Trade Head for Rent?

Trey Smith

Hair, breast milk and eggs are doubling as automated teller machines for some cash-strapped Americans such as April Hare.

Out of work for more than two years and facing eviction from her home, Hare recalled Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel and took to her computer.

“I was just trying to find ways to make money, and I remembered Jo from ‘Little Women,’ and she sold her hair,” the 35-year-old from Atlanta said. “I’ve always had lots of hair, but this is the first time I’ve actually had the idea to sell it because I’m in a really tight jam right now.”

The mother of two posted pictures of her 18-inch auburn mane on www.buyandsellhair.com, asking at least $1,000 and receiving responses within hours. Hare, who also considered selling her breast milk, joins others exploring unconventional ways to make ends meet as the four-year-old economic expansion struggles to invigorate the labor market and stimulate incomes.

In all but two quarters since the beginning of 2011, “hair,” “eggs,” or “kidney” have been among the top four autofill results for the Google search query, “I want to sell my...,” according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at New York-based ConvergEx Group, which provides brokerage and trading-related services for institutional investors.

While Americans can legally sell hair, breast milk and eggs, the sale and purchase of a kidney in the U.S. is against the law.

“The fact that people even explore it indicates that there are still a lot of people worried about their financial outlook,” said Colas, who tracks off-the-grid economic indicators. “This is very much unlike every other recovery that we’ve had. It’s going to be a slow-grinding, very frustrating recovery.”
~ from Bodies Double as Cash Machines With U.S. Income Lagging by Victoria Stilwell ~

Yes, the "economic recovery" is going so well that average Americans are willing to sell body parts to keep a roof over their heads or food on the table. Normally, this kind of story would lead to one of my diatribes, but this article pretty much sums up the sorry state of affairs on Main Street.

What will be next? Parents selling children to keep the lights on?

TYT - House Votes To Cut Food Stamps By $40 Billion

End of the Dream?

Trey Smith

The final chapter of America's Promise, a high-school textbook on American history, ends with a rallying cry to national mythology. "The history of the United States is one of challenges faced, problems resolved, and crises overcome," it states. "Throughout their history Americans have remained an optimistic people, carrying this optimism into the new century. The full promise of America has yet to be realised. This is the real promise of America; the ability to dream of a better world to come."

Such are the assumptions beamed from the torch of Lady Liberty, coursing through the veins of the nation's political culture and imbibed with mothers' milk. Their nation, many will tell you, is not just a land mass but an ideal – a shining city on the hill beckoning a bright new tomorrow and a dazzling dawn for all those who want it badly enough. Such devout optimism, even (and at times particularly) in the midst of adversity makes America, in equal parts, both exciting and delusional. According to Gallup, since 1977 people have consistently believed their financial situation will improve next year even when previous years have consistently been worse.

But when President Barack Obama was planning his run for a second term his pollsters noticed a profound shift in the national mood. The optimism was largely gone – and with it both the excitement and the delusion. The time-honoured rhetorical appeals to a life of relentless progress, upward mobility and personal reinvention didn't work the way they used to.
~ from The American Dream Has Become a Burden for Most by Gary Younge ~

And why has the dream come crashing down? Younge sums it up in his last paragraph.

The self-proclaimed leader of the free world is turning into a low-wage economy with a class system more rigid than most and a middle class that wavers between poverty and precariousness. More than half the people using the food bank in Larimer County, Colorado, that I visited last year were working. More than one in four families in New York's homeless shelters includes at least one working adult. In the absence of a living wage and an ethical pay structure, the work ethic, on which the American dream is founded, doesn't work.

Thomas Gaist boils down for us the hard figures.

A US Census Bureau report released [last] Tuesday, entitled “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2012,” makes a mockery of President Barack Obama’s claims to be restoring “security and opportunity for the middle class” in the wake of the 2008 financial breakdown.

The report provides a snapshot of a society in immense crisis. Poverty is at a near-generation high of 15 percent, close to the high point since the 1965 War on Poverty, the 15.2 percent rate reached in 1983. According to Tuesday’s report, 46.5 million Americans, including 9.5 million families, live in poverty.

Some 20.4 million people live on an income less than 50 percent of the official poverty line, 7.1 million of these being children under 18. More than 48 million remain without health insurance.

More than 31 percent of the population experienced some period of impoverishment during the years 2009-2011. Median household income, at $51,017, was slightly lower than in 2011, and down by 8.3 percent from 2007. The number of people 65 and older living in poverty increased from 3.6 million to 3.9 million between 2011 and 2012.

Despite more than four years of so-called “recovery,” American society remains plagued by mass deprivation and entrenched poverty. The “recovery” under Obama is limited to the wealthy and the super-rich, who have recovered all of the losses they suffered in the immediate aftermath of the Wall Street crash of September 2008 and grown richer than they were before the financial crisis. Social inequality has deepened as a result of policies designed to further redistribute wealth from the bottom of society to the top.

The American Dream now lives on ONLY for a select few. This privileged minority rails against handouts and programs for the unwashed masses while, at the same time, they demanded ever more handouts for themselves. What's worse, they have all but abandoned the rhetoric of a trickle down economy. They no longer pretend to care about the community as a whole -- it is all about them and how much more they can get their greedy hands on.

Hypocrisy Should Have an "F" In It Somewhere

Trey Smith

One of the questions the curious voter from time to time wonders, is how a person can distinguish good government handouts from bad government handouts. The answer to that question is not as obvious as it would seem to be to the uninitiated. The question was most recently posed (and answered) by U.S. Representative, Stephen Fincher, a member of the House of Representatives from the 8th Congressional District in Tennessee.

Mr. Fincher has distinguished himself by standing up for the right of the poor to prove their self-sufficiency by not partaking of the food stamp program. Because the poor are not always as motivated as they should be and in the case of parents with children but without funds to care for them, unable to keep their lives together, Mr. Fincher believes they should work harder to earn what they require to live as he, and others like him, do. The problem he is helping them address is their dependence on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as the food stamp program.
~ from Subsidies for Me, But Not For You by Christopher Brauchli ~

Stephen Fincher is one of those fiscally conservative Republicans who support a Farm Bill that would cut $20 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/SNAP (Food Stamps) AND increase subsidies for crop insurance. Because he serves in the US House of Representatives and receives a salary of $174,000, he is not eligible for SNAP. Interestingly enough, he IS a farmer and as a farmer he routinely accepts farm subsidies.

As Brauchli notes,

Between 1995 and 2012 Fincher Farms in Tennessee received payments totaling $4,180,287, almost all of that from commodity subsidies. In collecting those subsidies his farm was one of the ten percent in Tennessee that collected 87 percent of all subsidies paid in that state. Seventy eight percent of Tennessee farms received no subsidies.

During that 16 year period, Fincher received, on average, $261,000 per year. Compare this to the monthly average household amount of SNAP -- $275.42 (FY 2013) -- received by people not named Rep. Stephen Fincher. If we take that average monthly amount and multiply it by 12 months, the total outlay is $3,305.04.

So, Mr. Fincher contends that those who receive around $3300 per year should "prove their self-sufficiency by not partaking of the food stamp program." But he has no qualms about people like himself accepting a handout from taxpayers to the tune of more than one-quarter million dollars per year. Not only that, but he wants even more taxpayer dollars set aside for farm subsidies for farmers like himself who, somehow, don't need to show that they are self-sufficient at all.

I think we need a new word for this type of loathsome attitude. How about hyfocrisy?

DN - The American Way of Poverty

Let Them Eat...Dust!

Trey Smith

The fiscal conservatives are at it again! As they seem to do several times per year, they are making another push to cut the budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (what is commonly called Food Stamps). Yes, despite the fact that income inequality is at historic levels and far too many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, fiscal conservatives want to take food out of their mouths.

Andy Fitzgerald, a recently hired intern at the Guardian, wrote a nice piece on how he found himself on Food Stamps, even though he is a recent graduate of "a top liberal arts college." Despite his clean, new diploma, Andy had troubled finding a good paying job -- imagine that! -- and Food Stamps kept him from starving.

The point is that any individual who qualifies for SNAP should use it regardless of race, background, education, gender identity, or misplaced sense of pride. The more this view is socially accepted, the more we can have an honest conversation about the safety net without prejudice and stereotypes.

Were I given the opportunity to speak to Eric Cantor, Newt Gingrich, or other critics perpetuating myths about SNAP, I would share my personal story. Food stamps kept me from going hungry, and gave me the support necessary to eventually secure an internship at the Guardian.

People on food stamps are people; with friends and family, difficulties and aspirations. People also have pride. When we perpetuate myths about social assistance, we discourage those who are eligible from enrolling. America shouldn't let people go hungry. Assistance programs should be about giving people a hand up, not about putting them down.

Della and I currently are on the Food Stamps program. When we first went on the program back when I was in grad school, I was embarrassed. I grew up in a middle class family and I understood the stigma that went along with it. I would do our weekly shopping late in the evening, just a few minutes before the store closed. I chose this time in the hopes that none of my classmates would see me. What would they think if they knew that I was so financially poor that I needed government assistance?

Once I finished grad school, we didn't need that kind of assistance for nearly 15 years. We were never rich during that time, but we earned just enough to keep our heads above water (plus I had available money from a small trust fund set up upon my mother's death). However, in the early part of this century, the symptoms of my mental health issues began to get worse and, in time, I ceased to work and went on disability. Della kept working, but since she rarely made slightly above the minimum wage, we soon found ourselves back on the Food Stamps program.

Now that Della is disabled too (chronic respiratory failure), our financial future is bleak. With the exception of Congress-approved [possible] cost of living raises, our monthly income is capped at less than $1100. If not for the Food Stamp program, we would be faced with impossible choices like food versus rent or food versus utilities.

Hey Eric Cantor, what do you have against people like us?

The Penalty of Poverty

Trey Smith

On the housing front, things have been looking up for Della and I...sort of. In the last 3 weeks, we have been contacted by three different sites and already have participated in the initial interviews for two of them (Westport and Ocean Shores).  Both are relatively close AND on the southwest Washington coast.

While both of these plus another one in Shelton look somewhat promising, we have run into a bit of an obstacle: the penalty of poverty.  On Friday, the manager of the complex in Ocean Shores called to say that our initial application had been denied (though there IS a way around this).  What's the problem?  We understandably have dings on our credit report.

For the last three months, we have been trying to survive on a mere $756/month.  Due to Della's hospitalization during the last week of March and her inability to work since, we are being slammed with medical bills.  All told, I'd say the total tab to date is somewhere between $2,000 - $3,000!  We simply do not have the money to pay them and so late notices are showing up at the credit agencies.

Here is the proverbial catch-22.  If we had the requisite funds to pay these bills, we probably would be doing well enough to stay current on our mortgage and thus have no reason to move.  The sole reason we are being forced to move is that we are so cash poor.  And yet, being so cash poor negatively impacts our credit score which might jeopardize our ability to qualify for subsidized housing!

I certainly understand that the apartment managers and the corresponding federal agency (HUD or USDA) want to insure that the people whom they rent to will pay their subsidized rent regularly and on time.  That is a no-brainer.  But expecting those of us mired in poverty to have pristine credit scores is completely unrealistic, particularly when these scores are impacted negatively by a medical emergency.

As noted above, we have been told that there is a possible avenue around this quagmire.  We have to write up a detailed explanation of WHY our credit score is not pristine and, in many instances, a requirement waiver will be granted.  I certainly hope this happens to be the case or, when our home is finally foreclosed on, we will be living in our little car!