[Denny]

I just saw this on CNN money, http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/16/news/economy/food_insecurity/index.htm

But, I question the definitions.

First off, they seem to equate "hunger" with having to forego anything one's appetite would want.

While it does not surprise me that in a time of a harsh recession that the true hunger rate would increase, it seems hard to comprehend the one in six figure.

Too bad the other two or three in six who are overeating consistently could not set aside their next trip for pizzas or wings or burgers and give the equivalent amount they would spend for fast food or a fancy meal and give the money for canned goods or non-perishable beans or lentils to a food bank. It oculd buy many times the good value equivalent. I may do just that myself, maybe set aside $5 or $10 a week, and it could be a win-win, for me and the recipient of the food.

But, once again, government is rushing in. Maybe for good, maybe for bad....how sustainable are food programs over time? The Romans showed that dependency on government is not a sustainable option for an urban society.

Government report shows 15% of Americans had trouble putting food on the table -- a record high. By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer. Last Updated: November 16, 2009: 3:32 PM ET:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.

In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food. The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.

Of the near-15% of the nation that couldn't secure enough food last year, the USDA said one-third of them had "very low food security," meaning they reduced the amount that they ate or disrupted their eating patterns during the year. That group made up 5.7% of all U.S. households, which was also a record high.

More than 500,000 households that scaled back the amount that they ate were households with children, making up 1.3% of all U.S. homes with children.

Obama's call to action. President Obama called the report "unsettling," and said more needs to be done. "My Administration is committed to reversing the trend of rising hunger," Obama said in a statement. "The first task is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day. But we are also taking targeted steps to prevent Americans from experiencing hunger."

Obama urged Congress to pass a "strong" child nutrition bill to help ensure that American children don't go hungry.

To combat the nation's rapidly growing hunger problem, the Recovery Act allocated $20 billion to the nation's food stamp program, and hundreds of millions of dollars to food banks and school lunch programs. One recipient of stimulus funds was the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program, which was allocated an additional $150 million from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

[Tyler_JC]

You have to be really poor to qualify for food stamps in the United States.

I created a fake person to see if he qualified. $14,000 a year in income, spending $6,000 of that on rent/utilities, and no assets of any kind. I only managed to qualify for around $30/month in food stamps.

But they also offered me a bunch of other programs like the earned income tax credit, housing assistance, heating fuel assistance, etc.

So my "real" income would likely have been around $18,000(?) once you include the value of the government transfers. But that's just a single person. Families, especially those with young children, would qualify for more programs.

The benefits might not be much, but the cutoffs are steep, arbitrary, and grossly inconsistent. America has one of the worst welfare traps in the world. There are millions of people who could switch to a poorer paying job and actually have a higher standard of living thanks to our backward welfare system.

[Ludi]

http://www.sustainablefoodcenter.org/

[JJ]

Tyler JC, eleven years ago, I got mad and quit working for my sister at her lumberyard here in Burnet, Texas. I went to work for Sutherlands Lumberyard in Marble Falls, Texas for 800.00 a month, full time, before taxes. (in retrospect, I don't know how we survived, except Bing sold eggrolls by word of mouth and made 400. a week..) I went to apply for food stamps. I had bought a Dodge neon for 13,999. the month before I quit, and made ONE payment on it. The food stamp office counted it as an asset, and said I made too much money to qualify.

eventually I got the job I have to this day and Bing quit making eggrolls immediately...

on the other hand, we got WIC for ten years and usually gave the stuff away, as my family is asian and they eat very little in the way of dairy products...

[Ludi]

Bing quit making eggrolls immediately....

But they're so tasty!

[JJ]

Bing quit making eggrolls immediately....

But they're so tasty!

Ludi, they ARE so good...but labor intensive!

now here's the irony; she has a masters and speaks seven languages, and here she was making eggrolls (now she cleans houses for twice what I make, about 27 dollars an hour is what it works out to).

[Ludi]

she has a masters and speaks seven languages

I read that to my husband and he said "Barack Obama, you say education is the key to good employment, what do you say to that?"

And I think that's a good question. It doesn't do you any good to have a fabulous education if there are no jobs.

Re: Eggrolls; I've only made them a couple times and it is difficult!

[Dreamtwister]

But this is umpossible! Timmy said we are on the road to recovery!

[DomusAlbion]

What they probably don't mention is that half of those 1 in 6 are going hungry voluntarily;

They're on a diet to lose all that excess tonage.

[JJ]

she has a masters and speaks seven languages

I read that to my husband and he said "Barack Obama, you say education is the key to good employment, what do you say to that?"

And I think that's a good question. It doesn't do you any good to have a fabulous education if there are no jobs.

Re: Eggrolls; I've only made them a couple times and it is difficult!

(her masters is in education, she taught overseas for five years)
when she came into the US, she said she would not teach here, because the children are brats. (sixteen years ago). The other day she said why would I want to teach here for nothing? ( Substitute teachers here in Burnet get 50.00 a day, Bing says teachers get 32,000 a year)) She said I can make that (the former) in two hours.

caveat: there are a lot of kids over at my house that are not brats.

edited to add link:
http://www.online-distance-learning-edu ... -CISD.html

edited to add:
my *mentor* told me to get an education for the sake of an education, and not to expect a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, as there wasn't one. also, I needed to get a GED/college education because I was a f&%*ing idiot.

[mcgowanjm]

49.1 Million Americans Starving
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 49 million Americans -- one in seven -- struggled to get enough to eat in 2008, the highest total in 14 years of a federal survey on "food insecurity," the U.S. government said Monday.

Wait til March.

The USDA reported the corn harvest was 54% completed as of Sunday, which fell within trade expectations of 50 to 60 percent completion, but well below the five year average of 77% done.

The soybean harvest was 89% completed as of Sunday, which fell slightly below trade expectations of 90 to 92 percent completion, and the five year average of 96%.

Winter wheat plantings were at 90% completed, which is 5 percentage points behind the 5-year average. Arkansas wheat was only 52% planted (80% normally), Illinois 77% (98%) and Indiana 85% (98%).

Based on the Arkansas wheat figure alone, the above is a lie.
I can tell you that a three county area in the heart of E Arkansas
will be lucky to have any.

As a society nears the geological limits to production, in other words, a steadily growing fraction of its total supply of energy, resources, and labor have to be devoted to the task of bringing in the energy that keeps the entire economy moving. This percentage may be small at first, but it's effectively a tax in kind on every productive economic activity, and as it grows it makes productive economic activity less profitable.

[Tyler_JC]

And yet wheat prices are still 50% lower than they were last year.

So either you have special secret knowledge of the wheat market that the rest of the world doesn't know about yet or you are underestimating this year's harvest.

[rangerone314]

What they probably don't mention is that half of those 1 in 6 are going hungry voluntarily;

They're on a diet to lose all that excess tonage.

American's are so fat, that it won't be global warming causing the seas to rise. Excess weight will make the land sink....

[MarkJ]

"Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America"

http://www.heritage.org/research/welfare/wm1701.cfm

"Is America Struggling with Hunger?"

http://mises.org/daily/3776

[hillsidedigger]

I heard yesterday that over half of the people in 6 American states are now obese.

Yet, many of the obese are actually hungry for real food for they consume too much stuff like eggos, pringles, mac-n-cheese, soft drinks, etc.

No amount of monetary food assistance like food stamps will help people who do not spend the assistance wisely.

[mcgowanjm]

No amount of monetary food assistance like food stamps will help people who do not spend the assistance wisely.

Notice that 'diet' as well as 'budget' are never taught in
US schools.

And that archeologists know when they've found past civilization
by the teeth of the skeleton. Hunter/Gatherers did not ruin their
teeth on corn.

[SeaGypsy]

Bing quit making eggrolls immediately....

But they're so tasty!

Ludi, they ARE so good...but labor intensive!

now here's the irony; she has a masters and speaks seven languages, and here she was making eggrolls (now she cleans houses for twice what I make, about 27 dollars an hour is what it works out to).

Funny. President Gloria's wage is pegged to the $USD. It's $50k. So Bing could easy make more than the president of the Philippines; pushing a broom.

I have another friend who's wife is a Filipina cleaning houses is Boston for the same amount. She never went to school, she is from the Manila slums and speaks broken English as well as Tagalog.

Where I work a family of 4 on mining royalties gets $96,000 a year for doing absolutely nothing. They live worse than people in the Manila slums.

It is a very strange world.

[Ludi]

Notice that 'diet' as well as 'budget' are never taught in
US schools.

Those things used to be taught in "Home Ec."

Back when they used to have "Shop" in schools also.

I took "Ag." (rural school)

[Pretorian]

now here's the irony; she has a masters and speaks seven languages, and here she was making eggrolls (now she cleans houses for twice what I make, about 27 dollars an hour is what it works out to).

sorry, what was she supposed to do in Texas with masters and 7 languages? Sure thing, she could fit into many sweet jobs but to get them you need good friends, not masters and ability to speak tagalog and waray-waray. I am puzzled by people who think that education has some mysterious ties with (good) employment. Your ability to find Greece on the map and your knowing of who was in charge when Christ got poked will be very hard to monetize. People get educated so they won't be ignorant fools, that's it. You want a good job, get yourself a professional training. Or make some good friends.

[deMolay]

This is a shocker. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17 ... l?_r=1&hpw