« Older Entries | Newer Entries »

Food Stamps Feel A Lot Classier On A Credit Card

[ 4 Comments ]Posted on January 8, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Friday, January 8th, 2010

One in eight Americans is benefitting from food stamps. Are you one of them? Would you be if you had to?

I joke sometimes about being a socialist, but in reality, I’m the type of person who’s more inclined to work within the system I’m born into. Since I was born in one of the most capitalism-obsessed nations on Earth, and raised in an intellectual, bleeding heart liberal college community, I’ve always had an odd mix of values. I’ve never applied for “welfare” of any kind, including unemployment (okay, 3 months when I was 18!), food stamps, or other kinds of assistance, but I think “the poor” are entitled to such help. In the past, I’ve always found it easy to balance these vaguely conflicted values, mainly because the overall economic situation in the states made it possible for me to go get some kind of work in thin times. I think a lot of “average” Americans feel the same way, but recently I was surprised to find that several “average” friends of mine were using something I’d never heard of to defray expenses: a Michigan Bridge Card. Suddenly being broke seemed a lot less shameful to me. Somehow “defraying expenses with a bridge card” sounds a lot better than “buying hot dogs with food stamps“. And apparently this is a national trend; the New York Times has a whole series called The Safety Net, where I ran across this interactive map that made me realize that in the county I live in (home to the relatively prestigious University of Michigan), one in ten people are collecting food stamps. This kind of blew me away, and when I add that to my ongoing ire over the secretive bailouts of billionaire bankers and the impending commercial real estate crash , I start thinking a little differently. As a self-employed person, I made some financial mis-steps over the last couple of years that I’ve struggled to bounce back from. I’m sure this is the basis for my anger about bank bailouts; no one came along to bail ME out and wipe the credit slate clean. But maybe it’s time to revise my strategy. I mean the NYT is literally advising us that walking away from our mortgages is okay. So why shouldn’t we “strategically default” and go on government support? How about you? Are you struggling? Would you accept government assistance if you were? Let’s not forget that the banking industry did, and they’re money experts!

Dubai-ous Dealings: It’s Never Too Late For An Econopocalypse

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on November 27, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Friday, November 27th, 2009

The US military may decide to Sheik Djibouti if this keeps up.


Images like this used to inspire awe.
Now they more likely inspire awwww…

I like to think that in a decade or so, we’ll scan the impoverished Sultan-peppered wasteland of the once deleriously luxurious Dubai, and wonder how it all ever happened. Call me a Gloomy Gus, but waking up to parallel headlines today about how it’s Black Friday and everybody’s going shopping while Dubai’s late payments on their $80 billion debt caused global market panic got me thinking again about the impending econopocalypse. I mean, we’ve all heard of a “jobless recovery”, but is there such a thing as a “recoveryless recovery”? One look at this frightening animated map showing job losses in America between 2007 and 2009 makes me wonder how we can possibly think we’re on the way back to economic stability. Very few people I know have either the liquid assets or the confidence to suggest to me that things are getting better, but at the same time, I don’t see us heading for global catastrophe. In my starry-eyed vision I see more reality sinking in as unexpected debtors like Dubai spring up, and more fictitious capital being generated until the average person snaps out of it and it sinks in that all this money being thrown around is merely a social contract, and one that we never signed. And maybe, somewhere in this morass that is the global economy, we’ll get a little smarter, and remember that what’s good of all is good for the individual. Of course, it’s ultimately moronic of me to think this way; if major UAE-backed debtors like Dubai start defaulting, war is more likely, especially as we ramp back up in Afghanistan. I have this weird hunch we’ll be hearing the name Djibouti a bit more in the coming year. But what the hell do I know? The graphic below sums up my understanding of banking and finance… Read the rest of this entry »

Hank Paulson Could Sell An Ice Cube To An Eskimo

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 16, 2009 by admin in Politics

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

And he sold Bush a bailout that Bush didn’t understand. But can he sell you a book?


So Long, And Thanks For All The Crocs!

I guess the fact that Hank Paulson is releasing the book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System in 2010 should instill in us all a comforting feeling that the financial crisis is well behind us now. Well, it doesn’t. It does however, instill in some of us the feeling that Paulson is a greedy self-engrossed bastard that is so out of touch with the reality of those of us that are paying for his spectacular destruction of capitalism as we know it that he thinks we’d buy his book. Or be able to afford it, for that matter. It also – along with the impending release of Bush speechwriter Matthew Latimer’s Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor – makes for some hilarious pre-release reading. The only thing that might give you a better laugh than Latimer’s self-aggrandizing piece in GQ is Wonkette’s reaction to it. My favorite excerpt is when Wonkettes’s Juli Weiner takes Latimer’s passage “Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat” and translates it as “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.” Taking a more serious tone, the Vanity Fair piece Henry Paulson’s Longest Night rambles on in an almost surreal attempt to build compassion for Paulson by telling us what a tough job it was for him to hoodwink Washington with his buddy Bernanke and then sweep their frightening mess under the rug using the veil of secrecy provided by being in charge of the Federal Reserve. Probably the most gratifying thing in this piece is when the author describes Paulson throwing up in the next room while he talks about Nancy Pelosi. I can’t wait for more of the continuing flood of these opportunistic and treacherous “insider views”, but so far the most interesting thing I’ve learned from Latimer’s, Paulson’s and Tom Ridge’s tell-all sellouts is that Bush wears Crocs*. Read the rest of this entry »

Want To Know Where Your Bailout Dollars Are Going? Too Bad.

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on August 29, 2009 by admin in Politics

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

The Federal Reserve insists it’s none of your business which banks your tax dollars are bailing out.

Would you like to know which banks are getting the $23 Trillion bailouts you and your grandkids are paying for? TOO BAD. The Federal Reserve has insisted that Manhattan U.S. District Court Chief Judge Loretta Preska’s ruling in favor of Bloomberg News in a recent FOIA case would “would threaten the companies and the economy” adding that revealing the information “would stigmatize the banks and result in imminent competitive harm”. This is the second such case recently; Fox News lost one in July. Bet you didn’t know Fox cared so much about the common man, did you? Well, they apparently want to protect us from the evils of the BBC too. If you’ve been feeling better about the economy, we don’t want to dent your enthusiasm, but be aware that as of this writing, 81 more banks have failed this year, and from March to June the number of banks on the “Problem List” rose from 305 to 416. And all of this while banks repackage the same toxic investments that caused it all.

Whatever Happened To The Econopocalypse?

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on March 1, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Tips For Surviving The Coming Depression

Whatever happened to that Econopocalypse they were promising us? I’m from the generation who grew up thinking NORAD would mistake a piece of space junk coming over the horizon for a Russian nuclear missile, and we’d all die as a result of accidental “Mutual Assured Destruction”. So in spite of the fact that I’ve since somehow managed to become a disturbingly happy, emoticon-using ;) utopian, when you talk about the coming apocalypse, I for one will be getting ready. Which is why I’ve rounded up some tips for you. There are plenty of lists like this one, which suggests ridiculously obvious things like accepting a job below your expectations, growing a garden, or managing your money better. And this one , which sounds like it must’ve been written by the same mortgage jockeys that got us into this mess. But I especially liked this one, which includes tips like “Stockpile Drugs” and “Buy a Gun”, or my personal favorite “Blow your credit cards”. You also might want to pick up some cooking tips from Clara, the sweet 91-year-old grandma that’s being exploited to create the Depression Cooking series on YouTube. Although you better hurry; I don’t see how we’ll have broadband if we’re standing in food lines. And for those motivated enough to keep looking for work, don’t be surprised if the interview process evolves to adapt to the new climate as well. See the clip featured here for some insight. Personally, I figure if I can survive cold war paranoia, eight years of Bush, and a culture that that seems to revolve around reality TV, I can survive this. See you in the dole line!

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »