Nearly 200 Busted in $3.7-Million Food-Stamp Fraud Operation

food stampsJudicial Watch Corruption Chronicles – More than a year after the Obama administration slammed American taxpayers with a record-high tab to provide an unprecedented number of people with food stamps, the fraud continues full-throttle in the bloated welfare program.

Authorities in north Florida arrested nearly 200 people for operating a sophisticated ring in which millions of dollars in food stamps were fraudulently exchanged for cash and drugs. Keep in mind that food stamps—renamed by the Obama administration Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to eliminate stigma—are designed to help nourish the nation’s most needy.

For years Judicial Watch has reported extensively on the rampant fraud in the program that cost U.S. taxpayers a bewildering $80.4 billion in one year to provide a record 46 million people with the welfare benefit during the Obama tenure. Even then, a federal audit revealed that many who didn’t qualify for food stamps received them under a special “broad-based” eligibility program that disregards income and asset requirements. Continue reading

Gold, the Misery Index, and Insanity

misery Gary Christenson – In 1980 Ronald Reagan spoke about the Misery Index.  An economist had added the inflation rate to the unemployment rate, called it the Misery Index, and used it to indicate the social costs and economic difficulty for the middle class.

Today the Misery Index is much smaller than in 1980, thanks to … intelligent fiscal management, economically beneficial monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, and wise political policy from the White House.  If you believe any of those, read no further.

Most people will agree that the Misery Index is much smaller today because the numbers have been gimmicked.  Does anyone believe a few percent for inflation or around 5% unemployment?   Massage (torture) the numbers and the Misery Index declines, incumbent politicians are re-elected, while far too many people remain out of work, earning practically nothing on their savings, and paying too much for food, clothing, drugs, medical care, college, transportation and so on.

What we need for this decade, instead of a Misery Index, is an Insanity Index based on measures than indicate how out of balance, crazy, unsustainable, and dangerous our current fiscal and monetary world has become.  Consider a few examples: Continue reading