Time for Another Pop Quiz...

(Hopefully, you've been paying attention.)

In your opinion, which of the following choices best depicts where things stand in today's America (choose "A," "B," or "C"):

A. "All Areas of the Country Show Growth, Fed Reports" (Associated Press)

The U.S. economy started the year off well with busier factories, higher retail sales, more jobs and growth in home sales.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that all 12 of its banking districts reported some level of growth in January and the first half of February.

The Fed's report "was surprisingly more upbeat than we've seen lately," said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. "The employment picture is certainly brighter."

Overall economic activity increased at a "modest to moderate" pace, the Fed noted. That roughly matches the Fed's assessment of the economy in the final weeks of 2011. And it is slightly better than the "slow to moderate" growth cited for October and mid-November.

The pickup in growth reported by each Fed region corresponds with stronger hiring and declining unemployment over the past three months.

The latest Beige Book, as the Fed report is formally known, sketched a picture of an economy improving in most major sectors.

B. "Growing Number Of Americans Can't Afford Food, Study Finds" (Huffington Post)

More Americans said they struggled to buy food in 2011 than in any year since the financial crisis, according to a recent report from the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit research group. About 18.6 percent of people -- almost one out of every five -- told Gallup pollsters that they couldn't always afford to feed everyone in their family in 2011.

One might assume that number got smaller wrapped up with the national unemployment rate falling for several consecutive months. In actuality, the reverse proved true: the number of people who said they couldn't afford food just kept rising and rising.

The findings from FRAC highlight what many people already know: The economic recovery, in theory now more than two years old, has done little to keep millions of Americans out of poverty and deprivation. Incomes for many haven't kept pace with the cost of living, and for a large swath of the country, things today are as bad as ever, or worse.

Forty-six million people lived below the poverty line as of 2010, a record number, according to the Census Bureau, and one that's not even as high as some other estimates would have it. Take a further step back and the situation appears even more dire. About 45 percent of people in the U.S. have reported not being able to cover their basic living expenses, including food, shelter and transportation, according to the group Wider Opportunities for Women.

C.

How'd you do?

(Image: source and source)

Comments

[roger]

BBC News - Panorama - Poor America: 'Some kids are making ...
www.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid.../9695217.stm
Feb 13, 2012 – Panorama's Hilary Andersson travels to a school in Las Vegas to meet some of America's youngest poor.

[Tom]

yeah, i caught that one roger, and the tent cities one too.

i don't know who the news media is addressing any more with all this "happy talk" (propaganda) that's sent over the airwaves 24/7 and is simply driving us further in to the collapse.

Here's a simple, short (~30 min.) movie detailing our current position (as a species):

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

feel free to spread it around - especially to the young. The carnival ride is coming to an end and we'll have to get off and start living much more locally, cooperatively, etc. (hint: it ain't gonna happen)

[Wipe out]

D. Screwed?

MF Global White Knight Blows the Lid Off of The JP Morgan Shadow Banking Mafia
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US regulators are holding roundtable talks today about how to protect customer’s money. To keep it from basically being stolen. This is in the aftermath of the MF Global collapse of course. We’ll speak to a lawyer by the name of James Koutoulas who represents 8000 MF Global customers in the bankruptcy. He says new US regulations won’t stop firms from going the way of MF Global so long as they can go to the UK to take on virtually unlimited leverage. He tells us how MF Global was getting around the US leverage limits this way, similar to AIG in 2008, and why it’s going on unchanged. We will talk as well about re-hypothecation, and how “churning” allows brokerage firms to leverage up like banks.

http://sgtreport.com/2012/02/mf-global-white-knight-blows-the-lid-off-of-the-jp-morgan-shadow-banking-mafia/

[Blues no clues]

Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen for Coupons

Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.

“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”

The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.

“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-29/wall-street-bonus-withdrawal-means-trading-aspen-for-cheap-chex.html

[Rocky]

Blues No Clues: I am amazed that these people consented to be interviewed for the article. What's wrong with moving to the suburbs and sending the kids to public school? These people are nuts. When they get laid off from their Wall St. jobs they can move to Vermont are try their hand at organic gardening.

[roger]

“Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?.......
All ideologies are outgrowths of the existing social
reality,no slave owner could possibly think of a slave
as his equal. In times of crisis,class consciousness
comes out of hibernation,if I was part of the1%,I'd
be very worried.

[Tom]

According to Jessie Ventura and Alex Jones, the 1% have a different scenario planned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dys3xE2Bnk&feature=player_embedded#!

[Doable Finance]

B is more like it in the community I live in.