Think it can’t happen to you?  The necessity of food will be the last thing you’ll spend your limited funds on as wage stagnation, the cost of energy, housing and other mandatory expenses drive middle class family budgets to the breaking point.

Emergency Food: More and More, It’s What’s for Dinner 

The good news is there's no reason anyone should ever starve to death in America.   The bad news is more and more working Americans, many earning what were once middle class incomes, are spending their time and scarce money to find their next meal. 

Think it can't happen to you?   The necessity of food will be the last thing you'll spend your limited funds on as wage stagnation, the cost of energy, housing and other mandatory expenses drive middle class family budgets to the breaking point.

Val Traore, the radiant and gregarious CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey (FBSJ), wanted to make one thing perfectly clear in our discussion of hunger in America today.   "We do not have starvation here in the United States.   In Mali," she says, referring to the West African country where about half the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, "if you live in poverty you risk starvation and death.   That doesn't happen here in America."   It's an important point worth dwelling on. 

So what is happening here?

"We're seeing a large number of families that have never needed food assistance before," reports Traore.   How many?   So far, for 2010 FBSJ has witnessed a 10% increase in their client base of approximately 100,000 people.   Here's the surprise:   a large portion of the people needing food assistance today are working, and especially among FBSJ's new clients, many are earning incomes nearly twice the poverty line of $22,055 per year for a family of four (up to 185% of poverty).

Who are the hungry and why can't they afford to feed themselves and their families?   Increasingly, the shocking answer is this:   If you are not financially independent, the odds are good that someday you could be waiting in line to feed yourself and your family. 

Food Lines: The Growing Reality Based Social Network

December 18, 2010 - Burlington County, NJ:   Especially since the airing of television shows like "The Sopranos" and   "Jersey Shore" most of the nation probably sees New Jersey as some cultural aberration.   Perhaps it is.   But, this is south Jersey and the landscape looks a lot like other semi-rural areas of the country. 

On the drive from Philadelphia through Burlington County, a main highway cuts through farmland that includes several agricultural supply and farm equipment dealers. There are also strip malls, fast food franchises and diners offering breakfast for $2.99 and prime rib dinner specials as low as $10.99.   If you were somehow transported here and I told you that you were in Ohio, you would have no reason not to believe me.

In Browns Mills, population 11,257, a tractor trailer painted as the "Hope Mobile" carrying about 28,000 pounds of food is being unloaded at the local United Methodist Church.   People are lined up outside, but most of the line has been moved inside on this frigid morning.   The church pastor has allowed the use of the facility's assembly room and adjacent corridor to bring members of some 600 pre-qualified, pre-registered families in from the cold.

Depression soup lines have nothing on this sucker.   The first in line sit along the hundred foot length of the assembly room where a beautifully lighted Christmas tree glows.   The line extends out the door and down one side of a hundred foot corridor and then loops back on itself down the opposite wall.   At the end of the line, another 30 feet or so, people will brave the weather for an hour or two until things get moving.   Over 20,000 pounds of food will be provided to the crowd here, the remaining 7,000 pounds will go to a second event later in the day in Camden, NJ.

The Browns Mills' Hope Mobile drop has been occurring monthly since August in an effort to relieve demand on overwhelmed local pantries.   Some 450,000 people live here in Burlington County where the median household income here is just under $77,000 per year.   The county is 77% white, 17% black and 6% Hispanic.

Many of the people here (according to national averages about 70%) are just plain poor.   Some are on Social Security Disability.   Others are senior citizens living on small fixed incomes.   Some of them care for grandchildren that their own children, for whatever reason, can not care for.   

A few are homeless, or the formerly homeless who have recently found a place live.   They are white, they are black and they are Hispanic.   All represented in good numbers.   They are a typical gathering of Americans in winter wear, with kids in tow and babies in strollers.   If I put them all in a local shopping mall - even the ones that told me they were homeless - you would have no reason to believe they weren't holiday shopping.

Deborah (all the names of those interviewed for this article have been changed) is twenty-something, smart, articulate, bi-lingual single mother of four.   After losing a well paying job eight months ago, she took a warehouse position at minimum wage, $7.25 an hour in New Jersey, and moved her family into a shelter. 

She's hoping her education and language skills will mean a quick promotion and higher wages.   Though she pays little in rent, she tells me that after her car expense, diapers and clothes, there's no much left for food.   A quick calculation reveals her car expenses alone will eat up nearly a third of her $14,790 annual income.

If you can't quite relate to a single mother of four, who recently lost a significant amount of income, then consider Joan.

Joan tells me over and over that hers is a good story that people need to hear.   Unfortunately, for her and her family she is right.

Before moving to Shamong, NJ, Joan, her husband and four children, lived a well above average middle class life in a suburban Toledo, OH.   They owned a single family home.   She ran a home day care to supplement her husband's $80,000 plus income.   He worked as a pipeline technician, a career he built over 26 years, lost 14 months ago and has not been able to reclaim.   Two years ago he found work in New Jersey through relatives and the family moved. 

Moving meant Joan's day care income was gone.   It also meant a cut in her husband's salary to $40,000, and an increase in rent from $875 monthly mortgage payment, which included principle, interest, taxes and insurance, to a trailer park rent of $1,125. 

Doing some quick math for Joan's situation reveals how the Great Recession has decimated middle class America:   after taxes $40,000 is about $30,000 take home in New Jersey.   Less $5,000 for carfare to get to work.   Less $13,500 for rent.   Utilities and phone, let's say $2,400; way too low, right?   That leaves $14,100 for food, insurance, diapers, laundry, clothes and every other vagary life throws at a family of six.   Since a decent family health care insurance is at least $9,000 per year, I'll bet they aren't making what's left of the COBRA payments.

Think you can feed yourself for $5 a day?   What would you buy?   What would you forego?   Fast food will eat up that whole amount in a single meal.   If Joan spends every cent of her family's $14,100 of "discretionary" money on food she would have a $6.53 per person per day food budget.

Joan wasn't embarrassed to talk about her situation with me.   For whatever reason, she wanted people to know her story.   But she was the exception.   There were many others seeking a week's worth of food who didn't want to be noticed.   They were still well shod.   One middle aged gentleman, escorting his wife, was twitching.   He didn't care to share his story.

Why You Will Choose to Be Hungry

Setting priorities when your budget gets squeezed is exactly why food is going to come last and why you're going to be left with little or nothing to feed your face and the hungry faces of those you love.

In a strange subversion of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, when things get tough in our modern world, you will put food last.    "There are a couple of reasons," explains Traore.   "First impulse is we don't want other folks to know we're struggling.   So, Americans have a tendency to decide to pay for the visible expenses first." 

If you think about it, it's pride, practicality and the unwillingness to give up hope too soon.    Mix it all together and before you know it, you're hungry. 

You may put off buying new clothes, or if interviewing for a job is a must, you won't. 

You've been out of work for a couple of months, but obviously now is no time to sell the house.    So you'll continue to make the payments as long as you can, especially in this market.

The car is leased or not yet paid off and you have to get to interviews and in today's environment public transportation to a job may not be an option.    Anyway, you don't want to start taking the bus or train when a better situation is probably just around the corner, and the neighbors will notice the Camry is gone.

In today's world, how can you live without a cell phone?    A haircut?   An internet connection?   A clean pressed suit?   A couple beers with the crew after a hard day on the job site?   Paper towels for the kitchen, heck toilet paper for the bathroom?   A small gift for the kid's birthday?   A coffee at break time?   Money for the school field trip?   License, registration and auto insurance?

So, you're going to pay the rent, you're going to keep the car, you're going to pay the cell phone bill.    Do you think you want the neighbors seeing the electric is off?   I don't think so.   And, as things don't improve for months and months, you're going to max out the credit cards and home equity line of credit. 

In retrospect, you're going to see that it was time to stop the hemorrhaging of money long ago, but you didn't do that.    You couldn't do that.   Where would you move?   How much would that save?   Are you underwater on the mortgage, ditto the car loan?  

Whether it's looking for a job equal to, or nearly equal to the one that's long gone, or running in the right circles to get that job, appearances are important.    The fear is if you're seen as a loser now there's no going back.   Sadly, employers appear to be embracing this thinking as evidence continues to show that older workers and long time unemployed workers are being discriminated against.

Nice Spread:   The Odds on You vs. Food

Sustained under or unemployment, yours or that of your life partner, or any other significant decrease in income is certainly the most obvious way to find your tight budget has you looking for your next meal.   But it is not the only way.

Case in point:   Paul, a postal worker, and his wife Amy, a part-time housecleaner and full-time mother of six. 

On paper, Paul doesn't look like he belongs on a breadline.    He has a solid employment history, 23 years with the United States Postal Service.   His wife not only raised their children, but supplemented the family income.   He has always had a government medical insurance plan for the entire family.   With $52,000 of earnings in 2010, you would think he would be at least lower-middle class.

Paul's family, formerly of Queens, NY, moved to south Jersey two years ago to get out from under an oppressive and ever escalating rent that ate up nearly half of their family income of $62,000 per year, $2,500 per month when they left, utilities not included.

There were other reasons to move as well.  Two of Paul's children have learning disabilities.   So it made sense to also look for a good school district that could meet their educational needs.   The move to a two-plus bedroom garden apartment in Mount Holly, NJ at a rent of $1,300 per month looked like a smart thing to do.

With a little luck, Paul could make a swap transfer to a post office in New Jersey without losing his seniority.    But the recession and luck was not with them.   Housecleaning work in New Jersey has not been plentiful for his wife.   The hoped for transfer has yet to materialize.   And, Paul is spending $400 a month for a 2 hour commute to Brooklyn, NY on a commuter bus, then the NYC subway and then a second bus to main post office. 

In New Jersey they also have a car expense.    Paul tells me he is not a regular food pantry client, but the children are getting older and eating more in their teen years.   At just over 130% of the poverty line, Paul's family is not poor enough to get food stamps.   They are well within the 185% of poverty qualifier for food assistance. 

What happened?    Did Paul and his wife have too many children?   They were all born by the year 2000.   If their income was as little as $40,000 per year 11 years ago, they were no where near living in poverty.   Just ten years later, with only a slight decrease in income and their efforts to decrease their housing expense, they are no longer getting by. 

Paul's was probably one of the few families here with decent healthcare insurance.    But ten years of higher living costs without enough increase in income has thrown them off balance and into a financial net loss.

Together, decreases in income and increases in living costs are the combined factors that will put more and more of us in the food lines.    In a way, Paul and his family are solidly in the middle class, a middle class newly defined as not quite able to afford the necessities of life.    

The imbalance is continuing even if, by academic measures, the recession is over.   The engine of this financial imbalance for the middle class is another imbalance: wealth and income inequity.   By all indications, the financial assault on working people will continue.

Oil is now hovering at $90 a barrel and the average national gasoline price is set to break $3.00 a gallon any moment.    Not only is this more money out of the pockets of Americans, most of whom must drive to work, it threatens another round of layoffs should demand for goods and services fall as a result.

In a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, global food prices are forecast to spike over the coming decade.    The report concludes that demand for food from developing countries will outstrip even an increased production supply.    

But inflation over the past ten years has been tame, right?  Wrong, whenever you hear a report of "core inflation," just remember that number does not include two categories that affect working people the most: food and energy.   Shelter costs, that spiked with the bank fashioned housing bubble, have also thrown many middle class families into financial turmoil.

The only good news on the horizon is in the area of housing where costs are predicted to fall.   But moving is expensive and foreclosures will soon return to historic high levels as soon as the banks sort out their questionable procedures for putting people out on the street.

So, what does it take to be middle class today?    That depends, and it's not necessarily an income number, though many analysts throw around income from $70,000 to $100,000.   Tell that to Joan.   You'll need to be able to sustain those dollars year after year without much in the way of cash flow interruption.

To be middle class, paying for all the vital and frivolous "necessities" of American adult life, you do need an income, usually from a job.

If it took education to get the training or degree needed for that job, subtract the cost of student loan repayment.    Then you need housing at a cost that fits that income, and transportation that provides a reliable way for you to do what you need to do to earn that income. 

As you would like to have more in your life, like a spouse and/or children your income needs may change, i.e. increase substantially.    But because life is generally unpredictable you also need to be able to afford at least some insurance, auto, home and medical, to smooth those costs. 

To be middle class, you will also need the one thing the current economic and socio-political situation refuses to oblige: stability. 

You need to know that at least most of the important things that you've build your life on will not disappear tomorrow.    For example, the job that expensive education bought will not be down-sized, right-sized, off-shored, out-sourced or become obsolete and eliminated altogether. 

Unfortunately, that modicum of stability no longer exists.    Too many things that put your stability at risk are out of your control.

It may not seem possible, but in today's global corporate market, your job could be history tomorrow. 

The probability that you will need to retrain for another job, no matter how old you are, is high and today education is very expensive and may mean becoming a debtor in a big way.

The odds energy costs will increase to unaffordable levels, for at least periods of time, is nearly a sure bet.   These spikes will increase what you pay for transportation, heating, electric and also affect a broad market basket of prices on everything from food to paper.

That housing shortages and increased rents may occur is still in the cards.    If housing costs do decease you will need money to move and reestablish your living situation.

That labor prices may continue to be depressed is nearly certain. Most American workers have already tightened their belts.    You only need to look a Paul's story to see the fine line between making it and otherwise.

That large corporations will enter more and more business categories where small business once thrived is a foregone conclusion.    Today, there are only a handful of small business opportunities that have not been taken over by corporate category killer big box and national chain operations.

Odds that some day you and your family will need food assistance because you haven't yet made the rent or paid the phone or gas bill and your next paycheck is nine days hence: better, much better, in my opinion, than ten to one.

The Hunger Game:   What You Will Do to Get Food

As stated earlier, unless for some odd reason you are unable to make contact with the outside world, you will not starve to death in America.    You will, however, play a game with certain rules and you will also spend time, money and effort to play the hunger game.

As with many lifelines in American society, help is available but you will need to jump through a few hoops to get it.    We just can't bring ourselves to make basic needs easy to get.   It's a puritanical punishment our society seems to need mete out to those in need.

Money is short.    The fridge has a bottle of ketchup and bread bag with a heel in it.   What do you do?   That night you'll scour the house for loose change and buy some macaroni and a jar of tomato sauce.   While you're eating you'll vow to do something about the situation. 

That night on the internet tubes, you will look into Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps.   SNAP is not only an acronym, it's also a contradiction; nothing about the program is quick or easy.

You will probably find you don't qualify as your income can be no more than 130% of the federal poverty threshold.    If you're single that's $14,079 pre year; for a childless couple $18,941.   Then, for each additional person or child in the family add $4,862.   Really!?!   It just doesn't add up, expenses for children can be much greater than those for adults, but that's the formula.

Let's say you think you may qualify, SNAP won't get food on the table tomorrow or the next week or even necessarily the next month.    Remember Joan, the woman who moved with her family from Toledo?   She applied for SNAP in September of this year.   To date, her application has neither been accepted nor rejected.

Eventually, depending on how dire your need is, you will find a food pantry.    If the one you find isn't open the next day, you may get referred to one that is.   Maybe you'll remember those little $1, $3 and $5 coupons you occasionally purchased at the supermarket that make a donation to a food bank.   In that case, you might call the food bank and they will somehow get you somewhere you can get your first supply of emergency food.

Congratulations!    You've just join the ranks of 37 million Americans served by Feeding America and all the related agencies that are part of their food assistance programs and the ranks of approximately 49.1 million people who are food insecure in the U.S. today.   Don't be embarrassed.   If you or you spouse or significant other has a job you are among 36% of those millions that do, the working class Americans that are not able to afford food.

That's just the beginning.   Now the major part of the game begins.   Pantries are not open every day and lately they've also been running out of food.   More importantly, you may not be able to get there when they are open.   So, like any good game, you'll need a strategy and a plan.

Still got a car?    Great!   You can drive to the food pantry and depending on their inventory you may get enough food for a day or two.   No, car?   It's public transportation or spring for a car service.   Call before you leave to check if food is available.   Also ask when they open and get there early to be sure you get your share.

Big events, like FBSJ's Hope Mobile are a godsend as you'll pick up 5 days of food in one stop.    But chances like this don't come every day, or every week, just once a month.   Deborah, Joan and Paul all drove 20 miles, about 30 minutes, each way to get to the Browns Mills Hope Mobile.   They were early birds and waited just three hours to receive about $50 worth of food.

So, to win the Hunger Game, you will gather information on where the pantries are and when they are open.    You will talk to a counselor at your child's school and enroll your children in whatever programs may be available.   You will get pre-qualified with the local food bank.   If you're an older citizen or physically disabled you may be able to get your food delivered, if possible, or a senior center or other nearby agency to relieve you of the need to stand in line. 

The Hunger Game comes with an excellent support feature.    You are not alone.   Organizations like the FBSJ and other Feeding America organizations are playing the game and they're on your side.   Besides procuring surplus food and donations to buy food for you, they are also working every day to figure out who is hungry, where they are and how to get food to them as easily as possible.

For example, demand for food and the need to get more food to more people spawned the Hope Mobile. 

Preston Beckley the Hope Mobile Program Manager at FBSJ is obviously proud of the good work and success of the Browns Mills event.    Not only have 600 pre-qualified families received food, another 28 families were qualified at this event.   That's well over 1,300 people getting food they need in one quick shot.

Next year, FBSJ's Beckley plans to expand the program from 9 sites to 16 sites.    "There's a real need and it's increasing.   With this program we are able to supplement pantries that can't keep up with the increased need.   We can also bring the truck to places that have no pantry."

That's the point of many of the FBSJ's programs:  find ways to get the food to the needy.   For seniors it's home delivery.   For school children it was a weekend supply of food for the child, but that soon turned into a program of school based pantries were parents could obtain a weekend supply of food for the entire family. FBSJ supplies food to over 200 agencies, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, special services, church and faith based organizations in their four New Jersey county service area.

Nobody wants to see an important donated resource, like food or food stamps, turned into a nefarious business enterprise.     But why do people have to prove they are in need, a reasonable requirement, but also spend excessive amounts of time and money to get help?

The Hunger Game shouldn't just be about getting food.    It's getting food, keeping a job, working toward a self-sustaining future, getting the necessary education and to the point where you can afford all the necessities of life on your own. 

Eliminating the Hunger Game

If hunger is the problem, food is the answer and the Food bank of South Jersey is just one of over 200 such non-profit organizations that serve all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, distributing more than 2.5 billion pounds of food and grocery products annually under the national organization Feeding America.

Traore's organization is the hub of an intricate, charitable food distribution system designed to provide sustenance to anyone hungry in four south Jersey counties when money for food is scarce. 

Hers is part of a shadow system to the gigantic profit driven arrangement that has made relatively inexpensive food easily available everywhere.    They do a great job at minimal administrative cost and deserve your support.

Shouldn't there be a better way?    After all, there are already large caches of food nearly everywhere in places called supermarkets, wholesale clubs and big box department stores?    I put that question to Traore and she agreed.

"I'm sure our services are not accessible to everyone who needs emergency food in our area and that's a function of logistics," confessed Traore.   So, what can be done?

"My wild idea is that certain food, what I call ground provisions," explains Traore, "should be free and available at all major food outlets."   She defines "ground food" as basic, no frills food stuffs.   A protein, maybe chicken, maybe just dark meat chicken, though I believe people deserve a whole chicken, a meal and soup after.   Flour or basic bread.   A green vegetable and a fruit, canned if not otherwise.   Milk.

Under Traore's proposal, everyone would have a ground food provision that could be electronically tracked.   You would "purchase" up to your provision limit monthly, or not use it at all.   That's it.   Have a food emergency?   Tap your ground food provision.   Need to supplement your food supply?   Tap your ground food provision.   Feel entitled to food Just because you are human, even if you're a millionaire?   Tap you ground food provision.   Nobody goes hunger.   Nobody is put out.   Nobody is wasting other valuable resources, like time and fuel, in the pursuit of a self-sustainable life here in America.

You know it's so crazy Traore's scheme just might work and be a boon to the economy.

Americans are ditching credit cards and according to a report in this morning's The New York Times holiday shopping with plastic is at a 27 year low. 

Last month, president and chief executive officer of MasterCard Ajay Banga said, "I have declared war on cash.   I believe MasterCard will grow by growing against cash." (Source: The Economic Times.)

Though we may thank Mr. Banga for his recent candor, the most recent battle in the war between the banks and people has been raging since at least September of 2009. 

Banks and credit card companies have made aircraft carriers full of money since creating plastic as a substitute for cash in the 1950's.   Plastic was sold as a "convenience" product/service at price that has always been hidden to the purchasers, but perhaps at a fair value. Prior the economic crash, credit card offers were just business, nothing personal.

Now, it's personal and it's war.   Since the too-big-to-fail financial corporations destroyed the economy, the public has also learned that broad categories of the same companies' consumer products are pernicious.   This has caused a degree of resentment among the American public (perhaps this is the understatement of the decade).

How's the war going?   You won't find reports from the front issued by Brian Williams.   After all, he works for General Electric a most profitable company in large part due to the financial products of GE Capital.   GE Capital also nearly brought its parent company to its knees with its exposure to toxic derivative "assets."

So, here's the body count you won't find anywhere else and it may surprise you:

In 2008 there were 176.8 million American "general use" credit cardholders (Amex, Visa, MasterCard, Discover). 

By the end of 2009, that same category of credit cardholders decreased 7.4% to 164.7 million.

Today, only about 156.7 million people are credit cardholders.

This last year 8 million Americans deserted credit cards.   They are no longer cardholders; that's right they don't have a one!   BTW, having 3.5 pieces of general use plastic is the average.

This is a stunning reversal for the financial services industry as cardholders grew by over 13% from 2000 through 2008.   (U.S. Census Bureau). 

The projections were that cardholder numbers would continue to increase by 8 million through 2009, not drop by 8 million.   (U.S. Census Bureau). 

By January 1, 2010 there were suppose to be 181 million American credit cardholders, now there are only about 156.7 million, a 15.3% decrease. 

Upon hearing this news the collective yelp of "Ouch!" from lower Manhattan was loud enough to be heard in Topeka, KS, but never crossed the transom of the mainstream media.

There's no doubt the public's abandonment of this high cost alternative to cash is causing a great deal of gnashing of teeth, sweaty palms and blazing calculators in the banking sector, not to mention on the desks of Wall Street finance analysts.

TransUnion, the source of the worrisome report put the best spin on it they could: most people are using some other form of credit, and the decrease is due to charge-offs in higher credit risk segments, and consumers are acting to maintain their good credit.   (Source: TransUnion.com)  

This may all be true as far as it goes, but...

Big Banga Trio: Banga, Bernanke & Geithner by Chaz Valenza

Your credit score goes down when you close an active credit card account. 

And, average total debt in 2009 (includes credit cards, mortgage, home equity, student loans and other debt) for U.S. households was $54,000, down a whopping $34,850 from 2008, a decrease of over 42% in one year. (Source: Federal Reserve's G.19 report, March 2010)   

And, credit card advertising campaigns are in full swing; mailings of offers continue unabated.

And, 29% of those recently polled said they do not have a credit card.   (Source: 2009 scientific poll conducted for CreditCards.com)

Personal Finance Expert for Credit.com Gerri Detweiler, an advocate for fair credit since 1987, offered a fourth reason: "We don't know how many, but some credit cardholders I've spoken with are angered by how they were treated before the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 was passed," referring to the drastic cuts in credit limits, over limit fees, late charges and drastic sudden interest rate increases.

Why don't we know how many Americans may be "financial insurgents" giving up plastic to deny money to the banking industry?   The data needed to do such an analysis is not public. The credit card and reporting companies have probably done the math of the backlash, but why tell Americans that voting with their feet is succeeding at the industry's expense? 

Adding to the growing public discontent is the continuing victory of the banks to be profitable while withholding credit.   Yes, banks paying back their TARP bailout loans with interest make big news.   But most Americans would rather have more robust employment.   The fact that the banks have constrained lending is acknowledged as a contributing factor to the continuing high unemployment and de facto recession on Main Street.

Does the public rightly see credit as no longer a banking service but as a political sledgehammer being applied to the underpaid workers of America?

Some Americans are acutely aware of this change.   With the widespread curtailment of business loans and lines of credit, micro business* owners have been forced to finance their enterprises with credit cards at an average interest rate of over 14%. 

Back to Mr. Banga, who so recently declared "war on cash."   According to the New York Times, "Who Needs Cash (or Borders)? by Vikas Bajaj and Andrew Martin, October 16, 2010, from 2000 to 2002, Mr. Banga ran CitiFinancial and it was, "his task to clean up the unit, which became part of Citigroup in an acquisition."

The Times story isn't clear about timeline but it's important.   Banga joined Citicorp in 1996.   Citicorp then merged with Travelers Group in 1998 to form the first financial power house in defiance of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.   With that merger came the acquisition of the CitiFinancial sub-prime loan business.

An FTC investigation resulted in a Citigroup settlement for $215 million for predatory lending practices during Mr. Banga's tenure at CitiFinancial.   Then Banga was put in charge of Citigroup's North American retail banking including mortgages, student loans and car loans.   He denies having anything to do with Citigroup's problems with sub-prime financial derivatives, which precipitated the corporation's demise in 2008/9, saved only by the government bailout.

Until Banga's arrival, MasterCard was, according to industry analysts, a staid company and a reliable cash cow owned by a consortium of American banks.    Banga's style is $90 tasting menus, $70 - $300 bottles of wine and an executive directive giving approval to all department requests not acted upon by MasterCard headquarters within two weeks.   Well, that sort of oversight should give all of upper management plausible deniability. 

How familiar does this sound?   What could possibly go wrong? 

Mr. Banga has said, "Cash is expensive. Cash is inefficient."   This is a pitch to governments, like our own, more than anyone else.   To people the cost of cash has already been expensed.   The fees and charges of electronic payments are additional. 

Statistically, cash is safer than any plastic, including debit cards, when identity theft is included.   You're more likely to get caught waiting behind someone paying with a check or having a plastic payment problem than some one paying with cash.   Plastic is convenient in that you don't have to carry cash but at a high price and that price is nearly impossible for users to determine.   One estimate calculated that credit card merchant fees cost an average family $600 a year in costs passed along in the price of the goods and services purchased.

When asked her assessment of the recent credit card reform, Gerri Detweiler said, "While it helped to stop abusive practices going forward, for some it didn't go far enough. It did nothing to help those with interest rates approaching 30%.

Under the new Banga leadership MasterCard's stock has more than doubled in value. 

Only 15% of purchases made worldwide are done with plastic or some other form of electronic payment system that Mr. Banga hopes to make ubiquitous.   His reasoning is simple: about 3.5% revenue on each transaction, plus fees, plus usury interest rates.   But the ads make it look so glamorous, easy and, oh, those rewards!

Why have so many Americans abandoned plastic?   We don't really know.   We also don't know how many people are using cash more often and plastic less, which is just as good a way to deny money to a financial system badly in need of real reform.

If people are starting to look more critically at their financial services purchases, the well heeled still too-big-to-fail corporations have the WMD option.   Don't choose to use our services?   We'll just make that illegal.

Hence the next financial battleground: national ID numbers to make it easier to have a mandatory cashless society.   From Current News India:

"Mumbai - October 18, 2010:  A day after the Indian government started a campaign to give identification numbers to all its 1.2 billion citizens, Ajay Banga, the newly minted chief executive of MasterCard, arrived in town, eager to lend a hand.

"The program will identify people based on fingerprints and retina scans, and could make it easier for the government to route food stamps and other payments to people below the poverty line.

"Mr. Banga says he believes he has a simple way to process the payments: via the MasterCard network."

Are you afraid now?

*"Micro business" is defined as a closely held business with sales revenues under $1 million, which typically would net owners well under $200,000 per year in taxable wages and/or profits, i.e. mom and pop enterprise.   Unfortunately, the term "small business" has been co-opted as a cover for much larger business interests and extremely wealthy individuals that have incorporated, so it is no longer specific enough to be descriptive.

And, therefore, the trick (“The Game”) is to leave the biggest bill for the next guy.  A painful lesson most of America learned from Big Greed when we all got stuck with the bill from Wall Street pyramid scheme called “securitization” or “derivatives” or “collateralized debt obligations” or any other word or phrase as a euphemism for fraud.

Keynes Distorted

Here’s the math:  Sales $ minus Cost = Profit or (Loss).  Run such a business in today’s world?  Good luck little man or woman.

I make you a sandwich at my store price:  $5.  Cost of bread, mustard, cold cuts, wrapper: $1.  Cost of store rent, insurance, taxes, utilities, et cetera per sandwich sold: $1.  Profit: $3.

Here’s where we bring in “The Players.”  Accountants, rating agencies, investment bankers, rocket scientists, statisticians, security traders and other notable geniuses in on “The Game.”  Note: Without complicity of “The Players” you are otherwise not allowed to entry the world of big business fraud, “The Game.”

Business Plan (“The Plan”):

Build 1,000 sandwich shops at $1 million each (prima facie absurd, but currently done every day).

Proposal:          $1 billion to build shops

                        $1 billion working capital to pay everyone and purchase insurance

Sell long term – forever outstanding or until bankruptcy – investments to raise $2 billion. 

Grow at 1,000 more stores per year. 

Fund store growth from cash flow “profits,” but never figure in paying back investors.

Let nobody use a calculator to consider paying off investment, as we will all be dead in the long run. 

Pay “The Players,” again everyone in on “The Plan,” exorbitant returns in the short run, while they are alive, so nobody blows the whistle. 

Pay workers (non-willing “Sub Players” with little choice) making and selling the sandwiches as little as possible. 

Out-source any work possible to countries with even lower wages (“Sub-sub Players?”)

Under cut competition and employ predatory pricing via national advertising, since you don’t really care if you make a profit in the short term, to eliminate small potatoes competition.

Shift any and all possible costs to others.  In “The Game” such costs are called externalities.  For example: pollution, health care, retirement, roads needed to reach your stores, gas to run the cars to get to your cheap prices, etcetera.

Run business at loss giving huge paydays and bonuses to “The Players” in “The Plan” until bankruptcy or death, otherwise known as the end of “The Game.”

Or, cook books to show paper profit and continue making pay-offs to keep “The Players” and “Sub Players” silent for as long as possible.

Repeat.

Diversify using same obfuscation in as many industries and sectors as possible: retail shopping, hardware, casual dining, etc.

Employ twists to “The Game.”

Find ways to have government purchase product or grant loans to purchase product from you.  For example: for profit education, housing, gambling, oil, farming, military industrial products, etcetera.

Find ways to have government mandate that your product must be purchased by everyone.  For example: auto insurance, home insurance, medical insurance, vaccinations, code required building products, mandatory inspections, etcetera.

Now, not all of the above is necessarily bad, building codes for example, but all of it has now been taken to an extreme with capital flowing only to “The Plans” that are playing “The Game” and are sure bets for “The Players” leaving the rest of us soon to be, if not already, “Sub Players” or “Sub-sub Players” or out in “The Cold.”

So, keep using your debit and credit cards, buying fast food, going to Big Box stores, banking at corporate banks, playing the stock market with your retirement, etcetera.  In the long run we are all dead.  What a wonderful world to leave to your children.

President Obama may be a great leader. I don't know if he is or isn't. But I do know this, up to this point he has not taken any viable leadership actions.

He has forgotten that the number one thing the President of the United States must do to be successful is to lead the nation, not to react, not to compromise and certainly not to follow the dictates of the opposition into oblivion.

He failed to lead on healthcare reform. He compromised even before the debate had begun. He framed the issue too broadly and then gave up more and more to the corporate sponsored enemy. The result is a revised healthcare system that now has over 50 million uninsured Americans, does little to nothing to control costs, and won't even make any of its biggest, and still unproven, changes for two to three years.

The President failed to lead on torture reform and prosecution, on prosecution of Wall Street banking and investment fraud, on bringing a swift end to two unjustified wars, on continued unemployment compensation for those out of work for over 99 weeks, and on energy policy, to name just a few important issues that define and set the tone for effective government.

His half measures on nearly every issue, though perhaps politically more digestible in the short term, have rendered him ineffective. Now he is left with a tepid left leaning electorate at best and unmotivated base that will sit out the upcoming midterms at worst. Count me in the company of the downright disgusted former supporters wrapping their fingers on the table questioning their President's motives.

Let's take a moment to grade the President on obvious aspects of leadership.

The President's Vision for America: F

What is Mr. Obama's vision for our country? If you know, please articulate it in comments for the edification of us all.

Some questions as examples of how the President might define a vision for our county that American citizens of many stripes could rally round:

How much of our power supply should be supplied by renewable energy, by when and how?

If our monetary and financial systems are not benefiting the people how should they be changed?

Are we to be a country with a strong, stabilizing middle class? If so, how are we going to reverse the current increase in poverty?

Are we going to be a country with full employment? If so, what needs to change and how are we going to make those changes?

Do we believe medical care should be accessible to all Americans? If so, the job of healthcare reform is far from done. What do you propose as the next steps toward the goal of universal health care?

Should we move toward isolation because globalization is adversely impacting American citizens, or should adjustments be made in our international trade policy, by when and what means?

The President's Articulation of His Vision for America: F

If President Obama has a vision for our country, he has done little to set it as an agenda to be achieved by a viable plan. His half measures reveal him as a political player working a system that is broken beyond repair, not as a leader hell-bent to make necessary changes for the survival of his county.

The President's Ability to Persuade the Public: F

To date the President has not been able to make the case that his ideas and decisions are correct. Of course, this stems from not having a solid vision as a foundation, but it goes further.

A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with healthcare reform, among them many of us on the left and most of us who consider ourselves Progressives. The situation is so bad healthcare reform is being treated as if it never happened. Maybe it didn't.

The reason the President is unable to make a case for his many of his actions and ideas is they are mere political compromises. He is unwilling to take a stand or draw a line in the sand for what he believe is right.

Also, his team has failed to provide cogent arguments for those policy changes he does endorse. Language seems to be a particular problem. Is it astimulus program (short-term and ill defined) or an investment in our future (long-term, with a specific demonstrable payoff). These are novice public relations mistakes.

The President's Message Consistency and Exposure: D

Each policy campaign the President has launched has been marked by a wait and see approach. He refused to develop, announce and stump for what he believed would be the best approach to healthcare reform. Instead he let others take the lead and he was left being a follower. In these cases, he gets an F for message management.

In other cases, he sets a broad objective but takes his case to the people in fits and starts. One day he's at an Ohio factory. The next day he's taking a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, and the day after that, and for days to come, we hear little or nothing from him.

(Aside and in relation to this discussion: I gots to give Sarah her props! Her message may be simple, but it's clear and she hammers away at it day after day after day. Sometimes she's incompetent even at this, but there's nobody who doesn't know what she claims are the big issues and what she would do if elected. A frightening thought!)

Again, this goes back to President Obama's halfhearted, half measures, half baked, half made arguments.

This country, and it's citizens, are in trouble Mr. President. This is not the time for a half governor or a half president to not be leading.

In theory The Great Recession is history, but for those of us who live and work on Real Street the carnage and horror continues. On Real Street, outside the gated communities where 1% of the people own 90% of everything, we are now at 99 weeks and counting.

The insurance we purchased over years of dutiful employment has run out. We will be living on the street soon, it's just a matter of time.

Police evict MA couple evicted despite protest. September 2008. by Boston Globe (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

If you're a small business on Real Street, a business run by a real person that employs less than 25 real workers, that relies on real people to purchase real goods and real services, the economy looks like a desert of foreclosure and unemployment. We search the horizon from our shop windows and trade vans thirsty for customers. They're out there, but they're penny less and some are bleeding a real sadness that will be diagnosed as depression.

And, what has our government done to get us back to work? Nothing. The Congress has done nothing. The White House has done nothing. The Chamber of Commerce has done nothing. The Democratic, Republican, Green, Liberal, Socialist, Tea parties have done nothing.

The economists and the stock market have been cheering for months that our troubles are behind us. They say there will be no second economic crash. But, out here on Real Street the Gross Domestic Product is nothing more than a mantra economists chant while they contemplate in their dirty navels.

Week after week, Paul Krugman of the New York Times argues economic semantics with the likes of the Wall Street Journal as the main stream media throws gasoline on the fighters to fire up the political polarization. Cut the crap. None of it matters. We're dying from a thousand cuts of being nickle and dimed.

President Obama says there is very little the government can do to create jobs. I wretch and my eyes bulge each time I hear our most promising leader in decades spew such a lie. The government makes the rules. The current rules aren't working or were never enforced. Take the bull by the horns you shameless flak for Wall Street and do something: Put the American people back to work now!

Small businesses are running on cash flow fumes. High unemployment, less and less discretionary income, fewer and fewer middle class families means less customers spending less and less and less. Add them up: a few million 1099 workers without benefits here, tens of millions of part-time and freelance workers there, millions more struggling to pay the rent, before you know it you're talking real unemployment and peonage.

We can't do anything to create jobs? Really!?

Bangalore call center. Outsourcing Jobs to India. by Picture from TIME Inc.

One: End the H1B Visa and All Tax Incentives for Offshore Jobbing

The H1B is nothing more than a license to put American workers on the unemployment line. There are plenty of people right here in America right now that can do anything a person from any other county can do.

The only Americans that benefit from the H1B, other than CorpPersons, are the lawyers toiling day after day to craft absurd job specifications allowing companies to not employ Americans and import cheaper workers. None of that was the intent of the H1B in theory, but on Real Street that is exactly how this nonsensical device is used.

Who doesn't believe Americans can do any job here? Where in the world are there better workers? That we are failures and have fallen behind is a myth. We are the hardest working people in the world, you know it, I know it, the corporations know it and the government knows it. American workers are a real value, until you have to pay them what they're worth and a living wage necessary to live in America.

Requiring Hindi language skills to work in America to better work with a foreigner who has taken your job is circular logic any software spreadsheet would not let you get away with.

President Obama promised to end the tax breaks that are sending jobs offshore. I suggest he do more. Tax offshore labor the way you tax all of us here. Why do they get to work in another country and ship their labor here tax free? I'd like to say I'm phoning it in from Bangalore and, therefore, I'm not subject federal and state payroll, sales and use taxes on my services.

Educated, skilled, professional, eager to work Americans are on the sidelines now, benched without hope of getting back in the game. They are losing their skills to foreigners because Big Greed corporations will not let them train on the job, which is how any new and now necessary skills are learned.

Shame on you Mr. President. Shame on every elected member of Congress for allowing the H1B and its flagrant abuse continue. End it!

And, one last word on this to all the conservative economists and anyone else who spouts the lie that globalization is unstoppable and always good: Don't dare call me a protectionist. Until the playing fields are level from country to country globalization is just a ruse to enrich the pockets of Wall Street and the monied elite.

Finally, just to make sure that every able bodied man and woman in America that wants to work has a job, Mr. President, you should temporarily rescind all international trade agreements until this crisis is over, the crisis on Real Street that is.

Two: Enforce a Home Foreclosure Moratorium

At the beginning of the Great Recession banks took over homes and put them on the market. Then, they began warehousing foreclosed homes with chip board and spray paint. Now, they're ignoring mortgage delinquencies so as not to draw attention to their insolvency. In doing so, Big Banking recast neighborhoods into blighted slums and made the unemployed and under-employed into the indefinitely non-employable homeless.

These actions are despicable anytime, but particularly in a time of crisis manufactured from the greed and fraud of the same banks that are now tossing American families into the street.

The Obama Administration's, voluntary for the mortgage industry, Making Homes Affordable program is a farce. It is doing little to nothing to end the inhumane practice of making American's homeless. You not allowed to do this to a dog, but the banks can do it to American families.

I am certain a sane, practical and fair moratorium on home foreclosure for those who have lost their ability to temporarily pay the rent, due to no fault of their own, can be crafted.

Foreclosures, at this point in a worldwide financial crisis, are destroying people, families and the property that the banks claim is so valuable. Leave a house empty, watch it fall.

Mr. President, members of Congress, how can you watch this happen on your watch! How? Americans without enough work are spending sleepless nights, convulsing in hopelessness. You should be doing the same until you end this atrocity.

With a foreclosure moratorium in effect, out of work Americans can at least continue to spend what money they have on life's other necessities and have a address from which to search for employment. It will help break the downward economic spiral of both the housing crash and cash crunch. It's an instant unemployment benefit in the form of temporary rent relief. If time is money, and it is, all this costs us is the time it will take. Time allowing unemployed Americans a place to sleep that would otherwise be empty and deteriorating. Cash that will immediately be spent and, therefore, create customers and demand that will spur employment growth in the private sector.

Windmills in Copenhagen. by Common Alternative Energy Sources.

Three: Renewable Energy Investment

Oil is the problem. Renewable energy, made in America, is the answer. Renewable energy is the Erie Canal, the locomotive, the railroad, the little engine and the fuel that could and can drive our economy out of this crisis.

Don't call it stimulus. That will just get the know-nothing economists fighting with each other. It's an investment and it must be made now.

Start with enough money to put a new roof and solar energy system on every home in American. Grant every homeowner up to $40,000 in the form of a no interest loan with a payment equal to the loan amount divided by 360 months. These loans should be attached to the home's deed and pass on to the next owner until the grant is paid in full.

Necessary roofing a huge, quick boost in construction employment. by This Old House - PBS.

Next, I want to see windmills. They are the most beautiful things in the world and I want to see them everywhere. I live at the Jersey Shore and I would love nothing more than to see windmills to the horizon and beyond as I peruse the Atlantic Ocean.

They say we may break-even on the Wall Street (extortion) bailout called the Troubled Asset Repurchase Program (TARP). Big deal. What was the estimated possible downside cost of the banks plunging 90% of us into turmoil? I'll remind you, $700 billion. That ought to be enough.

Let's INVEST $700 billion over ten years on renewable energy. Earmark all of it for American companies and American labor. You off shore anything, you're out. Better set up a separate company to do this and we will be looking at the books, records and up your ass to see if you're hiding a H1B.

Don't tell me we can't spend it all in America. We can. (See Number Two).

Break-even? Ha! America will be ready for anything. America will be so green the sky might fall. The return on investment will be in multiples of hundreds, just like the old Erie Canal which, by the way, was called Governor Clinton's Folly. It proved to be one of the best investments New York State ever made.

Oh, you politicians that don't want to do this. As we say here in New Jersey, I would hate for to see sometem' bad happen to such a nice guy such as yourself. If you know what I mean.

This shame movement of nearly all white reactionaries has also managed to swerve the Democratic Party to the right and leave it in the mucky putrid swamp of the middle where they will be easily gunned down. As Sarah says, “Reload.” That they will.

Will the Democrats ever learn? No. The right scares Big D politicians to death. It's a combination of absurd conventional wisdom that America has been, is still and forever will be a Christian nation along with the possibility of losing political funding should they turn their backs on Big Business.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Tea Party claims the mantle of the anti-establishment, anti-federal authority and pro-liberty trifecta sucking the disgruntled, non-unionized, unemployed and still struggling, under the perceived torturous 18 months of Obama, into believing Big Conservatism has their best interest at heart.

Does this stink or what? And, it gets worse.

Progressives have a Sophie's choice come November.

Drag yourself to the polls to vote for a milk-toast Democrat, or stay at home and watch the congress go bye-bye to the now extreme right party of no.

Vote for the Democrats and validate their ineffective leadership and half measures that have put the party in the dumper. 

Or...

Don't vote and watch as an overwhelming wealth and income disparity precipitates a downpour of families falling into peonage. Remember the eight years of damage done by W? Just wait.

Obviously, please, put this all in perspective and get out and vote.

But don't fail to also keep speaking truth to authority. Tell those you are voting for what you are voting for, but don't stop there.

We need to take actions against the Corporatocracy that has us in this pickle. Punish, punish, punish in the market place. Money is power. You may not have much money, but you've go some and how you spend it is a vote every day.

Here's your daily choice:

Keep spending your money at the businesses owned by Big Corporations, or spend your money locally.

Keep feeding the machine that is oppressing the progressive agenda, or starve it.

Keep using your credit and debit cards, keep driving miles to the Big Box stores, don't conserve gas and energy, invest your money in the stock market, bank with Big Banking, shop at stores and buy the goods and services of corporations that support right-wing candidates with now unlimited political contributions and you are feeding your enemy.

Is it inconvenient to change your how you vote with your pocketbook? Yes, sir and madam. But what if you don't?

Is it impossible to not buy from Big Greed. Yes. There are things they sell you need, but you can deprive them of more and more.

At the same time, we need to let them know we will continue to vote every day with our dollars. We have a choice. Use your market power. Remember: Ever dollar is a vote and suddenly you start to make choices that are in your favor.

The promotion of the New Normal concept can be seen the current socioeconomic situation and the matter-of-fact statements about coming social trends.

The New Normal Robber Barons by realityzone.blogspot.com

If you haven't heard these platitudes, meant to condition you to your "New Normal" life, you haven't been paying attention. Since you probably have, I beg you to take just a moment to reflect on them and their meaning:

"We are experiencing our second jobless recovery...

"Germany is succeeding now due to wage concessions made by their workers...

"There's a disconnect between economic recovery and job creation...

"The recovery from this recession will be very slow with many ups and downs...

"The new normal may include higher levels of unemployment than in the past...

"America needs to learn how to produce and export more...

"Corporations are cash rich but are afraid to hire as they are unsure about the rules of the game...

"Unemployment benefits stop workers from looking for a job...

"Workers may not see low unemployment and wage gains for ten to twenty years...

"We will not be able to replace the 8 million jobs we lost overnight. It's going to take some time.

"Employers are less likely to hire someone who is unemployed...

Do you find these messages irritating? You should. They're telling you to lower your expectations. You will be hearing more and more of them, until you relent, become numb and tune them out.

At that point you are finished. You have accepted the New Normal. Less hope for your future. Less opportunity for your children.

Lots of good work perfecting the scenery to come. by Town of College Park, MD

It started in the 1980's but it's picking up steam now. From 1947 to 1979, top earners' share of income was stable. But from 1979 to 2006 it doubled, from 7.3% to 13.6%. It doesn't sound like much but by 2004 the top 1% wealthiest households controlled more wealth that all the wealth in the hands of the bottom 90%.

Between 1962 and 2004, wealth held by the bottom 80% of Americans slipped from 19% to nearly 15%. In 2008, 30% of American households had a net worth of under $10,000, and 17% had a zero or negative net worth. During the same period studies showed upward class/financial mobility in America was nothing but a myth. You were more likely to get ahead in any of a number of more rigid societies including Germany and Denmark. (The State of Working America 2008/09 -Economic Policy Institute).

Clearly, the days of the magic wand, the days of what would you do if you had your druthers; follow your dreams and the money will come; get a good education, work hard and you'll be alright have ended for nine out of ten Americans.

Many of us are all ready there

Sixteen percent of Americans now say they are living in poverty. That realization is backed up by private studies that question the official definition of poverty. Just a decade earlier only 8% would admit to a pollster that they were poor.Nearly 40 million Americans still do not have health insurance.

Real unemployment is at 16 to 25%, depending on what source you believe and how you count the discouraged and under-employed.

Just to keep up with population growth, high school and college graduates entering the work force, we need to create 150,000 new jobs per month. So, even though we are now creating jobs instead of losing them, unemployment will continue to raise.

How bad, how disenfranchised, how weird will the New Normal America be?

In Greece, large numbers of those twenty to thirty years old remain unemployed and living at home. They are not lazy know nothings. Many have not one, but two or three advanced degrees, including multiple PhDs. With sharp minds, and no jobs, they live in a purgatory of higher education. No jobs to be had they repeatedly return to college for yet another degree.

Don't say it couldn't happen here

Ask anyone who works in Information Technology (IT) how many times they have retrained, learned a new computer language, raced to get up to speed for a different industry, and where all that effort has gotten them.

Many IT workers remain unemployed as jobs have been shipped offshore. Others grab at 1099 contractor work with no benefits. They become second class freelancers fixing the problems found in the re-imported products they formerly developed here.

The future New Normal is not so difficult to divine. I believe it will be the same as now, and both worse and different. Here how:

Politicians will need to show progress putting people back to work. So, unemployment will decease slowly over the next five years down to about 6%. I base this on the fact that it took an unprecedented four years to recovery the job loses of the 2001 recession.

But even this relatively low unemployment, compared to where we are now, will continue to depress wages for the bottom 90% and drive up income for the top 10%.

The income and wealth disparity we have today, nearly what it was in the 1920's, will grow larger as the top tier of income and wealth consolidate and protect their assets, while the middle class slides into marginal poverty.

Fortunately or unfortunately, you will not need to be a sustenance farmer if you don't choose to.

More likely our children will lower their sights and work in some of the most dangerous jobs in the world: retail sales clerk (think armed robbery) and construction (falling is the major hazard here), and one not so dangerous: police and security work.

Nothing wrong with any of the jobs that will be abundant. Honest work is just that, but the wages they pay will not reflect their worth only their lowly status. The median pay for these jobs now is between: $29,150 to $44,500. Expect these number to fall and fall fast as people accept any job as better than no job. (Money.CNN.com).

Don't be fooled when the top economic story is "a increase in real hourly wages." These statistics include all the money that's levitating to the top 10%. The average wages of the bottom 90% may well be falling.

The New Normal will put America back to work and that work will be doing lots of things that the top 10% of our new two caste society wants...

The Three P's: Pampering, Perfecting and Protecting

The upper 10% will want to be well cared for. Think a house full of servants at Second World prices, labor deeply discounted to the point where everything can be had 24/7 without a thought as to the cost for the top dogs.

Pampering: Lots of personal services. Put personal in front of each of these: assistants, shoppers, physicians, coiffures, chefs, nannies, teachers, coaches, therapists, trainers, gardeners nay master gardeners and a full staff, et cetera.

To the wealthy the world should be a reflection of themselves, therefore, they shall be surrounded with as much perfection as possible with, again, decreased wages making it feasible.

Perfecting: Lots of maintenance and sprucing up. Manicured boulevards and golf courses, utilities moved underground, picture perfect towns and villages; ultra chic hotels, restaurants, night clubs, cafes, resorts, county clubs, etc.

Safety and security will, of course be necessary.

Beijing's Olympic Forces Drive Segways - New Normal Security by www.treehugger.com Alex Pasternack, New York, NY

Protecting: Lots of men and women with guns. Put gated in front of each of these and then add guards: communities, properties, resorts. Private and mercenary police forces to put down any unrest. Intelligence gathering to head off any unrest. Laws to keep the "have nots" at bay. People to bust unions or prevent organizing.

I know what you're thinking, all this has already happened. Yes, now think more of it, much more, and bigger and stronger.

We Can Fight this Battle in the Marketplace Everyday

That sucking sound you hear is your money, your hard work being vacuumed up to those who are in power, the uber-wealthy, Big Greed.

They have convinced you that their corporate way is the better, cheaper, faster, and the only way to live. You have been lulled into semi-consciousness and made unaware of how they can and do suck every last penny out of you and your life.

Here's the short list: Equity investments (stocks, mutual funds, et cetera through fees, programmed trading, market manipulation, out right fraud); banking and credit cards (interest, fees, charges, expensive and worthless rewards, et cetera), imported goods (decimation of the American economy made possible by subsidize oil), corporate influence (tax structures, barriers to business entry/less competition, job exporting, job importing H1B visas, government subsidies, et cetera), category killer big box stores (predatory pricing eliminating smaller competition, impulse buying, unnecessary volume packaging, cost of driving vs. local purchase, et cetera).

Abundant 3 P's Jobs: Pampering, Perfecting, Protecting by Buena Vida Active Adult Community

Basically, all the supposed "convenience" and illusory "low prices" the Big Greed corporations dangle are just a ruse. You pay for it all, sooner or later, and the price will eventually be bigger and bigger loses in opportunity and wages.

Considering all this, the high-priced alternatives, the mom and pops, are cheap, fair and a real value.

The farmers' market prices, probably higher than warehouse clubs, are a steal. Using cash isn't so difficult when you think of the billions of dollars credit and debit cards generate for the banks that are hanging you out to dry. The local hardware store is not gauging you, it's convenient and life saving. Saving accounts paying next to nothing are better than a 9% return that turns into a 25% loss due to an unforeseen "market turn." Shunning a corporation's products and services because they are "dabbling" in election politics is easy.

Start voting with your feet and your money. Things won't be getting any better unless you do. We can do this.

Author's Bio: Chaz Valenza is writer and small business owner in New Jersey. He earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. His current feature film project is "Single Point Failure" an insider's account of how the Reagan Administration caused the greatest tragedy of the space age based on Richard C. Cook's book "Challenger Revealed." He is a former Director of Public Information for Planned Parenthood of NYC. His website is: www.WordsWillNever.com

Today the New York Times reported that small investors pulled the plug on Wall Street. (In Striking Move, Small Investors Flee Stock Market)

Individual investors sold an amazing $33 billion dollars in equity invested U.S. mutual funds in just the past seven months.

Credit Suisse said small investors are losing their appetite for risk. Nice spin.

Dorothy Pulls the Curtain on the Wizard by Warner Brothers Entertainment

But how can that be? Corporate profits are through the roof.

I said the market will have a serious fall once the Fed jerks the interest rates up.

Richard C. Cook,a writer for Global Research with 20 years of experience at U.S. Department of Treasury, took me to task for this statement. He reminded me that the Fed is committed to not raise interest rates for the foreseeable future. True enough.

So, the cheap money has and will continue to flow. The logic is infallible. If money costs little to nothing, why not invest it in equities of cash rich corporations with a fantastic up side when the economy recovers?

Is the small investor so dumb he and she doesn't get this?

No, it's not that individual investors are risk adverse. There's something else. What could it be?

The curtain that hid the Wall Street fraud has fallen with a $33 billion thud.

Those of us trying to save for college or retirement are afraid of theft. Past stealing, present stealing and future stealing.

Small investors have finally woken up and smelled the putrid coffee that's been simmering for decades. Long term investing fail to yield anything but loses. But we've been told over and over again that you cannot time the market.

What's been going on? Why does Wall Street have all the money? What do these people do that they deserve more than single digit revenues from the GDP? Who was looking out for us?

The answer came back. It was short and sweet. Nobody.

You're the mark in this con game and the fix was in big time. Not only did they take your investment money, they destroyed the economy, took your job, and whacked you once more with a taxpayer funded bail out.

Forget the fact that some of that money is being repaid with interest, your job, your life are in ruins. Let these crooks keep your hard earned money? We may be a little slow, but we're not crazy.

The Corporatoracy did nothing in the recent financial reform legislation to fix the problems: unchecked fees, computer trading, spread manipulation, corporate accounting transparency, exorbitant executive compensation, high speed trading, insider trading, et cetera. It's all the same thing, stealing and fraud.

Bernie Madoff's scam was peanuts in comparison, yet we have not seen one perp walk for the criminals responsible.

In November of 2009 I wrote Six Reasons to Screw Wall Street Now. I'll say it again. You've got no business in the stock market as an individual investor with out connections to the criminal network that runs the joint.

Author's Bio: Chaz Valenza is writer and small business owner in New Jersey. He earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. His current feature film project is "Single Point Failure" an insider's account of how the Reagan Administration caused the greatest tragedy of the space age based on Richard C. Cook's book "Challenger Revealed." He is a former Director of Public Information for Planned Parenthood of NYC. His website is: www.WordsWillNever.com

You are probably among them if you are reading this.

We are involved, we are thinking and we know that by ending certain corrupt practices, by enforcing the current law, by writing some new laws for a new world, and by common sense, we need not endure the current hardships much longer and we can set a path for a sustainable tomorrow.

We have no lack of good ideas, but we have an overwhelming lack of political will on the part of our representatives in government because we lack sufficient political power.

We can argue all night about which of our ideas is best, which won't work and why, but such a discussion is purely academic without political power. The train to the "new normal" is picking up speed, we are simply throwing eggs at the passengers, if that.

Political power has little to do with electing your man or woman. As we have seen, campaign promises and visions of hope soon slam into the iron wall of political reality.

Today, political power train is not driven by the electorate. The Big Money of Big Greed is in charge, the Corporatocracy is deeply entrenched.

There is nothing normal or new about the "new normal."

The "new normal" is Reaganomics on steroids. Trickle down is not normal, it's a fantasy.

The "new normal" is NAFTA in orbit. There's nothing fair about free trade so long as the other countries are not playing by the same rules.

The "new normal" is the Ponzi scheme as a legitimate business plan. A Ponzi scheme creates no economic value, it is stealing pure and simple. Derivative trading backed-up by too-big-to -fail is a Ponzi scheme.

The "new normal" is code for domination and oppression. You'll accept what's now normal. As they foreclose on your home after you lose your next job just remember, this is the new normal. You and you alone are responsible for your life. Oh, and don't forget, happiness comes from within.

The assumption, the myth you are being sold, is you have no options. You cannot fight back. But for your own sanity and dignity you must fight back.

The "new normal" is the massacre of American workers and the American middle class and the foreshadowing of poverty for the next generation. This is not an issue of race, religion or foreign threat. It is the imposition of a two tiered caste system: Upper Tier The Privileged Uber-wealthy. Lower Tier: Grateful Obedient Servants.

We the people are not dead yet, but we have been seriously injured and Big Greed smells our blood.

It has lead the politically powerful (by this I do not mean politicians, I mean those with the money to buy them) to an opportunity they have not had in American since the Robber Barons: The possibility of total oppression of 90% of the American population.

I am not proposing that this juncture was a result of some conspiracy. To the contrary, the previous strategy of keeping the status quo by maintaining a solid middle class was adhered to until the bitter end. So much so that devious means were used market bubbles to keep the stability of middle America.

But, now that the pool is full and we find ourselves treading water in the deep-end, it appears easier to push us under until we cry uncle or drown.

The situation is a lot like prices at the gas pump. Create a rationale for a market that runs gas up to $8.00 a gallon. Suddenly, $5.50 a gallon looks cheap. That we ever paid $2.49 is forgotten. (By the way, without the government subsides, and with taking into account the "externalities" of petroleum production, gas should cost $10 - $15 per gallon, but that's a discussion for another day.)

So you had a $75,000 job. Now, you have none. An IT worker in Bengaluru has your job. How does a $35,000 job look after a year or eighteen months of unemployment? Pretty damn good.

The new middle class housing standard has gone from a three bedroom colonial to a double wide trailer. But, you were almost living in your car. Be grateful.

The sky was the limit after you earned both a degree in engineering and an MBA. Education was the ticket to financial success. You had respect. Now, all those degrees buy is job as a bank teller. Your attitude of self-assured confidence has morphed into humility and subservience, at least in front of your new boss.

So what do we do now? The apparent avenues to change are not just blocked, the perimeter is quickly closing, the trip wires are going down, the gun towers raising.

You're not going to like this, but if we want any amount of political power we have to shun the ease and convenience of the American corporate world.

Perhaps you can only deprive them of $100 per year, and I can only deny them $200, but together thousands and millions of us can snatch billions of dollars that will otherwise be spent by the Fortune 500 to seal our demise.

Start by paying cash. Just image a billionaire bankster at every check-out taking 3.5% of every dollar you are spending. Using a rewards card? He's taking even more and giving you a little back. Credit card rewards are blood money shipping the next job offshore.

Use less energy any way you can. Slow down. Drive less. Install solar panels. Shut off lights. Lower the thermostat. Yes, it hurts, but your father was right.

Shop local. Boycott stores and the products and services of corporations that make political campaign contributions. Don't buy the tomatoes from Holland, they're shipped with the blood money of big oil. Ditto all kinds of imported goods and food. Go to the farmers' market. Stop eating fast food. Go to the local deli.

Get out of the stock market. Move to a community bank or credit union. Stay away from chain stores, big box stores, and restaurant franchises.

In short, find every dollar that you would otherwise give to the Corporatocracy and spend it locally. Keep as much profit as close to home as possible until they hear us, until they begin to respect the power we do have.

Those in the 20% highest income bracket, the rich and the obscenely wealthy, see a bright future: a simple two caste system of "haves" and "have nots." A return to the 1920's, a time to which we now have similar disparity in wealth.

To people on the right side of the wealth skew a financially segregated society, with money and power consolidated among a few, is comforting. Lose of their current high position seems impossible and the problem of finding "good help" is ameliorated. They have only one issue, maintaining the imbalance of power.

To this end they are deploying both tangible and intangible defenses: the gated and exclusive community; the security system and body guards; the Ivy League education; the clout of the lobbyist; the financial corruption of the election system; nepotism and connections; the punitive wages paid to the masses; monetary and regulatory barriers to business entry; a marketplace strangle hold against under-capitalized up-start competition, and nearly total authority to write the rules of the game.

The duplicitous "conservatives" would have American "have nots" believe that illegals took our jobs, unregulated globalization is the final beneficial manifest destiny of the free market, our current president is a fascist and a socialist at the same time, all people of the Islamic faiths are our enemies, all our enemies are foreigners, too much personal freedom is a bad thing, and totally free (unregulated) markets are our salvation.

It's easy to see the above statements as prima facie contradictory and/or convoluted. Not to mention that they are the facade for a catastrophic amount of fraud perpetrated against the American people.

It's much more difficult to determine the actual causes of our current descent. At the same time, uncertainty, dread and the failure of recent actions to correct the situation make it nearly impossible to remain calm, weigh our options and take positive actions.

Didn't we elect representation and leadership that promised change? Didn't we, in large numbers, give small donations that added up to a big campaign war chest to help those that promised change gain office? Didn't we plug up a failing financial apparatus? Didn't we make a huge investment to save industries in temporary trouble? Didn't we send our politicians the message that corporate tax dodges and tax advantages for exporting American jobs are horrendous? Didn't we, the taxpayers, ante up all we could and aren't we the ones who continue to hold the bag for deregulated market failure?

Yes, all that and more, and yet the "undeveloping" continues as Wall Street rallies. What in heaven's name is going on? I do want my country back, but to get it back I've got to know who really took it and how.

According to MBG Information Services, cited in Bob Herbert's The Horror Show (New York Times, August 10, 2010), "there are now 3.4 million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago." Thirty million Americans that want to work are out of work, while we need to create an additional 150,000 to 200,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth.

Obama says the government can do little to help create private-sector jobs. by anti-union.blogspot

Even though the Obama Administration's effort toward health care and financial reform both lacked teeth and a moveable jaw, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce intends to spend $75 million to fight democrats in the coming election. (Time Magazine, August 16, 2010)

Now, the President as dropped his pledge to renegotiate NAFTA and he has launched a $22 million dollar program to train 3,000 offshore information technology workers. (Information Week, August 3, 2010)

So, generally, this is how our government, and more to the point, our society works:

We elect representation based on what they say during the election campaign.

What candidates say is based on slicing and dicing various interest groups, religious and moral beliefs, and issue positions to obtain a winning number of people who will vote for them.

The money to pay for the research to identify, pars and create the messages to these voters, and the money to reach them with the correct messages, is donated by people, organizations and businesses that want policy and regulatory concessions in return. You and I with our small internet donations included.

Once the elected official is in office he or she answers to two groups: those who will provide campaign financing for reelection and those who vow to spend money against their reelection.

Hence, your vote and mine are worth little except on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Ditto your small donation.

Notice, I did not say this is how our democracy works, as what I am describing is not a working democracy, it is a Corporatocracy.

There is currently no difference between the balance of power and the population wealth disparity: 20% of the people hold 93% of the wealth/income, while 80% of the people have 7% of the wealth/income.

Your voice, your vote is only worth about 1/20 of someone in the top 20th percentile of American wealth. See:Wealth, Income, and Power by G. William Domhoff (September 2005, updated July 2010).

Depressing? Yes. That's why I'm calling the continuing economic slump, that started in December 2007, soon to be three years old, the Second Depression.

Hopeless? No.

Unfortunately, President Obama has stated his belief that there is little government can do to encourage private-sector job growth. To this I say, Mr. President, you lie! There is plenty it can do, it just doesn't want to do it because of how our Corporatocracy works.

A State of Florida Food Stamp call center was off-shored by JPMorgan Chase by consumerist.com

Here are some things you will not see the government do until the pressure is unbearable:

1. End offshore corporate and personal tax loopholes

2. Enforce existing laws against offshore tax shelters

3. End tax incentives for offshore job creation

4. Institute tax incentives for American job creation

5. Make a major investment in renewable energy infrastructure manufactured in the U.S.

6. Renegotiate trade agreements for parity in external costs - pollution control, working conditions, child labor exploitation, workers injury compensation, etc.

7. End the subsidy of fossil fuels by charging for external pollution costs

8. Enforce product safety laws on imported goods

9. Enforce U.S. food safety laws on imported food

10. Regulate Wall Street, re-institute Glass-Steagall

11. Meaningful health care reform

12. End oil industry subsidies

Much of the above is simply saying if you're subject to the law here, your products are subject to the same laws when they are imported.

If you benefit from being here in the U.S. you pay tax in the U.S.

If you are benefiting from abusing the planet or people that cost must be paid, that inequity must be addressed.

Parity, period.

Watch the jobs, watch the industries, watch the technology, come home.

Globalization must either be regulated so it's fair, or call me an isolationist.

We shouldn't be growing any bananas in New Jersey and, therefore, we shouldn't be importing fresh tomatoes via air cargo from Israel and the Netherlands.

Did anyone believe we could import dry wall from China, which weighs a ton, cheaper than we could make it in Stoney Point, New York? If you didn't hear, it was full of poison. Facts easily indicate when somebody is cheating.

If the political systems has not be responsive to our wishes, how do we turn up the heat to get some or all of the above done? The answer is in the market place. The system only understand one currency: money.

We must use the market and vote with our feet. How? Here are some ideas:

Eliminate or decrease your investments in corporate stock.

Cut down on purchases at corporate retailers and big box stores, use local independent retailers more.

Cut down on your use of fossil fuels.

Insist on speaking to customer service people in the U.S.

Boycott the products and services of companies that are exporting jobs.

Cut your use the expensive corporate alternative method of payment: credit and debit cards, use more cash.

Buy American made products even if they cost a more. (They're probably worth it.)

Bank with a local bank or, better, credit union.

Unionize your work place.

Boycott businesses that support right-wing candidates.

Let other people know you're doing these things and encourage them to do same.