Enough mean people voted the meanies into power and the US is becoming the cold cruel world. We can be reminded of Dickensian England. The land of workhouses and poverty and idle rich.
The Rs are also committing genocide by eliminating USAID aid in Afica and Asia. They are killing millions of children so that the billionaires can add more zeros to their wealth. They should all rot in hell.
Psychopaths don't think in such terms. They only think in terms of hoarding everything there is to hoard. It doesn't occur to them that by doing so, there will end up being nothing left.
For the non-billionaire class, is this Trump’s “Marie Antoinette Moment”?
Republicans are shutting down the government, kicking people off food stamps and health insurance, forcing hundreds of thousands of layoffs, driving up costs with huge tariffs, and hurting many citizens…
So: demolish the White House, build a massive ballroom larger than a football field, and “let them eat cake!“
They are like a plague of locusts devouring everything in their path. They are all about maximizing short term gain. As Keynes said"In the long run we will all be dead."
We should stop buying from and through Amazon anyway, but now millions won't be able to, and right before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess one doll is one too many now.
Actually who will be left is the middle class, enough of whom will survive to provide markets. Everyone else will be sacrificed. Did you know that the difference in lifespan between the most- and least-economically endowed is 14 years? America has been killing off the lower classes in favor of plenty delivered to the upper and middle classes for at least 150 years.
The church provides for the concept of "free will." In other words, God allows us to do whatever we want. The concept of Hell allows people to believe that nasty individuals will eventually be punished for their misdeeds.
The British Gov't response to the Irish famine could be compared to Hurricane Katrina.
There was quite a lot the British government could have done to help the victims and mitigate the crop failure. But, like Bush2, they chose to exploit the famine and blame & abuse the victims. And, once again, lot of rich people got much richer during and after the event.
The famine was effectively genocide, as British investors (who owned land in Ireland through national conquest) continued to receive land rents from Ireland in the form of wheat, either sold or directly imported, that was grown in order to pay land rents. It was excused as an example of social Darwinism, popular with the investor class as justifying their murderous colonial wars.
Almost every historian has rejected the genocide claims. British people actually provided a lot of aid to Ireland during the famine, neither were the landlords as bad as is often claimed. It's 'Famine porn' as one historian put it, designed to elicit an emotional reaction rather than an intellectual one.
Technically correct. There was no direct movement to kill the Irish.
Whatever aid Britain gave to the Irish did not prevent over one million Irish deaths from the famine, and over one million emigrated, but it wasn’t perpetrated against the Irish people deliberately.
It is still true that the Irish wheat crop, mostly dedicated to land rents, was still exported to pay those rents while people were starving to death. The concept of “famine porn” you cite is a crass and distorted perspective on such a mass death incident.
That nonsense was conveniently social Darwinism. Survival of the "fittest'. It allowed Brits to continue to collect land rents paid for largely from the cultivation of wheat as opposed to potatoes. The Irish were deprived of the wheat, which had to be surrendered or sold to allow landowners, substantially Brits, to pay land rents.
Oh, sadly the richies of our era are far from idle. They are actively working their asses off destroying what's left of our Republic in favor of despotism...
My book club is reading "Money, Lies and God" by Katherine Stewart. It really explains how things are working now. I highly recommend it. It gives an idea of the history of how we got to this point and the organizations funding all that is going on politically, and their goals. Super wealthy far right and Christian Nationalists have a feudal agenda that we should all be crystal clear about. I am heartened that countries like Canada and Ireland have voted in more liberal people in recent elections. We have to look at the wins as well as the losses. I am in Germany and waiting to see whether the firewall against Nazi-like parties holds up.
Not true! They pay other people to do the work for them while they float around in their superyachts or putt around on their golf courses. And most of the "work" is little more than greasing palms and giving "advice".
Yes. Trump's main job is to rob us blind and grift as much money as he can from the entire world from his position as president, in between whiling away his time on the golf course.
American prisons are workhouses, and I presume ICE facilities are such as well, or soon will be. We can thank the 13th Amendment for slavery being allowed in prisons.
With the birth of her second child, my great-grandmother came down with what was then called "childbed fever" in the 1890s. As she became more and more helpless, she was forced to put her children into an orphanage; there was no other way that she could provide for them. The orphanage raised them and saw to it that they were educated. My grandmother cared for her mother later in life - she was confined to a wheelchair by that time.
And this is the period in which America was "great", according to our dear leader.
Postscript: It was the practice of the orphanage to photograph children when they entered. I have a large copy of that photograph hanging in my family room.
We want a government that helps people to be able to keep their children and take care of them. Instead I imagine not a lot of people are going to be wanting to have many children in the society that is being created, except for those embracing the toxic male and trad wife identities.
Why do you think that they try to ban abortion. They need a steady supply of labor. Most abortions are done for economic reasons in that the mother can't afford to raise a child decently.
Yes. However, I was just trying to flesh out what I meant by Dickensian. I am of the generation that saw Oliver in the movie theater, as well as reading Oliver Twist, and so many other of Dickens novels. I think he captures the bleakness so well. It is not a time I want to return to.
There is a British movie "North and South" based on a book which I have not read, which tries to depict the misery of the people working in the cotton mills as things are getting industrialized. That also comes to mind.
Or the book The Jungle, set in my home town of Chicago, although Upton Sinclair was supposedly only in the city for a couple of days he captured the flavor in this book.
I actually had a field trip to the stock yards in elementary school while they still existed. I have a vague memory of a lot of mud and animals. I was seven. The book supposedly led to enactment of meat inspection and standards laws, ones which this current president has effectively destroyed.
Conservatives would point out that the Dickensian suffering resulted in England being the most powerful empire in the World's history. Not true, but they think so.
Rather than a deplorable and fixable side-effect of an expanding empire, today's wealthy think Dickensian grinding poverty is Necessary and Right. God ordained. The 99% exist to support the wealthy aristocrats, not the other way around.
Unfortunately, it's not just going to be the cult. The GOP has been working assiduously for years to unravel the New Deal and its progeny. And they've never paid a political price for it, not even when it became obvious to anyone but fools that unraveling the New Deal was exactly what the GOP wanted to do. But Trump and 2024 have given America’s hard right the guts and the chance to realize their 80 plus year old dream, and they are running with it.
The big political question is will any of the benighted, White Nationalist, God addled idiots who voted for their own economic and social destruction actually notice? After all, they haven't so far. I think, at least in part, that's why the GOP has finally acted to finish its destruction of the nation's social safety net. Voters in the flatlands didn't seem to care about any of the awful things Trump had done in and out of office, or any of the things he and his noxious congressional allies promised to do if put back in office, as long as the GOP kept on feeding them the lie that getting rid of all the country's brown people, "liberals" and atheists would fix all the flatlanders' problems. White rural voters ate that stuff up. And, when it comes to their votes, didn't really seem to care much about anything else.
But maybe this time will be different? Maybe the real economic hardships in rural areas that were caused by and now are being made much worse by the GOP will finally wake up the flyover states' voters to reality of their situation? Maybe...but I'm not optimistic.
Anthony, Katherine Stewart does a good job of talking about the marriage of White Christian Nationalists and Far Right Monied people who fund everything. She has made clear that philosophically their is a strong belief in this merger that embraced far right toxic masculinity anti women and other groups ideology in violent defense of their ideology and way of life. Since this is one of the most vociferously environmentally destructive countries right now, we are looking at rapid decline in quality of life from these policies let alone the humanitarian horrors of this regime and the people funding and ideologically supporting it.
Last November I wrote "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe" and it still seems relevant.
DonnyJon praises President McKinley often enough. That's more than a century ago. That's the golden era for Trump, and that's what he wants the US to be like again.
Poor reasoning skills on the part of Proj 2025, TechBros and their messiah MoldBug (aka: they are stupid).
They reason that since grinding poverty (and ignorant superstition and epidemics) existed in the British, and Roman and other empires, it must necessarily exist in order for Great Empires to form, grow, flourish. Absolutely idiotic.
I am talking about the attitudes that allow such things to be are rampant right now. Mean people are behind our government which is mean too. As I recommended above, in the book "Money, Lies and God" Kathleen Stewart does an excellent job of looking at the way mean spirited Christian Nationalists and the super rich right wing Christians come together to support this administration and what their beliefs are about money and people. We live in a plutocracy that is also a kakistocracy, oligarchy, and kleptocracy. Thank you Greeks. I read yesterday that our economy is now worse than Greece's.
When one of the wealthiest countries in the world allows its children, its elderly, its disabled and its unemployed citizens to go hungry, it has lost its moral compass.
“The USA has more millionaires and billionaires than any other country. It is home to over 6 million millionaires and 867 billionaires, which is more than the next nine countries combined.”
“Average wealth: The U.S. has a high average wealth per person, ranking fourth among wealthy nations according to one report.”
There should be no billionaires. It is a failure of capitalism that such people exist. Excess profits should be competed away, so is the neoclassical doctrine. Something went wrong.
Agree. Real free market capitalism is based on a few principles such as a private ownership motivated by profit that theoretically creates a competitive marketplace based on supply and consumer demand, without government subsidies.
But we have become a government that has allowed the over-consolidation of a few companies which in turn control the economy.
And the government subsidizes the wealthiest corporations. So we have actually become a corporate welfare economy that continues to widen the gap between the uber wealthy and everyone else.
Decades ago there used to be a social contract between successful companies and their employees. But that concept, for the most part, was disrupted during the Reagan administration with his BS trickle down economics policies. But republicans still rely on it as their primary economic policy. Intentionally? Yes. And I don’t see that ending any time soon, particularly under the trump fascist regime. He’s the KING of paying less than minimum wage and stiffing workers and contractors.
And “After $4 Trillion Boondoggle, The Republican Tax Bill
Could Give 15 Corporations A $236 Billion Tax Break”
About thirty years ago, I used to read the postings of a right-wing individual located in the western US. She worked for Walmart for a while and was getting SNAP benefits to supplement her income. She said that they kept a lot of people working part time instead of full time to avoid providing benefits. Since she was made a full-time employee fairly soon, I believe the main driver was actually to make sure the employee was going to work out before making them full time. Sort of like the six-month probation period my employer used.
My college educated daughter worked for Anthropology right after getting her undergraduate degree while she looked for a better job. It was during the period shortly after 2008. Anthropology kept her at part time for over a year so she would not be eligible for benefits. Common corporate strategy.
I have seen repeated studies over the years that point to Walmart as the single largest recipient, albeit indirectly, of welfare in the United States due to their hiring policies that rely on part-time staff.
In 2009 my department at a major chain bookseller (buying dept) was dissolved. After 20+ years I found myself looking for work during a major economic crash. I got a job at Target as a sales clerk and, naive to retail changes, was shocked to find that 20 hours per week was what I could expect to get!
Blech. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And while Walmart is the most egregious due to their scale, I am familiar with NGOs going so far as to hire people for say, 28 hours a week when the benefits would have kicked in at 30. Even worse would be compounding that by also hiring people for term positions that were 5 months instead of the 6 months that would then have triggered benefits, and on and on it went.
This practice still goes on today, to the benefit of huge corporations and the detriment of workers with no clout. My college educated son got a job at HD a couple of years ago and they had him on 23 hours for 18 months (no health care retirement etc)! He for sure could not have afforded decent rent or other necessities if he had not been living at home. It's a grift that keeps on giving.
I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Animal House, but there's a scene where one of the fraternities is going through their hazing ritual; In that scene the head of the frat is spanking an incoming member with a large wooden paddle, and the the plebe says, "thank you, sir, may I have another," after every smack. This is how I see MAGA from top to bottom.
If they're ok suffering at the hands of their Orange Deity, they're likely hiding some masochistic tendencies. Sure, it's for the goal of causing others to suffer, nevertheless, they're ok with getting hurt themselves.
Also, I've never heard of a sadist who would say no to hurting someone. Trumpkopf exemplifies this.
Not the ones who lose their benefits. A food pantry near me said they had the busiest day in their entire 60-year history yesterday, even higher than during the pandemic. This is in red red red West Virginia. People have to start feeling the pain to have a change of heart.
Democrats are holding out for a bigger welfare state, and ordinary Americans are paying the price. SNAP benefits went out in October, but not in November — families who rely on that help are now caught in the middle of a political standoff.
The Democrats wrote the subsidy law to expire in 2025; they knew it was temporary. Now they’re keeping the government closed to turn it into a new entitlement. If they believe in that policy, they should take it to the voters in 2026 and 2028 — not use millions of struggling households as leverage in a shutdown.
The subsidies were sold as being temporary. They were enacted because of an emergency, and now the emergency has passed. It seems like a betrayal of trust to ask for something because of an emergency and then demand it in perpetuity. It seems like a grift.
On when things happen remember democracy and choice. You lost the last election and feel free to run adding entitlements.
If I remember correctly, the tax cuts were also set to expire but it sure was important to the GOP to extend them. The rich get richer and the poor starve seems to be the Republican way.
Not only were the tax cuts set to expire but when R went back to extend them, they insisted that they be treated as part of the base budget and only additional cuts would “count” as adding to the massive deficit they were creating. Negotiation actually implies good faith in revisiting a policy to see what its effects have been. Extending medicaid and insurance subsidies did good things for people. Piling on debt did nothing but further extend the deficit and the wealth gap.
It’s hard to understand at what point the R advocacy for shifting wealth upward will stop. The D effort to demonstrate this is overdue. That Americans will both lose food and health care doesn’t encourage them to rethink their obsession with tax cutting for the haves and indifference to the havenots.
Of course the children will suffer - and they can’t vote. The voters who have allowed the R fantasy of white male omnipotence to flourish will have to see them hungry and ill in their own communities to turn on the indifferent despots to make real change. In the interim, we who have some will have to give to those who have less, and be willing to SAY we are doing this as acts of resistance to the cruelty manifested by the R who control all 3 branches of government now.
That's a great point, Ken. Tax the rich, feed the poor. The rich will still be rich, and the poor, who will still be poor, will at least not be hungry.
It looks to me like the Democrats are in the same position the Republicans were back in 1995–96 and again in 2013. In both of those cases, the GOP tied government funding to a policy goal — a balanced budget in the ’90s, and defunding Obamacare in 2013 — and wound up taking the blame for the shutdown.
Now it’s the Democrats doing the same thing, holding up funding over the extension of a healthcare subsidy that was created as a temporary COVID measure. The emergency is long over, yet they’re using a shutdown to try to keep those payments going.
Shutdowns are never popular, no matter who’s behind them. People feel the pain immediately — furloughs, closed parks, missed paychecks — while the policy dispute itself feels distant and abstract. And it’s no surprise the left-leaning media isn’t emphasizing that this shutdown is about preserving an expired healthcare subsidy. That detail doesn’t fit the narrative.
Tax cuts for rich folk are permanent, not temporary. Fine with Republicans. You have an interesting bias: no healthcare subsidy--all temporary, tax cuts for wealthy in perpetuity. Oh, right. Republicans don't have bias. They have common sense. Democrats don't have any common sense. They just have bias.
Republicans were supposed to be in favour of a balanced budget, but pushed a big temporary new tax cut for the rich during Trump's first term, which resulted in a historic deficit.
The food stamp program has been there for a long time, with periodic reviews.
The size of the temporary tax cut was huge, much more than what was needed to properly fund the food stamp program & a properly funded universal health care system.
The Republicans insisted on extending the temporary tax cuts, and refuse the much smaller extension of food stamps.
So obviously, Republicans are more interested in grift for themselves than a balanced budget.
Don’t use the word grift with us, Aaron! We aren’t fooled or distracted.
The subsidies were originally made temporary as part of negotiations with stubborn Repubs, who were bargaining for Capitalism. It was a concession to get the bill passed. It’s what Congress used to do- negotiate.
Here you are today, defending letting children go hungry for your politics.
Face the facts: you advocate for children to go hungry.
Just live with that today, let it resonate, and try to sleep well tonight.
“grift” fits when something sold as temporary relief quietly morphs into a permanent entitlement, especially if the same politicians later insist they “always intended” it to continue. It’s not just spin; it’s a bait-and-switch that keeps the political cash flow and moral leverage going. You would own the word.
How damaged does one have to be to question whether fellow Americans should have access to health care? You are twisted into a knot over whether subsidies should have been made permanent instead of why it is that basic medical care is considered a pricey privilege rather than a basic human right.
In this nation the two are inextricably linked. I might suggest that readers here do a little fact based research of their own on healthcare costs* and outcomes comparing the US with its OECD peers.
In the US one can get certain types of medical care without insurance. If one shows up in an ER by law they cannot be released until medically stable. But there are at least three flaws there. First, ER care is expensive and if the patient cannot pay those costs get built into the deliverer's cost structure. That is to say that all the rest of us ultimately pay for it. Second, ERs are not set up to deliver preventive care, you know, the old ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure. Further, there is no continuity of care or follow up. And finally, if you uninsured or underinsured the hospital will try to collect. Uninsured people are billed at the hospital's "chargemaster**" rate (though many hospitals will negotiate if the patient is sophisticated enough to pursue it). If someone is already in an economically tenuous circumstance being sued by a hospital for medical care can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Estimates vary but medical bills account for at least 40 and as much as 66 percent of personal bankruptcies.
**The chargemaster is essentially a hospital's list prices. They are public by law but you may have to jump through some hoops to actually see your hospital's. If you do you will be shocked by the prices.
They are still needed because here in the (for now) richest country in the world we still have 40 million people who will go to bed hungry if the SNAP payments don't go out.
We are the richest country in the world but unfortunately the majority of the wealth is held by a handful of oligarchs. The rest of us are in a borderline third world.
The subsidies were not sold as being temporary. The only way they could get past the Senate was to approve them for ten years. The expectation on the Democrats part (and the fear on the Republicans part) was that they would prove to be popular and be extended or made permanent. They were not enacted because of an emergency and the situation has only gotten worse.
They certainly were sold as temporary. They were not written ten years ago, they were written as response to the COVID pandemic. That pandemic is over and now the Covid motivated subsidies are too.
"Ordinary Americans are paying the price". Yep, we absolutely are, and the rich are getting the benefit. As the wealthiest country on Earth, we have the ability (at least the potential) to accrue individual wealth while protecting the neediest. And it's the morally-lacking Repubs who are leveraging the 40 million out of food assistance -- as Dr. Krugman says, the money is there, but is being withheld.
The expanded and improved ACA subsidies had a short timeframe for the same reason they weren’t included in the original ACA - Bluedog Democrats like Manchin insisted on it. Republicans and Bluedogs are the reason why America has the most expensive healthcare system in the developed world with some of the worst outcomes. Trashing the whole Rube Goldberg machine that is the American healthcare «system» and replacing it with universal healthcare like every other functioning democracy is the only real answer. But, by the way things are going, that will never happen.
You obviously don't know what an entitlement is. It is a benefit extended solely on the basis of a class. For example farm subsidies or capital depreciation allowances or oil depletion allowances. Those who get their very substantial government checks in their mailbox aren't exposed to public scrutiny. Those who have to stand in line get the crumbs, but are highly visible.
Yes, the COVID-era healthcare subsidies are an entitlement — and it does matter how they came about. They were passed as a temporary emergency measure during COVID, meant to help people through a crisis. The key point is that the emergency is long over, yet the subsidies haven’t expired, although they are set to expire at the end of the year.
Once something created for an emergency keeps getting extended, it stops being temporary and starts functioning like a permanent entitlement. People now qualify automatically under fixed rules, and the payments flow without new annual approval — that’s the definition of an entitlement.
So yes, they’ve became an entitlement, but the democrats wrote it so the entitlement would expire at the end of 2025.
We wasted a lot of money during Covid. Why did we send checks to people who did not need them since they were able to work from home and did not suffer an income loss. This seems ham handed.
You are perfectly right, and Everything you say applies equally to those other subsidies i.e., entitlements i mentioned, and many more that go to the truly entitled, i.e., the rentiers (read “idle rich")
And all of those were Congress's considered judgment of what they intended. Every one of your arguments applies to those “invisible" entitlements.
You are perfectly right, and Everything you say applies equally to those other subsidies i.e., entitlements i mentioned, and many more that go to the truly entitled, i.e., the rentiers (read “idle rich")
And all of those were Congress's considered judgment of what they intended. Every one of your arguments applies to those “invisible" entitlements.
Huh? Reread the article as it pertains to SNAP. Could easily be arranged to be paid for November. The ACA subsidies could have been extended- the big ugly bill did big ugly things!!
Maybe it will, maybe it will not. We only have so much emergency money, so something has to give. Hopefully the democrats will stop the filibuster that is causing the emergency. They didn't have the votes so they shut down the government.
Why are we looking for surrogate issues. The issue is whether or not we should extend the emergency measure that were passed under covid as a remedy for covid dislocation. It's come down to is a good thing that the democrats are letting needy people starve all just to expand the scope of government, which is their project. They seem to care about as much for those in need of food stamps as Hamas does for civilian casualties. Hamas is worse than the democratic party, but that is not saying much.
The Democrats are trying to keep these programs (monies appropriated) in tact along with health care. The GOP said vote for the big beautiful bill and we will sort the rest out later. I think everyone has been shown they are not to be trusted. If there is any way GOP can harm the American people that is the avenue they choose. Hungry people cannot fight I think that was proven in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They are diabolical in their actions and cruel in their behavior. GOP has chosen their path and it is certainly not the Grand Ole Party.
This is a distraction point from the fact that SNAP has $5B in reserves for an emergency. The truth is, probably, both parties are culpable for this crisis and that needs to be worked out, true…but in the meantime, there’s 40 million citizens who are being held hostage despite a contingency fund that is available with the stroke of a pen.
I don't know about it being "loyalty test" so much as it is a convenient excuse to blame and dismiss people who are less fortunate. If we play the blame game and manufacture reasons for why people are less fortunate, its easier to not help them. If we believe that poverty and hunger are due to bad behavior, not enough effort and/or criminal activity, and that their circumstances could be easily reversed with greater personal effort, then ignoring their needs becomes easy- even the right thing to do.
America has long fostered the false belief that success can be achieved by hard work alone. That a man (and it is always a man) of grit and determination can "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and overcome any obstacle in order to achieve success. The reality is much different. Success can be achieved by effort, but it also influenced of birth, race, class, family wealth, education and just plain dumb luck. Trump and Musk are but two examples of men who tout the effort of their success, but who, as the old saying goes, were born on third base, stealing home.
In looking at mean income by quintile of American household income, the top quintile averages nearly $300K/yr, and accounts for over 50% of total US household income. By comparison, the bottom 3 quintiles (60%) of US households account for just 26%+ of total household income, with averages for each quintile of: $16.2K (5th), $43.85K (4th) and $74.73K (3rd). It should be apparent to even a casual observer that there is a great disparity between the haves and have nots in this country which cannot be accounted for by effort alone.
The folks currently in charge dismiss the needs of the less fortunate at their peril as "let them eat cake" is a strategy that will eventually be met with pitchforks and firebrands.
53% of SNAP recipients work, if you click on the "source" link beneath the map. Most are in rural areas where it's cheaper to live...I'm thinking a lot of elderly.
You've heard the expression that someone has s**t for brains? It's true in Bobby's case. What do you think the worm(s) ate while hanging out in empty halls of his cerebellum? And what inevitably happens after eating?
On Inauguration Day last year, I wanted a baseline list. It was my plan to revisit the list each Jan 20 to track our trajectory. I shudder to think what the numbers look like now. I ask for indulgence: I’m a retired social worker not a statistician, so I did simple searches for “who has the best...
Best in Life Expectancy: Monaco vs Current US ranking: 49th in the world
Best public school system: Iceland vs Current US ranking: 13th in the world
Best healthcare: Singapore vs Current US ranking: 69th in the world
Best infant survival rate: Monaco vs Current US ranking: 54th in the world
Best maternal survival rate: Estonia vs Current US ranking: 55th, the worst among all developed nations
Best trust in government: Switzerland vs Current US ranking: 23rd in the world
Best hope for the future: Indonesia vs Current US ranking: 23rd in the world
Best math education: China vs Current US ranking: 28th (out of 37) in the world
Best food security: Finland vs Current US ranking: 13th in the world
Best housing security: Japan vs Current US ranking: 78th (out of 100) in the world
These are incredibly telling stats. Thankyou for digging them out. All are really bad, but the US maternal survival rate is utterly appalling. How can the US be considered the wealthiest country in the world, when its maternal survival rate is the worst of its developed counterparts?!! And the Infant Sirvival Rate. My God.. The answer to the wealth question of course is the deeply flawed measure of what counts as wealth: the GDP. The more nasties that pass through the economic system, the greater the GDP. More worryingly, GDP per capita can be made to go up, if the denominator (population) goes down, or doesn't grow). Hmmm.
The United States is one of the most socially irresponsible countries in the world. Our wealth is gobbled up by individuals that can never be rich enough. The rest of us do not matter. Jesus weeps. It’s obscene.
As a retired educator I applaud your idea and efforts. Plain information, understandable by the masses ( who will choose read). Much is being made of us “ Qtips” who show up for protests, etc. Many cruel remarks. At age 80, I say they better be glad we are still around and willing to share our energy and knowledge. As Robert Reich points out, we have lived through several crises. This one to me seems the worst yet, but I am hoping it just feels that way because it is the current one. Thank you for sharing.
🙏 Thank YOU for sharing. I agree that our generation must lead the way. Young people have never seen social change in response to public outrage. We had the war on poverty, Civil rights act, Voting Act and we witnessed Nixon and Agnew resign in disgrace. We know it can work and now they’re seeing it too.
Crash our economy, (bitcoin etc), leave people hungry, (so they are too weak to fight back), eliminate jobs (AI), continue to ignore climate change.. and the oligarchs think that they will gain even more wealth??? What a sick, sick nation we have become.
Amazon is getting ready to turn thousands of people loose to unemployment and replace them with robots and AI. And yet they still pay little in income tax... We need to tax the Billionaires and the Megacorps to fund a guaranteed basic income.
First, Amazon did pay income tax last year. Not 40%, but still.
Second, their 2024 actual net income before taxes was $59 B. I don't know where the $270B number came from. You might check your source. I looked at their annual report.
Third, that profit is not what Bezos gets. He has something far more valuable. Amazon has a P/E ratio of 35, so that $59 B income would worth almost $2 trillion in market cap (assuming Amazon actually paid no taxes).
Bezos own about 9% of Amazon, so profit is about 3x (9% of 35) more valuable to him than the raw number would imply.
I have tried and failed to find the reference I cited, but the point is that in my opinion NOBODY needs a billion dollars. Bezos (according to Forbes) is worth $241 billion and change. In no reality but all out nuclear war could he be reduced to penury. He has no skin in the game that you and I play. Nor do any of the rest of the Oligarchs. Yet, they crave more wealth and power. I maintain that is a separate personality disorder and the rest of us pay the price.
The uberwealthy continue to accumulate wealth with much of it inherited. Money begets money in our system. The flow needs to be changed so the excess wealth goes to people who need food, shelter, education, health care and a door to a better future for them and their children. The uberwealthy can afford the loss, probably without the loss of any of their homes or boats. Why is there a political party that serves the uberwealthy and threatens the established precedents of our land in power? Perhaps because they have taken over the media and created a dystopian narrative built on division and anger to gain power and gold. Why they did it may relate to a problem with disparity and an issue of people not listening to the wisdom of respecting if not loving their neighbor. But that takes us back to the question of why they do it. As many have said in this conversation, the powers behind the Republicans may either lack empathy, something some enlightenment philosophers thought would be inhuman, or are motivated only by love of power and greed. It may be that such people will always exist and the eternal issue of governance, along with the ability to understand the implications of our actions, is how to assure governance is for the greater good (a concept that may be the another issue). An educated populace would help, if and only if they would have the information to choose a government that is dedicated to the people not to the power brokers of wealth as we now have. Looking back at the history of mankind makes me pessimistic. We now have the scientific/ technological ability to improve life for much of the world and end our race to climate catastrophe, instead we are witnessing a return of tribalism and worship of warfare. I fear for the future
Lack of empathy and insatiable greed are not incompatible. I would say they go hand in hand with. We need to end dynastic wealth and institute wealth caps and taxes. Having an Oligarchy is incompatible with having an ethical and beneficial democracy.
Shit hole country and the thing is oligarchs are gonna hate even more looking at this—they thought the homeless were bad. Homeless numbers are gonna explode.
They only complain about the homeless because they ugly up the landscape. They love having a large body of poor because the poor will work for a pittance to avoid becoming poorer.
The cruelty is the point, so depriving Grandma and Grandpa and little Sasparilla of food is a key plank of conservative governance. And, sadly, Grandma and Grandpa will still vote Republican because they believe that the minorities they despise are suffering more.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." LBJ
LBJ was a tremendous political operative. As President, he signed the Medicare Act, Civil Rights Act, and food stamp benefits. We need another President like him, Clinton, Obama, or someone like Buttigieg, Stansbury, and more.
Considering this Grandma and Grandpa are part of the white haired majority of protesters, I’m not sure I agree with you. I see far more MAGAts that are 40-ish or younger.
I find it interesting that folks don’t fit my political stereotyping. My ultra religious neighbors are blue while the lesbian couple down the road are MAGA red.
I recall an article in the old NYT after Obamacare went into effect. They were talking to an elderly woman in West Virginia. She loved Obamacare; it was the first time she'd been able to afford to see a doctor in years. So, they asked her how she was planning to vote in the next election. "Republican, of course." The interviewer pointed out that the Republicans are planning to repeal Obamacare. She said "Oh, they wouldn't do THAT."
Many people were led astray by Republican mis-information. My sister and her husband love the Affordable Care Act. After it passed, they were finally able to afford health insurance for the first time in their adult lives.
But they hated ObamaCare, and when Trump ran the first time, one of their prime reasons for voting for him was his promise to do away with the hated ObamaCare.
I tried explaining to them that the ACA and ObamaCare were the same thing, but that COULDN'T be right because Fox News kept telling them that ObamaCare was a complete government takeover of all healthcare, and there would be Death Panels and you would have to file a request with the government to see a doctor--a doctor that the government would assign you to instead of your regular doctor.
It wasn't until a few weeks before the vote to kill ObamaCare that Fox News let slip that ObamaCare and the Affordable Care Act were, indeed, the same thing. My sister was horrified that they were going to lose their health insurance. Fortunately, John McCain saved their asses.
And this is exactly why the power of discernment and critical thinking skills are absolutely essential, especially in today’s confusing media landscape. So many people are consistently voting against their own best interests in no small part directly as a result of Fox (not) News. This is of course by design.
I encounter these people pretty regularly in reality. "Oh they wouldn't do that." Just pure faith that the politician are working in their best interest - but only R politicians. Not the other ones. If you're going to apply blind optimism that at least do it evenly.
Eric Swallwell stated on Lawrence O'Donnell show that the Dems are giving key to reopening government and help their constituents avoid hunger/death. So the Dems want to help making right wing avoid accountability??? WTF?? So Dems can lose more elections???
If your automatic assumption about anyone is “they did this because they’re hateful and stupid and no where near as enlightened as me” and not “these people have drastically different life experiences than me that make them see the world differently (although maybe misguided),” and you continue to pedal that horribly narcissistic and hateful viewpoint online because it makes you feel good, even though you KNOW it has more nuance than that, then you are the problem, and you are directly contributing to a divide that is destroying America.
If they can't pull their head out of their ass and read the writing on the wall, that's their problem. 80% voted republican in my hometown and look at how they've been screwed over by someone who only puts on that dumb red trucker hat while wearing a suit at political rallies. He wasn't sporting it during his Studio 54 days--maybe only on a golf course.
During the last recession, many were struggling to eat. In line at the grocery store, the person checking out ahead of me might be pulling out every spare penny to pay for their food. Here’s a radical thought: why not pay it for them, if you can. Are they short $10? Pay it for them. And tell them you believe in helping people. Just a thought. I might have also mentioned I was a Democrat.
My wife always buys some non-perishable foods for the food bank at her church when she shops. Every year the congregation fills a truck with frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving.
Correct, however there is a law that congressionally mandated spending be done. Spending of SNAP funds, including emergency funds, is congressionally mandated.
Many, many things are congressionally mandated, which this administration has on hold, or refuses to countenance. A shipload of lawsuits against these transgressors would hardly be enough.
I think Congress and SCOTUS are working to make Congress powerless so that it will be unable to accomplish anything if and when the Democrats return to the majority.
There are lAws against desecrating federal government property, particularly historical monuments. I look forward to him and his cabalistic regime serving hard time.
Yes he did, and he will continue to break off from them; but it's still possible for those norms to return. If not, that's not saying much for our society.
You raise a question about his psychology. Winston Smith says that he enjoys thumbing his nose at the law. You imply that he has no interest in whether his conduct violates the law. I tend to think that you're right, but that, if someone points out to him that an action of his is illegal, he's pleased about it, because, since he faces no consequences, it makes the insecure baby feel powerful.
Cruelty and arrogance really are the point, no? Nothing will break this impasse until the GOP foot soldiers fear their constituents more than they fear Trump. Schumer and Jeffries may have just figured this out.
What I, as a European, find shocking is that so many people in one of the richest countries depend on their government to even put something as basic as food on their table. Something fundamentally wrong, I'd say.
The minimum wage, for just one thing. More than 38% of SNAP recipients are in working families. They just can’t earn enough. But yes, the “rugged individualism” myth has been weaponized to a ridiculous and shameful degree here. What I don’t get is how any of these Republicans can call themselves Christians. When my mom said “unchristian” it meant uncharitable, but for this lot, the cruelty really is the point.
Corporate overlords prefer to justify their outrageous compensation packages than pay a wage that supports a family to the workers who are the real source of all that profit. This mindset has been normalized since the 1970's.
Ofcourse every decent government supports its citizens, mostly through taxes and susidies.
My point is that a) my own government cannot shut down because of some weird rule, and b) that consequently people don’t lose a very important part of their subsidies, namely something like foodstamps, almost overnight.
You are correct, Peter Beelen. Although some would say that a percentage of recipients have the money to afford food, but since they qualify for the benefit under the rules, they understandably take advantage of that benefit. This is in fact true of some (not all by any means) of the people who receive SNAP. I know because I live in an area where many people do receive SNAP.
I just wish that rural America would take the time to analyze all of Trump's policies. Fact check the things he says.......PEOPLE!! Educate yourselves!
I grew up in rural America. My father was a member of Mensa and my mother had a college degree. Judging people as a group is not helpful. Ever. I am vehemently opposed to Trump but I tend to be conservative in terms of some social issues and have never voted a straight ticket in my life.
I'm fiscally to the left of (Canadian) centre and socially I lean left. Canadian centre is probably far left in the US but curiosity today is the social side. I see the socially right siders as people who believe they can interfere with the the lives of other people, even when it affects them not at all. Where are you socially right?
Different than those issues. I just feel as though the whole world doesn't need to advertise and wait for acceptance of their lifestyle. I would not and do not pass judgment on those things. I miss the time in my life when I wasn't expected to recognize the names of people I've never met and, in addition, know what they look like, what their political beliefs are…..not because they're an expert on anything….not because they're an historical figure….
No thank you. I know my friends and family well. I am more than competent in my knowledge of history. And I don't know the name of a single super model or influencer. I don't idolize people I've never met either. I don't use any social media. I will never do those things. Just isn't for me.
It's getting impossible to ignore, though I do close articles, change channels, turn off the news, etc. I am simply saying I don't embrace the liberal social attitude that I am unenlightened if I don't learn, accept and approve of lifestyles I've never even seen or heard of before. I think everyone has the absolute right to live in whatever fashion makes them happy providing they aren't hurting anyone else. I strongly defend that position. I don't, however, believe I should be required to learn and understand what they all mean and believe as others do about all things.
And sadly there is a popular opinion that being educated and working to better yourself and your understanding of the world and a concern for others is deserving of scorn. There is an actual push against the experts in every field, disregard for institutional knowledge leading us ever closer to an “idiocracy”.
I was watching a conservative tiktok-er go over all of the things that Trump has dropped the ball on, such as cost of living, health care, the shady money schemes, and various other "promises" he made on the campaign. It was painful to watch because he was so close to coming to a good conclusion but dropped the ball at the end. He identified all of Trump's faults and inability to address the issues, but then said if he knew on election day what he knows now, he said he would likely still vote for Trump, and emphatically said that he would never vote for Kamala. He would have rather of sat out than vote for her, which is better than actually voting for Trump but not by much.
It’s their identity. It has nothing to do with rational thought. The Public Religion Research Institute confirmed this with its 2024 survey. One of the PRRI staff discussed the survey findings in an interview at The Contrarian substack this month and concluded the white “Christian” patriarchal identity had solidified to the point of becoming immovable.
Probably why most of us former church attending mainstream people stopped identifying as Christian. I cannot stand these self-aggrandizing hell ent on wealth and power false Christians.
Before the election, one of the opinion columnists at the New York Times said that he couldn't stand Trump, but he could never vote for a Democrat. As I recall, he was planning to write in his grandmother (again).
He's still on the staff there, while the more liberal columnist to whom he was speaking is not.
I was not a fan of hers by any stretch of the imagination. Don't like her. I voted for her. The last time I disliked both candidates I voted for a guy I'd never heard of who had no chance to win. Not this time.
Education in many rural communities is lacking. It is difficult to make critical thinking decisions if your educational opportunities are/were lacking and local media is limited. Send postcards to voters in those communities with information regarding upcoming elections and the positive/negative impact of each on the community.
Professor Krugman notes the cruelty towards Trump supporters as a by-product of the shutdown. It does seem politically counter-productive.
But let’s consider that, while not designed, it is not an unwelcomed effect. MAGA is primarily fueled by ultra-rich backers. Clearly, they do not care what happens to those less well off. If in their conflict with Democrats, who want to tax them for such ridiculous ideas of feeding the hungry, some of Trump’s supporters get hurt that’s the cost of business. They are confident that whatever brought those voters to Trump’s side will win out over some temporary pain.
Trump seems to be betting that he and his supporters will not pay a political price. With gerrymandering and other methods of voting chicanery, they seem to expect that 2024 was our last free and fair election.
He does not have the capacity to understand his cruelty. We are looking at a man who never missed a meal, never lost a home, never shopped for groceries ... the people we weep for do not exist for him and his minions because thay have nothing to give them. They do not 'see' them as such they are not in their eyes worthy of life.
I’ve heard that. My answer to people who say that is: So the 3 branches of government and the house speaker keeping the government closed are all republicans.
But the democrats are responsible for the closure 🤔
Personally I never realized that the democrats were so other worldly powerful that they could do this!!!! Did you?
Who knew that the Democrats were so powerful? As you said according to MAGA propaganda, the republicans control all branches of the federal government, but the Democrats have managed to close it down.
They did the same thing years ago with President Obama. On the one hand, the religious/republican right-wing said that President Obama was so dumb that he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. But on the other hand, he was working cleverly behind the scenes to undermine Western Civilization.
The problem apparently with people who vote republican is that they have no memory. They do not remember what the right's propaganda said yesterday or the day before. If they did remember, they would see that it does not make sense and often contradicts itself.
“The problem apparently with people who vote republican is that they have no memory.”
Exactly, and this may explain why Dotard went bananas over the ad with Reagan arguing against the wholesale use of tariffs. That ad meant Republican voters had to pause for a moment and try to think, which isn’t what the current regime wants. Never thought I’d say it, but we need more Reagan content to counter Trumpism.
Reagan was not one of my favorite Presidents, but he was genial and pleasant and, in general, followed the law and trade agreements and so forth. I think that he wanted what he thought was best for the country although I disagreed with him about some things. I was disappointed by some of his racial views. But Reagan was light years better than Donald.
There was an old joke about a Jewish man in pre-war Germany who constantly read the Nazi paper Der Stürmer. One of his friends asked him why. He replied that, everywhere he looked, Jews were being spat upon and harassed, but, "According to this paper, we control the world."
I do. Senior who enjoys 26 dollars from SNAP. Food is quite expensive. With that money I buy eggs 4 dozen. I blame Republicans. I dodge ICE. I leave banned books in the corner book box. STOP being so harsh and do something helpful.
I would agree. I told people after the July 4 flood in Texas that there was no political hay to gain re: to the floods and FEMA cuts. It's a red state; they will rally around faith, family, and community-almost to show they don't need DC's help. This will go down the same way IMO. Pay attention to stories about communities "coming together." Of course this is needed, but pay attention to the politics.
This is a fascinating post. Writing from the other side of the Atlantic confirms the history of basic healthcare or provision of food for the needy as being a good investment. Indeed vital for the military.
In the Boer War (1899-1902) where the British suddenly found themselves fighting in S Africa against Afrikaner farmers (a brutal war with high casualties) - the British army was horrified at how many recruits who had grown up in Victorian cities were unfit to serve. Poor diet, common diseases, lack of strength… It led to a concern for the basic health, diet and accommodation of working people. Who is going to fight in future wars?
At the end of WWI the call was for “homes fit for heroes” to combat insanitary slums.
In WWII food rationing for the entire country (which essentially meant almost no sugar/sweets and endless vegetables at meals) produced the healthiest generation of people who were born in the war between 1939 & 1945. Decades later people who were born in Britain during this 6 year period of wartime rationing are studied and found to have lived longer than expected, I read a story at the weekend about ongoing studies of these people in their 80s now.
In a rich country ensuring everyone, especially young women starting families, are well fed is part of raising living standards. And creating loyal citizens.
It is a paradox that the part of the British state in the 19C that was most concerned about the health of working people was the military that needed potential recruits for a war to be fit for service - but that is just how history was. At a time when hunger was still quite common, the army or navy was the one place you could be assured of 3 meals a day.
The relevance today is perhaps that in the US joining the military is a way to get healthcare benefits, which might not always be easy for some potential recruits.
True. And when President FD Roosevelt and Congress got the Civilian Conservation Corps up and running (1934-37), the male recruits gained ank average of 30 pounds each in the first 30 days. I did not see stats for the women. They all got three meals a day there, which they'd not had at home during the Great Depression.
My wife told me last night that we should start giving automatic donations to our local Food Bank of the Rockies, where I’ve volunteered from time to time over the years. Darling, said I, we’ve been giving these for years. Her response was, then let’s double it. Which we did. SNAP is a wonderful program, but don’t forget your local food banks.
I just took cans of fruit, vegetables, dried pasta, evaporated milk (for pumpkin pie making) and other stuff to my group today. Costco has large volume packages that are easy to divide and share, rather like buying a box of chocolates and giving most away. Fewer calories!
Cleaned out part of the cupboard with unexpired foodstuffs of things we like to eat that are easy to fix. Satisfying and useful.
Everything we brought in goes this month to the women's shelter. Next month to another group in need.
And the cult will still cheer. Hunger is just another loyalty test.
Enough mean people voted the meanies into power and the US is becoming the cold cruel world. We can be reminded of Dickensian England. The land of workhouses and poverty and idle rich.
Let us not forget the popularity of allowing the Irish to starve because they had it coming or some other such nonsense.
The Rs are also committing genocide by eliminating USAID aid in Afica and Asia. They are killing millions of children so that the billionaires can add more zeros to their wealth. They should all rot in hell.
And after they've killed off all the non-billionaire class, who is left to buy whatever the F*** they produce???
Psychopaths don't think in such terms. They only think in terms of hoarding everything there is to hoard. It doesn't occur to them that by doing so, there will end up being nothing left.
For the non-billionaire class, is this Trump’s “Marie Antoinette Moment”?
Republicans are shutting down the government, kicking people off food stamps and health insurance, forcing hundreds of thousands of layoffs, driving up costs with huge tariffs, and hurting many citizens…
So: demolish the White House, build a massive ballroom larger than a football field, and “let them eat cake!“
They are like a plague of locusts devouring everything in their path. They are all about maximizing short term gain. As Keynes said"In the long run we will all be dead."
So why be concerned about gross disparity? After all, "... we will all be dead".
This is what I wonder. Who's going to be buying crap from Amazon?
We should stop buying from and through Amazon anyway, but now millions won't be able to, and right before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess one doll is one too many now.
Exactly. It’s like throwing a party but no one comes.
Greed is an endless game. And ultimately it’s unsustainable.
Actually who will be left is the middle class, enough of whom will survive to provide markets. Everyone else will be sacrificed. Did you know that the difference in lifespan between the most- and least-economically endowed is 14 years? America has been killing off the lower classes in favor of plenty delivered to the upper and middle classes for at least 150 years.
Hell? What’s that? Reward and punishment are on earth, not in some fictional afterlife. Just think: if God exists, would Trump be president?
The church provides for the concept of "free will." In other words, God allows us to do whatever we want. The concept of Hell allows people to believe that nasty individuals will eventually be punished for their misdeeds.
Maybe Trump is a punishment from God.
F**k Hell. They need to rot HERE. Im sure theres a few million who will appreciate closure
"A Modest Proposal", the most famous piece of satire ever written. Here's the text if interested:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm
Modern Republicans don’t understand satire, so they’ve used Swift as a blueprint.
They don't do irony either.
Isn't irony what their wives do to their shirts?
You beat me to it.
That's a zombie myth, the famine was not some deliberate genocide as Irish nationalists like to claim.
The British Gov't response to the Irish famine could be compared to Hurricane Katrina.
There was quite a lot the British government could have done to help the victims and mitigate the crop failure. But, like Bush2, they chose to exploit the famine and blame & abuse the victims. And, once again, lot of rich people got much richer during and after the event.
The famine was effectively genocide, as British investors (who owned land in Ireland through national conquest) continued to receive land rents from Ireland in the form of wheat, either sold or directly imported, that was grown in order to pay land rents. It was excused as an example of social Darwinism, popular with the investor class as justifying their murderous colonial wars.
Almost every historian has rejected the genocide claims. British people actually provided a lot of aid to Ireland during the famine, neither were the landlords as bad as is often claimed. It's 'Famine porn' as one historian put it, designed to elicit an emotional reaction rather than an intellectual one.
Technically correct. There was no direct movement to kill the Irish.
Whatever aid Britain gave to the Irish did not prevent over one million Irish deaths from the famine, and over one million emigrated, but it wasn’t perpetrated against the Irish people deliberately.
It is still true that the Irish wheat crop, mostly dedicated to land rents, was still exported to pay those rents while people were starving to death. The concept of “famine porn” you cite is a crass and distorted perspective on such a mass death incident.
That nonsense was conveniently social Darwinism. Survival of the "fittest'. It allowed Brits to continue to collect land rents paid for largely from the cultivation of wheat as opposed to potatoes. The Irish were deprived of the wheat, which had to be surrendered or sold to allow landowners, substantially Brits, to pay land rents.
It was the potato blight which caused the famine, exacerbated by over populated of marginal land.
Ppl actually thought that? Wtf?
It was satire
Oh, my bad :(
Oh, sadly the richies of our era are far from idle. They are actively working their asses off destroying what's left of our Republic in favor of despotism...
My book club is reading "Money, Lies and God" by Katherine Stewart. It really explains how things are working now. I highly recommend it. It gives an idea of the history of how we got to this point and the organizations funding all that is going on politically, and their goals. Super wealthy far right and Christian Nationalists have a feudal agenda that we should all be crystal clear about. I am heartened that countries like Canada and Ireland have voted in more liberal people in recent elections. We have to look at the wins as well as the losses. I am in Germany and waiting to see whether the firewall against Nazi-like parties holds up.
Jesus! Christian’s are gone? Now we a buff Jewish warrior on their shit…shirts, swords…all very Roman too. Think HegsDeath…
Not true! They pay other people to do the work for them while they float around in their superyachts or putt around on their golf courses. And most of the "work" is little more than greasing palms and giving "advice".
Yes. Trump's main job is to rob us blind and grift as much money as he can from the entire world from his position as president, in between whiling away his time on the golf course.
"Are there no workhouses?"
Yes, Linda, I'm reminded of Dickensian England often.
American prisons are workhouses, and I presume ICE facilities are such as well, or soon will be. We can thank the 13th Amendment for slavery being allowed in prisons.
Sadly, you are right.
The US and other industrialised nations also had workhouses in the 19th century.
With the birth of her second child, my great-grandmother came down with what was then called "childbed fever" in the 1890s. As she became more and more helpless, she was forced to put her children into an orphanage; there was no other way that she could provide for them. The orphanage raised them and saw to it that they were educated. My grandmother cared for her mother later in life - she was confined to a wheelchair by that time.
And this is the period in which America was "great", according to our dear leader.
Postscript: It was the practice of the orphanage to photograph children when they entered. I have a large copy of that photograph hanging in my family room.
We want a government that helps people to be able to keep their children and take care of them. Instead I imagine not a lot of people are going to be wanting to have many children in the society that is being created, except for those embracing the toxic male and trad wife identities.
Why do you think that they try to ban abortion. They need a steady supply of labor. Most abortions are done for economic reasons in that the mother can't afford to raise a child decently.
The “good old days” that Trump & co want to return to.
Yes. However, I was just trying to flesh out what I meant by Dickensian. I am of the generation that saw Oliver in the movie theater, as well as reading Oliver Twist, and so many other of Dickens novels. I think he captures the bleakness so well. It is not a time I want to return to.
There is a British movie "North and South" based on a book which I have not read, which tries to depict the misery of the people working in the cotton mills as things are getting industrialized. That also comes to mind.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417349/
Or the book The Jungle, set in my home town of Chicago, although Upton Sinclair was supposedly only in the city for a couple of days he captured the flavor in this book.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41681.The_Jungle
I actually had a field trip to the stock yards in elementary school while they still existed. I have a vague memory of a lot of mud and animals. I was seven. The book supposedly led to enactment of meat inspection and standards laws, ones which this current president has effectively destroyed.
Conservatives would point out that the Dickensian suffering resulted in England being the most powerful empire in the World's history. Not true, but they think so.
Rather than a deplorable and fixable side-effect of an expanding empire, today's wealthy think Dickensian grinding poverty is Necessary and Right. God ordained. The 99% exist to support the wealthy aristocrats, not the other way around.
Unfortunately, it's not just going to be the cult. The GOP has been working assiduously for years to unravel the New Deal and its progeny. And they've never paid a political price for it, not even when it became obvious to anyone but fools that unraveling the New Deal was exactly what the GOP wanted to do. But Trump and 2024 have given America’s hard right the guts and the chance to realize their 80 plus year old dream, and they are running with it.
The big political question is will any of the benighted, White Nationalist, God addled idiots who voted for their own economic and social destruction actually notice? After all, they haven't so far. I think, at least in part, that's why the GOP has finally acted to finish its destruction of the nation's social safety net. Voters in the flatlands didn't seem to care about any of the awful things Trump had done in and out of office, or any of the things he and his noxious congressional allies promised to do if put back in office, as long as the GOP kept on feeding them the lie that getting rid of all the country's brown people, "liberals" and atheists would fix all the flatlanders' problems. White rural voters ate that stuff up. And, when it comes to their votes, didn't really seem to care much about anything else.
But maybe this time will be different? Maybe the real economic hardships in rural areas that were caused by and now are being made much worse by the GOP will finally wake up the flyover states' voters to reality of their situation? Maybe...but I'm not optimistic.
Anthony, Katherine Stewart does a good job of talking about the marriage of White Christian Nationalists and Far Right Monied people who fund everything. She has made clear that philosophically their is a strong belief in this merger that embraced far right toxic masculinity anti women and other groups ideology in violent defense of their ideology and way of life. Since this is one of the most vociferously environmentally destructive countries right now, we are looking at rapid decline in quality of life from these policies let alone the humanitarian horrors of this regime and the people funding and ideologically supporting it.
Last November I wrote "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe" and it still seems relevant.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
I couldn't agree more with your analysis.
My sniff is that 80% or more of voters have NO idea what the New Deal put in place.
Education, education, education. <<<< my answer to what those of us who love democracy will need to focus on relentlessly from now unto eternity.
Yes but that was more than a century ago. Are you saying the US has never progressed, or they are revisiting the ‘good’ times?
The latter. That's the "Again" part of MAGA.
DonnyJon praises President McKinley often enough. That's more than a century ago. That's the golden era for Trump, and that's what he wants the US to be like again.
Poor reasoning skills on the part of Proj 2025, TechBros and their messiah MoldBug (aka: they are stupid).
They reason that since grinding poverty (and ignorant superstition and epidemics) existed in the British, and Roman and other empires, it must necessarily exist in order for Great Empires to form, grow, flourish. Absolutely idiotic.
Empires are in general bad. Confederations are better and more creative.
I am talking about the attitudes that allow such things to be are rampant right now. Mean people are behind our government which is mean too. As I recommended above, in the book "Money, Lies and God" Kathleen Stewart does an excellent job of looking at the way mean spirited Christian Nationalists and the super rich right wing Christians come together to support this administration and what their beliefs are about money and people. We live in a plutocracy that is also a kakistocracy, oligarchy, and kleptocracy. Thank you Greeks. I read yesterday that our economy is now worse than Greece's.
Many voters prefer that the government harm those they dislike, rather than help themselves.
When one of the wealthiest countries in the world allows its children, its elderly, its disabled and its unemployed citizens to go hungry, it has lost its moral compass.
“The USA has more millionaires and billionaires than any other country. It is home to over 6 million millionaires and 867 billionaires, which is more than the next nine countries combined.”
“Average wealth: The U.S. has a high average wealth per person, ranking fourth among wealthy nations according to one report.”
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-millionaires-and-billionaires-vs-other-top-countries/#:~:text=Key%20Takeaways,%2C%20Germany%2C%20and%20India%20combined
https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/#:~:text=Wealth%20Inequality%20in%20the%20United,more%20pronounced%20than%20income%20inequality.
There should be no billionaires. It is a failure of capitalism that such people exist. Excess profits should be competed away, so is the neoclassical doctrine. Something went wrong.
Agree. Real free market capitalism is based on a few principles such as a private ownership motivated by profit that theoretically creates a competitive marketplace based on supply and consumer demand, without government subsidies.
But we have become a government that has allowed the over-consolidation of a few companies which in turn control the economy.
And the government subsidizes the wealthiest corporations. So we have actually become a corporate welfare economy that continues to widen the gap between the uber wealthy and everyone else.
Decades ago there used to be a social contract between successful companies and their employees. But that concept, for the most part, was disrupted during the Reagan administration with his BS trickle down economics policies. But republicans still rely on it as their primary economic policy. Intentionally? Yes. And I don’t see that ending any time soon, particularly under the trump fascist regime. He’s the KING of paying less than minimum wage and stiffing workers and contractors.
And “After $4 Trillion Boondoggle, The Republican Tax Bill
Could Give 15 Corporations A $236 Billion Tax Break”
https://theiashub.com/free-resources/mains-marks-booster/what-is-capitalism
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/4-trillion-dollar-boondoggle.pdf
https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2021/10/26/20-companies-that-use-their-profits-for-social-good/
So well said!
Points:
SNAP benefits corporations who underpay workers. If minimum wage was correctly inflation adjusted, much less SNAP would be needed.
SNAP benefits the food industry. Stoppage will reduce revenue, jobs, etc.
Unfortunately, cruelty sure seems to be the point with this regime.
SNAP also benefits the Farmers don’t forget. Without this program they will hurt even more than they are hurting right now.
About thirty years ago, I used to read the postings of a right-wing individual located in the western US. She worked for Walmart for a while and was getting SNAP benefits to supplement her income. She said that they kept a lot of people working part time instead of full time to avoid providing benefits. Since she was made a full-time employee fairly soon, I believe the main driver was actually to make sure the employee was going to work out before making them full time. Sort of like the six-month probation period my employer used.
My college educated daughter worked for Anthropology right after getting her undergraduate degree while she looked for a better job. It was during the period shortly after 2008. Anthropology kept her at part time for over a year so she would not be eligible for benefits. Common corporate strategy.
I have seen repeated studies over the years that point to Walmart as the single largest recipient, albeit indirectly, of welfare in the United States due to their hiring policies that rely on part-time staff.
In 2009 my department at a major chain bookseller (buying dept) was dissolved. After 20+ years I found myself looking for work during a major economic crash. I got a job at Target as a sales clerk and, naive to retail changes, was shocked to find that 20 hours per week was what I could expect to get!
Blech. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And while Walmart is the most egregious due to their scale, I am familiar with NGOs going so far as to hire people for say, 28 hours a week when the benefits would have kicked in at 30. Even worse would be compounding that by also hiring people for term positions that were 5 months instead of the 6 months that would then have triggered benefits, and on and on it went.
This practice still goes on today, to the benefit of huge corporations and the detriment of workers with no clout. My college educated son got a job at HD a couple of years ago and they had him on 23 hours for 18 months (no health care retirement etc)! He for sure could not have afforded decent rent or other necessities if he had not been living at home. It's a grift that keeps on giving.
I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Animal House, but there's a scene where one of the fraternities is going through their hazing ritual; In that scene the head of the frat is spanking an incoming member with a large wooden paddle, and the the plebe says, "thank you, sir, may I have another," after every smack. This is how I see MAGA from top to bottom.
Interesting. It didn't occur to me they're sadomasochists. All this time I thought they were just sadists.
I think trumpers are willing to suffer if they see that some group they don’t like are perceived to be suffering more.
It’s a cult
Masochist - "Hurt me."
Sadist - "No."
I don't think there's anything masochistic about them.
If they're ok suffering at the hands of their Orange Deity, they're likely hiding some masochistic tendencies. Sure, it's for the goal of causing others to suffer, nevertheless, they're ok with getting hurt themselves.
Also, I've never heard of a sadist who would say no to hurting someone. Trumpkopf exemplifies this.
Their cult is turning to asceticism, and demanding EVERYONE wear their hair shirts and flagellate themselves.
Not the ones who lose their benefits. A food pantry near me said they had the busiest day in their entire 60-year history yesterday, even higher than during the pandemic. This is in red red red West Virginia. People have to start feeling the pain to have a change of heart.
Well the cult is about to feel the fire. Or drink the cyanide laced Kool-Aid.
Democrats are holding out for a bigger welfare state, and ordinary Americans are paying the price. SNAP benefits went out in October, but not in November — families who rely on that help are now caught in the middle of a political standoff.
The Democrats wrote the subsidy law to expire in 2025; they knew it was temporary. Now they’re keeping the government closed to turn it into a new entitlement. If they believe in that policy, they should take it to the voters in 2026 and 2028 — not use millions of struggling households as leverage in a shutdown.
Do you think the subsidies should die and then be reviewed (re voted) in 2026 and/or 2028?
What would happen between now and next November or 2028? I would presume nothing happens to you so perhaps think of other people?
Aaron is definitely a troll. Ignore him.
The subsidies were sold as being temporary. They were enacted because of an emergency, and now the emergency has passed. It seems like a betrayal of trust to ask for something because of an emergency and then demand it in perpetuity. It seems like a grift.
On when things happen remember democracy and choice. You lost the last election and feel free to run adding entitlements.
If I remember correctly, the tax cuts were also set to expire but it sure was important to the GOP to extend them. The rich get richer and the poor starve seems to be the Republican way.
Not only were the tax cuts set to expire but when R went back to extend them, they insisted that they be treated as part of the base budget and only additional cuts would “count” as adding to the massive deficit they were creating. Negotiation actually implies good faith in revisiting a policy to see what its effects have been. Extending medicaid and insurance subsidies did good things for people. Piling on debt did nothing but further extend the deficit and the wealth gap.
It’s hard to understand at what point the R advocacy for shifting wealth upward will stop. The D effort to demonstrate this is overdue. That Americans will both lose food and health care doesn’t encourage them to rethink their obsession with tax cutting for the haves and indifference to the havenots.
Of course the children will suffer - and they can’t vote. The voters who have allowed the R fantasy of white male omnipotence to flourish will have to see them hungry and ill in their own communities to turn on the indifferent despots to make real change. In the interim, we who have some will have to give to those who have less, and be willing to SAY we are doing this as acts of resistance to the cruelty manifested by the R who control all 3 branches of government now.
That's a great point, Ken. Tax the rich, feed the poor. The rich will still be rich, and the poor, who will still be poor, will at least not be hungry.
It looks to me like the Democrats are in the same position the Republicans were back in 1995–96 and again in 2013. In both of those cases, the GOP tied government funding to a policy goal — a balanced budget in the ’90s, and defunding Obamacare in 2013 — and wound up taking the blame for the shutdown.
Now it’s the Democrats doing the same thing, holding up funding over the extension of a healthcare subsidy that was created as a temporary COVID measure. The emergency is long over, yet they’re using a shutdown to try to keep those payments going.
Shutdowns are never popular, no matter who’s behind them. People feel the pain immediately — furloughs, closed parks, missed paychecks — while the policy dispute itself feels distant and abstract. And it’s no surprise the left-leaning media isn’t emphasizing that this shutdown is about preserving an expired healthcare subsidy. That detail doesn’t fit the narrative.
Tax cuts for rich folk are permanent, not temporary. Fine with Republicans. You have an interesting bias: no healthcare subsidy--all temporary, tax cuts for wealthy in perpetuity. Oh, right. Republicans don't have bias. They have common sense. Democrats don't have any common sense. They just have bias.
Is the budget balanced now?
Republicans were supposed to be in favour of a balanced budget, but pushed a big temporary new tax cut for the rich during Trump's first term, which resulted in a historic deficit.
The food stamp program has been there for a long time, with periodic reviews.
The size of the temporary tax cut was huge, much more than what was needed to properly fund the food stamp program & a properly funded universal health care system.
The Republicans insisted on extending the temporary tax cuts, and refuse the much smaller extension of food stamps.
So obviously, Republicans are more interested in grift for themselves than a balanced budget.
Don’t use the word grift with us, Aaron! We aren’t fooled or distracted.
The subsidies were originally made temporary as part of negotiations with stubborn Repubs, who were bargaining for Capitalism. It was a concession to get the bill passed. It’s what Congress used to do- negotiate.
Here you are today, defending letting children go hungry for your politics.
Face the facts: you advocate for children to go hungry.
Just live with that today, let it resonate, and try to sleep well tonight.
Bet you can’t.
I bet he shouldn't. I also be he will.
I doubt paid trolls have that sort of conscience.
“grift” fits when something sold as temporary relief quietly morphs into a permanent entitlement, especially if the same politicians later insist they “always intended” it to continue. It’s not just spin; it’s a bait-and-switch that keeps the political cash flow and moral leverage going. You would own the word.
How damaged does one have to be to question whether fellow Americans should have access to health care? You are twisted into a knot over whether subsidies should have been made permanent instead of why it is that basic medical care is considered a pricey privilege rather than a basic human right.
You meant health insurance, didn't you. Not health care.
In this nation the two are inextricably linked. I might suggest that readers here do a little fact based research of their own on healthcare costs* and outcomes comparing the US with its OECD peers.
In the US one can get certain types of medical care without insurance. If one shows up in an ER by law they cannot be released until medically stable. But there are at least three flaws there. First, ER care is expensive and if the patient cannot pay those costs get built into the deliverer's cost structure. That is to say that all the rest of us ultimately pay for it. Second, ERs are not set up to deliver preventive care, you know, the old ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure. Further, there is no continuity of care or follow up. And finally, if you uninsured or underinsured the hospital will try to collect. Uninsured people are billed at the hospital's "chargemaster**" rate (though many hospitals will negotiate if the patient is sophisticated enough to pursue it). If someone is already in an economically tenuous circumstance being sued by a hospital for medical care can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Estimates vary but medical bills account for at least 40 and as much as 66 percent of personal bankruptcies.
* https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/
**The chargemaster is essentially a hospital's list prices. They are public by law but you may have to jump through some hoops to actually see your hospital's. If you do you will be shocked by the prices.
They are still needed because here in the (for now) richest country in the world we still have 40 million people who will go to bed hungry if the SNAP payments don't go out.
We are the richest country in the world but unfortunately the majority of the wealth is held by a handful of oligarchs. The rest of us are in a borderline third world.
The Oligarchs and Megacorps have spent the last 45 years stacking the deck against the people who work and contribute in This Country.
The budget-busting tax cuts for the rich were sold as temporary, too, knowing they would be renewed — which they were.
Are the subsidies needed for people to afford the basic human need of health care?
What changed between 2019 and today?
The subsidies were not sold as being temporary. The only way they could get past the Senate was to approve them for ten years. The expectation on the Democrats part (and the fear on the Republicans part) was that they would prove to be popular and be extended or made permanent. They were not enacted because of an emergency and the situation has only gotten worse.
They certainly were sold as temporary. They were not written ten years ago, they were written as response to the COVID pandemic. That pandemic is over and now the Covid motivated subsidies are too.
There's a reason they call it "Obama Care." They WERE passed into law ten years ago and were NOT a response to Covid.
I assume you have enough to eat
I do. The people on SNAP will also have enough if the democrats stop filibustering them.
Read the article. Republicans have two ways to continue SNAP. Use the funds available or waive the filibuster.
For how long?
"Ordinary Americans are paying the price". Yep, we absolutely are, and the rich are getting the benefit. As the wealthiest country on Earth, we have the ability (at least the potential) to accrue individual wealth while protecting the neediest. And it's the morally-lacking Repubs who are leveraging the 40 million out of food assistance -- as Dr. Krugman says, the money is there, but is being withheld.
The expanded and improved ACA subsidies had a short timeframe for the same reason they weren’t included in the original ACA - Bluedog Democrats like Manchin insisted on it. Republicans and Bluedogs are the reason why America has the most expensive healthcare system in the developed world with some of the worst outcomes. Trashing the whole Rube Goldberg machine that is the American healthcare «system» and replacing it with universal healthcare like every other functioning democracy is the only real answer. But, by the way things are going, that will never happen.
You obviously don't know what an entitlement is. It is a benefit extended solely on the basis of a class. For example farm subsidies or capital depreciation allowances or oil depletion allowances. Those who get their very substantial government checks in their mailbox aren't exposed to public scrutiny. Those who have to stand in line get the crumbs, but are highly visible.
Yes, the COVID-era healthcare subsidies are an entitlement — and it does matter how they came about. They were passed as a temporary emergency measure during COVID, meant to help people through a crisis. The key point is that the emergency is long over, yet the subsidies haven’t expired, although they are set to expire at the end of the year.
Once something created for an emergency keeps getting extended, it stops being temporary and starts functioning like a permanent entitlement. People now qualify automatically under fixed rules, and the payments flow without new annual approval — that’s the definition of an entitlement.
So yes, they’ve became an entitlement, but the democrats wrote it so the entitlement would expire at the end of 2025.
We wasted a lot of money during Covid. Why did we send checks to people who did not need them since they were able to work from home and did not suffer an income loss. This seems ham handed.
You are perfectly right, and Everything you say applies equally to those other subsidies i.e., entitlements i mentioned, and many more that go to the truly entitled, i.e., the rentiers (read “idle rich")
And all of those were Congress's considered judgment of what they intended. Every one of your arguments applies to those “invisible" entitlements.
You are perfectly right, and Everything you say applies equally to those other subsidies i.e., entitlements i mentioned, and many more that go to the truly entitled, i.e., the rentiers (read “idle rich")
And all of those were Congress's considered judgment of what they intended. Every one of your arguments applies to those “invisible" entitlements.
Huh? Reread the article as it pertains to SNAP. Could easily be arranged to be paid for November. The ACA subsidies could have been extended- the big ugly bill did big ugly things!!
Maybe it will, maybe it will not. We only have so much emergency money, so something has to give. Hopefully the democrats will stop the filibuster that is causing the emergency. They didn't have the votes so they shut down the government.
Why are we looking for surrogate issues. The issue is whether or not we should extend the emergency measure that were passed under covid as a remedy for covid dislocation. It's come down to is a good thing that the democrats are letting needy people starve all just to expand the scope of government, which is their project. They seem to care about as much for those in need of food stamps as Hamas does for civilian casualties. Hamas is worse than the democratic party, but that is not saying much.
None of this makes any sense. If it weren’t for democrats republicans would have ended the program twenty years ago.
The program is not out of money. There are funds specifically reserved for this situation.
Republicans are refusing to spend the money because they think the uneducated will blame democrats.
The Democrats are trying to keep these programs (monies appropriated) in tact along with health care. The GOP said vote for the big beautiful bill and we will sort the rest out later. I think everyone has been shown they are not to be trusted. If there is any way GOP can harm the American people that is the avenue they choose. Hungry people cannot fight I think that was proven in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They are diabolical in their actions and cruel in their behavior. GOP has chosen their path and it is certainly not the Grand Ole Party.
This is a distraction point from the fact that SNAP has $5B in reserves for an emergency. The truth is, probably, both parties are culpable for this crisis and that needs to be worked out, true…but in the meantime, there’s 40 million citizens who are being held hostage despite a contingency fund that is available with the stroke of a pen.
I don't know about it being "loyalty test" so much as it is a convenient excuse to blame and dismiss people who are less fortunate. If we play the blame game and manufacture reasons for why people are less fortunate, its easier to not help them. If we believe that poverty and hunger are due to bad behavior, not enough effort and/or criminal activity, and that their circumstances could be easily reversed with greater personal effort, then ignoring their needs becomes easy- even the right thing to do.
America has long fostered the false belief that success can be achieved by hard work alone. That a man (and it is always a man) of grit and determination can "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and overcome any obstacle in order to achieve success. The reality is much different. Success can be achieved by effort, but it also influenced of birth, race, class, family wealth, education and just plain dumb luck. Trump and Musk are but two examples of men who tout the effort of their success, but who, as the old saying goes, were born on third base, stealing home.
In looking at mean income by quintile of American household income, the top quintile averages nearly $300K/yr, and accounts for over 50% of total US household income. By comparison, the bottom 3 quintiles (60%) of US households account for just 26%+ of total household income, with averages for each quintile of: $16.2K (5th), $43.85K (4th) and $74.73K (3rd). It should be apparent to even a casual observer that there is a great disparity between the haves and have nots in this country which cannot be accounted for by effort alone.
The folks currently in charge dismiss the needs of the less fortunate at their peril as "let them eat cake" is a strategy that will eventually be met with pitchforks and firebrands.
53% of SNAP recipients work, if you click on the "source" link beneath the map. Most are in rural areas where it's cheaper to live...I'm thinking a lot of elderly.
They will cheer until their stomach aches. Hungry might be a stronger motivator than fear/hate.
It is an intelligence test from God. So far people are failing.
Anyone seen Bobby brain worms with his healthy food for children program?
Anyone?
Last I heard he was getting ready to tell Americans to eat more saturated fat.
I'm just waiting for him to legalize heroin.
Oh, me too!! Since 2016 chronic pain patients haven’t been able to access legal pain control, so this would be a weirdly humane move from Bob Worms.
Maybe he should as it would get rid of a lot of undeserving people in their minds.
You've heard the expression that someone has s**t for brains? It's true in Bobby's case. What do you think the worm(s) ate while hanging out in empty halls of his cerebellum? And what inevitably happens after eating?
Can’t argue this. He’s just another example of the full hypocrisy of this regime.
Expertise, authority, chaos: pick any two. Lincoln had a team of rivals, Trump has a confederacy of dunces.
Probably out for a sewer dip
On Inauguration Day last year, I wanted a baseline list. It was my plan to revisit the list each Jan 20 to track our trajectory. I shudder to think what the numbers look like now. I ask for indulgence: I’m a retired social worker not a statistician, so I did simple searches for “who has the best...
Best in Life Expectancy: Monaco vs Current US ranking: 49th in the world
Best public school system: Iceland vs Current US ranking: 13th in the world
Best healthcare: Singapore vs Current US ranking: 69th in the world
Best infant survival rate: Monaco vs Current US ranking: 54th in the world
Best maternal survival rate: Estonia vs Current US ranking: 55th, the worst among all developed nations
Best trust in government: Switzerland vs Current US ranking: 23rd in the world
Best hope for the future: Indonesia vs Current US ranking: 23rd in the world
Best math education: China vs Current US ranking: 28th (out of 37) in the world
Best food security: Finland vs Current US ranking: 13th in the world
Best housing security: Japan vs Current US ranking: 78th (out of 100) in the world
Sad isn’t it.
We have low taxes, however, so that makes us #1 in everything, because reasons.
These are incredibly telling stats. Thankyou for digging them out. All are really bad, but the US maternal survival rate is utterly appalling. How can the US be considered the wealthiest country in the world, when its maternal survival rate is the worst of its developed counterparts?!! And the Infant Sirvival Rate. My God.. The answer to the wealth question of course is the deeply flawed measure of what counts as wealth: the GDP. The more nasties that pass through the economic system, the greater the GDP. More worryingly, GDP per capita can be made to go up, if the denominator (population) goes down, or doesn't grow). Hmmm.
The United States is one of the most socially irresponsible countries in the world. Our wealth is gobbled up by individuals that can never be rich enough. The rest of us do not matter. Jesus weeps. It’s obscene.
💯
There is only one conclusion, imho: we are a country that values that lives of embryos, not the children they become or the mothers who birth them.
It is easy when you have no skin in the game. That has always been the relationship between ruler and peasant. Too bad for us ...
💯 It’s the same reason that the sons and daughters of the “ruling class” don’t join the military (or have bone spurs if drafted). They’re special.
No, they might need future serfs & cannon fodder if the robots aren't perfected.
As a retired educator I applaud your idea and efforts. Plain information, understandable by the masses ( who will choose read). Much is being made of us “ Qtips” who show up for protests, etc. Many cruel remarks. At age 80, I say they better be glad we are still around and willing to share our energy and knowledge. As Robert Reich points out, we have lived through several crises. This one to me seems the worst yet, but I am hoping it just feels that way because it is the current one. Thank you for sharing.
🙏 Thank YOU for sharing. I agree that our generation must lead the way. Young people have never seen social change in response to public outrage. We had the war on poverty, Civil rights act, Voting Act and we witnessed Nixon and Agnew resign in disgrace. We know it can work and now they’re seeing it too.
Crash our economy, (bitcoin etc), leave people hungry, (so they are too weak to fight back), eliminate jobs (AI), continue to ignore climate change.. and the oligarchs think that they will gain even more wealth??? What a sick, sick nation we have become.
Amazon is getting ready to turn thousands of people loose to unemployment and replace them with robots and AI. And yet they still pay little in income tax... We need to tax the Billionaires and the Megacorps to fund a guaranteed basic income.
I would add their profit last year was $270 billion. Let that sink in. If they were taxed at 40% The Bezoid would still have $162 billion.
First, Amazon did pay income tax last year. Not 40%, but still.
Second, their 2024 actual net income before taxes was $59 B. I don't know where the $270B number came from. You might check your source. I looked at their annual report.
Third, that profit is not what Bezos gets. He has something far more valuable. Amazon has a P/E ratio of 35, so that $59 B income would worth almost $2 trillion in market cap (assuming Amazon actually paid no taxes).
Bezos own about 9% of Amazon, so profit is about 3x (9% of 35) more valuable to him than the raw number would imply.
I have tried and failed to find the reference I cited, but the point is that in my opinion NOBODY needs a billion dollars. Bezos (according to Forbes) is worth $241 billion and change. In no reality but all out nuclear war could he be reduced to penury. He has no skin in the game that you and I play. Nor do any of the rest of the Oligarchs. Yet, they crave more wealth and power. I maintain that is a separate personality disorder and the rest of us pay the price.
Thanks for trying! I agree with the sentiment.
My preference is for mark-to-market taxation on public companies.
At the very least, mark-to-market of loan collateral since that is effectively monetizing a gain.
I can't think of a good method to restrict people trying to get richer, but we should have them pay their fair share.
The uberwealthy continue to accumulate wealth with much of it inherited. Money begets money in our system. The flow needs to be changed so the excess wealth goes to people who need food, shelter, education, health care and a door to a better future for them and their children. The uberwealthy can afford the loss, probably without the loss of any of their homes or boats. Why is there a political party that serves the uberwealthy and threatens the established precedents of our land in power? Perhaps because they have taken over the media and created a dystopian narrative built on division and anger to gain power and gold. Why they did it may relate to a problem with disparity and an issue of people not listening to the wisdom of respecting if not loving their neighbor. But that takes us back to the question of why they do it. As many have said in this conversation, the powers behind the Republicans may either lack empathy, something some enlightenment philosophers thought would be inhuman, or are motivated only by love of power and greed. It may be that such people will always exist and the eternal issue of governance, along with the ability to understand the implications of our actions, is how to assure governance is for the greater good (a concept that may be the another issue). An educated populace would help, if and only if they would have the information to choose a government that is dedicated to the people not to the power brokers of wealth as we now have. Looking back at the history of mankind makes me pessimistic. We now have the scientific/ technological ability to improve life for much of the world and end our race to climate catastrophe, instead we are witnessing a return of tribalism and worship of warfare. I fear for the future
Lack of empathy and insatiable greed are not incompatible. I would say they go hand in hand with. We need to end dynastic wealth and institute wealth caps and taxes. Having an Oligarchy is incompatible with having an ethical and beneficial democracy.
500,000 is what I read. I’m sorry I can’t remember where but it was within the past week.
Shit hole country and the thing is oligarchs are gonna hate even more looking at this—they thought the homeless were bad. Homeless numbers are gonna explode.
They only complain about the homeless because they ugly up the landscape. They love having a large body of poor because the poor will work for a pittance to avoid becoming poorer.
Face it; the oligarchs want many of us dead. We’re useless to them.
The cruelty is the point, so depriving Grandma and Grandpa and little Sasparilla of food is a key plank of conservative governance. And, sadly, Grandma and Grandpa will still vote Republican because they believe that the minorities they despise are suffering more.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." LBJ
That quote sums up American society better than most anything else.
LBJ was a tremendous political operative. As President, he signed the Medicare Act, Civil Rights Act, and food stamp benefits. We need another President like him, Clinton, Obama, or someone like Buttigieg, Stansbury, and more.
That quote never gets old since it's still true.
Considering this Grandma and Grandpa are part of the white haired majority of protesters, I’m not sure I agree with you. I see far more MAGAts that are 40-ish or younger.
I find it interesting that folks don’t fit my political stereotyping. My ultra religious neighbors are blue while the lesbian couple down the road are MAGA red.
I'm usually happy when my stereotypes get proved wrong!
I recall an article in the old NYT after Obamacare went into effect. They were talking to an elderly woman in West Virginia. She loved Obamacare; it was the first time she'd been able to afford to see a doctor in years. So, they asked her how she was planning to vote in the next election. "Republican, of course." The interviewer pointed out that the Republicans are planning to repeal Obamacare. She said "Oh, they wouldn't do THAT."
Many people were led astray by Republican mis-information. My sister and her husband love the Affordable Care Act. After it passed, they were finally able to afford health insurance for the first time in their adult lives.
But they hated ObamaCare, and when Trump ran the first time, one of their prime reasons for voting for him was his promise to do away with the hated ObamaCare.
I tried explaining to them that the ACA and ObamaCare were the same thing, but that COULDN'T be right because Fox News kept telling them that ObamaCare was a complete government takeover of all healthcare, and there would be Death Panels and you would have to file a request with the government to see a doctor--a doctor that the government would assign you to instead of your regular doctor.
It wasn't until a few weeks before the vote to kill ObamaCare that Fox News let slip that ObamaCare and the Affordable Care Act were, indeed, the same thing. My sister was horrified that they were going to lose their health insurance. Fortunately, John McCain saved their asses.
And this is exactly why the power of discernment and critical thinking skills are absolutely essential, especially in today’s confusing media landscape. So many people are consistently voting against their own best interests in no small part directly as a result of Fox (not) News. This is of course by design.
I encounter these people pretty regularly in reality. "Oh they wouldn't do that." Just pure faith that the politician are working in their best interest - but only R politicians. Not the other ones. If you're going to apply blind optimism that at least do it evenly.
Eric Swallwell stated on Lawrence O'Donnell show that the Dems are giving key to reopening government and help their constituents avoid hunger/death. So the Dems want to help making right wing avoid accountability??? WTF?? So Dems can lose more elections???
That's really bad if it's true. It would be a shame if they caved.
If your automatic assumption about anyone is “they did this because they’re hateful and stupid and no where near as enlightened as me” and not “these people have drastically different life experiences than me that make them see the world differently (although maybe misguided),” and you continue to pedal that horribly narcissistic and hateful viewpoint online because it makes you feel good, even though you KNOW it has more nuance than that, then you are the problem, and you are directly contributing to a divide that is destroying America.
If they can't pull their head out of their ass and read the writing on the wall, that's their problem. 80% voted republican in my hometown and look at how they've been screwed over by someone who only puts on that dumb red trucker hat while wearing a suit at political rallies. He wasn't sporting it during his Studio 54 days--maybe only on a golf course.
Trump DOES NOT CARE about the American people. None of them. He looks out for only one person - and I use that term loosely.
During the last recession, many were struggling to eat. In line at the grocery store, the person checking out ahead of me might be pulling out every spare penny to pay for their food. Here’s a radical thought: why not pay it for them, if you can. Are they short $10? Pay it for them. And tell them you believe in helping people. Just a thought. I might have also mentioned I was a Democrat.
Give to your local food bank now.
My wife always buys some non-perishable foods for the food bank at her church when she shops. Every year the congregation fills a truck with frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving.
In fact, more people do this right now than might be imagined. Every little helps...
I think you misspelled "Communist!"
/s
Great idea!
Shutting down SNAP is not "quite possibly illegal." It is "obviously illegal," according to a legal expert. https://balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-administrations-shutdown-of-snap-is.html
Is ANYTHING Trump does legal?
He is one of those whose mentality is 'it's ok as long as no one stops me'.
As long as je is not brought to account, he will stay true to his nature push the envelope.
He busted down the envelope long ago.
I believe there is no law against throwing fries and ketchup at the wall in a tantrum. I'm no lawyer, though...
Correct, however there is a law that congressionally mandated spending be done. Spending of SNAP funds, including emergency funds, is congressionally mandated.
Many, many things are congressionally mandated, which this administration has on hold, or refuses to countenance. A shipload of lawsuits against these transgressors would hardly be enough.
I think Congress and SCOTUS are working to make Congress powerless so that it will be unable to accomplish anything if and when the Democrats return to the majority.
Everything this misadministration does is criminal.
There are lAws against desecrating federal government property, particularly historical monuments. I look forward to him and his cabalistic regime serving hard time.
No nothing legal....but manages to avoid repercussions at every turn, in all aspects of life.
His direct openness to his norm bending is what he seems to capitalize on. In effect, it increases his power image to some.
That's the amazing thing. The evidence against is all right there out in the open. Right on broadcast television!
Norm BREAKING.
Yes he did, and he will continue to break off from them; but it's still possible for those norms to return. If not, that's not saying much for our society.
Nothing I can think of. For him, thumbing his nose at the law is half the fun.
Legality? What's that?
You raise a question about his psychology. Winston Smith says that he enjoys thumbing his nose at the law. You imply that he has no interest in whether his conduct violates the law. I tend to think that you're right, but that, if someone points out to him that an action of his is illegal, he's pleased about it, because, since he faces no consequences, it makes the insecure baby feel powerful.
No.
Cruelty and arrogance really are the point, no? Nothing will break this impasse until the GOP foot soldiers fear their constituents more than they fear Trump. Schumer and Jeffries may have just figured this out.
🙏
What I, as a European, find shocking is that so many people in one of the richest countries depend on their government to even put something as basic as food on their table. Something fundamentally wrong, I'd say.
The minimum wage, for just one thing. More than 38% of SNAP recipients are in working families. They just can’t earn enough. But yes, the “rugged individualism” myth has been weaponized to a ridiculous and shameful degree here. What I don’t get is how any of these Republicans can call themselves Christians. When my mom said “unchristian” it meant uncharitable, but for this lot, the cruelty really is the point.
Corporate overlords prefer to justify their outrageous compensation packages than pay a wage that supports a family to the workers who are the real source of all that profit. This mindset has been normalized since the 1970's.
been going down hill since mid 70s then RayGun expedited the decline and neoliberal policies continued it to the place we are at now
How is that shocking? Most European countries also have a variety of programs to address the cost of food and housing.
There is nothing magical about the US on this subject. If anything our larger gini index makes it more obvious that help is necessary.
Search for "hunger index" and "food insecurity" if you think you are in utopia.
Whataboutism? 🤔
1. I don't remember saying I live in an utopia of any kind.
2. My own government (Dutch) certainly isn't taking support of this kind away from my fellow-citizens.
You said it was shocking.
Explain what you mean.
What exactly is fundamentally wrong?
If your point is that it is a surprise that the percentage is so high, you probably aren't really aware of how broad the subsidies are in the EU.
It isn't whataboutism to ask what you are talking about and what is your frame of reference. You were the one who bought up your European perspective.
Ofcourse every decent government supports its citizens, mostly through taxes and susidies.
My point is that a) my own government cannot shut down because of some weird rule, and b) that consequently people don’t lose a very important part of their subsidies, namely something like foodstamps, almost overnight.
You are correct, Peter Beelen. Although some would say that a percentage of recipients have the money to afford food, but since they qualify for the benefit under the rules, they understandably take advantage of that benefit. This is in fact true of some (not all by any means) of the people who receive SNAP. I know because I live in an area where many people do receive SNAP.
I just wish that rural America would take the time to analyze all of Trump's policies. Fact check the things he says.......PEOPLE!! Educate yourselves!
that's the issue....they are the most uneducated, misinformed people in the nation
I grew up in rural America. My father was a member of Mensa and my mother had a college degree. Judging people as a group is not helpful. Ever. I am vehemently opposed to Trump but I tend to be conservative in terms of some social issues and have never voted a straight ticket in my life.
of course there are exceptions but the data does not lie....large swaths of people in rural america vote against their own best interest
I'm fiscally to the left of (Canadian) centre and socially I lean left. Canadian centre is probably far left in the US but curiosity today is the social side. I see the socially right siders as people who believe they can interfere with the the lives of other people, even when it affects them not at all. Where are you socially right?
Different than those issues. I just feel as though the whole world doesn't need to advertise and wait for acceptance of their lifestyle. I would not and do not pass judgment on those things. I miss the time in my life when I wasn't expected to recognize the names of people I've never met and, in addition, know what they look like, what their political beliefs are…..not because they're an expert on anything….not because they're an historical figure….
No thank you. I know my friends and family well. I am more than competent in my knowledge of history. And I don't know the name of a single super model or influencer. I don't idolize people I've never met either. I don't use any social media. I will never do those things. Just isn't for me.
You are not making sense.
You can ignore people you don't know. No one cares what you do if you leave them alone.
It's getting impossible to ignore, though I do close articles, change channels, turn off the news, etc. I am simply saying I don't embrace the liberal social attitude that I am unenlightened if I don't learn, accept and approve of lifestyles I've never even seen or heard of before. I think everyone has the absolute right to live in whatever fashion makes them happy providing they aren't hurting anyone else. I strongly defend that position. I don't, however, believe I should be required to learn and understand what they all mean and believe as others do about all things.
And sadly there is a popular opinion that being educated and working to better yourself and your understanding of the world and a concern for others is deserving of scorn. There is an actual push against the experts in every field, disregard for institutional knowledge leading us ever closer to an “idiocracy”.
I was watching a conservative tiktok-er go over all of the things that Trump has dropped the ball on, such as cost of living, health care, the shady money schemes, and various other "promises" he made on the campaign. It was painful to watch because he was so close to coming to a good conclusion but dropped the ball at the end. He identified all of Trump's faults and inability to address the issues, but then said if he knew on election day what he knows now, he said he would likely still vote for Trump, and emphatically said that he would never vote for Kamala. He would have rather of sat out than vote for her, which is better than actually voting for Trump but not by much.
It’s their identity. It has nothing to do with rational thought. The Public Religion Research Institute confirmed this with its 2024 survey. One of the PRRI staff discussed the survey findings in an interview at The Contrarian substack this month and concluded the white “Christian” patriarchal identity had solidified to the point of becoming immovable.
Probably why most of us former church attending mainstream people stopped identifying as Christian. I cannot stand these self-aggrandizing hell ent on wealth and power false Christians.
Before the election, one of the opinion columnists at the New York Times said that he couldn't stand Trump, but he could never vote for a Democrat. As I recall, he was planning to write in his grandmother (again).
He's still on the staff there, while the more liberal columnist to whom he was speaking is not.
I was not a fan of hers by any stretch of the imagination. Don't like her. I voted for her. The last time I disliked both candidates I voted for a guy I'd never heard of who had no chance to win. Not this time.
Education in many rural communities is lacking. It is difficult to make critical thinking decisions if your educational opportunities are/were lacking and local media is limited. Send postcards to voters in those communities with information regarding upcoming elections and the positive/negative impact of each on the community.
Professor Krugman notes the cruelty towards Trump supporters as a by-product of the shutdown. It does seem politically counter-productive.
But let’s consider that, while not designed, it is not an unwelcomed effect. MAGA is primarily fueled by ultra-rich backers. Clearly, they do not care what happens to those less well off. If in their conflict with Democrats, who want to tax them for such ridiculous ideas of feeding the hungry, some of Trump’s supporters get hurt that’s the cost of business. They are confident that whatever brought those voters to Trump’s side will win out over some temporary pain.
Trump seems to be betting that he and his supporters will not pay a political price. With gerrymandering and other methods of voting chicanery, they seem to expect that 2024 was our last free and fair election.
He does not have the capacity to understand his cruelty. We are looking at a man who never missed a meal, never lost a home, never shopped for groceries ... the people we weep for do not exist for him and his minions because thay have nothing to give them. They do not 'see' them as such they are not in their eyes worthy of life.
This is payback for not electing him in 2020.
MAHA. Make America Hungry Again
Was it truly free and fair?
cruel, unAmerican, despicable
Unfortunately it’s very American now
I don't think that people on SNAP will blame Republicans for the shutdown, however.
I’ve heard that. My answer to people who say that is: So the 3 branches of government and the house speaker keeping the government closed are all republicans.
But the democrats are responsible for the closure 🤔
Personally I never realized that the democrats were so other worldly powerful that they could do this!!!! Did you?
I have yet to get a counter argument.
Who knew that the Democrats were so powerful? As you said according to MAGA propaganda, the republicans control all branches of the federal government, but the Democrats have managed to close it down.
They did the same thing years ago with President Obama. On the one hand, the religious/republican right-wing said that President Obama was so dumb that he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. But on the other hand, he was working cleverly behind the scenes to undermine Western Civilization.
The problem apparently with people who vote republican is that they have no memory. They do not remember what the right's propaganda said yesterday or the day before. If they did remember, they would see that it does not make sense and often contradicts itself.
“The problem apparently with people who vote republican is that they have no memory.”
Exactly, and this may explain why Dotard went bananas over the ad with Reagan arguing against the wholesale use of tariffs. That ad meant Republican voters had to pause for a moment and try to think, which isn’t what the current regime wants. Never thought I’d say it, but we need more Reagan content to counter Trumpism.
Reagan was not one of my favorite Presidents, but he was genial and pleasant and, in general, followed the law and trade agreements and so forth. I think that he wanted what he thought was best for the country although I disagreed with him about some things. I was disappointed by some of his racial views. But Reagan was light years better than Donald.
There was an old joke about a Jewish man in pre-war Germany who constantly read the Nazi paper Der Stürmer. One of his friends asked him why. He replied that, everywhere he looked, Jews were being spat upon and harassed, but, "According to this paper, we control the world."
Love it! Thank you! 🙏
I do. Senior who enjoys 26 dollars from SNAP. Food is quite expensive. With that money I buy eggs 4 dozen. I blame Republicans. I dodge ICE. I leave banned books in the corner book box. STOP being so harsh and do something helpful.
I would agree. I told people after the July 4 flood in Texas that there was no political hay to gain re: to the floods and FEMA cuts. It's a red state; they will rally around faith, family, and community-almost to show they don't need DC's help. This will go down the same way IMO. Pay attention to stories about communities "coming together." Of course this is needed, but pay attention to the politics.
Trump continues to send FEMA money to red states, Alaska , Texas etc, while refusing to send it to blue states Maryland , Vermont etc.
won't matter to dems....they are NOT their voters
This is a fascinating post. Writing from the other side of the Atlantic confirms the history of basic healthcare or provision of food for the needy as being a good investment. Indeed vital for the military.
In the Boer War (1899-1902) where the British suddenly found themselves fighting in S Africa against Afrikaner farmers (a brutal war with high casualties) - the British army was horrified at how many recruits who had grown up in Victorian cities were unfit to serve. Poor diet, common diseases, lack of strength… It led to a concern for the basic health, diet and accommodation of working people. Who is going to fight in future wars?
At the end of WWI the call was for “homes fit for heroes” to combat insanitary slums.
In WWII food rationing for the entire country (which essentially meant almost no sugar/sweets and endless vegetables at meals) produced the healthiest generation of people who were born in the war between 1939 & 1945. Decades later people who were born in Britain during this 6 year period of wartime rationing are studied and found to have lived longer than expected, I read a story at the weekend about ongoing studies of these people in their 80s now.
In a rich country ensuring everyone, especially young women starting families, are well fed is part of raising living standards. And creating loyal citizens.
Yeah the welfare state dates back to as early as 1906, partially designed to improve the health of a future army.
It is a paradox that the part of the British state in the 19C that was most concerned about the health of working people was the military that needed potential recruits for a war to be fit for service - but that is just how history was. At a time when hunger was still quite common, the army or navy was the one place you could be assured of 3 meals a day.
The relevance today is perhaps that in the US joining the military is a way to get healthcare benefits, which might not always be easy for some potential recruits.
True. And when President FD Roosevelt and Congress got the Civilian Conservation Corps up and running (1934-37), the male recruits gained ank average of 30 pounds each in the first 30 days. I did not see stats for the women. They all got three meals a day there, which they'd not had at home during the Great Depression.
My wife told me last night that we should start giving automatic donations to our local Food Bank of the Rockies, where I’ve volunteered from time to time over the years. Darling, said I, we’ve been giving these for years. Her response was, then let’s double it. Which we did. SNAP is a wonderful program, but don’t forget your local food banks.
I just took cans of fruit, vegetables, dried pasta, evaporated milk (for pumpkin pie making) and other stuff to my group today. Costco has large volume packages that are easy to divide and share, rather like buying a box of chocolates and giving most away. Fewer calories!
Cleaned out part of the cupboard with unexpired foodstuffs of things we like to eat that are easy to fix. Satisfying and useful.
Everything we brought in goes this month to the women's shelter. Next month to another group in need.