The new hungry: College-educated, middle-class cope with food insecurit

[mfcorey1]

Lawrenceville, Georgia (CNN) -- Come Christmas dinner, Rolanda McCarty, a 36-year-old single mother, usually goes all out.

Her table last year featured a rosemary-and-oil rubbed turkey and a sweet ham. She prepared fresh collard greens according to her grandmother's recipe. The dessert -- a rich butter pound cake -- was made from scratch.

But after being laid off from her technical recruiting job in January because of the struggling economy, there will be no fancy holiday feast, no family members pouring into her downsized one-bedroom apartment. She will rely on what she has: canned vegetables and microwavable meals from her community food bank.

"It was a little bit embarrassing," said McCarty of accessing the food pantry at the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry for the first time last month. "But you know, I have to do what I have to do to survive."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/12/13/food.insecurity.holidays.middle.class/index.html?hpt=C1

[leveymg]

1. Welcome to the New Russia. The American Empire has collapsed.

This is only going to get more commonplace. "New normal," and our Beloved Leaders are doing next to nothing to help their subjects.

[Warpy]

3. The rich still haven't noticed the country has collapsed

out from under them. As their income decreases because business can't do business without customers, they'll clamor for more and more tax cuts to make up the difference. Even now, there's a push in the incoming GOP majority in the House to cut those taxes more.

We at the bottom still have something left to lose. When that's no longer the case, we'll start to organize. At that point, we'll be scary enough to effect change. Until then, forget it, it's just not our country.

[leveymg]

5. The problem is, the rich believe it's their country, and theirs alone.

They'll continue to make money scraping what's left off the bottom of the debt barrel here, and realize even bigger returns than before in overseas markets - you know, where all the jobs have gone.

The rich won't really notice how bad things are until either foreign market bubbles collapse, which they surely will, or the American nouveau poor start rioting, burning banks, and other assorted acts of "domestic terrorism". High-tech police state. It's gonna get ugly.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. Russia had it better...

The gov. owns the housing there, so when everything crashed, at least they couldn't take the roof from over your head.

[leveymg]

7. A lot of the most desirable housing got privatized, and many did lose their homes

as rents and payments went through the roof, literally, in post-Soviet Russia.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. Sounds like an awesome meal; I'm sorry that

she and her family won't get to enjoy it this year. Obama said that there could be no cost of living increase for those of us on Social Security because there had been no inflation. Anybody who believes that has not gone grocery shopping recently. The food banks where I live can't keep enough in their pantries to serve all the needs out there. And they cut two billion from food stamps.

[subterranean]

4. If you can't afford to feed your family, you're not middle class.

More and more formerly middle-class Americans are joining the ranks of the working poor or unemployed. This is the inevitable result of conservative policies to make the extremely rich even richer. More for them, less for everybody else.