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Homelessness, hunger and shame: poverty is rampant in the richest country in the world. Over 40 million people in the United States live below the poverty line, twice as many as it was fifty years ago. It can happen very quickly. Many people in the United States fall through the social safety net. In the structurally weak mining region of the

Appalachians, it has become almost normal for people to go shopping with food stamps. And those who lose their home often have no choice but to live in a car. There are so many homeless people in Los Angeles that relief organizations have started to build small wooden huts to provide them with a roof over their heads. The number of homeless children has also risen dramatically, reaching 1.5 million, three times more than during the Great Depression the 1930s. A documentary about the fate of the poor in the United States today.

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I saw similar stories of Appalachia almost 20 years ago!  The slums of India have many such stories too!

The super rich of America who got so be exporting jobs and leaving many without jobs or with depressed wages should focus on helping here rather than solving global problems!

What you are witnessing are a result of the inequities in wealth and income distribution in the USA!

Baseman

America was at its pinnacle when its middle class was strong and growing. Unfortunately, the activities of the past 30 - 40 years have focused its strongest attack on that middle class. While we still remain the strongest and richest country in the world, we are continuously becoming a society of the rich and poor. My guess is that if you look at everything you use, more than 90% of it will state 'made in China'. While that has been good for corporate America, it dropped a sledge hammer on the working class of this great country. I recently mentioned to one of our owners that while all the trade we do with China is making us rich, it is taking away our prosperity. I don't gave a shit for anything the PNC says but I will make an exception here. I heard Ptolemy Reid say sometime in the '70s that real power lies in manufacturing. That statement is still true today and we can see the devastation shipping our manufacturing to China has done to the American infrastructure. We can see how it has basically transformed a poor ass China into a powerhouse. While we still hold most of the wealth in the world and have the largest assembly of billionaires, those billionaires are just not capable of sustaining the burden of building that safety net necessary to provide for all those condemned to the bottom or for those of the very slim middle class that is getting slimmer.

I was really emotionally affected by the closing of the Sears store in our neighborhood as Sears footprint represented American landmark. Seeing it disappear is a terrible indication of our current retail position. I was telling someone at work the other day that with everything being done online, we don't have stores to go into with a baseball bat when we have a problem. Comcast Xfinity is one of those. The strongest internet signals are provided by Xfinity but trying to get something resolved on the phone is enough to make one go postal.

Enough of my early morning ranting. 

FM

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