Record high food stamp usage, record high stock market. It makes sense

Earlier today, the House passed the Farm Bill without any funding provision for food stamps.
For some context, here’s a chart tweeted on Monday by Bloomberg Briefs’ Economist Michael McDonough.
The cost of the program — which spiked during the recession — currently accounts for nearly 14% of grocery store sales, with 47.8 million Americans receiving the subsidy.
One explanation for the spike in people on food stamps is higher participation rates. Ten years ago, far fewer people who qualified for food stamps actually got them.

Michael McDonough/Bloomberg

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-on-food-stamps-2013-7#ixzz2YnLS3BLo
Rick Santelli Rages: “Who Is Bernanke Working For?”

Reminiscing on the good ol’ days when traders and investors poured over fundamental metrics, CNBC’s Rick Santelli looks upon the current environment as a single-factor “Bernanke-loves-me, he-loves-me-not” un-reality and the impact he has on savers. “It seems a little bit ridiculous,” he understates before launching into two minutes of clarifying thought on just what it is that Bernanke is doing and that we are suffering through. Just who is Bernanke working for?

http://www.zerohedge.com/node/476290
Which Is Greater: Full Time Jobs Or Americans On Food Assistance And Disability?

Over the past week there has been some speculation whether the number of Americans who receive food assistance and/or are on disability, outnumber full-time employed workers in the US.
Here is the answer:

• There are 116 million Americans with full-time jobs according to the BLS (source), which includes 21.9 million government workers (source).

So far so good. Now the flip side showing how many Americans are reliant on the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services program or on Disability payments, i.e., food assistance in some form:

• There are 47.5 million Americans on Foodstamps
• There are 30.4 million Americans participating in the National School Lunch Program
• There are 13.2 million Americans participating in the School Breakfast Program
• There are 8.6 million Americans participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition – Women, Infants and Children program Participants
• There are 3.4 million Americans participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Food Donation Program
• There are 0.6 million Americans participating in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program
• There are 0.1 million Americans participating in the Food Donation Program
• There are 8.6 million Americans on Disability

For a grand total of 112.5 million Americans on Food assistance (sources here and here).
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-11/which-greater-full-time-jobs-or-americans-food-assistance-and-disability

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-11/spx-ebitda-gp