Targeting Obesity Alongside Hunger

Obama Administration May Look to Tie Food Assistance to Improved Nutrition

By Jane Black

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 24

The worsening economic crunch is causing the tab for food assistance programs to balloon, and with the rising costs has come an intensifying debate over whether -- and how -- the U.S. government can tackle simultaneously the paradoxically linked problems of hunger and obesity.

The statistics spell out the dilemma. The number of Americans on food stamps topped 31.5 million in September, a record high. Obesity, too, is at epidemic levels: In 30 states, at least 25 percent of the population is dangerously overweight. Nationally, 31.9 percent of children are considered overweight or obese.

For decades, the government has treated hunger and obesity as unrelated phenomena. But at a news conference last week in Chicago, Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for agriculture secretary, said he would put "nutrition at the center of all food assistance programs," a signal that he will get involved next year when Congress moves to reauthorize nutrition programs that support school breakfasts and lunches as well as summer food for children.

"For a long time, we've looked at hunger and obesity separately," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the committee that will draft the legislation. "It's not a zero-sum game."

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Breaking the Consumption Addiction

Forced to pinch pennies, Americans are finding clever ways to cut back. A break in the consumption cycle may be a good thing in the long run.

Americans are smelling their leftovers, asking "is this still good?" and digging in for the first time in 40 years. Some call it an economic crisis, others see potential for lasting change.

Now that the economic crisis has officially been dubbed a recession, and November employment stats have surpassed our most miserable expectations, let's take a moment to look on the bright side of this dismal situation. As history shows us, economic crises do have a way of producing positive outcomes, like great art, the New Deal and the charmingly depressive music and fashion of the 1990s grunge fad. But this current, entirely 21st century recession may promise to bring a different kind of change, ushering in a whole new era of postconsumerism.

Ever since the years just after World War II, when the United States was reinventing itself as the world's economic superpower, the American people have increasingly equated "citizenship" with "consumerism." The promotion of consumerism was part of a 1950s economic stimulus plan, in which the Eisenhower administration deliberately spun the nation into a vicious cycle of production and consumption with the end-goal of increasing employment and building a healthy economy.

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Merry Christmas, We've been here before....

Happy Christmas - War is Over, if you want it.
John Lennon

Commentary by John Lennon

Imagine

Pipes of Peace
Paul McCartney

Where is the Money Going?!!!

How long before the Citizens of the United States, the people who will be paying for this mess for several generations, get enough of this nonsense?

Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret

WASHINGTON (AP) - It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

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The Real Cost of Bush

The Seven Deadly Deficits

What the Bush years really cost us, and how President Obama can get the economy back on track.

There are two hypotheses (besides simple incompetence) about why Republicans paid so little attention to the growing budget shortfall. The first is that they simply trusted in supply-side economics—believing that, somehow, the economy would grow so much better with lower taxes that deficits would be ephemeral. That notion has been shown for the fantasy that it is.

The second theory is that by letting the budget deficit balloon, Bush and his allies hoped to force a reduction in the size of government. Indeed, the fiscal situation has grown so scary that many responsible Democrats are now playing into the hands of these "starve the beast" Republicans and calling for drastic cuts in expenditures. But with Democrats worrying about appearing soft on security—and therefore treating the military budget as sacrosanct—it is hard to cut spending without slashing the investments most important to solving the crisis.

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New Bailout Rewards Program

AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

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