Why Americans are going hungry despite a strong economy
Why Americans are going hungry despite a strong economy
With unemployment low and wages rising, the struggle for basic necessities like food should be easing. But those on the front lines of feeding the hungry say they are seeing the opposite.
People go hungry so Multi-Millionaires can strive. News at 11.
And still Congress didn't pass a wealth tax, or close at least some tax loopholes only the rich can access.
It's the same damn thing in Canada as well. And it sucks.
Unless gov'ts get off their asses and DO the things that need to be done, revolution will come ... and they won't like the outcome at all.
I’m convinced the only reason one hasn’t already started is because revolutions, while often very necessary agents of change and herald a lot of good for the future, are both risky and dangerous for everyone involved and in the back of our heads keep hoping things will change for the better without violence. Unfortunately it’s become increasingly and maddeningly obvious that will not ever happen.
The US Congress will never pass a wealth tax without a Democratic majority in both chambers, and enough of a buffer to make Senators like Manchin and Sinema not matter
Wealth taxes have often been ineffective in other countries where they've been tried, since they're very hard and expensive to administer. Something like a land value tax is much much simpler to collect and produces significantly better economic incentives. Wealth taxes incentivize you to offshore as many assets as possible, while land value takes incentivize you to use land as productively as possible since you can't exactly hide a chunk of real estate in Switzerland.
That aside though, any kind of asset-based tax is constitutionally questionable and would absolutely be litigated to the Supreme Court, where I wouldn't exactly want to place any bets on that outcome right now.
But with rent that’s more than doubled...
We really need politicians to start paying more attention to the housing crisis. Housing costs have been such a massive squeeze on literally everyone, and it's an incredibly stupidly self-inflicted wound because for the last 50 years we collectively decided that housing should be a primary investment asset for all Americans instead of a place to live, and fundamentally, you cannot have housing both be a good investment and have it be cheap.
Literally just build more housing. Public housing, subsidized housing, private market rate, yuppie condos, literally anything.
https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced-home-construction-for-20-years/
In the last 20 years, we build around a million single-family homes. In that same time period, the population increased by 3 million. There is no universe in which this happens and housing doesn't become significantly more expensive.
Zoning restrictions is a huge cause of housing shortages and higher infrastructure costs.
Biden is giving developers a bunch of money to convert vacant business properties into housing, so it's a start.
A band aid solution to the problem, in my opinion, but I agree it's a start.
Price gouging. Is it price gouging?
reads article
It’s price gouging.
Remember the food lines when Trump was President? I do
the lines at the food pantry every week went from a few people and 5 minutes to get through to 50-60+ and 60-90 minutes during that time.
These people need to take a look at The Statistics™ so they understand that the economy is actually very good while their stomachs rumble
Food prices being higher.
monthly grocery bill that now tops $2,400 for her family of seven
I’m not saying the article is wrong, but if you have seven children, you did this to yourself
A family of 7 implies
fivesix childrenEdit: It says her husband was deported to Mexico and she's now a single mom
So it said "family of seven", which probably means 5 children and 2 adults, or just as likely, 4 children, 2 adults and 1 elderly parent.
The really weird thing about this is that even without making any sort of moral judgement, the numbers still don't add up. For example, I have a family of 6 (and only 2 of those are my kids), and our grocery bill is between $150 and $200 a week (about $700 a month). How do you get to $2400 a month? What are you feeding them? Are you ordering takeout ever day? Because that would be stupid.
If you read the article it states that her husband was deported back to Mexico, so it's her and 6 kids.
You also don't know if she lives in a food desert where a single grocery store could charge whatever prices it wants because there's no competition.
Right. $2400 buys a lot of raw ingredients. Get a Costco membership ffs!!
Enjoy giving more money to Israel and Ukraine guys
That benefits the United States greatly and boosts the economy. Both conflicts are huge revenue generators and almost all the funding goes to American companies.
That comes out to an average of $330 per person, if you assume an even distribution of taxes paid, which is completely false, so the real figure is substantially lower for the median person.