Poor cannot afford meat and ice cream in cruel Bush economy

Perhaps high food prices could have a silver lining.

For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach

by Yuki Noguchi



A generation ago, the livelihood of Gloria Nunez's family was built on cars.

Her father worked at General Motors for 45 years before retiring. Her mother taught driver's education. Nunez and her six siblings grew up middle class.

Things have changed considerably for this Ohio family.

Nunez's van broke down last fall. Now, her 19-year-old daughter has no reliable transportation out of their subsidized housing complex in Fostoria, 40 miles south of Toledo, to look for a job.

Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.

'I Just Can't Get A Job'

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.


'What's Going To Happen To Us?'


The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries _ $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92592545

She doesn't work, didn't finish school, is happy to eat steak and ice cream on Uncle Sam's tab, then she wonders why no one will hire her.

I would advise these two to skip the starches and go for the meat. Atkins, it works.

You needed to cut and paste all that just to make a fat joke?

Stockula, if you ever had any credibility in the past, you have lost it. Do us all a favor and go away.

This coming from someone who also gets free money from the government.

Are you an Elitist Stock?

Hey...at LEAST he linked to NPR.

No, a complete chump who pays for all this.


This is why welfare is so pernicious. It completely destroys all incentive in people to actually work towards things and make something out of their lives. Why do that when they can just sit back and be fed by the government? Then they wake up, 40 years old, and they're nowhere, they've got nothing, they're helpless and all they know is a life of dependence on the government. The only way they can think of to improve their situation is to have more kids so their handouts are bigger.

And if things get hard, like prices skyrocket, a recession hits, or a hurricane is bearing down on your town you can't act in self-preservation because that's something you've counted on the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to do for you all your life, you are completely screwed. You simply aren't capable of doing it. It's profoundly sad.

So whats the next step... Mandatory HS graduation classes? Sweatshops? Death Camps? aside from bitching, do you have any solutions?

i have to say that if i were going to write a story about how the economy is impacting the poor, i probably would have chosen a more photogenic family. as it is, i'm wondering if the article isn't an incredibly deadpan joke.

No, it is a real NPR story (faithfuly copied and pasted by Stockula).

i really have to wonder what the author was thinking, then.

NPR: the irony-free zone.

The poor in America:



The poor in Africa:




I'm sure the environmentalists find we have much to learn from Africa

I would argue that it's not welfare that has caused this situation. The two of them live off of a "$637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps"--that's not exactly what I'd call a life of luxury and opulence. If anything, that's reason to get out and get a job--to avoid living off of a meager $739 in assistance. I'm wondering why the mother didn't get any medical or psychological help in the last 23 years, or what role the father of her daughter played in this situation. How much help has she received from the rest of her family? There is obviously more to this story than what is in the article.

Anytime a person has to stop eating an entire food group because they can't afford it--I'd say there is no silver lining.

You'd think that someone who went to all the trouble to cut and paste excerpts from an article would actually read the whole thing first. Especially before making some bullshit editorial comment which is directly contradicted by the part you skipped.

She wants to work but can't find a job she can get to. And she has explicitly rejected the notion of having a kid to get more benefits.

Every one of the people in this article once had a good standard of living, with families supported by employment in manufacturing - a huge segment of the Ohio economy. But that manufacturing is about to evaporate, or has already done so. And with the lack of public transportation, none of them can even look for work when their cars start to die.

You are pathetic.

The same can be said for the true recipients of government welfare - the large corporations. The total money spent to prop up poor business decisions, tax breaks, and outright corporate subsidies far exceeds anything spent on welfare to the poor and needy.

source

Every soppy, neo-con point you make about why welfare hurts the person and the country absolutely applies here as well. You want social Darwinism? Fine...let's start at the top and see how long that lasts. Let's see what happens the next time a hurricane rolls through and the insurance companies actually have to pay out on that gamble they made when they wrote that policy.

Want to cut out the welfare recipients that truly do not need the money? Fine..let's talk to your boy McCain who took in over $23,000 in Social Security welfare payments despite he and his wife making over $6.5 million last year and Cindy alone being worth over $100 million.

But no...let's focus on the obese, the uneducated, and *gasp!* HISPANIC!!. Puh-fucking-thetic. Not surprising but pretty fucking weak nonetheless.

Stockula is also ignoring the fact that eating healthy balanced diet of greens, fruits and vegetables in america is a shit ton more expensive than eating starchy corn-syrup foods that... make you fat.

Stockula regularly ignores anything that doesn't reinforce whatever was in that particular day's kool-ade.

So let's get some of that hitherto wasted energy back. I was listening to NPR today and heard about a guy who liposuctioned his own fat to convert into a fuel to power his boat.

Can you see where I am going with this? We'll be livin' off the fat o' the land, literally. And the no-hopers will finally have a way to give something back.

Anyone else having a hard time getting over the irony here.

America is fat because of capitalism and everything the Republican's love.

Africa is poor because we constantly rape their country. Just the way big business wants us to do.

...Stockula just made the same argument I made for pro-socialism.

we don't need offshore drilling.
We need more in-human drilling?

I actually like where this is going.

.

Say more things like this.

Ummm, last i checked you were a guy in a state without income tax, who used to sell drunken videos of himself on E Bay for beer money.

Your contribution to the welfare state wouldn't buy those nice ladies a bag of Cheetos, Mr. Warbucks.

did I miss something HILARIOUS?