Government Handouts Top Tax Revenue

This is why we’re doomed. Via Fox Business:

U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.

Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.

Also, an estimated 59% of the 308.7 million Americans in this country get at least one federal benefit, according to the Census Bureau, based on 2009 data. An estimated 46.5 million get Social Security; 42.6 million get Medicare; 42.4 million get Medicaid; 36.1 million get food stamps; 12.4 million get housing subsidies; and 3.2 million get Veterans’ benefits.

And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments–for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes–have fallen by $312 billion.

Obviously this is completely unsustainable, even in the short term. But if you cut entitlements what will the lefty protests look like? This?

 

U.S Corn Reserves Hit 15-Year Low

You do have at least a few months of food around I hope. Prices are going to skyrocket so start getting sales while you can:

ST. LOUIS – Rising demand for corn from ethanol producers is pushing U.S. reserves to the lowest point in 15 years, a trend that could lead to higher grain and food prices this year.

The Agriculture Department has left its estimate for corn reserves unchanged from the previous month. The reserves are projected to fall to 675 million bushels in late August, when the harvest begins, or roughly 5 percent of all corn consumed in the United States. That would be the lowest surplus level since 1996.

The limited supply is chiefly because of increasing demand from ethanol makers, which rose 1 percent to 5 billion bushels. That’s about 40 percent of the total crop.

But the increase didn’t alter the agency’s overall estimate, mostly because livestock producers are expected to scale back their corn purchases.

The Agriculture Department estimated that demand from livestock producers fell 1 percent to 5.15 billion bushels.

Crops prices rose about 1 percent to $7.67 during morning trading, shortly after the report was released. The price of soybean rose 1 percent to $13.80 a bushel. Wheat was virtually unchanged at $7.76 a bushel.

Corn prices affect most products in supermarkets. Corn is used to feed the cattle, hogs and chickens that fill the meat case, and it is the main ingredient in cereals and soft drinks.

It’s also time to enjoy a last few steak dinners. If you haven’t already consider joining a bulk grocer like Costco – I did and have never regretted it.

Why Another Civil War is Unavoidable, Part II

Via Gateway Pundit here’s a grown man screaming profanities at a 14-year-old girl who was speaking at a Tea Party. He knows he’s being filmed and knows the girl can’t hear him but simply can’t control himself. How will he act if the power is out or the dollar collapses? Time to get ready for people like this:

Next up, via Breitbart is another view of the anti-Palin protests in Madison. Notice how angry they are. It is only the left’s sloth and cowardice that keeps them from resorting to violence – but that will change when things get bad enough:

Produce Shipments Targeted for Theft by Criminal Gangs

A few years ago if I told you criminal gangs were targeting food delivery trucks rather than electronics you’d have laughed. But spikes in food prices are no laughing matter and a side effect of this looming shortage is that criminal gangs able to make as much money knocking over tomato trucks as televisions:

Late last month, a gang of thieves stole six tractor-trailer loads of tomatoes and a truck full of cucumbers from Florida growers. They also stole a truckload of frozen meat. The total value of the illegal haul: about $300,000.

The thieves disappeared with the shipments just after the price of Florida tomatoes skyrocketed after freezes that badly damaged crops in Mexico. That suddenly made Florida tomatoes a tempting target, on a par with flat-screen TVs or designer jeans, but with a big difference: tomatoes are perishable.

“I’ve never experienced people targeting produce loads before,” said Shaun Leiker, an assistant manager at Allen Lund, a trucking broker in Oviedo, Fla., that was hit three times by the thieves. “It’s a little different than selling TVs off the back of your truck.”

Industry and insurance company officials said it appeared to add a new wrinkle to a nationwide surge in cargo theft.

In the case of the stolen tomatoes, the thieves seemed deeply versed in the ways of trucking companies and the produce industry. Transportation company executives and a law enforcement official said the criminals appeared to have set up a bogus trucking company with the intention of stealing loads of produce and other goods.

[…]

The thieves apparently began watching Web sites where brokers posted notices trying to connect trucking companies with loads they need carried.

In late March, they contacted Allen Lund. The broker carried out a standard series of checks, including verifying the company’s federal registration and its insurance coverage. Then it assigned the company to pick up a load of tomatoes from a shipper in Miami on Monday, March 28.

Over the next four days, working through Lund and three other freight brokers, E&A Transport picked up four more loads of tomatoes, a load of cucumbers and a load of frozen meat from shippers across Florida, including in the Miami area, Palmetto and Punta Gorda.

At each pick-up, a driver working for E&A showed up at the wheel of a tractor with a refrigerated trailer. The shippers loaded the pallets of tomatoes or the other goods into the trucks and the driver drove off. None of the loads got to their destinations.

The load of frozen meat, worth about $48,000, was picked up from a meatpacker north of Miami. It was bound for Salem, Ore. It is missing, too.

“This was definitely a smart organization,” said Mr. Holland, who was the broker on the load of meat. “They were smooth as silk.”

The thieves sought out loads headed for Detroit, Hartford, the Hunts Point market in New York, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Mr. Holland said that gave them time to carry out multiple thefts before the alarm was sounded, since in each case it would be from two to four days before the loads were due at their destinations. Brokers and shippers suspect the thieves had a buyer for the produce.

As sophisticated as this scheme was this is not the kind of crime you expect to see in a first world country. Food is becoming more valuable to thieves than the typical goods they seek out, which is not a good sign.

Texas Crops Report Foretells Severe Beef Shortages

Read the piece here but the summery is this years crops are getting their asses kicked – and cattle ranches are going to need to trim herds to make ends meet. Make like Snooki and enjoy a good meal now, because beef prices will go up and stay high for a while.

Texas is the largest producer of cattle with about a 20% market share. If the ranchers there start cutting herds we’re going to feel it.