The Criminalization of Poverty as Hungry Americans Flood Major American Cities

Hunger in the US is now the highest since the era of the Great Depression as real unemployment is much higher than the 5.6% rate reported in the mainstream media (closer to 40-50% if you include the marginally employed); as earnings are stagnant or declining for 90% of the work force; as inflation of food prices spiral out of control, not to mention a significantly compromised social safety net and the subtle, yet continuous effort to criminalize poverty.  

Unlike now, during the Depression tightly knit communities and family farms stretched across the nation to provide a safety net that served to catch some or many of those who suffered the worst consequences of the failed economy.   Unlike now, people knew the entire nation was struggling.  They knew that times were hard and were less likely to fault the individual. 

Today, society is fragmented and the establishment media is taking advantage of that by deceiving people into believing our economy is improving and anyone who is not making ends meet...well, it's their fault! They're not trying hard enough!   In fact, the criminalization of poverty is a growing trend in America.

“But many things have changed in the last 50 years, some of them so recently as to have gone largely unnoticed by pundits and policy makers. The poor, and especially poor people of color, have long been over-represented in the prison population. This used to be attributed to the fact that the poor are more likely to be tempted by criminal activities such as theft and drug dealing. Just in the last ten years, however, it has become apparent that being poor is in itself a crime in many cities and counties, and that it is a crime punished by further impoverishment. As Karen Dolan explains in this hard-hitting report, a simple traffic violation – such as a broken tail-light – can bring down a cascade of fees and fines, which mount quickly if not paid on time and can lead to incarceration.

The mid-00s were a turning point in the criminal justice system’s treatment of misdemeanors. Local governments increased the fees, fines and court costs they levied for minor transgressions, and at the same time, increased the number of possible misdemeanors to include truancy (for which parents can be punished), driving with an expired license (as is the case in Washington, DC), putting one’s feet up on a subway seat (in New York City), and a variety of other minor infractions. The latter two are grounds for immediate arrest, leading to the imposition of fines and court costs. If the defendant cannot pay, he or she may be jailed and, in the ugliest twist of all – later charged for the cost of room and board, then re-jailed for failing to pay that. If the defendant is put on probation, he or she must pay for the probation officer and anything else required for monitoring, like an ankle bracelet.

Ferguson, Missouri helped bring attention to the extent of “offender-funded” criminal justice services. The city was relying on fees, fines, and court costs for 20 percent of its budget, effectively turning it into an occupied territory, with a 95 percent white police force supporting itself by forcibly preying on a nearly 70 percent black population.

Who benefits from this “criminalization of poverty”? In the short-term, municipalities and counties may appear to benefit, as well as the private companies that increasingly provide probation services and operate detention facilities and prisons. In addition, the increasing barriers, such as drug testing and criminal record searches, to social benefits like public housing, SNAP, and TANF may also temporarily help relieve cash-strapped local governments. But the overall effect is to perpetuate poverty and even expand the poverty population, to no possible good effect. Poor and indigent people cannot afford to pay for the means to coerce and incarcerate them, and nothing is gained by repeatedly jailing them. The criminalization of poverty – and increasing impoverishment of people judged to be criminals — amounts to a system of organized sadism.

This is the real “cycle of poverty:” Poverty leads easily to criminal charges from unpaid debts, unrenewed licenses and the like. Criminal charges in turn lead to ever-mounting debt and, despite laws prohibiting debtors’ prisons, to incarceration. There is no mystery about where government needs to intervene — first, by stopping the persecution of people who are already struggling to get by, and second, by mitigating that struggle

So, big cities across the nation are struggling to keep up with the growing number of homeless, hungry Americans. Washington, D.C., our capital wins this contest as it increased its homeless population by more than 60% in 2015. 

“The past year has marked the year of homelessness in the US as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Seattle — America's most populated areas — hosted a huge jump in the number of people on the streets, according to the Hunger and Homelessness study. Washington, D.C. ranks first in the list of cities with homeless as figures say it has 28 percent more homeless and 60 percent more transient families. The demand for food for the hungry rose 27 percent over last year's.

The survey said that across twenty-two cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, homelessness rose by 1.6 percent overall and handouts increased by 3 percent over the past year.

The recently released US Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey presents the results of a survey of 22 of the citie s whose mayors serve on The U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness.

A number of important findings emerged from the survey:

• Emergency food assistance requests rose by an average of 2.8 percent during the survey period in more than half, 61 percent, of the cities involved in the survey.
• Twenty-three percent of requests for emergency food assistance in the cities surveyed went unmet.
• Food pantries and emergency kitchens had to cut back on the amount of food given out as groceries or meals in 47 percent of cities involved in the survey. Additionally, in far more than half of cities surveyed, 57 percent, families and individuals had to cut down on the number of visits to charitable food outlets they could make each month. The same percentage of cities were unable to meet food requests by homeless and hungry residents demand because they lacked sufficient resources.
• Lack of affordable housing, an issue that continues to worsen in many places around the country, was the primary reason given for homelessness among families with children. Poverty, unemployment and low-paying jobs were the reasons that followed.
• In 50 percent of cities surveyed, mayors indicated they expected homelessness to rise “moderately” next year. Similarly, 65 percent of cities say they expect emergency food requests to “moderately” increase over the coming 12 months.

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75.4% of All U.S. Wealth is Owned by by the Top 10%!

I've always believed that we, the American, live in the best of all possible worlds and much to my surprise, after all I've learned, and after all I've complained about,  I still do, although to a much lesser degree, of course.  I realized this when I came across the headline," America Is the Most Inhumane Developed Country on the Planet..."  My immediate reaction, at the gut level, was shock.. that is, until I had time to think about the extraordinary incarceration rate, the millions and millions of people without health insurance, the millions and millions of people without  enough food to eat, without safe shelter, without  the means to pay off exorbitant student loan debt, without full employment, or in an increasing number of cases, without employment at all....

However, if I didn't know just how inhumane our nation has become, the fourth edition of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook (2013) cinched it for me.  The report ranked the US as the most unequal of all advanced economies. The Gini coefficient-, the standard measure of a nation's wealth-inequality (a Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality) in the U.S. is 85.1.  That's right,  we're thee number one most unequal of the 20 developed nations in the world! 75.4% of all U.S. wealth is owned by by the top 10%!   Followed by:

Denmark, with 72.2% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Switzerland, with 71.5% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Sweden, with 71.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Israel, with 68.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Norway, with 65.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Germany, with 61.7% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Singapore, with 61.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Ireland, with 58.4% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
New Zealand, with 57.6% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Canada, with 57.4% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Netherlands, with 54.6% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Spain, with 54% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
U.K., with 53.3% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Italy, with 49.8% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Japan, with 49.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Finland, with 44.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%

Hell, we even beat Chile (72.5%), India (73.8%), Indonesia (75.0%), and South Africa (74.8%)!

At the other end of the wealth spectrum, the bottom 90% of the U.S. population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth in our nation, whereas in most of the other developed nations, the bottom 90% own, on average, approximately 40% of the wealth.

Moreover, not surprisingly, this so-called "economic recovery" has only benefited the richest Americans, as the richest 1% of Americans have received 95% of the income-gains since the 2008 financial crash, raising their incomes by 31.4%.

Once again, this should come as no surprise in a world where the richest 300 people on earth have more money than the poorest 3 billion.

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Are We Slowly being Converted to a Part-time Worker Society?

To be sure, job cuts--and some might say, massive job cuts--are a daily event, but what about jobs created? According to the Household Survey, of the 953,000 jobs created in 2013, 77%, or 731,000 are part-time (full-time=35 hours or more per week, part-time=less than 35 hours per week) so as Zero Hedge has been saying for over three years, the workplace in America is radically changing right before our eyes, although, unlike Zero Hedge, I certainly don't think Obamacare is the reason behind the transition to a part-time work force. Jobs were sent away a long time ago and our current economy was/is a creation decades in the making. Don't forget that the financial crisis started under 'W' who started two wars, created the TSA, passed the Patriot Act, pushed for the bailouts, and spent more than every president prior to him.

Moreover, we're fighting for full-time jobs that should be paying at least 40-60k but are instead paying 15-30k with less benefits and no job security, not to mention, the huge student loan debt that most people have to pay off no matter what kind of job they get.

Sadly, for the first time ever, this generation will not be better off than its parents, and paradoxically, the cost of living can be higher, much higher for the poor, a segment of our population that is growing larger everyday, a segment of our population that our younger generations can look forward to inclusion because Good luck finding full-time employment!

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As Full-time Employment Becomes a Relic, Part-time Server Jobs Explode!

Sky-high college debt, unpaid internships, part-time low-wage jobs with no benefits, no medical insurance...does any of this sound familiar? Well, that's what's facing our young generations. As for older generations, the only thing they have going for them are shorter sentences. In fact, I heard one middle-aged woman say that she and her husband plan on mugging a postman. At the very least, they'll get three square meals a day. You know, "Club Fed". Although, I think those cushy accommodations are reserved for top 1%. If you have to mug a postman, you are definitely not in that category.

Meanwhile, media "analysts," politicians and academics paint a very rosy picture, telling us a "robust" recovery is on the way, maybe even as early as 2014. Really? For whom?

Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that manufacturing jobs continue to collapse , however...

... not to worry, there are enough below-minimum-wage server jobs to take their place. It would appear that all the depressed unemployed, underemployed and fearing-for-their employment are self-medicating.

The bottom line, college degrees, for the most part, are/will be about as useful as used toilet paper. So, forget about sending your kids to college; just teach them to say, "Would you like fries with your order?"

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Undermining the Quality of Jobs in America:The Trend Toward the Part Time Work Force.

Let's face it, American jobs are much less rewarding and secure than those of our parents and/or grandparents. For one generation after WWII until approximately 1973 American workers, empowered through union contracts, achieved a somewhat harmonious balance with their employers. Good wages, benefits and expectations of job security were the norm there for a while.

In contrast, in addition to the fact that wages have not been/are not increasing in line with expenses despite increasing productivity and skyrocketing executive pay, today's employees are now viewed merely as factors of production, subject to the whim of their employer for the most part. Workers can be fired arbitrarily, forced to work off the clock,  forced to work as so-called independent contractors or part-time, etc.   American workers have truly become an afterthought or invisible. So, why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? The answer in a nutshell, greed.

According to New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, since 2006, the U.S. has cut a million full-time jobs while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs. Eager to cut costs in a very competitive global economy, the explosion of sophisticated scheduling software make it simple for today's employers to align staffing to customer traffic, therefore making it easy to increase the use of part time work.  Lower hourly wages, unpredictable hours, and few if any benefits make this trend anything but advantageous to workers.

“Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

Moreover, our national statistics underestimate involuntary part-time employment because they only ask if you work  35 or more hours per week. It doesn't matter whether or not that 35 hours is a result of one job, two jobs, three jobs or four jobs... if your hours add up to over 35 hours, you're classified as full-time.

The Affordable Care Act will only worsen this  part-time trend as employers do not have to pay that shared responsibility fee if their workers average fewer than 30 hours per week. Big incentive for employers to substitute part-time positions or full time.

The bottom line is that the fear of unemployment and the fear of falling back from the "middle class" into the ranks of the poor are being used by employers to take unfair advantage of working people. It's created an atmosphere of abusive treatment and total disrespect for working people that now permeates our society and the globe.  This increasing trend to part-time workers is of course, fueling the income gap/income inequality, funneling more profits and capital gains to those at the top.

About 50% of the population is now poor or near poor and there are not enough jobs to get them out of the hole. Gone are the days of earning a living wage with benefits.

A comment exchange from Zerohedge:

"I remember back in the 1970s that the futurists thought our biggest problem would be finding things to do with all our spare time, as computers were going to radically increase productivity and we'd all be working part-time. Of course they assumed that workers would see most of the benefit of that increase in productivity...

"Damn, I'm glad to see somebody else mention this. It was hugely accepted in the 60s and 70s that the benefits of automation would be shared throughout society and we would all be working fewer hours while also enjoying a higher standard of living.

But nobody imagined the kind of wealth accumulation that we see today. Nobody imagined something like a Walmart where one family acquires $100 billion in wealth on the backs of millions of minimum wage workers.

Also that was a more idealistic time. Back then we didn't know just how cold-blooded and greedy people can be. Most rich people are perfectly happy to put the screws down on workers and drive wages down below a subsistence level if it means they can buy a 10th luxery car or a 5th mansion or whatever. There are no limits to the greed of those who are already well off it seems.

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The Next Bubble Burst: Student Debt?

Private lenders have preyed upon unsuspecting young people desiring to further their education for years. Of course, they have intentionally targeted those coming from poor socio-economic backgrounds. What else is new?

Well, now that the student debt bubble has accumulated over $1 trillion in student loan debt, starting July 1, Federal Pell Grants are set to be cut for hundreds of thousands of students across the US. Whats more, the Senate "blocked President Obama’s student loan interest-rate reduction plan and also shot down a GOP proposal, leaving the chamber without a solution and little more than a month to go before rates are scheduled to double".

The reforms will save $11 billion over 10 years, according to reports. Students will lose the $5,550-a-year grants in order to find the savings.

"The loss of Pell Grants could put college out of reach" for many students with fiscal hardships, the newspaper reported.

Under old rules, students who had taken at least six units of college courses but who did not have a diploma were eligible for the loans. The new rule eliminates the Pell Grants as well as other subsidized loans for the students, known as "ability-to-benefit" students.

Here's the thing. We're told the government can't find a way to pay for extending student loan rates, yet, we're not told that the government earns more money on these student loans than they pay out!  Meanwhile, half of all college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed.  And unlike a mortgage, one cannot walk away from one's student loan debt, even if one can't walk, can't talk...in other words,  in a coma, as student loan debt cannot be expunged, nor forgiven.

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The Diminishing Returns of a College Degree

Not all that long ago, a college education in America ensured not only a job, but elevated socio-economic status. In fact, just as recently as 2007, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, more than half of all  college graduates who had applied for a job received an offer by graduation day, albeit, without the elevated socio-economic status. In 2008, that percentage fell to 26%, and in 2009, less than 20%.  Moreover, not all that long ago, one person - usually, the father, even without a college degree - could provide for a family of six, eight, and even ten. Today, it takes two people, sometimes working two jobs, to support a family of four.

Meanwhile, student debt is the only sector growing at an ever-increasing rate since the 2008 financial crisis. The average annual tuition at a private nonprofit four-year college is about $35-40,000! So, now that student debt has reached the $1 trillion mark - the second biggest debt sector for US households - leaving college grads with unprecedented levels of college debt, not to mention, the youth unemployment rate in the US is rivaling many third-world countries, is a college education really worth it? Could it be that those who choose not to attend college may actually end up earning more than their college-degreed counterparts?

Over 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. For instance, over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (8,000 of those, doctoral or professional degrees), 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants.

It should be more than obvious that public policy designed to create more college graduates isn't really concerned with sustainable jobs for future graduates. The purpose of the policies is to prop up the education bubble and the lending industry that supports it.

So, maybe it's time to reexamine our assumptions about the necessity of a college education, those ideological templates we use to understand the world, especially when, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the US has one of the highest number of employees working in low wage jobs of high paying industrialized nations. One out of every four Americans employed work in jobs that pay less than $10 per hour.

Between NAFTA, tougher bankruptcy laws, the repeal of Glass Steagall, bubbles galore, and and a financial system that might as well be a roulette wheel, the best we can hope for is a low-wage recovery. Newly added jobs are coming from lower paying sectors while productivity increases and profits filter to the top of the economic class. 3,500,000 high-wage jobs lost during recession and only 179,000 have been added so far. Therefore, a college degree that's risen anywhere from 500-1000% since 1970,  in inflation adjusted dollars, is sure to sap  future earnings with few exceptions.

Older Americans are 47 times richer than younger Americans.

In 1984, households headed by people age 65 and older were worth just 10 times the median net worth of households headed by people 35 and younger.

But now that gap has widened to 47-to-one, marking the largest wealth gap ever recorded between the two age groups.”

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Why Major Newspapers and Corporations Run Fake Job Ads To Undercut American Workers.

Every Sunday, major newspapers, websites and corporations run fake job ads. Why? The goal is to prove that no qualified Americans are available, so that green cards can be secured for H1B workers ("highly-skilled" foreign workers from "high tech" to architects to nurses and Kindergarten teachers).

The claim is H-1B is a remedy for "labor shortages" and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around the world. The reality is it's all about cheap labor.

The fundamental reason for the H1B Visa program, created in 1990, is to substitute cheap, imported, supposedly "skilled" (equivalent to American high school degree)  labor for more expensive American labor. The employer, who reaps a ton of tax advantages, doesn't have to pay medical benefits, overtime, social security, etc., can also force the departing US worker to train their foreign replacement.  The problem is not lack of enforcement or fraud. Instead, the problem is gaping loopholes in the law.

Congress has allowed the expansion of importation under all VISA programs. 125,000 work authorized visas per month. This includes green cards, L-1, H1-b, H2-b etc  and the state hands out about 320K J-1 student work visas yearly.

Body Shops:

According to Civil Defense Attorney James Otto, who poses the question: “Whether the U.S. should allow the replacement of U.S. workers with foreigners imported under the several visa programs and should Government hire foreigners in stead of U.S workers?”, there are eight main body shops which bring in foreign workers to take American jobs. One body shop, Infosys, faces a lawsuit by former employee Jack Palmer over charges that it abused US visa programs. Per the Economic Times of India "The Infosys charges illustrate the growing conflict between the desires of multinational corporations to source cheaply (even if “cheap” has been mismeasured by not not being adjusted for risk) and what actions need to take place at a country level to make sure these very same multinationals have decent market for their goods."

On December 7, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, through the U.S. Embassy in India, announced that the State Department has authorized the U.S embassy to allow the admission of a limitless number of foreign workers into the U.S. to take jobs that millions of unemployed Americans could and would do.

The practical implications of the State Department’s conduct is that every U.S employer can now hire as many foreign workers as they desire to replace all American workers. Then, the U.S. taxpayer must pay more taxes to care for the unemployed and their children.

So even jobs that require face to face work are not safe from "outsourcing" because of "importing".

Of course, this is no more the fault of the imported foreign nationals than it is the fault of the workers employed in sweatshops overseas.  The corporations treat them horrendously.  While displacing American workers, the goal is to reduce the salary level to a point where they can get qualified professional American workers at the same cheap price. Just one more government policy that result in We the People suffering in order that corporate profits soar.

Immigration attorneys teach corporations how to  avoid hiring qualified Americans.

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Sluggish Job Growth with Backlog of Nearly 14 million Unemployed Workers

Given the enormous scope of the unemployment problem, this minimal level of job creation will keep us mired in disastrously high unemployment.

At the current sluggish rate of job growth, the unemployment rate will stay disastrously high.

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Screwflation: Screwing the Middle Class

"Screwflation", a term coined by Wall Street guru, Doug Kass, describes how falling wages and rising costs of basic goods are screwing squeezing the middle class. Moreover, the culture of greed that has escalated over the last three decades, leaving an unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top one percent has negated any possibility of a robust  middle class America in the future. 

This younger generation of Americans -  saddled with college and housing debt, yet scarce job opportunities - now face the highest unemployment since World War II.   To make matters worse, older Americans are forced to stay in their jobs longer, limiting employment prospects even more.

The American middle class under stress.

• Middle-income jobs are disappearing from the economy. The share of middle-income jobs in the United States has fallen from 52% in 1980 to 42% in 2010. Middle-income jobs have been replaced by low-income jobs, which now make up 41% of total employment.
• 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
• Real wages have stagnated over the past two decades, and in recent months, have actually fallen. Over the past year, nominal wages grew only 1.7% while all consumer prices, including food and energy, increased by 2.7%.
• Wages and salaries have fallen from 60% of personal income in 1980 to 51% in 2010. Government transfers have risen from 11.7% of personal income in 1980 to 18.4% in 2010, a post-War high. There are 8.5 million people receiving unemployment insurance and over 40 million receiving food stamps.
• Health care spending increased from 9.5% of personal consumption in 1980 to 16.3% in 2010.
• The average cost of one year of college is $21,000. After adjusting for inflation, it has risen 72% since 1990.
• The share of personal consumption spent on food and energy has risen from 13.4% in 2002 to 15.3% in 2010.
• Household net worth declined from $65.7 trillion in the second quarter of 2007 to $56.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010. The middle class, which has much more of its net worth tied up in home equity, has borne the brunt of this decline.
• Over the past three decades, household debt as a share of disposable income increased from 68% to 116%.

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Most of Unemployed No Longer Receiving Benefits Yet Can’t Get Employed Unless Already Employed

Currently, America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.  Moreover, nearly two million out-of-work Americans will be cut off from federal unemployment insurance in January alone unless Congress renews the programs before they expire on December 31st, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and more than six million could face premature cut-off over the course of 2012.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent - a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Here's the kicker: Some businesses and recruitment firms are telling would-be job seekers that they can’t get a job unless they already have a job.

Links:


Legislation to renew federal unemployment insurance for 2012 has been introduced in U.S. House and Senate

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Despite Record Level Poverty, Soaring Food Prices, Food Stamps on the Chopping Block.

Despite soaring food prices (double the core inflation rate), due mostly to excessive speculation because of a deregulated agricultural commodity derivatives markets; rapidly rising poverty rates, and steady unemployment numbers, Congress is calling for dramatic cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food stamp program, regardless of the fact that for every $1 spent on food stamps, $1.79 is made.

According to US Department of Agriculture, since December 2008, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has set records, every month, except one. August, 2011, the last month reported, was no exception, as it has set another record for the number of Americans - 45.8 million - receiving food stamps, a figure  1.1% higher than the previous month and 8.1% more than a year earlier, with Texas and California leading the pack.

Household participation in SNAP is climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed, even the peak reached after the fallout of hurricane Katrina.

"The slow economic strangulation of millions of middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years." -- Edward Luce in a Financial Times article.

Meanwhile, the incomes of the top 1 per cent have more than tripled.
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Sacrificing Real People to Boost an Illusion.

Despite Warren Buffet's huge $5 billion vote of "confidence" in Bank of America, the "too big to fail" institution is slashing 30,000 jobs - after it's already cut 6,000 jobs - in an effort to reverse a crisis of confidence in its investors. It's the single largest job reduction by a US company this year, since the post office cut 30,000 jobs, last year, since General Motors cut 47,000 jobs in 2009. The cuts which effect Bank of America's consumer businesses represent 10% of South Carolina's work force.  This year, when the real unemployment rate is over 20%.

Not to mention the poverty rate in America is rapidly increasing, especially for children under 18. And middle class wealth is falling. 

The government draws the line of poverety at an income of $22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual.  Oh, and Merck is also cutting 13,000 jobs. So, boosting investor confidence? In what? The only thing I can think of is that the uber rich' will continue to get uber uber rich. Because that's the only segment of the population that is benefitting.

Of course, this is nothing new. Banks and corporations often slash jobs in order to boost confidence, boost their bottom line, and whether we want to face it or not, boost the profits in order to line the already lined pockets of the powers behind these institutions. The results - the rich getting richer by the day - prove that this is true.

But isn't there something inherently wrong with a system that sacrifices its people, real people, for an illusion? For excessive profit? To maintain institutions that are too big to fail? Because, after all, confidence is not real. Confidence is often misleading and not congruent with reality, and that often leads to delusion and deception. In fact, over-confidence inflated the housing bubbles that burst in 2008, bringing our economy to its knees. And don't kid yourself, there are a few more bubbles yet to burst. Still, we're willing to sacrifice real people in order to create the illusion that everything is just fine...when, everyday, it seems, it gets worse and worse.

Then, there is the problem that if Bank of America collapses, there may not be enough money in the FDIC to cover the losses that will occur. That's right. Bank of America just might collapse the FDIC. In August, the FDIC rejected Bank of America's mortgage accord because it doesn't have enough money information to evaluate the settlement.

And I thought this was interesting. Adulos Huxley, from zerohedge posted a Goldman Sachs Case Study that may or may not predict

Buffett branding is just a first line of defense in the rescue plan.

9/15/2008 | GS=$131 | Lehman Bros files for Ch. 11

9/16/2008 | GS=$129 | AIG bailed out

9/23/2008 | GS=$121 | Buffett buys $5B of GS @ $115/share (under market)

10/3/2008 | GS=$124 | TARP made into law

10/28/2008 | GS=$91 | US Treasury buys $10B of GS @ $122.9/share (over market)

11/21/2008 | GS=$47.41 | low

11/24/2008 | GS=$65 | QE 1 begins; Fed buys MBS

For Banksters of America, we can expect same order of bailouts about a month apart with BAC falling 20-30% each interval:

8/25/2011 Buffett (private deal)

9/23/2011 US Treasury (federal)

10/28/2011 QE 3 (international overlord)

It does make one wonder why such a savvy investor like Buffet would invest $5 billion into what appears to be a powderkeg of debt.

Links:

Bankrate.com
Poverty Call to Conscience Tour

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The Real Unemployment Rate is 23%

The Shadow Government Statistics reports that as of August 2011, the real unemployment rate is at 23%.

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

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Worse Than the Great Depression!

The working class faces the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression. This depression "recession" is not your typical cyclical downturn that will eventually rebound.   Over 20% of this country's workforce is either underemployed or completely unemployed.  House prices and wages continue to decline.  Nearly 14 million Americans are looking for work, and about 6.2 million Americans, 45.1% of the unemployed in this country, have been jobless for more than six months...that's worse than at the time of the Great Depression. What's more, over "1 million of the long-term unemployed have run out of unemployment benefits, leaving them without the money to get new training, buy new clothes, or even get to job interviews.

Nevertheless, the wealthy took their treasonous tax cuts wherever they could reap the highest return without any concern whatsoever about the state of the American economy.  Never mind that those tax cuts will cost the average taxpayer much more than the cost of the bailouts.

So, what's the solution?  Well,  balancing the budget on the backs of working families - slashing trillions of dollars in social spending - of course.  It doesn't matter that trillions of dollars have disappeared into thin air, and that  proof of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented support to foreign banks during the worst part of the financial crisis is finally released.   The international capitalist elite continue to exploit  the economic crisis - that they caused - to the fullest extent, using it as a giant club to bash the average taxpayer.

Mass unemployment and the eventual elimination of the social safety net will create such desperation that people will take poverty-wage jobs without benefits.  Third world, anyone?

Links: 

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) - The EPI pointed out that the labor force participation rate remained at its lowest point of the recession and that the labor force in May was smaller than it was a year ago, by about 500,000 workers, even though the working-age population grew by 1.9 million in that period. In other words, the improvement in the unemployment rate over the last year (from 9.6 - 9.1%) is due to would-be workers deciding to sit out the economic storm”.

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Dr Cornel West letter to President Obama on Poor and Unemployed

Cornel West "Barack Obama Is The Black Mascot Of The Wall Street Oligarchs"

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Aren't America's Youth Worthy of the Promise of a Decent Future?

Apparently not. With unemployment rates at 18.6% (nearly double the 9.7% unemployment rate for the population at large), skyrocketing tuition, escalating gas and food prices, and virtually no help from our government, it is very clear that we do not consider our  youth, worthy of investment.

"Young workers have seen unemployment rates double since the start of the Great Recession to 18.6 percent. Without employment, what options exist for this group?

Often framed as a way for a young person discouraged with the job market to ride out the downturn, school enrollment is an assumed safety net for 16- to 24-year-olds. However, enrollment rates have not increased during the Great Recession beyond what would be expected given the long-term trend. The lack of a meaningful increase in enrollment shows that this is not a realistic option for the majority of young workers, due to the prohibitive cost.

In the 2008-09 school year, the total cost of attendance for an on-campus student—including tuition, books, room and board, and transportation expenses—at a four-year public school averaged $18,539 and for a four-year private school, it was $38,100, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Therefore, the expected cost of a four year education can be anywhere between $80,000 and $120,000, with graduate school costing even more. Unrealistic for many families to pay, many students are forced into unbearable debt loads (that cannot be discarded via bankruptcy), at a time when employment prospects are grim.

Our youth face an extremely difficult job market, with long-lasting effects. High unemployment among new college graduates underscores the fact that this unemployment problem is not the result of a mass shift among undergraduates toward the wrong major, a lack of motivation or work ethic, or even a lack of skills in finding jobs. America's youth are one of the many casualties of a lack of demand for workers in the overall economy.

Essentially, it is extremely problematic that a group that has seen its unemployment rate nearly double has virtually no help from the government. Youth generally cannot qualify for unemployment benefits, Medicaid (though that changes in 2014), the Earned Income Tax Credit, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. They are only allowed to utilize food stamp programs on a limited basis. In a very real sense, young workers do not have a public safety net to fall back on, even in times of persistent high unemployment as virtually every other demographic can. This causes them to have to rely on relatives and friends, placing more strain on the economy.

While young workers’ position in the labor market is unique, and thus so are the repercussions, that just means that more than anyone, they need the strong job growth that characterizes a strong recovery. By having forgotten about the issue of unemployment in favor of deficit reduction, our leaders could potentially cause even greater upheaval to a group hit hardest by the financial and emotional strain of America's failed financial, trade and economic policies. A revitalized focus on fixing those issues and getting people back to work is paramount to a thriving society and nation."

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More and More Americans Forgo Medical Care Due to Cost

The US is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system, and average working Americans are paying the price.   Moreover, although Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as people in other developed nations; in return, they receive lower quality and less efficient medical care.

52 million Americans have no health insurance. 41% of working age Americans have medical bill problems, not to mention, medical bills prompt more than 60% of U.S. bankruptcies, and 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a study published by the American Journal of Public Health.

In the meantime, while health insurers are posting record profits, an increasing number of Americans are going without medical care because they can't afford it.

More working-age Americans are going without health insurance and not seeking physician care for injuries or illness because they can't afford it, according to two new studies released in March.

A report by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund found that the portion of patients delaying medical treatment in the last year is trending upward. Findings from the group's biennial health insurance survey in 2010 show that an increasing percentage of working-age adults skipped office visits, medical tests and prescriptions because of costs.

■Money troubles mean less care
■Medicaid pay commission releases first report
■See related content
■Topic: Uninsured
Many survey respondents are going without health coverage after losing a job during the economic recession, said Sara Collins, an author of the Commonwealth Fund study.

"This is largely because there are few affordable options for health insurance when job-based coverage is lost," she said. "We found that more than 70% of an estimated 26 million adults who tried to buy coverage in the individual market in the past three years reported difficulties finding affordable plans that met their needs. Nine million were turned down, charged a higher price or had a condition excluded from their coverage because of a preexisting condition."

An estimated 43 million working-age adults reported that they or their spouses lost their jobs within the past two years, according to the study. Among those reporting a job loss, nearly half said they initially lost health benefits, too. Only 14% of those people continued coverage through COBRA, while a quarter were able to go on their spouses' insurance plans or find coverage elsewhere. This meant 57% of those losing both a job and health coverage were added to the ranks of the uninsured.

16% of U.S. working-age adults were contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills in 2010. The number of uninsured adults rose during the last decade to an estimated 52 million, or 28% of the working-age population, from 38 million, or 24%. The rate of young adults and minorities without coverage is relatively high -- 44% of 19- to 29-year-olds, 51% of Hispanics and 37% of blacks.

The study found that those with insurance are paying more for their coverage. Premiums in employer plans increased 41% between 2003 and 2009, and deductibles rose 77%. Nearly half of working adults spent at least 10% of their income on out-of-pocket costs and premiums in 2010.

The organization Families USA in Washington, D.C., conducted a similar study with the Lewin Group, based in Falls Church, Va., and found out-of-pocket costs are rising and becoming a burden for more Americans. A cap under the new health system reform law on what consumers will be expected to pay will curb spending increases starting in 2014, the group said. In the meantime, the study estimates that 15 million Americans younger than 65 will be spending a combined $24.7 billion above those cap levels this year.

"These families are terribly vulnerable to financial devastation caused by unexpected illness or injury, and they generally face only bad alternatives, including massive credit card debt," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

In 2011 dollars, the upcoming cap is $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families with incomes between 200% and 300% of the federal poverty level, Pollack said.

The Commonwealth Fund estimates that nearly a third of non-Medicare adults had problems paying medical bills in 2010 and that 16% were contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills.

Links:


Help on the Horizon: How the Recession Has Left Millions of Workers Without Health Insurance, and How Health Reform Will Bring Relief—Findings from The Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey of 2010

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Democrats Offer to Triple Cuts in Social Spending While Tsunami of Inflation is Headed Our Way.

As "many workers are barely treading water as their wages fail to keep up with rising prices" the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have offered to triple the amount of cuts in social spending for 2011, from $10 billion to $30 billion, in order to appease congressional Republicans, who, after intense lobbying from the Tea Party, want to cut $61 billion,  before the April 8 deadline. These cuts "would mark the largest-ever federal budget cuts in social spending in a single year."

Despite the  criminal behavior of the ruling class, and, that throughout the bankster-created  crisis, their pay grew at pre-downturn clip, the extreme polarization of wealth, as productivity gains continue, and corporate profits surge, continues. It is not estimated that one in four American households have zero or less than zero net worth.

The modest wage growth appears to reflect lower expectations among the unemployed.

"There's a capitulation on the part of workers," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities. "They're increasingly willing to accept a lower wage than they might have thought they had to when the recession started. The fact that average hourly earnings are now weak or falling is an indication to me that the market is starting to clear."

This gives businesses an additional cushion at a time of higher commodity costs.

"Companies are in the dominant bargaining position," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, a consultancy. "They don't have the added problem of paying more for their wages as well."

And, if that's not depressing enough, according to the National Inflation Association a tsunami of inflation will hit the U.S. due to the Japan crisis.

Links:

It's the Inequality, Stupid

Greenspan Returns to De-Regulation

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Slave Labor and Martial Law: The New Normal?

Companies, now, more than ever before, are hiring for probationary periods that can last months or even an entire year without pay, according to Fortune Magazine.  The worst part? There is intense competition for some of these unpaid positions! 

"One editor and two cameramen ended up quitting before the end of the trek due to rough conditions and 16-hour workdays. In retrospect, Lovejoy says, "I would screen a little bit better and make sure they understood that this wasn't a vacation."

What? "Rough conditions" and "16-hour workdays"...unpaid!   At least slave-owners provided food and shelter for their slaves.


Why do we make it so easy for the jackasses at the top of our power structure?   In fact, we make it so easy for our overlords that I bet if Homeland Security installed video screens with a recording of Janet Napolitano, shouting Save the planet...Kill Yourself! in all the Wal-Marts across the nation,  half the population would head for  pillow section and smother themselves.  Because, the underlying message here is: die. 

The Michigan Monarchy Legislates Financial Martial Law

The new law, described by one of the GOP legislators sponsoring the bill as “financial martial law”, empowers the governor’s appointees (referred to as ‘Emergency Financial Managers’ but more aptly termed viceroys appointed by the king) allows the EFR to fire duly elected local officials, cancel labor contracts and even dissolve entire communities and school districts.

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