Soaring food prices taking their toll on families

Low income in Los Angeles is $42,450 per year. Yes you heard me right . That's for one person. Ten to Fifteen years ago this was a good salary now it's less than the money needed to pay rent, bills, buy food, get your car fixed . Those on fixed incomes of received a whopping what 3.1 % this year from social security and a whopping 2.1% the year before. For some Medicare Part D is a joke but they aren't laughing because of the donut hole. That's when they have to spend so much money to pay for their meds. I'm not saying cradle to grave but our citizens can't get that much help when acc to Mike Antonovich illegals are getting over 1 billion a year in benefits. Middle class used to be 60,000 a year. Not today. Kids/teenagers (I worked) used to help with the income (not today--I heard a story of two places in Studio City that hires illegals and when someone went with a relative to get a job the owner of the places told him he just hired illegals so they wouldn't complain and he could work them over and above the legal regs for employement. Something is wrong with this picture. Too bad the person did not call ICE. His relative the citizen could have had that job.

Sad stories about struggling consumers just piles on the sense of helplessness which fosters the situation. WHAT are the real reasons for this -- naming things like rising demand in formerly third-world countries like China and India, and replacing traditional crops with corn and soy for ethanol and other "environmentally sound products" ha- ha (THanks, Al Gore, never thought ot that, did you, pushing your Priuses while flying jets?), all doesn't help, just sounds more passive and creates a sense of "what can we do?" What a pitiful country we've become -- our "leaders" either didn't realize gas was at near $4.00/gallon (George Bush) or they're arguing about Band-Aid remedies like the current crop of candidates, or doing nothing at all (Obama).

Mayor Villar wants to keep the sweatshop industries who hire illegals in this city. This shows to me the real feeling he has for his fellow Hispanics for whom he pretends to advocate. While this is going on the legitimate employers who would pay decent wages and higher taxes are being driven out and nobody complains loud enough. We have the government paying to support people whose substandard wages can not support their families. When all you have are low paying jobs and the tax revenues are not coming in due to real estate declines and many other factors you have a crisis situation.

A lot of the food price rise is due to speculative trading on futures markets. This is also what drives up fuel costs. When you hear the price of a barrel of oil on the news that is dollars bid for oil still in the ground. The same thing happens on major food crops, speculators bid for harvested commodities which have not even been planted. This folks is the EVIL side of capitalism. People playing a monopoly game with vital products that ultimately end with us all paying higher costs for essentials.

Capitalism should just be a negotiation between those who actually have items to sell and those wishing to buy. What we have is a group of traders buying what they don't yet own and selling to people who don't really need what is being sold and they are driving up the costs in the real world to those who need them. The producers, such as the farmers, are not getting those big dollars, they still get a comparitive pittance and higher fuel charges are squeezing them too.

Rising food prices might get rid of the illegals more than anything the feds do. The more expensive it is in LA, the better. And it's great food banks are struggling. I've stopped giving to food banks because I figure that donation would just go to support more illegals and encourage the problem. If a family with a decent income is struggling to feed their family, how does a family of illegals working for sweatshop wages afford to eat without food stamps and food banks.

I also think that this type of article is just encouraging the panic over food prices. Sure things are going up, but if you shop the sales it's not too bad. The problem is people have gotten too dependent on processed food that costs a ton. Forget $4.99 for a box of instant oatmeal, buy rolled oats in bulk and save some serious money and eat healthier. Yes, inflation is a problem, but Americans have also been spending way too much. 20 years ago, middle class families didn't spend all this money on all these cell phones, cable, internet, video games. Plus now a days, so many people eat all this pre-made processed food, it's bad for your health and very expensive. Hopefully these prices will encourage people to go back to basics.

The idiots running the city and working for it don't care, they like the increased sales taxes. But they'll continue to raise taxes anyway so that they can take more raises.

Of course, prices rise continuously. However gas in your country is quit cheap. 4 dollars for a gallon is very reasonable compared to 9 dollar for a gallon in my country (Germany). This price does not stop us though, from driving our cars

We are at war! As the President have said over and over. Its the cost of maintaining the troops in Iraq for soldier's ammunitions, fuel and rebuilding Iraq. Bear and grin the sufferings, imagine what the Iraqis felt, this is nothing compared to what they're going through.

Is the Daily News going socialist/liberal on us? The headline about "prices through the roof, if you have one" and the tone of this article are somewhat hysterical. Liberals are prone to hysteria. Like Global Warming hysteria. High food prices are partially caused by liberal hysteria. How you ask? Read on.

Let's get the first four causes of high prices out of the way first: 1) High fuel prices, 2) union labor (Teamster truckers, United Farm Workders, and union grocery clerks), 3) government taxes, 4) futures trading on food products and commodities. Now the 5th: Global Warming Hysteria. See, the Green Movement insists that man caused this recent trend of slightly warmer climate even though that's not proven by the facts. As a result of that hysteria, they insist that fossil fuel use be restricted and they hinder the USA's utilization of ample supplies of oil and coal. The hysteria causes more use of ethanol. Ethanol is produced using what is basically food. But for the USA to convert to ethanol, we'd have to convert every acre of farm land, plus half of the available land in the entire western USA to growing crops for ethanol. Some farm production is already being converted to that purpose and thus less food is produced, which also leads to higher food prices.(Another fact, as liberals applaud Brazil's conversion to ethanol, they scratch their heads when they learn that Brazil is destroying millions of acres of the climate-critical Amazon rain forest to do so.)

So, as you angrily pump more high priced gas into your car to drive to the market to buy higher priced food for your family .. remember to thank a liberal.

AUTOMATONS that ran out and bought the fanciest, newest ESS-U-VEE because the TV told them to.
AUTOMATONS that ran out and CHARGED UP their CREDIT CARDS because the TV told them to.
It's ALL BORROWED, folks!! But you do have to PAY IT BACK with COLD, HARD, CASH -- you know, the stuff you run off to that crappy 45+ hour a week JOB you have ( or don't have?)
PRIDE and ARTIFICIAL ESTEEM that was BORROWED and now needs to be PAID for. But you don't even get to KEEP the GOODS.
NOW, who's SMIRKING at who's LIVING WITHIN or BELOW THEIR MEANS? Not YOU.

Marketers and Advertising Pros are some of the SMARTEST people in the world. Beware of this NEXT wave of Marketing and Consumerism --- GREEEEEN ( and MORE production and MORE Consumption )

ITS not REALLY BEING GREEN if we're PRODUCING and CONSUMING MORE.

So now it's yet another excuse to DITCH that OLD SUV and run out and buy a NEW GREEEEN vehicle. THEY KNOW EXACTLY how to get you to hand them your money. And, IT WORKS EVERY TIME. Your OWN, WEAK, EGOS.

I don't work for money.
Money works For ME.

I don't support my car.
My car supports ME.

When you've figured out how to do these things, how to live well and properly, you'll be exempt from ALLLL of the above (and more). Good Luck.

and I sure as hell don't WORK to support my CAR!!

Idiots do that. and there are Many of them.

Have an awesome Sunday. Your car payment is coming up soon.

I wish people would stop comparing gas prices between Europe and America. You are not comparing apples with apples. Cities like L.A, Dallas, Seattle and Houston cannot compete with London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo when it comes to mass transit. You dont even have to fly in Japan, France and Germany as their countrywide train systems are fast and efficient. Nothing like our tired Amtrack system. We have no one to blame but ourselves and our politicians.

WOW, this paper is now Censoring comments -- I just noticed that a second comment I made after reading Kathy's, agreeing that a big part of the financial crisis we're facing IS the bankruptcy we're facing as a city from pouring resources to illegals that should have been going to our citizens, for schools and as a healthcare and social services safety net.(

With ALL county hospitals AND 11 clinics deep in the red, closing, closed or open only a few hours a day -- and so many catering to illegals with no insurance or fraudulently acquired MediCal, that many facilities and doctors aren't taking MediCare and legal MediCal new patients, or make them wait for weeks if they do. Then it's really hard to get specialists.)

Plus almost all immigrants' kids are getting free lunches and welfare aid, as are more than half the families, and their enormous families consume way, way more -- well over a billion/year more, NOT counting schools -- than they put into the system. Then there's the fact that 1/3 the jails are full of illegals, many MORE the anchor babies of illegals, and they're 80% of the worst gangs, which cost us a fortune to police, in prevention programs, and seriously contribute to ruining all the schools. And I mean ALL, since even the "rich" westside is full of affirmative action kids bused in, except a literal handful, and they're not getting $ for upkeep or basics like TA;s and computers, the parents must raise the money. Most middle class have left the city altogether, the ones left, mostly congregate in pockets of the valley and struggle to get by.

BUT ALL OF THIS WAS CENSORED, because since new editor Carolina Garcia took over from Ron Kaye last month, this paper has overnight become a PC, pro-illegal rag that's clearly so panicked by public sentiment that it has resorted to censorship and extremely biased reporting/ slanting of its articles and opinions.-- IF this is censored again, I'll raise he-l all over the blogosphere -- where people are already complaining, and many cancelling their paper.

And I agree with Billy, stop comparing prices to Europe, where countries are TINY and ancient, with walking areas hundreds of years old. We're like New Zealand or Australia or Canada in size and scale of where we need to drive, visit family, etc.

To Payback Time: You're right, "Go Green" is just a way for others to make money by sounding P C: start by how we've replaced crops with corn and soy for ethanol, for those Priuses, and now there's a food shortage, even on rice AND CORN, which we grew so cheaply. Charging 25c for plastic bags, means we'll have to buy more trash bags, invest in GLAD BAGS, etc.(It's the "poor areas" that inspired sponsors of this bill to come up with the charge -- meaning, in the barrio they throw trash in the streets instead of walking one foot to a trash can, we can see it as they walk and drive.) In Europe, they may charge 3-5c, but this is absurd. Of course, Gore and Arnold know how to play the "energy credits" game and fly their planes, and get write=offs for 3 Priuses...

... Skeptical Taxpayer To Payback Time: You're right, "Go Green" is just a way for others to make money by sounding P C::::::::::

Yeah, I just read about how GREEN some celebrity is going by installing Solar panels on his house and that he drives Priuses ---- FIVE of them.
Go Green, yeah.( like the color of my projectile vomit I shoot at these HYPOCRITES )

So yes, illegals are bad, politicians are bad, but DAMN, we're A-L-L STINKING PIGS.

We need to LOOK AT OURSELVES ( if we can stand it ) and make changes in our THINKING, CHOICES, and BEHAVIORS.

You can eat cheaply, if you cook your food from scratch. Buy dried pinto beans, black eye peas, navy beans, and pasta. Buy powdered milk for protein. Eat spinach and green beans. Buy the sunflower seeds at Trader Joes for $1.29. Eat a couple pieces of fruit a day. By the way the illegals survive because they shop at Vallarta and cook from scratch. High cost processed foods won't chase them away. A $5 20 pound bag of beans will give you enough carbs for a month. Also eating less might save some of the people who are dying from heart disease. Doctors say most people could reverse their heart disease by changing their diet.

Yeah, let's all switch to the New Immigrant Poverty Diet. But if you're going that route, the Asians with their stir-fried veggies and rice with eggs and soy and tofu with a little meat is a lot healthier == you don't see a lot of obese Asians like Latinos, although they both eat rice.

Jan Perry could teach her district some tips from them, instead of banning fast food restaurants because all her constituents know how to do is fall into the closest fast-food joint, and don't cook.

BUT the point is, the rest of us shouldn't have to revert to the New Immigrant Poverty Diet, all of a sudden accepting that staples doubled -- that's what happens in Third-World economies, and we should seek solutions, not accede to Third- World status. Just as the Mexicans come HERE and their own oligarchs eat fine French and Northern Italian and Japanese cuisine at elegant restaurants.

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