Record numbers go hungry in the US

LizEstelle

Record numbers going hungry in the US, eh..?

Now just remind me again of which country it is that is the world's leading 'free enterprise' economy and has this inbuilt aversion to state provision..?

You know... the one which we are told to admire and emulate. Land of McCulture and Guns-u-Like. Can't quite remember.

Maybe it's worth giving this non-Churchill quote from the public sector workers thread, as kindly supplied by the darling 'white horse'....

“Capitalism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent vice is the unequal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill

Thought I'd just correct dear ol' Winnie there.

Seems he didn't have the best grasp of punctuation, either... according to some, that is...

Rochdale_Pioneers

America is a case in point about what happens when you have a minimal state safety net and expect the third sector to take up the rest of support needed. Its a great theory, and in a society where people feel genuine compassion towards others the funding to charities is generous and these can provide services instead of the state.

In reality most people don't give a toss about anyone else and don't give to charity on the scale needed. The third sector can't provide the support, and if the state doesn't either you get what we see in America.

Take a good look at it everyone. Thats what Cameron wants to bring in here.

lostinrates

Just worth pointing out these numbers are record in the US, not the world. I've never seen a comparison of US hunger with socialist regime hunger. Apparently, queueing for bread wasn't so sucessful.


I find the inferences drawn above....a bit dubiously erroneous, really. Makes it hard to take other better drawn analogies and critisms seriously.

ninky_2

lostinrates wrote: »

That junk food is so omparitively sheap, that ALL food is comapritively cheap, is probably part of that.

you can buy calorific content relatively cheaply these days. the crap with a long shelf life and very little to do with natural foods may pile on the pounds but it is possible to be obese AND malnurished. i'd suggest that many are. adequate nutrition is about way more than calorie content and sustaining or increasing body mass. i'd suggest that to have healthy nutritional input you need more than poverty wages.

this link suggests 6 percent of the UK population is malnourished. i suspect a similar thing (if not higher) in the states.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,279574,00.html

nearlynew

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

America is a case in point about what happens when you have a minimal state safety net............

............... and yet massive state spending.

Taxes and inflation is what is robbing the people.

Smaller government and minimal state intervention into areas which don't (or shoudn't) concern them is a good thing and coupled with sound money and lower taxes is the only solution.


Politicians need to once again realise that they are our servants, not our masters.

LizEstelle

lostinrates wrote: »

Just worth pointing out these numbers are record in the US, not the world. I've never seen a comparison of US hunger with socialist regime hunger. Apparently, queueing for bread wasn't so sucessful.


I find the inferences drawn above....a bit dubiously erroneous, really. Makes it hard to take other better drawn analogies and critisms seriously.

Don't you worry your head about it - I wasn't making a 'critism'.

I was asking whether we really want to go further down the great inequality route, as espoused by our transatlantic cousins, complete with multi-millionnaires being subsidised by the lack of a 'safety net' for ordinary folk, as mentioned above.

Sounds to me like the multi-millionnaires will probably be ok behind their security guards and gated neighbourhoods, while the devil is taking quite a lot of the 'hindmost'.

We want to be like that?

Really?

ruggedtoast

I didn't like the food in the US much. Vast quantities of low quality fare in my experience.

The meat is horrific as well - I tried not to think about all the hormones and antibiotics saturating the tough, genetically modified beef I was eating.

I think I actually lost weight over there.

They always give you a box at the end - my friend said the socially responsible thing to do if you dont want it is to go outside and leave it on top of a bin so a homeless person can eat it.

StevieJ

purch wrote: »

It always appeared to me to be a case that you either graduated from high school and went onto some form of further education, or you didn't, and then spent the rest of your life on the fringes of society.

I do worry sometimes that this is kind of country the U.K. will become too.

So John Major could have been working on the bins if he was Septic

baileysbattlebus

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I didn't like the food in the US much. Vast quantities of low quality fare in my experience.

The meat is horrific as well - I tried not to think about all the hormones and antibiotics saturating the tough, genetically modified beef I was eating.

I think I actually lost weight over there.

They always give you a box at the end - my friend said the socially responsible thing to do if you dont want it is to go outside and leave it on top of a bin so a homeless person can eat it.

I agree about the weightloss in the US - I lose weight every time I go.

When we go over there we are normally in a condo or a villa or staying with friends. We tend to use the supermarkets quite a lot - and eat out a bit. You can get organic meat there, aside from meat and fish, I find basic food stuffs in the US quite expensive - even down to fruit and veg. The cheap stuff is processed - like Hamburger Helper and Macaroni Cheese mixes - tastes as foul as it sounds. When we were there in September the couple a couple of apt's from us gave us the food they hadn't used - 2 different sorts of instant potato - macaroni cheese mix - soup tinned green beans - bread - jam - fizzy drinks etc. They were from Pittsburgh and if that is typical of a normal US diet it was shocking.

It seems as if you can get anything you like in a box or a packet. The supermarkets don't do a basics range.

You can eat cheaply there - but you're basically eating rubbish. The local Walmart had a McDonalds in it - it was always really busy. There was an old man in there every time we passed by - probably stayed there all day - free refills and cheap fool and cool - we were in Florida.

In June when were there we watched people rummaging through the bins behind the supermarket where my sister was staying. I was quite shocked - it went on all day.

If you live in a rural part of the US the food is generally quite expensive and you have little choice - so I would imagine food poverty is quite prevalent there. You might have a 7-11 or similar - with a supermarket being quite a distance away. A bit like here in rural parts I would think.

But the beer is cheap.

baileysbattlebus

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I don't think the food is any different to ours? Not the area I know anyway. I go to the supermarket and it's exactly the same as Tescos. I buy the exactly the same things and eat the same food.

The one difference I notice is the meat - good meat is very expensive.

Everyone is very thin though (in that area) so maybe there's something in your comments!

I think the meat is quite reasonable - but a lot of the cuts are unfamiliar - some are the same but quite a lot are cuts of meat I've never heard of.

I find the fish much cheaper than here -

Fruit and veg I find more expensive, decent bread is quite expensive - if you don't want sweet tasting white sliced bread.

What always surprises me is how much we spend on shopping when we're there. We spend quite a bit more than we do here - but don't eat a great deal differently - well except for cheese cake which OH is partial too.

We go to Florida and California - in California we stay with friends for part of the time - they are in their 50's and if iit doesn't come out of a box or packet she can't cook it. She was making pancakes for breakfast one day from a Betty Crocker mix - the next day I showed her how to make the same things from scratch - she was really impressed. If she does home made pizza - it's frozen dough and the toppings are all bought sliced and diced - easy peasy. So it wasn't a case of made by JoAnn rather assembled by JoAnn.

But she can barbecue a mean rack of ribs.

Showed her how make porridge instead using instant, how to make a cake that didn't come out of a box.

Although you can get everything you need to cook - if people are anything like our friends most of them won't - they will go for the quick and easy.

I imagine a lot of Americans are like this and actually don't know how to cook from scratch.

Though I did wonder what on earth you did with the chicken gizzards I saw in the supermarket.