Food for Thought

I wouldn't put on an electric blanket for any reason. . .
the main thing, Wally, is that I think that kind of comfort
just separates you from reality in a very direct way
--My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Give us this day our daily bread
--Matthew 6:11

Well we're movin' on up
to the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky
--Movin' on Up, Barry and Dubois
__________

After doing my first serious grocery shopping in two weeks I, like Capt. Renault in that other white house, am shocked at the recent price increases.

Here are a few: milk is now $4.00 a half gallon (organic), up from $3.00; smoked Gruyere cheese, $11.19/lb from $8.69; eggs (non-organic), $2.49 from $1.17, now rivaling the cost of the eggs from free-range hens. Percentage of increase is (+) 33%, 29%, 112%, respectively.

After expressing my shock and awe to the deli clerk, she confirmed the huge increase in all things dairy and deli. She leaned over the counter in a conspiratorial whisper -- "I just heard on t.v. about a woman in Africa who eats dirt 'cause she can't buy food. I never thought about that." She'll be thinking about it as her choices of what she can put in her shopping cart dwindle.

The weekend WSJ covered the rise in grain prices owing to increases in seed, fertilizer and oil costs. Hersey, Tyson, Kraft and Kellogg Co. will all raise prices this year ("Farmers Wonder if Boom in Grain prices is a Bubble," 1/31/08.) "Food prices are widely expected to push even higher this year, even if the U.S. enters a recession. . .because food is typically on of the last goods to be affected by a downturn."

In a queer comment supporting the persistence of the price rise the article reports, "Once people enter the Middle class and move up the income and food ladder, they rarely regress." On that note, a look at those who aren't movin' up.

The current cost of living increase for Federal payments is 2.3%. The baseline Social Security medical disability payment for a single individual is $567/month, which is $6,804 annual income. The poverty line (=Federal Poverty Level, or FPL) for a single individual household in the contiguous 48 States -- defined as the "minimum level of income necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living -- was $10,200 in 2007; it is slightly higher in Alaska and Hawaii.

In Florida, the food stamp allotment for a single-family household earning the above medical disability payment of $567/month has been reduced over the past couple of years, from $111/month to $95/month. This is (-) 17% reduction in payments. For further comparison, I'll throw in my personal rent increase for 2008: (+) $25/month. This is a (+) 16% annual increase in monthly rent payments.

From these few examples, it is obvious that a 2.3% cost of living increase is a misnomer and a fantasy, unless you were in Nepal. These folks are not moving up due to Federal largesse.

By comparison, Shell Oil saw a 60% increase in earnings last quarter."According to the US Labor Department, gasoline and home heating prices rose 29.4 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, the Energy Department predicts a 38 percent rise is heating costs this winter over last winter, with average families paying $551 more for heating oil over the course of the current fiscal year (Big Oil Posts Record Profits.)"

Ranger offered on the same day a story from the barber shop. No Edwards or Clinton, he goes to Cost Cutters, which had just raised the cost of a trim $2.00 -- a 20% increase -- and had ceased offering a military discount.

The barber shared that neither she nor her husband, who both work, nor her two children, have health insurance. If they get sick they must go to the neighborhood clinic, which is run on a sliding fee scale but which only offers basic services. (For instance, they have a dental clinic a few days each month, but the only services are cleaning or tooth extraction.)

That's the real deal for almost 49 million of your fellow uninsured Americans. Using the 2007 census of just over 301 million residents, roughly one in six of your fellows has no health coverage. Does George W. Bush know anyone in this dire predicament?

What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan is not relevant to the lives of the people for whom any of the above quoted figures are significant. Save in that their lives are sure to be made more difficult as a result of the price hikes and decreasing benefits which are sure to blight them further.