Gratitude

Megan McArdle is a very fortunate woman. Her parents paid for a world-class education. Her relentless networking landed her two classy jobs. She and her spouse make around $300,00 per year. She has a new house and a kitchen full of pricey gadgets. Her husband can afford as many video games as he wants. She surely must be filled with gratitude for all the gifts that have been showered on her by life.





Or not.

After all, it's not like we've seen any verifiable increase in poverty in the last few years.

15 Shocking Poverty Statistics.

#1 Approximately 45 million Americans were living in poverty in 2009.

#2 According to the Associated Press, experts believe that 2009 saw the largest single year increase in the U.S. poverty rate since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.

#3 The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

#4 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, on a year-over-year basis, household participation in the food stamp program has increased 20.28%.

#5 The number of Americans on food stamps surpassed 41 million for the first time ever in June.

#6 As of June, the number of Americans on food stamps had set a new all-time record for 19 consecutive months.

#7 One out of every six Americans is now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program.

#8 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid, the U.S. government health care program designed principally to help the poor.

#9 One out of every seven mortgages in the United States was either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

#10 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many as were receiving it in 2007.

#11 The number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen over 60 percent in just the past year.

#12 According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.

#13 Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12 month period ending June 30th.

#14 More than 25 percent of all Americans now have a credit score below 599.

#15 One out of every five children in the United States is now living in poverty.

That was from the Economic Collapse blog, via The Big Picture.

Megan McArdle will never be stepping over starving children in the street because the police will not let their presence inconvenience the people with money. Therefore poverty doesn't really exist, and McArdle can continue raking in the cash from the corporations that support her and her husband's lying and manipulations in their service.

It takes a very special type of person to casually dismiss children begging Santa for a coat so their mom can be warm in winter. It takes the type of person who shrugs at torture and death. Who worships affluence and power.

This is the type of person that controls our freedom and financial security. This is our "elite," whom we trust to govern us, control our economy, safeguard our rights.

Rich people hate you. Don't ever forget it. They can and will and have mentally stepped over the fallen bodies of our soldiers, our poor, our children on the way to lunch. They read about suffering and they instantly dismiss it. It means nothing to them.

You mean nothing to them.

Yet we still give them more, more of our labor, more money, more respect, more benefit of the doubt. They take it and then they sign another paper or pass another law that will make them richer and us poorer and less free.

What cannot last forever will not last forever.