The Faces Of Hunger (Take Five): A Tale Of Two Dinners

<A Slightly Different Take On Thanksgiving...>
http://www.oilfreefun.com/2012/11/anti-thanksgiving-memes-2012-raising.html

As the above image suggests, not everybody waves their arms in the air and salutes when Turkey Day comes calling. Those who know their history understand the darker reality that's often masked, sidestepped or whitewashed by all those benign depictions of that first Euro-Native American feast...so there's no need to rehash it here.

Suffice to say, the red man soon came down with some serious regrets after the white man crossed his path, as the Gang Of Four summed it up -- so famously, and so eloquently -- on the key graphic that highlights their classic first album, Entertainment (1979): "The Indian smiles, he thinks that the cowboy is his friend. The cowboy smiles, he is glad that the Indian is fooled. Now he can exploit him."

No less distressing, of course, is the orgy of materialism that's become tied up in America's mass gobbling of the turkey...including Black Friday, the by-now obligatory commercialistic blowout that we've (briefly) chronicled on this blog. Squawker and I get a constant, nagging reminder when my brother-in-law calls to brag about whatever he's just purchased with his (presumably) overtaxed, overextended pieces of plastic....he's the only chap I know who actually buys new monitors for his fleet of computers. But I digress.

<i.>

Thanksgiving can feel equally hollow when your cupboard is nearly empty. That's how Squawker and myself wound up at one of our little town's trendier "happening" churches on Tuesday night. lining up for its second-ever free Thanksgiving dinner...you know the drill by now: all comers welcome...everybody's entitled to one fairly hearty plate of turkey (with all the trimmings)...no need to get up, necessarily, because an army of volunteers is ready to serve you...and, by the way, you may want to check out those services some time (just sayin').

Last year's gathering, as the minister noted during his opening comments, drew around 100 people; tonight's affair, on the other hand, verged closer to 300, which required the church to add a heated tent on the left-hand side to accommodate all the extra traffic. Thankfully, Squawker and myself arrived early enough to avoid that particular option. We ended up at the main table near the entrance, sitting practically elbow-to-elbow with our fellow diners in an extreme case of Sensory Overload Theater (as Squawker suggested).

Needless to say, intimacy is hard to come by in such a massive setting, though the minister and his assistant (I presume) did their best to inject the personal touch...but it didn't really work. How could it? At one point, the minister said, "Turn around to the person who's sitting next to you, and say, 'I'm thankful for you.'" The gestured dutifully completed, all concerned turned around to resume chatting with the people they already knew, or those who'd turned up with them...including Squawker and myself, hand on heart.

The phenomenon repeated itself when two women began playing and singing on electric piano and acoustic guitar, respectively. Now, I enjoy live music and events as much as the next person...but not every occasion needs to be truned into a quasi-concert, because such intrusions (real or perceived) tend to make the punters cranky. The women tried their best, but the crowd kept on talking to itself unabated.

We decided not to stick around for the dessert.

<ii.>

On Thanksgiving Day, we drove 10-15 miles in the opposite direction, ready to partake in yet another "come one, come all" community dinner that we needed to stretch what little remained of our food budget. As I've reported here already, things have gotten tighter and tougher since the local welfare authorities whacked our food allowance from the upper $200 range to the princely sum of $16 per month. Put another way, we've had our creativity tested like never before as the end of the month approaches.

This time, however, we found ourselves in the middle of the country...far from the stiff upper lip stodginess, the stolid rigidity, the stultifying snobbishness and stubborn allegiance to old social codes that has left Squawker and myself seeking (if I may quote the Cramps) "some new kind of kick." This particular dinner marked the first of its kind for this local restaurant and winery...we'd only learned about it a week and a half ago on Facebook.

Unlike Tuesday's megachurch-style affair, however, the vibe here felt a whole lot more relaxed. Instead of waiting (and waiting, and waiting a bit longer still) for the same plate that everybody else got, the venue had set out a buffet....where you got in line, and could take what you wanted, as much as you wanted. All comers were welcome, but had to call ahead and RSVP, so the venue would know how many people it planned on serving. Makes sense, doesn't it?

About halfway through the proceedings, one of our mates...whom we'd met at the local disability book club group...turned up, to our surprise, and delight, which jump-started a suitably entertaining conversation about the experiences we'd shared since we last met. At various points, a little girl (one of the owners' or staff's daughters, I reckon) asked if we needed anything, or came to take whatever plates we'd just finished. The whole thing had a down home vibe that both Squawker and I have sorely missed...and, to be honest, rarely experience in our own hometown.

I got up to contemplate the possibility of seconds, but...for safety's sake...decided to pop the question first: "Can we go up again? Is that okay?"

The manager looked at me as though I were kidding: "Of course! It's Thanksgiving, man! If you can't do it here...." He flashed one of those shucks, why are you even asking? sorts of smiles. "When can you do it?"

"Agreed," I said. "Great to hear, thanks!"

Both Squawker and I are used to more controlled settings and situations...where the ringmasters pick and choose what you can bring home. and you don't get a vote in the matter (unless you're obviously allergic to something or other). I'm glad that didn't happen here.

To top it all off...due to a lower than anticipated turnout...the management sent us home with takeout boxes...with white meat, stuffing, rolls, corn, and chocolate cheesecake....which helped answer today's question: "What's for lunch? We're not sure how to fill in those blanks yet."

But, honestly, it felt good to experience this kind of a gathering. People actually talked to us, and treated us like human beings...instead of robotic automatons fit solely for the purpose of scrambling up the social ladder.

In short, this occasion definitely combined "thanks" and "giving," with all the positivity that implies. Now, if Squawker and I get to experience that vibe in our hometown, and not just on a one-shot basis...we'll definitely be happier campers. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted. --The Reckoner

A Rising Tide Swamps All Ships: Michigan Kills The Earned Income Tax Credit

Trickle down economics is a scam, plain and sample. Like so many pet projects pushed by the ultra-right and its shadowy denizens -- the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and other Orwellian-sounding entities like them -- the premise never adds up. Over and over, we're told that if the upper classes were left to stash away as much as they wish, that money will float back down to those on the bottom...which is where you hear those same tired slogans, over and over. A rising tide lifts all boats. Not a hand out, but a hand up. And so on, and so forth.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

For the most part, the jobs never materialize, and those that do are typically of the low-wage, no-benefit, no-future variety. The tax breaks handed out left and right to businesses wind up as great going-away presents -- either when the management takes the enterprise offshore, or simply goes belly up, leaving the taxpayers stuck with the what-do-we-with-that-big-empty-white-elephant-now tab. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Then again, it's not really about results, it's about shoving an ideology down everybody else's throat -- common sense be damned, objective review be damned, public opinion be damned. What else explains the Republican drive in Michigan to kill off the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) -- and justify it as part of a road funding package?  That's what happened earlier this month, when the Republican-led Senate put the icing -- or, should I say, the mayonnaise -- on top of the cake. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Senate version also includes a 15-cent increase in the gas tax, another regressive tax that those with modest means don't get to vote on -- and, in a commuter state where driving extended distances to work is the norm, will hit their pockets hard, too. Not to worry, though, because the Senate version includes a state income tax -- although only if the percentage increase from the previous fiscal year's general fund revenues exceeds a positive inflation rate. This "shift and shaft" approach is the hallmark of the Snyder era: "Businesses pay less, you pay more." And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse repeat.

As the Detroit Free Press noted in its editorial (see below), one interesting aspect of the drive against the EITC is that its prime movers -- such as State Representative Jeff Farrington, for instance, of Macomb County, where 17.9 percent of its children still live in poverty. You can ead the nitty-gritty details for yourself below -- instead of me rehashing them here -- but, as the Free Press rightly suggests, whatever logic motivates these votes, "it's not concern for the constituents whose interests they're meant to represent. It's the noxious partisan principle that poverty is deserved, and that the impoverished require neither a hand up nor much compassion."  And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And, like most bills that Governor Rick Synder's zealous cohorts pass left and right, it's fair to say the average person isn't paying attention right now. The sticker shock will land next year with a hollow thud on the kitchen table, when folks realize that -- all of a sudden -- they'll owe  the state more than they're used to paying. In fairness, I'll note that Michigan's version of the EITC was much smaller than Uncle Sam's -- but, for people who are struggling, every little bit helps...until, of course, someone yanks the rug from under your feet. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Don't think they'll return any money that you might accidentally leave on their table, either. At one time, The Squawker and I owed two years of state taxes, plus three years of federal -- until we were able to sign up for a voluntary tax preparer's help through the United Way, and learned (to our chagrin) that we could get a renter's credit to make Michigan's IOUs go away. It'll be interesting to see what happens next year, but you can bet on one other thing...with 40 percent of Michigan's residents still living in poverty, or stuck in jobs that don't cover basic needs, you won't hear a peep about this subject from the Republican zealots...or ALEC...or the Mackinac Center...or any of their shadowy ilk.

Like Erich Honecker in his twilight years, they'll shake their fists and chant, "Stay the course! Stay the course!" Only, instead of Honecker's fuzzy-minded brand of "consumer socialism" --one that required massive loans from the West to prop up his so-called German Democratic Republic -- we'll get served something far more insidious: socialism for Big Business. But, if you feel like calling them out, it might be fun to ask, "Where are the results?" Then wait for the sounds of crickets.  And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Before Your Tax Tab Skyrockets):
Detroit Free Press
Mich. Senate Road Plan May Be Worse Than You Think:
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/07/01/michigan-roads-plan/29543977/


MLive.com:
Michigan Can Improve The Economy
By Cutting Taxes For 95% For The People:
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/05/graduated_income_tax_michigan.html

Life's Little Injustices (Take II): I Feel An Overdraft

A funny thing happened to my bank account last week. Late one night, I decided to check my account online, only to find myself staring down a big, ugly, negative number. How'd this happen? I wondered.

Only yesterday, I'd deposited $100 to cover another bill hovering around the corner.  What happened?  I thought I was covered! I quickly found my answer...somebody had cashed a couple checks that I'd written three and four months ago, yielding a black hole in my account.

I did what any rational person does in this type of situation...I narrowly missed doing a limbo dance off the ceiling!  After all, in this economy, most people don't wait that long to cash their checks...because they literally can't afford the luxury (like my hairstylist, who cashed a check of mine within two hours after doing her work).

Anyhow, I popped by the drive-through and made a deposit to erase the deficit, and pleaded my case to the manager that afternoon.  "Surely you can't expect me to anticipate somebody sitting on a check that long..." I contended.  "I assumed those checks were long lost, or long cashed. Either way, I had no reason to question them."

Not quite, the manager responded: most jurisdictions impose a six-month limit for cashing checks, so the bank had to honor them. The overdraft protection policy was crafted to spare the embarrassment of bouncing a check or two.  At $32 a pop, I could afford it, right?

Fortunately, we struck a compromise. The manager lifted one overdraft charge, because I'd never asked for a reversal before, and the situation was a little unusual. By Friday, I closed the gap after transferring $25 from another source, and selling a stack of albums for $35 at my local music shop.

Normally, the shop only pays a dollar apiece on used vinyl, but the owner gave me $2 each, because he liked my selections so much -- including my second copy of The Clash...to my Faces stack (Long Player, First Step, A Nod's As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse, Ooh-La-La)...to some imd-'80s Lou Reed fare (Legendary Hearts, New Sensations)...and my early XTC collection. Ouch!

Of course, we know why banks charge these types of fees. They're pure gravy, as a June 2013 white paper from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suggests.  According to the report -- which comes from survey data reported by larger institutions -- overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees accounted for 61 percent of the charges that banks got in 2011.

Based on those figures, the bureau estimates that banks netted about $12.6 billion from consumers in 2011. That same year, the average consumer paid $225 in overdraft charges, and roughly 27 percent of all checking accounts paid at least one overdraft fee. If you felt stung, you've got plenty of company.

You can read the full report below, or skim the New York Times story if you're pressed for time. Suffice to say, more discussion needs to occur, Thankfully for me, good musical taste still pays off when you're struggling, as another vinyl proprietor told me earlier this month: "I still get people saying, 'Why can't you pay three bucks a pop for my Journey albums?'" 

The CFPB report's figures also convince me of something else...if John Dillinger had owned the banks that he robbed...he might have been a hell of a lot better off.  As for those copies of Legendary Hearts, or Ooh-La-La?  I'll just have to replace them later, I suppose. Such is life. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (C'mon, You Know The Drill Already):
ConsumerAffairs.com (Lots of good info here):
Bank Fees Are Hard to Avoid, Especially For Low-Income Customers:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/bank-overdraft-fees-news-and-analysis

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
CFPB Study Of Overdraft Programs:
http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201306_cfpb_whitepaper_overdraft-practices.pdf


The New York Times:
Banks Rake In Overdraft Fees, Report Finds:
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/banks-rake-in-overdraft-fees-report-finds/?_r=0

The Rent Is Too Damn High (The Squeeze Continues...)

"Who owns what you do? Who owns what you use?"
(The Gang Of Four, "Of The Instant")

It's no secret that housing costs are out of whack. Ever since the housing meltdown in 2008, more Americans rent than ever (around 43 million, according to a study by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies). However, escaping the foreclosure trap just means falling into a different trap -- the gap between what you can afford, and what the landlord squeezes from your wallet.

According to CNN, one in three Americans now pay 30 percent or more of their median monthly incomes for rent. (This figure assumes a market with a three-bedroom house, something that's only a distant dream for me, and most of the folks I know.) In cities like Baltimore, Brooklyn, Miami and Philadelphia, the figure is more like 50 percent.

The financial pros quoted in the article have a knack for understatement, as Capital One's managing vice president of community development, Laura Bailey, demonstrates: "When they get affordable housing, their lives can take an entirely different, more productive path."  Uh, can we say: "Well, duh?"

Rent is too high, way too high.  Funny how the wages remain flat and are sinking down but rent goes higher.  At least where we live, it's not too bad, just small increases...but you have wonder where all this misplaced money is going. --The Squawker

"Greed knows no boundaries, Greed does not feel

I'll be damned if I die for a profiting deal"

(The Pogues, "The Bastard Landlord")

Thanks for putting this issue on the old blogger's radar, Squawker, I'll take it from here...to me, what's even more interesting than CNN's May 2014 story is the discussion below it.  It's always worth reading the comments below any news story of note, if only to see what the Haves really think of the Have-Nots: 

"I'm a landlord. I charge as much as I possibly can. I want to make a profit. Supply and demand. If a potential tenant can't afford my rates, there a cheaper apartments elsewhere. When my vacancies become a problem, I lower rents. Don't whine that rent is too high...and then rent the place. Go live somewhere else. Maybe with more roommates." 

Sounds like the figure in the Pogues song, doesn't it? Comically so...to top it all off, he identifies himself as "American" -- though I suspect he probably shops regularly at big box stores where all those cheap Chinese-made goods are always available. Thankfully, though, he gets a proper slap-down from the next commenter, cman:

"Yea, you seem like a complete tool. The problem Mr. American (I'm assuming your a man, because such di**ish comments suggest you have the requisite genitalia), is that people cannot go live somewhere else. These high rents are city-wide phenomenon (and indeed its becoming a national trend). People cannot simply pack up, take their families and jobs with them and move to rural Alabama where you can buy a nice home for as much as you can get a decent condo in Maryland. The jobs market is terrible, and social mobility is not an option for most."

"Second, people ARE living with more roommates, for much longer (Millennials). That same demographic then gets chided by the older generations for being lazy slackers -living in parents basements, sharing apartments with friends, when their parents owned their first home at that point in their lives. This is mainly due to economic circumstances brought about by the negligence of prior generations and has nothing to do with current youngsters."

Of course, the latter paragraph speaks to a different problem, as Matthew Yglesias notes in his book, The Rent's Too Damn High (What To Do About It, And Why It Matters More Than You Think):

"The housing cost problem is largely obscured by the predominance of owner-occupied housing among middle-aged middle-class people who think of expensive housing as 'wealth' and investment profits. That perception is a mistake...If you own a home and the price of buying a house rises faster than the price of renting one, then you can make money by selling your home and moving to a new place. But as we'll see, this is a telltale sign of a bubble rather than a strategy for national wealth creation."

This phenomenon comes with unique twists in cities like San Francisco, where only A-list techies seem to have no problem affording the Golden Gate City's infamously steep rents, as Chandler Properties vice president, Samantha Chandler Duvall, informs SFGate.com: "The people coming into the city to apply for our apartments are making huge salaries -- all six digits," she says. "It's insane. I'm the first to admit it."

Mind you, this isn't a new problem, as Tony Sanchez cheerfully explains in Up & Down WIth The Rolling Stones (1978) in recounting the response from his A-list employer, Keith Richards, to a legal order that barred him from entering France for two years:

"'Now, at last, I can stop paying that grand [$2,400] a week rent for that bloody house. It's cost me more than a hundred grand already [$240,000] just to keep it going so the cops wouldn't try to extradite me.' He earned something like $25,000 a week. Using the old rule-of-thumb that rent shouldn't exceed more than a quarter of your salary, I guess Keith could afford Nellcote." 

So there you have it, boys and girls...while the political classes twiddle their thumbs, and hope that the problem goes away, you'll either have to brush up on your computer skills, or take up the guitar and hope that you can string together three chords to write The Great Lost Hit Record.  There's just one small matter, though...Keith's already got a 50-year head start.  --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Read 'Em And Weep, Then Hide Your Wallet):
CNN Money (One In Three Americans Spending Too Much On Rent):
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/01/real_estate/rent-spending/

Joint Center For Housing Studies (Rental Housing Affordability):
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/ahr2013_05-affordability.pdf

National Housing Conference/Center For Housing Policy

(Housing Landscape 2013 Study):
http://www.nhc.org/media/Landscape-2013-release.html

San Francisco Chronicle (Rents Soaring Across Region):
http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Rents-soaring-across-region-4924282.php

SFGate.com: One-third Rule Not Always Feasible In Bay Area Rental Market

http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/One-third-rule-not-always-feasible-in-Bay-Area-5300473.php

Punk Rock Poetry Corner: At One Time...

Ana Vujic: "Birth School Work Death"

(Mixed media on wood, private collection, 2014)
http://www.gallery-daeppen.com/_artists/ana_vujic/index.php

At One Time...

<Birth>

At one time...you could go shopping for fun, spend hours at the mall, and still have money left over when you were done.

At one time...two parents didn't sweat like dogs...just to afford
all those wonderful toys at the mall.

At one time...families could afford two weeks' vacation a year,
stay in a hotel each night, and enjoy some meals out.

At one time...you could actually buy groceries,

and not feel like you needed a bank loan.

At one time...you could visit long-distance relatives and friends
a couple of times a year (even on weekends)...
...and afford the gas to get there.

At one time...people got involved in what happened around them.
Now, they just don't seem to care,
no matter how crazy it gets.

<School>

At one time...civics courses were standard K-12 fare.  Today, they're drowned out by the drumbeat of standardized tests.

At one time...you had to know what the Constitution and

the Bill of Rights said (and they also taught you

something about early American history).

At one time...people could identify Vietnam

or Norway on a map without hesitation.

At one time...schools looked out for every student's needs,

and didn't try to make everybody the same.

At one time...you could afford the promises of college...when

the regimes in charge offered more grants than loans.

<Work>

At one time...people stayed in the same place, and weren't forced
to move every few years, just to make a living.

At one time...even a minimum wage office job (boring as it was)
offered some sort of hedge against moving every few years
(until those jobs eventually dried up).

At one time...banks competed for customers' loyalties,
based on interest rates. Today, they slap fees
on every ounce of your slavery.

At one time...businesses were smaller, and didn't draw big red lines
through the communities they pretended to serve.

At one time...if people were practical and frugal,
they put something away for a rainy day.

At one time...many people lived on farms
and felt rewarded for the fruits of their labors.

<Death>

At one time...we would never have questioned
if “Solyent Green” felt like a documentary.

At one time...working till you dropped sounded like something 

out of a bad science fiction novel, 

or a cheesy '70s movie.

Today, life is the stuff

of a cheesy, bad science fiction movie.

Logan never stops running,

always in motion -- 

alive and well for now,

but whether he sees 31

remains ripe for speculation.

--The Reckoner & The Squawker

Flat Wage USA: The More Things Change, They More They (Fill In The Blank)...

I've always held vivid memories of this image, which I remember seeing in Otto L. Bettmann's book, The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible!  While some critics accused Bettmann of going overboard with his debunking of the Gilded Age, published in 1974, the book's most cogent points focus on the glaring income inequalities that characterized the era. That's why this particular image and its caption ("Corporate greed octopus gobbles up freight for Great Railroad while unemployed handlers look on") remains so haunting, and so compelling, more than a century later.

I felt inspired to start this post after doing some research on Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome (1911), of all things. The title character's frustration with his limited resources is an important subtext of the story, which focuses on his failed attempts to start a new life with his lover, Mattie, outside the confines of his marriage.  In researching the story, I came across numerous references to The Working Girls Of Boston (1884), which marked a serious attempt by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor's to document female workers' conditions.

Suffice to say, the conditions these "working girls" endured were horrendous -- including arbitrary bosses, cramped work areas, lengthy schedules, little time off and poor ventilation -- so we need not belabor the point here. In 1880, the bureau reported that the average working girl in Boston earned $269.07 per year. However, once she finished subtracting $261.30 for necessities (food, clothing, shelter and medical care), she took home a whopping $7.77 in discretionary income...and you wonder why everyone frowns so heavily in those 19th century sepia-toned photographs!

While nobody's suggesting that we're back in the Gilded Age -- actually, most wiseguys like yours truly argue that we're at Roaring Twenties levels of inequality -- it's no stretch to suggest that Americans are faring poorly overall in the Discretionary Income & Savings Sweepstakes. One point that the Suze Ormans of the world overlook in all their endless lectures to the groundlings -- y'know, "waste not, want not, why buy that latte when you can put it away on a condo, yada-yada-yada" -- is that, after 30-plus years of flat wages, people have little or no money left to save.

One indicator of this trend is evident from a Bankrate.com survey cited in the following Huffington Post article (see link below, or click the actual survey link for the full gory details). The figure that leaps out is this one: about 25 percent of the adults surveyed by Bankrate between June 6-9, 2013, had no cash reserves for emergencies, while roughly half said they had three months or less of funds -- well shy of the six months that experts recommend. By contrast, 72 percent of those making $75,000 per year or more had at least three months' of emergency savings, compared to 35 percent making less than that sum.

Granted, it's a small survey pool, but those are stark figures, by any measurement. The frustration is fully evident from the comments of interviewees like Kim Norton, who told the Huffington Post: "I rob Peter to pay Paul; I don't spend my money frivolously on crap; I just make sure my kids have what they need. I get really wound up thinking about how you just can't get ahead." That does seem rather unlikely for someone working "part time as a research coordinator through a temp agency" (emphasis ours), as the story suggests -- need we say more?

In many ways, that little tidbit aptly sums up where we are now, along with the never-ending parade of dubious ads from crappy for-profit colleges, gold buying shops and structured settlement purchasing outfits like JG Wentworth...do these images speak to an economy in recovery? The jury's still out on that one, we suspect.

If you're like the great majority, you're probably writing enough checks to float a raft -- noting which companies run to the bank immediately, versus which ones wait a couple days, or even a week, God forbid -- while you pray for the roof not to cave in. Needless to say, though, don't expect any lift from the political classes, because they're having too much fun to care about helping the groundlings to any meaningful degree.

As we've stated here previously, the few measures that the Obama administration has proposed -- a year-long mortgage moratorium here, begging the House of Representatives to extend unemployment there -- have been too weak, timid or half-hearted to benefit people on a massive scale. And, in real terms, whatever Obama propounds now will essentially come too little and too late, since those guys in colonial drag (The Tea PartyRepublicans, basically) have no incentive to make those dreams happen. As the old joke goes, there's a reason why second-term presidents suddenly start talking up their foreign policy accomplishments.

What's often missed in these debates, however, is that these yawning disparities bear the hallmarks of policy. In Washington, access is power, and you can tell who wields it by who's actually sitting at the table. It isn't the inner city resident whose neighborhood lacks a decent supermarket...or the retired firefighter whose pension isn't fully funded...or the senior citizen having to choose between food, or medicine...or the contract worker piecing shit job upon shit job together for the privilege of surviving another day, never mind another week.

As one of my close friends observes, it's as if Ronald Reagan won a seventh presidential term, because the trends that began when he arrived on the scene in 1980 -- help the rich get richer, let the poor stay poorer, hollow out what's left of the middle class -- are more firmly entrenched and noxious than ever. The jabbering continues apace, while relief for the average person seems farther away on the horizon than ever, amid continuing choruses to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". However, as the customs man says at Heathrow Airport, "there's just one small matter": your bootstraps were cut long ago, when nobody was looking.  --The Reckoner

"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands." --Thurgood Marshall, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991)

"Consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry." -- Thomas Jefferson (A/K/A "The Guy On The Two Dollar Bill")

Links To Go (As Always...Read 'Em And Weep Some More, Eh):
Bankrate.com: June 2013 Financial Security Index Charts:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/financial-security-charts-0613.aspx

Consumer Reports:
Can Singing Vikings Solve Your Cash Crunch?
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2010/03/can-singing-vikings-solve-your-cash-crunch/index.htm

The Economic Policy Institute:
A Decade Of Flat Wages:
The Key Barrier To Shared Prosperity And A Rising Middle Class
http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/

The Huffington Post:
75 Percent Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings
To Cover Their Bills For Six Months: Survey:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/americans-savings_n_3478932.html