A Different Take on the Economy

In "Food Banks Fear They Will Fall Short in Efforts to Feed the Nation's Hungry," the network of the nation's largest food banks gives us a different take on the state of the economy than the one officialdom keeps feeding us (no pun intended):

Higher Food and Gas Prices and Decline in Government Food Donations Cited

Higher food costs and rising gas prices could prove to be damaging to the nation's food banks and their ability to provide adequate emergency food to the nearly 49 million Americans who are currently living at risk of hunger, Feeding America, the network of the nation's largest food banks, announced today.

Although recent reports indicate that the economy is beginning to improve and that the unemployment rate is also beginning to shrink, Feeding America's food banks continue to face significant struggles as America recovers from the worst economic recession in decades.

The Feeding America network of more than 200 food banks and 61,000 local partners are feeding 37 million Americans a year, including nearly 14 million children and 3 million seniors. But with rising operating costs and decreasing supply, a number of factors are contributing to a "perfect storm" of challenges that threaten to leave food banks unable to meet the need in their communities.

Gas prices increased 26 percent in 2011, adding tremendous costs to transporting food. Increased fuel costs particularly affect rural areas, where populations are less dense. Many food banks support emergency feeding across a vast service area.

Food inflation is also hitting food banks hard. Grocery prices increased an average rate of 6 percent in the last half of 2011, and food banks have been hard pressed to make up the difference.

But, but...I thought there was no inflation (according to what Mr. Bernanke and others keep telling us)?

And given that the economy has been "recovering" for almost three years now, how is it that there are still 49 million people who are living at risk of hunger?

Are any of these policymakers and politicians ever going to be called to account for their B.S.?

Comments

[Tom]

In answer to your last question: probably not since it's all propaganda at this point. Employment may be slightly less negative than it's been, but people are still being let go to the tune of about 300,000 per month, while the people being hired are not making as much as they used to make in the same position doing the same job as in years past. At my wife's company they shut down positions and ask the person if they wish to re-apply for the "new" position (new name only) at a reduced rate. Most don't have a choice and take the pay cut rather than lose the job completely. You don't see that or the many other shenanigans corporations play with labor on the government stat sheets.

As for food, better watch out. Our former breadbasket states are drying up and being hit with unpredictable weather (like flooding and/or drought), damaging storms that ruin crops, higher prices for petro-based fertilizers, increased costs to ship (as you mentioned), increased insurance costs and costs of doing business due to high gas and diesel prices, and other factors.

Globally, it's much the same - food shortages, famines in some places, crop failures due to weather related factors, and high petrol costs biting into profits and raising prices for consumers. i won't even go into quality issues, which sicken some and lead to death in some cases.

To see how bad it's getting:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/issue/
Frackers Outbid Farmers For Water In Colorado Drought

[roger]

hunger is spreading around the wold even in the UK.
It's a rat race and the rats are winning,,,for now.

[No inflation, no unemployment, no fraud in a grossly distorted world]

MF Global Brokerage May Have Moved Customer Funds, Creditors Say
Creditors of MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MFGLQ) said in a status update filed yesterday that its failed brokerage unit may have transferred $717 million of customer funds to eight institutions in October, and that a trustee for the brokerage unit isn’t helping with a global analysis of books and records.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-06/mf-global-brokerage-may-have-moved-customer-funds-creditors-say.html

President & Strangelove Corzine Damage Control
http://youtu.be/2_PDVTHF9g0

Nonfarm Payroll +120,000, Unemployment Rate Fell .1 to 8.2%, Record 87,897,000 "Not in Labor Force"
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/04/nonfarm-payroll-120000-unemployment.html

[Bam_Man]

There is no food inflation according to the way the BLS calculates 'cost of living'. Since the McDonald's dollar menu still costs $1, theoretically everyone could substitute the $1 hamburger for whatever they were eating previously. See, no inflation.

[David Purnell]

The unemployment rate drops again since the government pulls who knows how many people that have so-called given up seeking employment out of the picture. And of course these are the people who continue to join the growning list of those in need of services that food banks supply. What does the government think these "dropped from the workforce" people do after they've given up? Live thriving and productive lives? Here's and idea! Why don't we all give up looking for employment to bring the umemployment rate to 0% and then all should be well right?

[Tom]

Roger: i see what you mean.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/look-back-in-hunger-britains-silent-scandalous-epidemic-7622363.html

[Francesco]

France tightens grip on super rich
French election candidates François Hollande and Jean-Luc Mélenchon promise to cap fat cat salaries and change tax system

The French people are more distrustful of capitalism than the Chinese, polls show. Two-thirds agree with the concept that the state should take from the rich to give to the poor. But many question whether the election rhetoric will succeed in rooting out a deeply unfair French system where the super-rich often manage to pay barely any tax at all, conducting startling tax dodges by hiring top accountants to pick through the myriad legal loopholes in their favour.

France is still seething at the L'Oreal cosmetics heiress, Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman, who lives in a mansion lined with Matisse paintings where her pet dogs eat only fresh fish, yet who got a €30m tax rebate from the state a few years back. A judge is investigating whether her household gave brown envelopes of cash to Sarkozy's party for illegal election campaign funding in 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/06/france-super-rich

In Spain, Women Enslaved by a Boom in Brothel Tourism
La Jonquera used to be a quiet border town where truckers rested and the French came looking for a deal on hand-painted pottery and leather goods. But these days, prostitution is big business here, as it is elsewhere in Spain, where it is essentially legal.

While the rest of Spain’s economy may be struggling, experts say that prostitution — almost all of it involving the ruthless trafficking of foreign women — is booming, exploding into public view in small towns and big cities. The police recently rescued a 19-year-old Romanian woman from traffickers who had tattooed on her wrist a bar code and the amount she still owed them: more than $2,500.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/world/europe/young-men-flock-to-spain-for-sex-with-trafficked-prostitutes.html

Homelessness Becomes A Crime In Hungary

Hungary's new anti-vagrancy laws — the toughest in Europe — now mean that homeless people sleeping on the street can face police fines or even the possibility of jail time.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/06/149526299/homelessness-becomes-a-crime-in-hungary

[Bernanke runs barter town]

Walt wit man posted this..its worth a read. Makes you wonder about our current state of affairs.

What's all the fuzz about money?
Debt-free money may well be the solution to restoring a sane monetary system.

Credit has become one of the primary means of reverse wealth
distribution, a tax on the 99 per cent by the 1 per cent; financial
expert Margrit Kennedy has calculated that 45 per cent of the price of
goods reflects this cost of capital. As economists such as Steve Keen
and Michael Hudson have demonstrated, the systemic breakdown in 2008
is essentially a crisis of debt - a generalised incapacity of
governments, corporations and households to repay their debts. Without
wiping out the debt, we cannot restart the economy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/20124395428374962.html

[rock and a hard place]

Don't worry Mitt will save us..maybe not?...

More on Private Equity, Carried Interest, Wealth, and Romney
One wonders if those realities of equity funds is a reason that Romney has used an ethics exception to limit his disclosure of Bain holdings. See Romney using ethics exception to limit disclosure of Bain holdings, Washington Post (April 5, 2012).

By offering a limited description of his assets, Romney has made it difficult to know precisely where his money is invested, whether it is offshore or in controversial companies, or whether those holdings could affect his policies or present any conflicts of interest.
In 48 accounts from Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded in Boston, Romney declined on his financial disclosure forms to identify the underlying assets, including his holdings in a company that moved U.S. jobs to China and a California firm once owned by Bain that filed for bankruptcy years ago and laid off more than 1,000 workers.
***[M]ost of the underlying assets — the specific investments of Bain funds— are not known because Romney is covered by a confidentiality agreement with the company.

http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/04/more-on-private-equity-carried-interest.html

[conflicts of interest]

Full Show: Gambling With Your Money
April 5, 2012

Paul Volcker on why banks are wrong to undermine the Volcker Rule, Carne Ross on the power of ordinary people to effect change in government and commerce, and a Bill Moyers Essay.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-gambling-with-your-money/

[How can I have any steak, if I can't even afford the pudding?]

Robert Fitzwilson continues:
The elusive goal of getting employment, housing and the gross domestic product back on track still evades the central banks, despite throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem. That is, almost everything. A consensus appears to be building that the central banks are now focused on what is referred to as nominal GDP.

Nominal means making the calculation before taking into account the effect of prices on the ‘real’ value of the economic activity. We believe that there are structural and resource-related constraints to growing the economy. Therefore, the easiest way to generate nominal GDP in our view would be to let prices rise....

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/4/8_Fed_Trapped_in_Its_Own_Matrix_at_an_Enormous_Cost.html