The real State of the Union

[SHRED]

Source: Alternet

America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented amount of Americans living in dire straights and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty.

The government has come up with clever ways to downplay all of these numbers, but we have over 50 million people who need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50 percent of U.S. children will use food stamps to eat at some point in their childhoods.

Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day. In 2009, one out of five U.S. households didn't have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24 percent, as the hunger rate among U.S. citizens has now reached an all-time high.

We also currently have over 50 million U.S. citizens without health care. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60 percent of them, and over 75 percent of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health care insurance. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145667/the_economic_elite_have_engineered_an_extraordinary_coup%2C_threatening_the_very_existence_of_the_middle_class

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[Flying Dream Blues]

1. I fixed that unrec for ya...

:hi:

[provis99]

2. we ain't the richest country either, we're 24th.

Jane's Information gives the most comprehensive estimate of a country's average wealth per capita. As some people might recognize, the Vatican is 1st per capita. The US is 24th, one step below Canada at 23rd. And that figure was from March 2008, before the mortgage crash, so we are much lower than that, now, probably around 50th.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3617160.ece