The Past Week: August 2-8, 2009 (Detroit’s Middle Class Faces Hunger; Accelerating Bank Failures; Eustace Mullins/FOEM’s Site)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

I’ve been bogged down all week. And yesterday I spent 3 hours online for a seminar involving financial cycles.  Plus, I’ve been working a on meandering piece that will go up next week and have a few more things I’m working on.

But, here are a couple of tidbits that I ran across this week:

First, the middle class is starting to feel the pangs of hunge. CNN coughed up the story:

Hunger hits Detroit’s middle class

snip

In this recession-racked town, the lack of food is a serious problem. It’s a theme that comes up again and again in conversations in Detroit. There isn’t a single major chain supermarket in the city, forcing residents to buy food from corner stores. Often less healthy and more expensive food.

As the area’s economy worsens –unemployment was over 16% in July — food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged.

I know there’s been talk about reclaiming blighted urban lands in places like Flint, MI and turning it back to a natural state and for food production. Apparently, the good citizens of Detroit aren’t waiting around for that as urban gardens are springing up on abandoned property.

Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased.

But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients.

more

What will they do in the winter when the gardens die?

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Wonder how the banks are really doing?  Here’s a view of reality from Jeff Nielson’s Instablog:

Accelerating U.S. bank-failures refute “recovery” hype

With 69 failed banks already this year, bank failures are already on course to exceed the number of failures in 2008 by 400%. However, if they continue accelerating, that increase could easily rise to 500% or 600%.

Meanwhile, despite raising the size of its bribes to take over these failed companies, the FDIC is seeing less bidders step up to bid on these companies. It’s “insurance fund” will be nearly completely exhausted when the pending failure of Texas-based Guaranty Bank takes place – forcing it to tap into a $200 billion “line of credit” from the insolvent U.S. Treasury. Does this sound like an economy which is “recovering”?

He continues with a good overview of housing, consumer credit, business credit, and the bailout as a whole.  It won’t make you happy…

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I’ve added a new link to the Financial blog roll–a wealth of information here!!

DollarDaze

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Finally, a while back American Lassie wrote a post on Eustace Mullins titled Eustace Mullins’ “Secrets of the Federal Reserve”: Read About what Ezra Pound Called “The Great Betrayal”. We had a comment this week that led us back to FOEM’S Site (Friends of Eustace Mullins Society). There are recent pictures of the man himself; he’s alive and kicking!

THE PAST WEEK

Forget the Mainstream Media “Business Analysts”: Economics Prof Explains Obamanomics and Conducts Experiment That Proves His Point

The Past Week: July 26-August 1, 2009 (Inflation vs. Deflation; CNBC Ratings Plunging; Wind Turbines; Perpetuum Jazzile and Simulated Rain)