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Planned Privation in the Land of Plenty—Junious Ricardo Stanton—24 November 2011—“The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is designed to provide cash assistance to poor families. It's sort of a last resort cushion after unemployment benefits and family charity have run out. Before 1996, it was better known, somewhat derisively, as welfare. But in 1996, Congress, with the blessing of President Bill Clinton, decided welfare needed reforming. [Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) existed from1935-1996.]

"The old program had been an entitlement program, much like food stamps or unemployment benefits—programs with budgets that automatically rose when the need did. Times like now, when the country has seen increases in the poverty rate for three consecutive years and has more Americans living in poverty than at any other time in more than a half-century. In 1996, welfare was turned into a block grant and its budget was fixed at $16 billion, so that states received roughly the same amount of money every year, regardless of how many people might be out of work and suffering. Many Republicans in Congress would like to do this to the Medicaid program.

"But TANF should serve as a serious cautionary tale about what happens when the safety net is left up to the congressional appropriations process. Congress hasn't increased the TANF block grant since it was created. As a result, new data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that the value of cash benefits to poor families have fallen by as much as 30 percent in some states simply because of inflation—call it a stealth budget cut. The reduction in TANF benefits is now going beyond just the erosion from inflation: In many cash-strapped states, legislators have diverted money from the block grant to pay for other things, while slashing benefits to poor families at a time when unemployment has been consistently high.”—Poor People To Get Poorer—Stephanie Mencimer

When the corporate elite colluded with US presidents and Congress to pursue a policy of globalization, US de-industrialization and outsourcing of US jobs; and the financial elite, international bankers and hedge fund managers decided to turn Wall Street and London into a giant casino the resulting economic collapse impacted the whole world. Unemployment is rising and will continue as the depression drags on. The US government is broke as are their state and local counterparts. This situation means the social safety nets which would be fragile anyway under the circumstances but since they are being targeted for elimination or privatization by the fascists (the 1 %) are really perilously in danger. The monetary policies of the Federal Reserve Bank a private bank that contrary to the US Constitution was given the authority to set interest rates and determine the amount of money in circulation (at interest to them) have exacerbated the situation because they have created a disincentive to save, created a borrowing binge that is sinking the nation and consumers in an ocean of debt due to their low interest rates and hyper-inflationary monetary policies.

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Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—10 November 2011—Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the president of Liberia, the first woman to be elected to lead a country in modern African history.  Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf was broadly perceived as a reformer and peacemaker when she took office in 2006, after several years in exile, during which she worked as a World Bank economist. . . .

On Nov. 10, 2011, following the runoff vote, election officials announced that Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf had had been re-elected by an overwhelming margin. Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf won 90.8 percent of the vote in the low-turnout election, easily defeating Winston Tubman, a former United Nations diplomat who said he was withdrawing from the race only days before the voting over what he claimed was fraud in the first round. . . .The Carter Center, calling Mr. Tubman’s claims “unsubstantiated,” said the election was “well-administered,” and it criticized Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf’s opponents for spoiling the vote. . . . In an interview, Mr. Tubman, a veteran Liberian political figure who once served as justice minister under the military dictator Samuel K. Doe, did not back down from his boycott call. Mr. Tubman, a member of the country’s American-descended ruling elite and whose family has long played a leading role, said that his party’s attitude toward the new government would be one of “noncooperation and nonrecognition.” Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf, for her part, said she would pursue a policy of reconciliation. . . .

Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf became active in politics during General Doe’s rule after serving as a vice president of Citibank while working for the bank in Kenya. An outspoken critic of General Doe’s corrupt and brutal regime, she was jailed in 1985 for calling government officials '‘idiots,’' and again in 1986. She then fled to the United States. In 1997, she ran unsuccessfully for president against Charles Taylor, who is now on trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The campaign won her the nickname of Liberia’s Iron Lady.

In 2005, she soundly defeated a popular soccer star, George Weah, to become president. She took over a nation of 3.5 million people that was still struggling to recover from more than a decade of civil war that claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced a third of the population. When Mr. Taylor went into exile in 2003, he left behind a nation shattered by war, with the entire infrastructure, from roads to electric wires to water pipes, rotted away or looted. Despite its natural wealth in gems, rubber and timber, Liberia is one of the poorest nations, with an 85 percent unemployment rate and 60 percent of the population under 25 years old.

During her first term, the nation’s truth and reconciliation commission urged that she and dozens of others be banned for 30 years from holding public office for their roles in the war. She has conceded that she gave $10,000 while abroad in the late 1980s to a rebel group led by Mr. Taylor, then a warlord, but for humanitarian services. She has also been criticized for not doing enough to root out corruption or ease tensions between communities divided by 14 years of near-constant civil war.—NYTimes