Foodstamp Usage Climbs To New All Time Record Highs

Image via WikipediaJuly foodstamp has just climbed to a new all time high. According to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at the Food and Nutrion Service, July foodstamp usage rose 1.4% from June, hitting a new record of 41.8 million, and 17.5% higher than the 35.6 million on assistance from a year ago. Participation has set records for 20 straight months. And it gets worse: as per BusinessWeek: "An average of 43.3 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according to White House estimates." Somehow we get the feeling these almost 42 million people will have little to no use of discount window or excess liquidity usage once gas hits $10 a gallon, nor will Dow 11,000, 12,000, or even 36,000 do all that much to shorten the soup kitchen lines. more...

Lifelines for the poor are disappearing

Washington has spent tens of billions of dollars since the start of 2009 on programs to help feed the poor, house the homeless and support the unemployed. But much of this money has been used up or is about to expire in coming weeks and months.

A record 43.6 million people were in poverty in 2009, according to Census Bureau figures released Thursday. That's the most in 51 years of record keeping and equals 1 in 7 Americans. And the situation has likely become even worse this year, with the faltering economy and stubbornly high unemployment rate. More...

U.S. government may block websites during H1N1 Pandemic

Maggie Fox

(Reuters) - Securities exchanges have a sound network back-up if a severe pandemic keeps people home and clogging the Internet, but the Homeland Security Department has done little planning, Congressional investigators said on Monday.

The department does not even have a plan to start work on the issue, the General Accountability Office said.

But the Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth.

Experts have for years pointed to the potential problem of Internet access during a severe pandemic, which would be a unique kind of emergency. It would be global, affecting many areas at once, and would last for weeks or months, unlike a disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake.

H1N1 swine flu has been declared a pandemic but is considered a moderate one. Health experts say a worse one -- or a worsening of this one -- could result in 40 percent absentee rates at work and school at any given time and closed offices, transportation links and other gathering places.

Many companies and government offices hope to keep operations going as much as possible with teleworking using the Internet. Among the many problems posed by this idea, however, is the issue of bandwidth -- especially the "last mile" between a user's home and central cable systems.

"Such network congestion could prevent staff from broker-dealers and other securities market participants from teleworking during a pandemic," reads the GAO report, available here

"The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for ensuring that critical telecommunications infrastructure is protected."

BLOCKING WEBSITES

Private Internet providers might need government authorization to block popular websites, it said, or to reduce residential transmission speeds to make way for commerce.

The Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security, a group of private-sector firms and financial trade associations, has been working to ensure that trading could continue if big exchanges had to close because of the risk of disease transmission.

"Because the key securities exchanges and clearing organizations generally use proprietary networks that bypass the public Internet, their ability to execute and process trades should not be affected by any congestion," the GAO report reads.

However, not all had good plans for critical activities if many of their employees were ill, the report reads.

Homeland Security had done even less, it said.

"DHS has not developed a strategy to address potential Internet congestion," the report said.

It had also not even checked into whether the public or even other federal agencies would cooperate, GAO said.

"The report gives the impression that there is potentially a single solution to Internet congestion that DHS could achieve if it were to develop an appropriate strategy," DHS's Jerald Levine retorted in a letter to the GAO.

"An expectation of unlimited Internet access during a pandemic is not realistic," he added.

What Is FEMA Planning For Our Children?

I can understand government suggested guidelines to unite children with their parents in the event of an emergency or disaster, but why create an entire "Children's Working Group"? This bulletin was posted on FEMA's website, and smacks of a Nazi-like induction of our children into an Owellian structured, federally controlled clearinghousel.

The plan calls for FEMA to supervise "incorporation of children into national planning scenarios and exercises". Any guidance and support of our children during an emergency can be coordinated locally, without FEMA supervision and federal control.

FEMA Announces Creation Of Children's Working Group

Release Date: August 4, 2009
Release Number: HQ-09-094

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- While testifying before the Senate Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery today, the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate announced the creation of a "Children's Working Group."

The working group will allow FEMA and its partners to explore and implement planning and response strategies specific to children throughout the agency and ensure that during a disaster the unique needs of children are not only considered, but fully integrated into how FEMA administers this support to states and the public.

"It is time for special needs populations, whether children or any other segment of our communities who have traditionally been underserved, to be more fully and consistently integrated into preparedness and planning efforts at every level of government," Administer Fugate said. "Children are a part of every community. We must understand and address their needs from the outset, recognizing that they are not simply small adults. That means not putting the considerations specific to children in a separate box, but incorporating them into our planning on the front end."

The Children's Working Group will be composed of FEMA employees across multiple directorates and offices to ensure coordination and action, and will report directly to the Office of the Administrator. The working group will be chaired by Tracy Wareing, counselor to Secretary Napolitano for FEMA.

Areas of focus of the Children's Working Group will include:

* Child-specific guidance as to evacuation, sheltering, and relocation;
* Tracking and reunification of families;
* Coordinated case management supports;
* Enhanced preparedness for child care centers and schools as well as for children in child welfare and juvenile justice systems;
* Enhanced national planning, including incorporation of children into national planning scenarios and exercises;
* Incorporation of children's needs into grant guidance;
* Improved recovery coordination across the federal family and with state and local partners in support of children's education, health and housing;
* Consideration as to how the federal family can help ensure child care centers are able rebuild and restore services more quickly following a disaster, and;
* Increased public awareness efforts to educate families and protect children during disasters.

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=49221