I Wish this Was an Open Thread. What’s a Pony, Anyway?

Okay, this is a good one:

Over at Freeper they are freeping-out because food is expensive. But… then, they figured it out!

It’s all Al Gore’s fault, ‘cuz of the ethanol, doncha know.

The story began with this news article:

Higher food bills squeezing working families

October 21, 2007

What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It’s starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven and Family Dollar.

Food pantries that serve the needy report severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking help.

While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade.

Merchants have adjusted their product mix and pricing. Sales data show a marked and more prolonged drop in spending in the days before shoppers get their paychecks, when they buy only the barest essentials before splurging around payday.

”It’s pretty pronounced,” said Kiley Rawlins of Family Dollar. ”It seems like to us, customers are running out of food products, paper towels sooner in the month.”

Strain may get worse in winter
Wal-Mart said the imbalance in spending before and after payday in July was the biggest it has ever seen, though the drop-off wasn’t as steep in August.

And 7-Eleven says its grocery sales have jumped 12 percent to 13 percent over the last year, compared with only slight increases for non-necessities like gloves and toys. Shoppers can’t afford to load up at the supermarket and are going to the most convenient places to buy emergency food items like milk and eggs.

”It even costs more to get the basics like soap and laundry detergent,” said Michelle Grassia, who lives with her husband and three teenage children in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Her husband’s check from his grocery store job used to last four days. ”Now, it lasts only two,” she said.

To make up the difference, Grassia buys one gallon of milk a week instead of three. She sometimes skips breakfast and lunch to make sure there’s enough food for her children. She cooks with a hot plate because gas is too expensive. And she depends on free vegetables and powdered milk from a local food pantry.

Industry analysts and some economists fear the strain will get worse as people are hit with higher home heating bills this winter and mortgage rates go up.

And here’s how the Freeps responded to that socialist news:

The media is creating a picture of a bleak economy that only electing Hillary and a majority of ‘Rats to congress will save it. Bastards.
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You wouldn’t think that from the proclaimed “Obesity Pandemic”. I suppose this might just quash that little dilemma…
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Keep using our food to make ethanol and act surprised when the cost of food goes up. Morons.
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If clinton gets elected with a dem majority in both houses she will implement wage and price controls. Why? Because she is a socialist. The majority of the sheeple in this country will think that it’s a great idea, and shortly thereafter, wonder why we have shortages of this and that.
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Well the Iraq war theme has died, time to moveon, so the media now has to create — It’s Bush’s recession. The media is just a series of tragedies up until the 2008 election, then miraculously, if a Democrat is elected President, all the flowers will bloom, soup lines will disappear and our troubles will melt away.

But elect an evil Republican ….. or even worst, A CONSERVATIVE, and doom will be upon you.

That is, if the media is still in business by 2009.
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The food shortage might get so bad that these people have to give up their cell phones, long distance service, internet service, or *gasp* their cable!
Imagine the horror!
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Sure it’s capitalism, but it’s also simple economics. Becuase of the push for ethanol, the demand for corn is higher than ever. So the price of corn rises and so does the price of everything that uses corn somewhere in the production process, like milk, beef, etc. I’d rather we drill the heck out of Alaska and the gulf and get our fuel that way than use the corn for ethanol. Then, maybe, milk wouldn’t cost $4.50 a gallon.
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Well, I was in line at the local Food Lion the other day. The lady in front of me had some nice rib eye steaks. She paid with and EBT card. Me? I paid cash and had some reduced flank steak in my basket.
Stop drinking sodas and eating fast food and the money will go farther.
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I have gotten used now, around this time every year to be bombarded with articles that

a) assert an increase of poor people.

b) Hunger increasing primarily among single (idle) mothers and children.

c)All sort of tricks and pressures to enhance our sense of guilt for having more than many poor prople.
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Yesterday, in Roseville Minnesota milk was about $4 a gallon. If you have a family of four and they drink only one glass a day that would be 4 days of milk.
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I was downtown once during a government cheese give away and never saw such a bunch of fat “poor” people. They were NOT juggling breakfast, lunch or dinner.
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This is what your going to get every time the government raises the minimum wage. I know someone that manages a grocery store. Now his grocery stores have to pay more than what they had to pay to the part time high school kids that worked there. Guess how this added expense gets passed on? Higher food prices. Same thing goes for fast food restaurants, the cost gets passed on to the consumer.

Government raises my property taxes on a rental property? Guess how this added expense gets passed on? Higher rent!

Then they wonder why there hourly wage that was already above the new minimum wage no longer make ends meet. But yet they keep voting for the RAT party that is doing this to them.
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Bingo! I don’t think all the three hundred pounders that I see at our local super market are giving up any meals.
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Always hated milk….never drank/drink it….now I know why…

Do you LOVE these peeps, or what?

If the Dems RULE in 2009 — it’s because of them.