Ehrenreich brings the sense in The Nation today

Be sure to check out Ehrenreich’s latest on the “nouveau poor” and what economic and social reforms need to happen after recent reports of the U.S. suffering its worst job loss across all employment sectors since 1945:

Which is why any serious government attempt to get the economy going again–and I leave aside the unserious attempts like bank bailouts and other corporate welfare projects–has to start at the bottom. Obama is promising to generate 3 million new jobs in “shovel-ready” projects, and let’s hope they’re not all jobs for young men with strong backs. Until those jobs kick in, and in case they leave out the elderly, the single moms and the downsized desk-workers, we’re going to need an economic policy centered on the poor: more money for food stamps, for Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and, yes, cash assistance along the lines of what welfare once was, so that when people come tumbling down they don’t end up six feet under. For those who think “welfare” sounds too radical, we could just call it a “right to life” program, only one in which the objects of concern have already been born.

The article is also brilliant in tackling the media sensation that the Madoff bust has precipitated, including Madoff memorabilia sales.  (I guess that’s better than someone dropping a few grand on ScarJo’s snot rag?)

Kinda plays into what I mentioned in the previous entry — the evidence the poor and middle class have been suffering was always available; but now the people slow to drag their feet for the poor and the underclass and the underemployed care because it’s affecting them and their pockets.  It’s little to do with reason and everything to do with selfishness, emotional narcissism, and moral vacuousness.

And let’s not forget the Madoff update: he’s free on bail and in his luxury Manhattan apartment guarded by his own money under house arrest and secured by private guards his wife hired.  Oh, money in the United States: it can buy some crazy shit.

Let one of the “established poor” pull off a scheme on his level — we’d likely not receive bail at all.