Jaw-Dropping Corruption: America's 47 Million Hungry Mouths Are Just Another Corporate Cash Cow

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/story/156425/jaw-dropping_corruption%3A_america%27s_47_million_hungry_mouths_are_just_another_corporate_cash_cow

A unique, hard-hitting report just completed by a California attorney exposes a largely unknown federal food-stamp racket involving large grocery retailers, food manufacturing giants and other private players, including the Federal Reserve and JPMorganChase, which combine to channel food stamp spending into a gravy train for the heavy hitters in the food industry.

And the report’s author, Michele Simon, says administrative costs added by these privateers inflate the overall price tag of the Supplemental Nutrition Allowance Program (SNAP). And high program costs are prompting potentially deep legislative cuts to SNAP in the pending Farm Bill — when a record 46 million Americans use SNAP, of which 47% are children.

A major fear is that SNAP cuts could wrongly target the program’s central mission to feed the hungry, when cuts should target the private players who harness the program for their own gain.

“If we want to cut, let’s look at administrative cuts—not [necessarily] cutting the benefits themselves,” Simon told this writer. She’s disturbed that JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve are well positioned in this debacle. Yet, her 28-page report, for all that it reveals, just begins to explore this fathoms-deep issue, since critical data is being withheld by the USDA.

Over the last 7 months, Simon organized the report, “Food Stamps, Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting from Hungry Americans?” She wrote it because she felt there was more to the story after a 2010 debate over how SNAP dollars should be spent in New York City.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Kick

As an aside, California Farmer's Markets are now set up to accept EBT cards. It's one way to cut out the profit-takers preying on the poor, support the Buy Local movement and ensure the poor have nutritionally-valuable food.

As for the profit-takers, I hope there's a special place in hell for them.

[Maineman]

10. Special place in hell is good, but probably imaginary. We need real justice in the real world.

Farmer's markets and food coops would be good also.

[surrealAmerican]

15. I'm with you.

I don't care so much about a "special place in hell", I'd rather they have a "not-at-all-special place behind bars".

[atreides1]

33. Real Justice...Keep Dreaming

If it happens only the lower tier ghouls will be brought to "justice"...more likely then not the Feds are more interested in shutting down the access to medical marijuana...takes less time and they know where it is.

Something like this requires a major investigation...and if the DoJ took its sweet assed time to start looking into the voter suppression currently happening in several Republican states...you can bet an investigation like this will remain on the back burner!

[sulphurdunn]

17. Other useful animals

have been commodified for centuries and so have humans. When it's not profitable to feed off their misfortune they can be turned into soylent or just left to starve.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. K&R, and thanks xchrom...

for all the great posts.

[CrispyQ]

3. Is there an institution left in this country, that hasn't been corrupted by greed? -nt

[nichomachus]

8. No nt

[Larry Ogg]

20. Show me an institution that has yet to be corrupted by greed...

And I will show you a bunch of Koch brother funded right wing psycho teabagers jumping up and down screaming...


"AHHHHH... AHHHHH... COMMIE PINKO FASCIST N*&ER FAGOT LOVING SOCIALIST TERRORIST."

"GET YOUR GUNS... GET YOUR GUNS... WERE ALL GONNA DIE... AHHHHH... AHHHHH..."

[gtar100]

4. Sick, sick, sick. And do any of the idiots who support republicans see this?

No.

[turtlerescue1]

5. Another day, another tragedy.

The stack of what has not been corrupted is sure getting smaller.

[qb]

6. Capitalism has no conscience... just an unrestrained lust for wealth.

Regulations are necessary to prevent abuses like this.

[banned from Kos]

7. The underlying Alternet article provides no examples of corruption

Not a single one.

Does JPM administer a large Point-of-Sale program for electronic funds transfer? Sure. Who should? Visa? AmEx? It would have to be a big company with large retail experience.

What is the fee? One per cent?

There is no detail to this article.

[reformist2]

19. I think the real scandal is that there have been no reforms made to help people eat better.

I don't really care who administers the program, I 'm more concerned with how much money is going to Coca-Cola and Kraft etc. to buy soda and chips and other overpriced junk food. I would think it would be relatively easy to set up a computerized system that would restrict food-stamp purchases of this middle-of-the-supermarket junk to say 25%, or some reasonable amount.

[bhikkhu]

26. So - crack down on what people on food stamps can buy is the answer?

That doesn't seem to be a goal that one would expect from the OP title.

[byeya]

9. Corruption has brought down at least as many couuntries as war and the USA

is not immune.
Until and unless the administration enforces the law against these venal greedheads we have nowhere to go but down.

[Maineman]

13. I wonder what stops the administration and the DOJ from administering justice.

Perhaps inadequate budgets and personnel no doubt due to corruption of politicians. It appears that citizens need to help dig up the evidence then push hard for arrests and prosecutions.

[marmar]

11. Disgusted k/r

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. There is no program, no idea, no service so good that it can't be made into a corporate welfare

program. Thanks for pointing this one out.

[DemocracyInaction]

14. restaurant owners

In my state these restaurant owners who bitch about Dems and support our tea bag gov fought to make sure food stamps could be used in their establishment. Same bastards who were pushing for child labor. Fuck these bastards.

[mckara]

16. Max Keiser Has Been Talking About This For Years

[happerbolic]

24. Regulatory Capture at it's worst

[reformist2]

18. God forbid we limit how much can be spent on junk (read: corporate) food!

If a Dem were to propose this, I bet Republicans would suddenly defend the "freedom" of food-stamp recipients to choose their own food. :rolleyes

[WillyT]

21. K & R !!!

[mntleo2]

22. Chase LOVES to profit off the poor

Chase profits it in other ways as well: http://www.king5.com/news/local/Welfare-recipients-say-their-moneys-being-taken-by-Chase-133285458.html.

Disclosure: the woman saying "It's not right!" is me. I am an activist for low income people and low income myself. I was a low wage worker for over 35 years.

The stuff this attorney writes about is just the tip of the iceberg as far as people profiting off of poor people. Poverty is Big Biz to the upper classes ~ including large non-profits who bring in on the average of between $55-67,000 per client but only do about $2000 in direct services to those clients. Nobody ever asks where the other $65,000 goes but suffice it to say it is *never* any help to the poor, usually for the middle and upper classes.

Nowadays as well, not just these large nons, but for-profit businesses actually get government sponsored free labor as well in "welfare-to-work" moms who are forced to work for free to "work off" their welfare grants at less than $1.00 an hour. This is undermining paid work, much less unionized labor because who wants to hire a paid worker when they can get one for free AND lots of government grants for "being so nice" to "hire" these slave laborers? These large nons and businesses do not have to observe labor laws forcing these people to work 8 straight hours with no breaks or any safety measures, and these slave laborers have no hope of actually getting permanently hired.

Wish I were making this up but as the remnants of the middle class stands silent they do not understand, we activists tried to tell them 15 years ago during their wild applause for Welfare DEFormed, we TOLD them that the poor are the canaries in the mine. We tried to tell them the poor were being forced into low paying McJobs as if this was a "solution" to their poverty when it only exacerbated poverty and that The Middle Class would be next ...We were ridiculed then as "idealists", but this now desperate ex-middle class is not laughing anymore. They are realizing to their surprise that poverty is an institution it is not a choice. Horrified, they are crying out, "It not fair!"

I want to ask, why is it "not fair" for them when it was just fine for the poor? See, then the poor were "those other people" the poor were never "one of us" and making money off their backs was just fine, after all they "chose" poverty...

Well this is what the middle class will get for standing silent ...it is what the falling middle class is discovering to their alarm when they hit poverty as to what they wildly applauded and what they now face. I feel sorry for them but it is not like they weren't told ...so while the middle class stands around with their hands in their pockets and now we are shocked, shocked I tell you, Chase and their profit making cohorts will be raking in the $$$$$$$$$$$.

See ya in the soup lines!

My 2 cents, Cat in Seattle

[1KansasDem]

28. Can you tell me

who some of these non-profits are who collect $55,000 - 67,000 per client and only return $2,000 in services per client?

[mntleo2]

32. Sure here is some data:

But (yawn) you might have to do some math. I am an amateur wonk and my numbers are good as I am always at meetings with this info. Never have those numbers challenged by the "suits" and legislators. It is relatively easy, I take the number of clients served and then divide that with the funding the non gets. VOILA! You can find the information about how much a non gets here: http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/91-0982116/hopelink.aspx . You may need to register, there is a "free" category. Then type in the search for what non you want to know about.

There are some scrappy welfare moms who did the math a few years ago in WI and their numbers caught nons in a major embarrassment of waste and fraud. The WI legislators charged them with fraud and large nons like Goodwill had to give almost $1,000,000 of their grant back due to these women's work ~ which is who I learned how to do this from: http://www.welfarewarriors.org/MWV_Archive%5Cs01%5Cs01--bwe--bus_tour.htm

However the dummass thing is these legislators continue to contract with these fruads and I will tell you few are actually doing the math because there is no pressure to account for the $millions in tax money that pour in without any oversight ~ especially "overlooked" is any non with "Christian" in their name or "faith based" who are the the worst of them all. The government hands them money, never audits them, and they get away with wasting $Million mostly employing their "Executive Director" (read here the quid pro quo for "donating" money that is tax deductible so actually doing nothing but protecting their millions so that the non will employ some rich donor's bored wife or other relative who makes 6 figures so she can buy herself that nice Mercedes) while they are, "saving their little bank accounts...errrr I mean, 'saving the little baybies' ". LOL!

Cat in Seattle

[jimmil]

23. Since the Republican leadership decided...

Since the Republican leadership decided that it is much easier to rob the government than to work to make money spending has soared as people got rich beyond their wildest dreams. Although it started almost as soon as a government was formed it really wasn't until Ronald Reagan was elected that the theft of our government and country really began. Fat government programs were looked at as being a cash cows needing to be milked dry. Buy a few politicians for ridiculously little money and sit back and wait for the tens of millions, even tens of billions, to come rolling in. People scream about wealthy corporations making huge profits. You need to start with the people in office that literally accept a pennies on the dollar (well, it is more like hundreds of dollars) to steer a program to the "right" company. Turning the government into a private industry is causing the world economy to crash. I know I am preaching to the choir but sometimes it just comes out. Now everyone back on your heads.

[Starry Messenger]

25. k&r

[RKP5637]

27. K&R !!! n/t

[bvar22]

29. Does anyone here remember this?

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be [font size=3]established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.[/font]
Among these are:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
Americas own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world”
---FDR, 1944

Note that FDR listed the above as Basic Human Rights
and NOT Commodities to be sold to the American People by For Profit Corporations.



There was a time, not so long ago,
when voting FOR The Democrats was voting FOR the above values.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their rhetoric, promises, or excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[DearHeart]

30. This makes me SICK!!

Sometimes I wonder if I've woken up in an alternate universe! It seems that over the past 2 years, the US has become a nation of anything goes...greed, corruption, stupidity, etc. These greedy bastards are coming out of the woodwork, like a bunch of cockroaches! Are people actually paying more attention or are they just blatantly doing what they want? I must be completely naive, but WTF happened???

[Oilwellian]

34. I'm glad to see you've finally "awakened"

However many of us have been awake for decades and the "anything goes" mentality began long ago when Republicans convinced their minions that deregulation was good for business. One need only look at this graph, to see when this country started heading for the cliff we're now precariously hanging over.

[DearHeart]

35. I've been awake, it just seems like everything has gotten

incredibly worse in the past couple of years. I've been lurking around here for years, but was always afraid of the DU flame wars, so I didn't join for a while and rarely post.

[AllyCat]

31. Damn these cons to hell. I'm so sick of hearing about this kind of crap.