United States Heading towards a Depression?

Terrific. Why don't you link the picture. You know, something from the US that looks like this?



You wont find it because it doesn't exist.

 

As usual Julian seems to forget we live here.

 

I haven't seen any children that looked like that. Still, there are some people living in their car. Homeless people. There is hunger. They may not be starving to death, still suffering. We have more resources here. People can get food stamps. Americans in general, I think, also tend to be very generous and giving. Lots of charities. Especially religious ones. In my area, there are so many free food banks. No one should go hungry, they may not know the resources available. But hunger and homelessness are two things we always need to fight. Did you read this story about the homeless in Central Florida? They did a special on 60 minutes. There was an immediate outpouring of support. One donation by a Baptist church was 5.6 million dollars.

 

Rebecca, no one denies there is poverty and homelessness in America. The point and more to the problem and point is that there are more Americans taking advantage of a system of dependency that should not be!

Those that truly need and deserve our help and compassion are not the ones benefiting from these programs.

 

In other words, those who starve to death in America do so because they are either too dumb or too proud to take advantage of the plethora of free food available. In California, the state advertises on radio and TV making sure people know they may qualify for free food, even if their income is above 30k a year. I read GWorld's link talking about hunger in America and it becomes very clear why foreigners are often so uninformed about America. If people want to know about poverty and food insecurity in America, they should watch the movie Precious. I cant think of any other country where the food problems for the poor lean towards obesity rather than starvation.

 

I disagree. In order to qualify for food stamps, they verify all of your information. This would include things like checking and savings, current bills, assets...potential recipients are carefully screened. You don't just walk in and get handed free money. People on food stamps are verified as having a low income or no income. It would be the minority that find a way to cheat the system. Certainly, they should tighten down on any fraud. But I do believe the majority of people on them are really struggling financially. I don't believe the answer is cutting these programs. I think the answer is we need more opportunity, more jobs, better paying jobs, so that people have the ability to pull themselves out of it. As the opportunities come for the lower income to make more money, the demand for welfare type programs will go down on their own.

The poor may be less likely to be aware of what resources are available. With the food resources I can mainly just speak of my area, as there are probably 15 food banks nearby. But just by Googling "Food Banks" - most should be able to find some in their area too.

 

Great, is this your point that Americans have it better than Africans and you won´t be happy until American children are in the same condition?

 

Is this the America that you want?




People being homeless, children going hungry, people dying from lack of medicine is not acceptable to a civilized world. Food, shelter, medical treatment are not luxuries, they are the basic rights.

 

Perhaps, but I suspect the shelters and churches supply enough information to those in need of assistance that going hungry for lack of information is also highly unlikely.

No. My point, since you clearly missed it, is that people in America don't go hungry, contrary to your opinion on the matter. Not only do they not look like the children in Africa, they generally do not miss meals. Children of low income families generally get fed by simply showing up to school. People with low income are provided a food card that operates like a credit card at the grocery stores, avoiding even the appearance of poverty or the necessity of showing up to a shelter, food bank, or church. For a while, some of the local casinos were even accepting these food cards toward gambling credit.

 

Typical neo-con BS, 40 million people go hungry and if 10 people use their food stamps for gambling, it means there is no poor or hungry in USA. Anyone can walk in NY, LA, Boston, Chicago, Houston,... and see these people and no amount of parroting the Republicans BS changes the facts.

 

Nice unattributed quote that has nothing to do with hunger or food security in the US. I guess this is where the people who live in the US are just supposed to take a foreigner's word for it that 40 million people are going hungry in the US, despite a myriad of public and private food programs and the fact the US is one of the worlds largest food exporters for anti-hunger programs. You really believe we are sending millions of tons of food to foreign countries to fight hunger while people starve in the US. Incredible.

 

Are you really this stupid? I have quoted the stats in my post, did you even read it?

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-report/err125.aspx

This is an official U.S. government web site. low food security, what a nice bureaucratic name for hunger.

 

Yes, and I already addressed it. Perhaps it would be easier for you to read directly from the stats so you can get an idea of the difference between food insecurity and hunger.

These are the poor in America, that you would call starving. Then again, when you consider how many calories one has to ingest daily to maintain a weight of 240lbs, I suppose I can see where some of these people might feel like they are hungry.

 

Here is a short online quiz about hunger in America:

Hunger in America

Source: FeedingAmerica.org

 

I love it, especially their hunger facts page, which shows a stronger presence of "food insecurity" among racial minorities (correlating to higher poverty levels among those same groups). Curiously, the link I provided also shows a higher obesity rate among those very same "at risk" groups.

So let me ask you, how does one reconcile the strong correlation of obesity and poverty presented by my FRAC link with the correlation between food insecurity and poverty presented by the government site and your site? Do you think the FRAC is lying about obesity among the poor, or does perhaps food insecurity mean something other than an easy to access, free, and readily available 2500 calories a day per person in the US.

 

Well you just showed that you don´t even understand the obesity problem. The reason for the obesity in low income families are the shitty foods that the poor have to eat and it has nothing to do with those that go hungry. Just another smoke screen to hide the facts that in the land of plenty people have to go hungry.

Did you do the quiz? All my answers were correct, how about yours? Just wait for obamanation to come back and claim that poor people are obese and some people gambled their food stamps, so all those stats must be lies.

 

Oh? How so? Please explain it. How is it that obesity is a huge problem among the poor and yet there are still supposedly people starving. While you are at it, why don't you provide some facts to support the idea that quality food is inavailable to the poor, the "food desert" myth. For that matter, explain to me how a person who consumes excessive calories on a daily basis is not responsible for his/her own weight problem? I know socialists aren't big on personal responsibility so I'm waiting with baited breath for you to tie this whole starvation/obesity/lack of personal responsibility thing together.

 

This video explains nicely why people without personal responsibility are failures at everything, including putting readily available healthy food in their own pie hole.

[video=youtube;KBXQhs6kwYc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXQhs6kwYc[/video]

 

I think obesity is a problem for the US in general, and it's been established that it's higher for Americans living in poverty. My best guess to explain the correlation would be poor food choices that relate to affordability and accessibility. It may be easier to afford food that is higher calorie/lower nutrient than buying lots of healthy food? I don't really know. If people making a higher income are statistically less obese, compared to lower income, how can that be explained?

Yes I did. I got 100% this time. But I'll admit, I took it initially a few months ago, and only had a 90%.

Obamanation, how did you score on the quiz?

 

GWorld, what's your point with the hunger stories? There's no country with zero hunger related deaths. Even the 'glorious' egalitarian states like NK, China, Cuba (and most of Europe for that matter) still have people starving. Government causes the homelessness and the hunger, not the middle classes. Why don't we tax the earners some more so they can be hungry too, is that what you want?

Silly slogans like "tax the rich" will always be appealing to those who aren't rich and fools will always fall for it. The problem is the government and career politicians never define rich. In reality they increases taxes for everyone.

Unless you tax the billionaires and cut taxes for every one else, we're always going to be chasing our tails. The smart business owner who earns a few million a year is not the problem. My grandad was brought up in an orphanage and has no formal education. After years of sacrifice and hard work he established a business that earns him a nice six-figure income and he will be taxed around 50%. If the state wants to completely eradicate any incentive to earn money, it's doing a fantastic job. Tories conservative? What a sick joke.