Hunger for the Holidays

The holiday season is here again and most people are making plans for their holiday fest. However there is a growing segment of America’s population that is just trying to get to keep enough nutrition to keep alive.  The USDA defines food security as households having access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. According to the USDA report “Household Food Security in the United States, 2008”, 14.6 percent of American households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. What that also means is that the parents aren’t eating so the kids can eat what little food they can buy or the elderly are missing meals.  14.6% of American households are about 50 million Americans or another way to express this enormous number of hungry people is that for every six people you see one is probably not getting enough to eat. 50 million hungry Americans are more people than live in South Korea. At the time of the 1880 census, there were 50 million people in the USA. 50 million is too many. This should not happen in the United States of America, or anywhere else in the world.

When I was in the “States” a few weeks ago, I saw a program for the organization “Feeding America”. This was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. It was like one of those TV shows I watched when I was a kid about starving children in Africa, asking you to be a human and donate to help feed children, but now the shows are about starving American children. Who would have ever thought this was possible; how far “the mighty” have fallen. They told the stories of people they had helped; families who were doing fine until they lost their jobs and their savings were gone, then they lost their electricity and other utilities and couldn’t pay their rent. The children and the parents did not get enough to eat. Mothers were expressing how hard it was to explain to the children that there was no more food and fathers doing what they could to get some food. People living in their cars until someone, strangers took them in. This was one of the saddest things I have ever seen; I watched this show for at least 30 minutes. Afterward I vowed to do whatever I could to feed people.

Watching that show made me think even more about why people are going hungry and why Americans are letting their fellow citizens go hungry. Are we so mean spirited? Are we so selfish? Where are all the Christians? Why are they not helping the poor and demanding that government take care of poor, hungry and homeless Americans?   Where are all the Right-to-Life people? Or do they only care about the unborn? Why isn’t this subject in the news all the time? What the hell is wrong with people? Is America poised to turn into Sub-Saharan African? The more I think about people going hungry in America, the angrier I get.

There are a lot of Americans who say they are for upholding the constitution; however I am in doubt that they have really read it. To read the constitution yourself, go to http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

The preamble of the United States Constitution states: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Making sure everyone has a place to live and has enough to eat is a part of promoting the general welfare. If you want to uphold the constitution start with ensuring the government (that would be us, we the people) takes care for its 50 million starving people.

 What will American look like when it there are 100 million people hungry? Will the other 200 million people feel safe? Will there be riots and gun battles in the street? What will all the “Patriots” do? Take up arms against their fellow citizens to stop them from eating? My point is what kind of country do we want America to be in the future? If you want to live in a dystopian version of America where the hungry fight for scrapes, we are on the right path. If you need a sample of what that might look like, watch the film Soylent Green.  If you want to live in a world where people help each other and civilization continues to progress, help the hungry.  Don’t turn your back on people in need.

Ways to help:

Donate to Feeding America http://feedingamerica.org/

Donate to No Hungry Kid http://nokidhungry.org/

“Like” Kraft Foods on Facebook and join the huddle for hunger. Kraft will donate one meal when you "like" Kraft on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KraftFoods

Tweet about @kraftfoods/huddle-to-fight-hunger or text the word meals and your zip code to 71717; Kraft will donate one meal to a food bank for each tweet, fan and text.

Visit the huddle for hunger website for more quick and easy ways to help the hungry. http://www.kraftrecipes.com/huddleforhunger/home.aspx

Support your local food bank. Locate one between home and your grocery store at feedingamerica.org or strength.org, and then make it a habit to buy a few extra items and drop them off on your way. Most-needed items include canned meat and fish, rice, pasta, soup, and personal items such as toothpaste and soap.

Get Active! Hold a food drive at your local school, church or other location. Here’s information on how to do it: http://www.strength.org/get_involved/

Shop at Kroger. In 2009, Kroger contributed 50 million pounds of food and other product to Feeding America food banks, to assist hungry families in the communities they serve. Valued at more than $75 million, those donations translate to roughly 60 million meals. Shopping at stores that help feed the hunger, helps them to get helping.

Don’t let anyone you know starve! Make sure the people in your family or your neighbors have enough to eat. And if they don’t take them shopping, give them food or grocery store gift cards or just invite them for a meal once a week. 

Write or call your elected officials and demand they do something about hunger and the underlying causes of poverty, under employment and unemployment in America.

The President: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/

The Senate: http://www.house.gov/

There are many ways to help; Google “help the hungry America” to find more ways to help.

All these are temporary solutions because the cause of hunger is not lack food, it is lack of money. As with any emergency situation, you need to do triage to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient before you can really fix the problem.  I will write more on the causes of poverty at a later time. Right now, please help the hungry. Hurry, people are starving right now!

Ciao for now,

Fobbsie

How to Save America – Part I

The question has been asked, what would I do to change things, if I was President or what would I have President Obama do? Well, here is my partial answer:

• ·         By executive order, I would stop all foreclosures immediately.  I would institute a program to re-value all the homes in the United States to their 2001 value, and make the banks refinance any home, not just the homes in foreclosure to that level. Everyone would benefit, even the banks. Additionally, revaluing the price of housing would make it more affordable for people to buy houses and would simulate the housing market once again.

• ·        I would start a public works program that would concentrate on creating energy efficient houses and apartments and creating a renewable energy in infrastructure. All houses/apartment buildings would get insulation, new windows, doors and solar panels that would power hot water heaters. This would create manufacturing jobs, boost sales of building materials, employ installers and all the associated administrative staff that is required to complete the task. No dwelling would be left untouched. This would save energy and decrease the amount CO² we put in the air.

• ·         I would create a national Broadband project. Everyone should be connected to high-speed internet by 2015. The cable would belong to the government which would be responsible for getting it to every home. There are too many areas in the United States that do not have high-speed internet access. Internet service providers would have to lease the rights to provide services over the national internet bandwidth.  We have to move forward on this front and waiting for business to do it is taking too long and most likely will never happen. More Jobs and everyone gets on an internet superhighway at a lower cost. If everyone is on the internet, it will spark innovations and more job creation.

• ·         All postal vehicles except for the big trucks would be electric vehicles that are charged at solar charging stations. This would stimulate the automotive and related industries and create jobs. It would also create new manufacturing industries.

• ·         I would start a program to build a new power grid throughout the nation. This grid would be powered by Alternative energy sources; wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and whatever else there is to come in the future.  It would employ people and lower energy costs, and everyone would be happier with lower energy costs. Too bad for the old time energy industry.

• ·         I would start community farming programs to increase small farms and local food production. Factory farms are over. We need to eat more locally grow foods to have healthier lives.

• ·         I would make state university tuition free. Students would have to pay for books, food and staying at residential halls. This would have to be heavily subsidized but it would be worth it in the future. Students could concentrate on their studies and not have work so hard just to afford the classes.  It’s the fastest way to get more doctors, more engineers, and scientists.  In return, students would have to take paid jobs in the city, county, state or federal government in some capacity for 5 years. That way the government would get the best and the brightest and some fresh blood.

• ·         I would stop the wars immediately. No troops in Iraq. No troops in Afghanistan or Pakistan. No contractors either. Time to let the Muslims alone. They don’t want us there and we aren’t really helping ourselves. And the military need a reset; we have run our DoD soldiers and civilians into the ground. Additionally, we would save billions of dollars that we could use to make our country better.

Jobs, jobs, jobs, are what we need and renewable energy and manufacturing is how we get it. I will post more ideas for getting the country back in order at a later date.

Where President Obama Went Wrong

When President Obama was elected there was a lot of hope. Yes we can! People were expecting him to take charge and handle his business; make everything better and put the country back on course.  However, it did not work that way. He surrounded himself with the same people who created the situation America is currently in now. He professed his undying desire to work with republicans, who simultaneously profess a desire to see him fail. He refused to prosecute all the wrongdoers of the Bush regime and surprise, surprise they are back spouting all their nonsense again. He made backdoor deals with business and put inconsequential restraints on the bankers. He was a really nice guy but that is not why people voted for him. People wanted someone to get in there and kick some butt. Yes, everyone likes flowery rhetoric but come on enough with the Mr. Nice Guy routine.  

I would suggest Obama take a page from the 2006 film, Idiocracy and show the people and the Republicans who‘s the boss. The clip at the link below is from a presidential address from the Black president in the film. An interesting feature of this clip, the South Carolina delegation yells out in during the president’s address. This film was made long before Obama was elected so this is a case of life imitating art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFyUvlfZ8j0 

American people needs help and now. And after the 2010 elections, we have let the people who wrecked the country partially back into power. This is the time when we need to double down and take no prisoners. Obama needs to do something to directly and overtly help the people; nothing subtle, no bloody tax cuts, no obscure crap. He needs to do something purely populist and he needs to do it now. 

Ciao for now,

Fobbsie

Tax Breaks for Millionaires and Billionaires, How Stupid is that?

There are factions in the USA that believe that it is important to give tax breaks to Millionaires and Billionaires. The first group consists of the Millionaires and Billionaires themselves. The second group consists of the congressional representatives and senators that the millionaires and billionaires have purchased. The third and more important group is made up of the idiots that Millionaires and Billionaires have tricked into believing that giving them tax breaks will somehow help the economy. I wish I could trick someone into giving me money, of course when I would do this it would be considered fraud or theft.  So let me be clear, really rich people do not need tax breaks. They are already rich and do not need your help to get rich or stay rich. The rich have used all the tricks possible to get rich or stay rich. They use all the tax loopholes, tax shelters and off-shoring techniques that normal people cannot use because the rich can afford the best money management possible.  When the rich struggle, they sell property, jewels, and investments or get a loan a low interest rate loan from a bank. When you need money what do you do? Get a payday loan? Pawn your TV or car? Ask your parents or friends? Get a high interest loan from the bank or use your high interest rate credit card?

More importantly the rich are not struggling. They are doing better than ever. Their level of wealth has increase significantly over the past 10 years while the rest of us have lost wealth and our wages have reminded stagnant.  Michelle Singletary reported in the Washington Post in July 2010 that the average income for the top one percent of earners rose 281 percent, or $973,000 per household, in the last decade. When was the last time you got a raise like that? Also would a 281% increase of your salary equal $973,000? I’m guessing probably not.

The faulty economic theory of Supply Side Economics AKA “Trickle down Economics” is just ridiculous. It always was and it has proven itself false over the 10 years during the Bush Administration. In 1982 when George Bush Sr. was running for president against Ronald Reagan he called it Voodoo Economics and that was the right name because the idea seems to have cast a spell on large swaths of the populations. Here is how Supply side works: We give money to a few rich people and rich corporations. From the top of the pyramid, they release the money into the economy and the effects of that release create a flood of jobs and money downward to the low economic levels. That is what the advocates of this dubious theory say will happen. However, this never happens and it is ridiculous to think it would work. Here’s why it hadn’t and will never work: There are less rich people and corporations than there are normal people. The rich can never spend enough to put a lot of money into the real economy.  Yes they do buy big ticket items but not enough little or middle ticket items. They do not generate the volume of sales that the Middle or lower income brackets can generate. Large corporations do not even generate the number of jobs that small and medium size businesses create. The actual growth of large corporations is stagnant, primarily because they don’t want to increase the number of people they employ.   Corporate growth has to do with increasing profit by gaining efficiencies, e.g. outsourcing, investments, creating faster ways of doing things, automating and making the consumer do things that they would have hired an employee do, like pumping your own gas, ordering online or self-checkout in stores. 

What is rarely spoken about is Demand Side Economics AKA “The Real Economy”.  The pyramid it flipped on its head, the giant base is at the top and the small top is at the bottom.  If money is given to the poor and middle class, who make up a larger portion of the population and who spend money at a more diverse and greater number of businesses, money is injected into the economy more rapidly creating more demand which causes more jobs to be created. The really simple way to express this is more demand = more jobs.  When there is more money being spent, more people are willing to take the risk to start a new business or hire additional people at existing businesses.  When people have more money to spend, they go on vacations, buy new cars, contract additional services, buy new clothes, fix up their houses and much more which creates increased demand.  Normal people having money and spending it will do the economy more good than rich people getting tax breaks will ever do for the economy.  If the rich having tax breaks would create jobs and simulate the economy, they could have done it at anytime from 2001 to the present. But they did not and they will not create any jobs. They have their money and they are happy, well clothed, well fed, driving nice cars and living opulent lives.

All of this comes down to this: Do you want to wait for a crumb or two to fall from the masters table and then have to fight over it with a lot of other people? Or would you prefer to have money given to you now and spend it on what you need or want? If you can’t make up your mind, let me help you; you want your money now. Rich people are not rich because they got tax breaks. Tax breaks are the greedy icing on the cake.

The rich are rich because they inherited the money or they had some money and they turned it into more money or they walked on the backs of other people and made money or they just stole it though crime or other questionable actions or means.  No one ever got rich from hard work and saving money, that is one of those lies people tell workers to make them feel better.  The 19^th century Horatio Alger novels are fictional children’s stories; that never, I repeat, never happened. These stories are an unfortunate part of American culture, because their presence has lingered on through the 20^th and 21^st century.  The stories all have the same theme: poor boys that study, work hard can go from rags to riches. Again these were works of fiction.  Horatio Alger was rich, not middle class. He did not have work his way up from nothing; he went to Harvard in a time where only the richest of people went to college.  Alger’s stories were just that, made up stories. They provide a fake nostalgia that is damaging to our national outlook. 99% of the time, you cannot simply pull yourself up by you proverbial bootstraps and get rich. For that one percent that gets rich from nothing, they have had a lot of help and a lot of good timing. The rich do not need our help; it is us normal people who need the help. 

Another favorite meme of those who carry the water for the rich is that lazy people complain about all those hard working rich people and just want to take their money. I read it all the time on comment posts about news stories. Some of the hardest working people in the world are poor. They are not poor because they are lazy. If you are rich and never worked a day in your life no one complains about that.  There are plenty of people that work hard and have no chance at being rich. To find them you might start by looking in the mirror and then look outside at your neighbors.

 The rich are bleeding us dry and when they have gotten all they can out of us, they toss us aside like a used tissue. It is time to grow up and stop believing that success is just around the corner, if I just work harder.  We need to demand a larger share of the pie and stop believing the rich need our help. Keeping the rich wealthy is their problem not ours.  Unless you are being paid (other than your salary) by the rich for your vote, you should really vote your interests.

Ciao for now,
Fobbsie

Why the “Baby Boomers” Annoy Me

Before I begin my rant, I have to tell you what brought it on. I read today the Obama appointed commission, has come out with it findings. Unsurprisingly, they recommend cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the eligibility age for Social Security.  For me currently, 67 is the age that I can draw my full Social Security and that is really old as far as I am concerned.   Oh yeah, it’s not like it is really that much money, however if I wait until I’m 70 I will get a lot more.  Most people on this commission as in congress and running other private and public institutions are Baby Boomers. In fact, I think most of our problems are due to two groups (liberal and conservative) of Baby Boomers continuing to fight the battles of the 60’s and 70’s with each other and the rest of us are just cannon fodder for their battle.  They can’t leave the 20^th Century and they are holding the rest of us back with them.

The Boomers must go!

I was born a few days before the beginning of 1966 which makes me apart of Generation X. Throughout my whole life, for various reasons which I will briefly detail, I have been annoyed, if not downright pissed, at the Baby Boom Generation. First, they came of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s, they wanted to change the world and make it a better place and they did to some extent.  However, they sold out, went corporate and started dismantling the fabric of the American Society through mergers and acquisitions in the 1980’s, by outsourcing jobs starting in the 1990’s and by starting endless wars and gambling with the stock market in 2000’s. Well, they did change things just not for the better.  

In the meantime, lots of Baby Boomers got rich or are just really well off, much better off than most people my age or younger. They enjoyed all the fruits that public and private enterprise has to offer, like college grants, traveling abroad, good jobs and buying inexpensive houses in nice neighborhoods.  After years of consuming lots and lots of drugs, they supported the war on drugs because they decided that drugs were wrong. The war on drugs is not a success. It costs Billions of dollars globally and the Drug Trade is a thriving Multi-Billion Dollar enterprise, while the social and finance cost of incarcerating people using  or selling small quantities of drugs continues to increase. The big time drug dealers and the bankers that launder the money never go to jail, so the War on drugs like the War on Terrorism will never be won.  Of course Baby Boomers still do drugs, they just don’t go to jail for it. 

Baby Boomers are the ones who have and are shipping our jobs overseas. They are also the ones who don’t want to pay any taxes or vote against school levies; after all, their children are either out of school or in private schools. The Boomers are now old and they have found their religion which probably accounts for the excessive religiosity in the United States; I guess they are just scared that they might meet their maker soon and need to get right with the lord. As they are now receiving Social Security, Medicare, generous pensions and /or 401Ks, they have voted in a bunch of yahoo’s that will take away Social Security, Medicare and the rest of the job from people my age or younger. Yes, many of the Tea Partiers are Baby Boomers but even those who are not are really that great. 

My life has been plagued by Baby Boomers and they fact that they are greedy and self-involved.  They wanted to be free but they turned out to be very authoritarian, just look at the republicans in the Congress. On the job, they are dictators and always run very opaque organizations. They make rules and don’t use them.  They talk about the degeneration of the media but they are in charge of the media.  They say they are open to new ideas but they can’t accept anything that is beyond their thinking. They have been in charge of our country for far too long. I really just want to be free of this generation of people but I am sure they will live a long time because unlike a lot of under the age of 50, they all have really good health care. They run the porn industry, the violent and stupid game industry and the banks. They are the ones running the country into the ground. They are the ones in Government, who have little imagination and an over inflated since of ego. And what is worse, is that they are the ones who are still fighting a pointless culture war that should have ended with the 1970’s and prosecuting several actual wars in the hopes of reviving the perception of American military superiority we had at the end of WWII.

 It is time for people of my Generation to step up and push aside the Baby Boomers and not get overshadowed by the Millennials. We may be the last best hope for the country or the world. What America needs is a new outlook and people who have lived with all the madness that the Baby Boomers have wrought. Generation X, stand up and let your voices be heard. Without you the crazy old people will continue to drive the country into the ground. Most Generation X’ers are better parents, have better values, are more in tune with new media and technology, are better managers and leaders, understand team work and have a more egalitarian nature than baby boomers.  Gen X’er need to start businesses, run for office, start Political Action Committees (PAC), and start a new political movement because I know we care.  We can no longer sit by and read the news; we need to make the news, the policy and the changes.  We cannot take sides in the 2-Party system anymore, we have to work together to save the future. The future is in our hands.

Ciao for Now,

Fobbsie

Tolerance is Not Enough

I been thinking about the phrase “We should be tolerant of ______”, fill in the blank with whichever group you like. To tolerate something refers to your capacity to endure pain or hardship. So as tolerate pertains to people, this is not really where we need to go as society.  When we show tolerance, we bite our tongues, try not to say anything rude or have negative feelings about a person, group or situation but we really think that person, group or situation suck and really don’t like them.   This is just a recipe for pent-up feelings that will erupt when given the opportunity or when we least expect it, like the current situation in America.  We hate Blacks (especially our Black President), Latinos, Asians, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, liberals, conservatives, the media, government, corporations, BP, the poor, single mothers, gays, lesbians, transsexuals, the unemployed, women, and many, many more groups of people.  We have a special hatred for political correctness because we can’t just call people names or make fun of them freely.  I think it is time to move on from tolerance to acceptance.  

To accept something is to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable. We live in a big country with lots of different people.  America has always been filled with many different types of people; we have never been a heterogeneous group not even in the beginning.  A lot of misfits from Europe came to land already populated by varied Native America tribes (they were not all the same), add in slaves from many parts of Africa (not all the same either) and America’s melting pot is off to a good start. As time continued, more people came and are still coming from different countries and they’re not all the same either.  Since people with similar interests like to hang out together, we have wide variety of subcultures or groups that have been artificially categorized like single parent families (they should just be called families).   So like it or not, we are all here together and no one is leaving or changing to make other groups feel better. It is time to accept it. Just try it, I’ll start:  I know religion will never go away but I accept that people believe in a god and that is their right even if they think differently than me. I glad I have accepted religious people, it really wasn’t hard.  If we can all just accept that people different from us exist, are not going anywhere, will not change, and have the same rights, America will be a saner, more productive and happier place.

Ciao for Now, Fobbsie

The Day After the 2010 Mid-terms

So today is day one for my blog. The Republicans have just retaken the House of Representatives and made gains in the Senate.  Just for the record I am a progressive. In fact if you think of the Democratic Party as the center-left, then look much further left and you’ll find me.  I have no shame about this fact but I have been hiding is the midst of conservatives for most of my life. I grew up in conservative Cincinnati, OH. I have worked in Banking, Insurance and for the Department of Defense. I was married to a republican and have lived in several of the most republican places in Florida and Ohio.  And despite all this, I remain extremely socially and politically liberal.    I could never wrap my head around the extremism of Republicans; the religion, the hate, and overall backwardness of the right.  Today Republicans politicians tend to range from ignorant of the facts to just out right liars and the people that follow them seem to be easily led to act against their interests.   I have had lots of conversations with Republicans over the past few years and they always seem to believe what they are told without facts to back up their arguments and usually end up making a personnel attack on me to make their point.  Average Republicans are not happy with the way the country is going but their beliefs are part of the problem with the country and that’s where the Cognitive dissonance comes in to play. And that's what makes them lash out against liberals and conservatives that disagree with them. One of my wishes is to get people to see where the problems really lie so we can get to the root of the problems and solve them. I love my country but we have problems.  Those problems need to be solved in a forward moving, dare I say progressive way.  We can’t go back to the 1950’s or the 19^th century; we need to get on with the 21^st century. And we need to do it now! 

Ciao for now, Fobbsie