Armageddon Strategy

Yesterday, I wrote about the rent strike at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles. The battles of the New American Revolution are spilling over into the aisles. . . that is the supermarket aisles. Specifically, the struggle is a battle between corporations. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that grocery stores are being squeezed by shrinking demand because their customers don't have money, and the manufactures of food who say they need higher profit margins to cover costs or they will go bankrupt. All those cost increases that occurred as a result of higher fuel prices, food stocks, and so on.

Grocers said that Unilever last year increased the wholesale price of its Skippy peanut butter by about a nickel a jar after shrinking the contents of the container by almost 10%.

Thank god the government has been saying for years that there are few if any signs of inflation. To me, Skippy skipped and jumped up 16+ percent. Gas prices went way up. Food prices went way up. Housing costs went way up. Health care prices went way up. The cost of wars went way way up. Good thing inflation didn't go up too. Otherwise we would be in trouble.

But while the corporations fight each other over prices and shelf spaces, there are some other things going that you may not know about. The L.A. Times is reporting today that port cargo levels up and down the west coast are declining faster than the Titanic. On the same page, one half of all hospitals are in the red (I assume they mean they are losing money). And at Freddy Mac (the giant mortgage lender), the Bush-appointed CEO resigns after five months on the ("heck of a") job.

And closer to home, a woman I work with told me her sister got laid off today from Honeywell. Why? (Please don't say it is the economy stupid) rather her division issues the rebates for solar power, tankless hotwater systems, and so on. Rumor is that for weeks they have not had money from the State of California to pay the rebates because the Republicans were trying to cripple the government.

What really disgusts me is that we have an honest to god crisis brewing here. And there are those that a rejecting helping their fellow citizens and instead are banking on Armageddon or worse as the way in which they will win back political power. Even if they are correct in believing that this Armageddon Strategy will win back power for team elephant, Jesus will be pretty pissed off. Not at the Jews, not at the atheists, but right where it belongs: at those who kicked others while they were down.