U.S. can ‘certainly’ afford military support to both Israel and Ukraine, meanwhile…

U.S. can ‘certainly’ afford military support to both Israel and Ukraine, Janet Yellen says

“America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia,” Yellen said, adding that the U.S. economy is doing “extremely well.”

“Inflation has been high and it’s been a concern to households, it’s come down considerably. At the same time, we have about the strongest labor market we’ve seen in 50 years with 3.8% unemployment. And at the same time, America, the Biden administration, has passed legislation that is strengthening our economy in years to come for the medium term.”

Related:

Ticking Time-Bomb: Food Inflation Is Crushing Millions Of Low Income Americans (archived)

And so the debate circles round and round. The US, the “most wealthy nation on the planet”, has a food security problem and is on the verge of an inflationary calamity for millions of low income citizens, all while it spends hundreds of billions of dollars on pointless climate change programs, diversity and inclusion initiatives and proxy wars. Something has to give, and the chances are growing that it will be the American consumer.

Welfare Queens and Welfare Fraud

The Rise and Reign of the Welfare Queen

Researcher links government assistance program to much earlier origins of welfare stereotypes

How Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Changed America

But based on several studies of TANF and its beneficiaries, “it barely reaches even the poorest Americans, and has all but ceased doing the work of lifting people out of poverty,” according to the Atlantic. “‘Welfare reform’ didn’t fix welfare so much as destroy it, and if similar changes were applied to Medicaid and food stamps, they would likely do the same.”

Americans believe benefits fraud is common for SNAP

Experts say that deliberate SNAP fraud is uncommon because of the rigorous application process and multi-step eligibility review. In 2016, the Congressional Research Service determined that for every 10,000 households participating in SNAP, about 14 contained a recipient who was investigated and determined to have committed fraud.

The Truth About Food Stamps

Who Is Really Responsible for Welfare Fraud?

In other words, don’t take a single example or casual observation of welfare fraud and claim it represents the tens of millions of poor who receive welfare benefits.

While welfare fraud committed by the poor appears to be low, the federal government has long recognized businesses being the true criminals.

While these are some of the better known examples of large scale welfare fraud, they are not the only ones. The above cases alone represent over $25 Billion in welfare fraud recovery. The criminals having the greatest impact committing welfare fraud against the government are not the poor, but the privately owned businesses that take advantage of them.

Brett Favre Is The Welfare Queen Republicans Warned Us About

Updates:

Biggest Perpetrators of Welfare Fraud Are Private Companies, Not ‘Welfare Queens’

Ask Who Benefits: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

It is the Republican Party’s job to expand the US military, rob and oppress the working class, serve US plutocrats, facilitate ecocidal capitalism, and foment division among the electorate. It is the Democratic Party’s job to do these same things while blaming it on Republicans.

Ask Who Benefits: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Previously:

The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join

Unexpected: Studies Suggest That Rather Than Killing Jobs, AI Could Revive The Middle Class + More

We’ve certainly been talking a lot about the “AI Doomers” who insist that AI is all too likely to destroy humanity. However, even people who aren’t fully on board with the existential threat of AI do often say that, at the very least, it’s going to destroy jobs for most people, potentially creating huge problems. For years now, people have been arguing for universal basic income, in large part, because they think that automation and AI will take away everyone’s jobs. I mean, it was a core plank of Andrew Yang’s silly run for President.

Studies Suggest That Rather Than Killing Jobs, AI Could Revive The Middle Class

Related:

[2017] “Another kick in the teeth”: a top economist on how trade with China helped elect Trump

David Autor believes both these things to be true: one, that Donald Trump’s diagnosis of trade with China as the source of woe for countless American workers was both accurate and a crucial part of his appeal on his march to the White House. And two, that Trump’s plan to help those workers by cracking down on trade is likely to backfire.

How much did Trump-era tariffs on China cost Americans? New US findings confirm ‘self-inflicted harm’

Biden proposes $1 trillion in social spending cuts after announcing $375 million more for war in Ukraine

At a press conference Sunday following the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Joe Biden called on Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to meet face to face to revive talks on a bipartisan plan to slash social spending in return for raising the nation’s debt ceiling and averting a default.

Biden proposes $1 trillion in social spending cuts after announcing $375 million more for war in Ukraine

Monopolies Cause Inflation, While Fed Chairman Powell Blames Workers

As American monopolies fix prices higher and higher, the Federal Reserve bizarrely has concluded that employment is to blame for inflation. For months, Fed chairman Jerome Powell has increased interest rates in the hopes of throwing workers out in the street and thus supposedly reducing prices. While I’m sure that corporate, donor-bought congressmembers appreciate his struggles in the class war against the poor and middle class, it’s all a crock.

Monopolies Cause Inflation, While Fed Chairman Powell Blames Workers