Browsing PBH By Articles

Cut Corporate America’s Free Lunch, Not Food Stamps

Posted on December 2, 2013 in Articles

Business Lunch

The Article: Cut Corporate America’s Free Lunch, Not Food Stamps by Terrance Heath in The Contributor.

The Text: If Congress is serious about “fiscal responsibility,” they should cut corporate America’s “free lunch,” instead of voting for even more painful cuts to food stamps. It would bring in more revenue than any pseudo-savings from cutting food stamps.

Millions of Americans were pushed over the “hunger cliff” by $5 billion in automatic cuts to food stamps, when the increased funding approved by Congress in 2009 expired on November 1st. The increase was Congress’ response to rising numbers of Americans relying on food stamps as a result of the recession — from 26 million in 2007 to 47 million in 2012.

The increased meant to expire once the need subsided. The need hasn’t subsided. Thanks to an economic recovery in which 95 percent of the benefits have gone to the wealthiest one percent, the number of Americans who rely on food stamps has held at about 47 million.

How McDonald’s And Walmart Became Welfare Queens

Posted on December 1, 2013 in Articles

Walmart Welfare Queen

The Article: How McDonald’s and Walmart became Welfare Queens by Barry Ritholtz in Bloomberg.

The Text: It seems that welfare queens are back in the news these days. The old stereotype was an inner-city unwed mother — that’s dog-whistle-speak for black — having multiple babies to get ever bigger welfare checks (throw in a new Cadillac and the myth is complete). Regardless, welfare reform of the 1990s ended that narrative.

No, the new welfare queens are even bigger, richer and less deserving of taxpayer support. The two biggest welfare queens in America today are Wal-Mart and McDonald’s.

This issue has become more known as we learn just how far some companies have gone in putting their employees on public assistance. According to one study, American fast food workers receive more than $7 billion dollars in public assistance. As it turns out, McDonald’s has a “McResource” line that helps employees and their families enroll in various state and local assistance programs. It exploded into the public when a recording of the McResource line advocated that full-time employees sign up for food stamps and welfare.

Religious Liberty Is For People, Not Corporations

Posted on November 30, 2013 in Articles

hobby lobby

The Article: Religious liberty is for people, not corporations by Elizabeth B. Wydra in CNN.

The Text: Once again, Obamacare has made its way back before the Supreme Court.

The high court decided Tuesday to review two challenges by for-profit corporations and their religious owners over comprehensive contraception coverage required by the Affordable Care Act. And if the justices follow more than 200 years of constitutional law and history on what it means to enjoy the free exercise of religion in America, the court should yet again hand a victory to the act.
It had little choice but to agree to hear the cases this term.

Using unprecedented legal reasoning, three federal circuit courts of appeals have ruled that secular, for-profit business corporations and/or the individuals who own them have a valid claim that the mandate to provide no-cost, FDA-approved contraception in their employer-sponsored health plan violates their asserted right to the free exercise of religion.

Black Friday Epitomizes American Culture

Posted on November 29, 2013 in Articles

Black Friday

The Article: Black Friday epitomizes American Culture by Michael Williams in The North Wind.

The Text: Black Friday has become more reflective of American cultural values than Thanksgiving.

The irony of Black Friday is clear, perhaps cliché. If we are celebrating gratitude and contentment on Thanksgiving, then is overconsumption the day following appropriate? Is the concept of Thanksgiving thus disingenuous? What stinks of gratitude and contentment less than incessant dissatisfaction manifesting itself as consumption?

Black Friday weekend of 2012 grossed $60 billion in sales in the United States. That’s 10 times the amount of money spent in the 2012 presidential campaign, which, by the way, was the costliest presidential run in U.S. history. Yes, more money is spent for nondurable goods in this country than for the institution of democracy.

Inventing Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2013 in Articles

Inventing Thanksgiving

The Article: Inventing Thanksgiving by Brian Awehali in AlterNet.

The Text: Every year, as Thanksgiving approaches, I am filled with profound ambivalence. Even as a child, the standard Thanksgiving story always seemed too simple, too wholesome, and too peaceful to be true or truly American. Finally, past the faux-historicism of school textbook-styled Pilgrims and Indians, I was able to delve into the actual construction of the story of Thanksgiving. And, in this way, I learned just how fabricated and utterly bizarre this American “holiday” really is.

In 1621, at Plymouth Plantation on Massachusetts Bay, 50 Pilgrim settlers joined with at least 90 Native guests in a three-day feast which is now traditionally cited as the “First Thanksgiving.”

In reality, this seasonal, quasi-secular New England harvest celebration was not repeated in Plymouth and was in fact forgotten until a reference to it was discovered almost 200 years later, in a contemporary book known as “Mourt’s Relation.”