Even worser, our political leaders are incapable of managing or preparing for crisis. What irritates me is that too many posture about the Cuban government which does have civil alert plans in place to protect both people and infrastructure prior to and during portending natural disasters. So does Japan. Cuba and Japan have much to teach us, but with the myopic leadership this country has at all levels of governance, that's not going to happen in your lifetime; our leaders are too busy posturing about "the greatest country in the world" instead of showing it, but that's another article.
At least Congress has provided some short-term safety net in the so-called "economic stimulus plan" [hardy ha-ha] to the recently unemployed, but not to the long-term unemployed and underemployed. And they continue to drag their feet in putting together a mortgage crisis plan for homeowners caught up in the predatory lending practices of shady investors as if the so-called "free market" had no role in this debacle. The government has paid the institutions that caused the failure, but leave homeowners up a creek without a paddle. Thanks Bill Clinton! And yes, your administration WAS neoliberal and made this farce possible with your so-called financial services modernization legislation. The more things change, the worse they get in your case. So keep your pants on. This is why progressives do not respect you. You can run to your penthouse residences, but you can't hide.
Finally, in the "Empty Plate Club," John Feffer, for Foreign Policy in Focus, writes: "What happened to the global food crisis? It was in the news and out again as quickly as a bad Hollywood movie. The media covered the alarming increase in food prices that have hit poor people so hard. Riots broke out in dozens of countries. Zimbabwe, Sudan, and North Korea are on the edge of severe hunger. Earlier this month, world leaders met in Rome to redirect global funds to meet the new problem." So Senator Barack, some of us can live without fossil fuel, but not very long without food. What recommendations are you going to make to the Senate to address this problem? What's the future of food in the United States? Can we pass a farm bill that actually supports local growers and small farms with a similar outlay of capital as has historically been provided to industrial farmers? Can local food producers get funding to build cold storage for harvesting on site and collaborative regional cold storage depots for wider distribution of local foods? Can you get real-world advisers instead of professional political hangers-on who come up with the same tired economic planning models designed for their friends and associates, which is no different from W's no-bid contracts? If so, then that's change that means something. Read more...
What would it cost to end world hunger? Recently, the Los Angeles Times editorial board posed this very question: "The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion. Three hundred billion dollars is a lot of money, and the U.S. government won't foot the bill alone. But it's less than half of 1% of the world's combined gross domestic products, not an unreasonable sum to invest in ending the misery and degradation of hunger. After all, Congress shelled out $21 billion last year for foreign aid and this week it approved $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2009. The U.S. spent $340 billion in 2006 alone on public and private research and development. Directing just one-tenth of that seed money to sustainable, high-yield agriculture in the developing world could trigger a second Green Revolution." [In the US, the emphasis should be on high yield intensive organic local agriculture with a specific focus on small farms and other production units rather than fossil fuel guzzling industrial farms.] Read more...
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