As for being disinterested or of no particular party, I can agree and appreciate that. Other than to do everything I can to tear them down, show their contradictions and their hypocrisy, I have no emotional, vested interest in either traditional political party. They are just a target to throw their own
back at. The day they no longer exist any more IMO would be a good day for this country. I vote for neither nor do I support any 3rd party effort although I would encourage all to boycott all means of voting or at the least, if one most vote, to find a 3d party or independent option. The country is now where we are not in spite of but rather because of the narrow choices the American voter thinks he/she has to make in regards to the 2 party state. IMO, either party is just the 2 wings of the same bird of prey. Only the fool falls for the false condition of picking either Satan or Lucifer.
Now that said, let's consider the several issues you listed above. You seem to suggest that unemployment if not rising has made no improvement under Obama and this is factually not true. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment since Obama took office has dropped about 2% points. If you want to argue that the BLS is not reporting accurate numbers, you can refer too ShadowStats to argue that point. According to their seasonally adjusted SGS unemployment data, unemployment has continued to actually rise under Obama but fair warning here, to use this measure for Obama also means the measure holds true for Bush under his watch with a true unemployment picture was 15% and under Clinton not much better. This also opens up the can of worms that the Federal gov't has been lying to the American public and thus we have to now look at the many other economic lies told to us by both parties. Hell of a trick bag ain't it?
Food stamps and households using them are a growing issue but the problem is treating food stamps as a root cause rather than a symptom of an underlying issue. The real question is what caused the food stamp explosion in the fist place? As to the food stamp program itself, in Jan. of this year Romney was on Meet the Press in which he claimed a lot of so-called welfare spending goes toward administrative and overhead costs. I happen to agree on some level with this and it should be openly and transparently discussed.
Now when you have multiple layers of administration at the local, state and federal levels, sure, there is going to be an extracted cost to this process and it's either the taxpayer or the end user who foots the cost of this bill. The managerial state's not going too as this would blow a hole into this workfare scheme. Opps, did I just blow a hole in the false employment report (and a reason for welfare program growth and not program cuts) we've been getting from both republican and democrat administrations for years?
And you won't get it regardless when wins in just over a month either.
More important is the fact that welfare as we know it goes far beyond the so-called individual free loader who's demonized for milking the system. Those doing the demonizing often turn out to be the court jesters of the
real hidden welfare moochies who milk enormous sums of money from the US tax payer in the actual biggest wealth re-distribution of all. If you are going to complain about the welfare system as rightly should be, just make damn sure you've considered the entire picture and all those who benefit from it rather than falsely treating the end user as a human shield for the bigger benefactors.
As to the cost of energy, food prices and such, there are many market interventions by organized states that effect these prices and mostly to the benefits of those who produce and distribute these goods. Also the fact that these markets in many respects have been monopolized thanks to regulatory capture and embedded industry operatives in the gov't itself, see
here for just a handful of examples. But beyond all of that is the effects of Federal Reserve monetary policy itself. Regardless of all the spin, the Federal Reserve is a private created monopoly with a quasi-public control board created for public consumption but it's still at it's heart a privately held corporate entity and the
Federal Open Market Committee sets all United States monetary policy beyond the scope and reach of the President or even the Congress. The claim of the Fed having a private component to it's existence use to be the domain of Conspiracy theorist and tin foil hats but now it's all but universally admitted so the adage of Conspiracy theory becoming conspiracy fact holds true.
As to the inflation in pricing of goods and services, let's consider the
latest inflation report released by the BLS on Sept. 14th for the most current month of Aug/2012.
So a major push factor of inflation is oil and in regards to food, it's oil dependent either in fertilizers which are petro based, pesticides or herbicides again petro based and finally the nail in the coffin is most people eat food that's transported over 1000's of miles while the local farms are long gone, many of them now sitting idle with empty houses from real estate bubble that's now been foreclosed on.
If you want to call foul on the current administration of hiding the true inflation rate, we can again do that referring to
ShadowStats but you open the door to the charge of previous administrations having lied to the American people. And yes they did. Odder still is that ShadowStats shows the current rate of inflation under Obama is better than most of Bush's 2 terms so wanna go down that road? The brutal truth is that the only way the US can pay off it's debt is for inflation to really kick us in the teeth. At the same time, inflation also solves the budget deficit problem as wages begin to reflect inflation's effects and taxpayers start moving up in tax brackets otherwise known as the Statist's greatest savior known as
bracket creep. It's why both parties love the greatest hidden tax increase of them all. Inflation.
But the problem is the good ole' citizens of the US of A who proved to be the monkey wrench in the whole scheme. You see the American public didn't play along re-inflating the false economic bubble because instead they de-scaled by
paying down debt and worse even faster than planned. Now the real tragedy for Team Obama, as that piece is nearly 2 years old, the article boasts things would get good again when Americans would save enough and then start spending again. To American's credit, that trend of saving and retiring debt continues and this is the unseen or unspoken reason as to why the economy has stabilized but yet has not re-inflated the bubble the
banker state desperately wants. Now the GOP hope is their latest sock puppet cheerleader can trick you into the Malls of America and under the fakery of monetary debt trickery make you think they fixed the economy only to realize or your kids will that the whole thing was false from the get go.
Obama doesn't get the credit or the blame, the average folk of America get it because they've started to wise up but can they continue to be smart of will they fall prey again to the slick talking propagandist who'll tell them to be good Americans and go shopping?
Maybe instead of blaming the sock puppet Obama who doesn't have enough power to order himself out of a paper sack unless he's given permission, you should take a hard look at the lying rascals you've been listening too in the hopes you select their sock puppet who will have equal power when is come to paper sacks.
And this proves once again why the OWS and Tea Party have it correct.