Norman Pagett writes:
“People have been coping with economic distress for a really, really, really long time … After several years of tapping all the resources we have, we’re starting to see that we’re coming up short,” said Carrie Calvert, director of tax and commodity policy at Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization
Demand for food assistance always racks up higher as winter comes on, but the summer drought across the USA has made the safety net weaker for 50 million Americans who depend on it for basic sustenance.
The cost of everything has been forced up, but as well as raising prices in the supermarket, it has reduced the need for the government to step in and subsidize farmers by buying up excess produce.
That excess was redistributed through emergency shelters, foodbanks and soup kitchens, offering a lifeline to low income families and senior citizens faced with real hunger. Now there is a real decline in these government donations and major foodbanks across the nation are facing the reality of not being able to meet demand this winter.
Already, diminishing stocks have reduced available food supplies at the Los Angeles regional Foodbank have dropped from over 3 weeks in 2010 to less than two weeks now. last summer things got so tight that they were forced to start a waiting list because not enough food was available to supply any more outlets.
By the end of the fiscal year, September 30, government commodity purchases stood at just over $350 million down from $723 million 3 years earlier. These figures indicate that farmers can sell everything they produce through conventional outlets at higher prices, they don’t need government subsidies. But that also means there is less to be redistributed among the nation’s hungry.
Hunger does not register on the balance sheets of agri-business.
Redistributed government commodities once supplied 28% of food in the Feeding America network, which includes almost all the national network of foodbanks. This year those commodity supplies account for just 17%.
Food poverty is now endemic and this is being reflected across the country. The Northeast Iowa foodbank has seen its government supply drop by 50%.
Food prices are certain to rise in 2013, and while small increases are planned for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, this will the overwhelmed by the proposed billion dollar cuts to the foodstamp program as politicians promote their own partisan interests. This will make it harder to maintain adequate nutrition for millions more, as the ‘fiscal cliff’ of the national economy cuts money available to support the needy.
This is all part of the ‘denial’ that there’s anything wrong with the economic system, but with over 10% of the population on direct food support, we are staring into the abyss of a very different future. As national finances get tighter, one is forced to wonder just how long it will be before some kind of ‘work for food’ program is introduced?
Norman,
I assume from your email address that you are in the UK. What’s it like there? We’re thinking about making a visit to the UK in June.
Cmon John
it’s not THAT bad
You’ll never get a job with the English tourist board at that rate!!
No it’s not that bad at the moment. But that lack of observable, ‘badness’ is what leads many into a false sense of security. Three years ago, Greeks were paying almost no taxes, retiring in their early 50′s, and buying new BMW’s on borrowed money from Germany and France.
And now ?,…. well go take a look.
P.S. Do you think the US will be immune to the shit storm ahead?
Jb : I will answer your question if I may.?
The UK is fairly calm, indeed eerily calm, given what is to hit us. A broad section of our citizens are not terribly well educated, and certainly not encouraged to do much thinking for themselves. To ease this non-thinking we have (like the US), a sufficient amount of TV fed, entertainment, that works hand in hand with the Prozac that increasing numbers find themselves on.
Our government have talked big, on austerity, but have not yet implemented it in any real way. Consequently, the population, although a little ‘cheesed off’, that they have to forgo, the odd continental holiday, or miss an occasional Sunday lunch out, have not grasped that the real crap is yet to come. I suspect that ‘the real crap’ will present itself early in the new year 2013.
The word collapse has an inherent urgency about it. But in fact collapse can be quite ‘glacial’ in its speed. In truth, no one quite knows, the when, the how and where, that the ground zero of The Great Unravelling, will occur.
The sooner you visit, the sooner you will see how we were, not what we are about to become.
Take Care
Dear Norman and John,
Thank you for the response. In addition to a general lack of understanding of the true nature of industrial economics, we are being fed a constant buffet of disinformation. There’s plenty of what what J.H. Kunstler calls ‘techno-triumphalism’ – that electric cars and tight shale oil will make us ‘energy independent.’ The Boomers are loading up their plates with stories about how our ‘socialist’ President is going to take away their guns and dismantle their entitlement programs. Everyone is now so thoroughly stuffed and sleepy, that having a rational conversation is becoming increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, austerity is creeping into our dialog although you’re more likely to hear it described as ‘The Fiscal Cliff’ or ‘The Grand Bargain.’
A glacial speed suits me just fine; however if Wealth = Debt ( http://www.economic-undertow.com/2012/11/22/japan-detroit/#comment-10371) then I leave open the possibility that we may see wealth/debt destruction at a much faster pace. Having just finished reading ‘The Protector’s War’ by S.M. Stirling which is partially set in the UK, the sooner we visit the island of Great Britain, the better.