This year, many American families will find gratitude harder to summon heading into the holidays. Unemployment, widespread hunger and unchecked sickness and death are weighing heavily.
The President doesn't seem too worried -- and neither does Wall Street. The Dow went above 30,000 on Tuesday, and then Trump popped out before the cameras to crow about the market's success. It was brief -- just one minute -- but obscene. There is perhaps no greater example of the distortions wrought by the President's reliance on the markets as indicators for American financial well-being than this: A record-high Dow, while record numbers of Americans are hungry.
The non-profit organization Feeding America estimates that by the end of the year, more than 50 million American households could be food insecure -- that is, lacking consistent access to healthy food. That's one in six Americans, and includes some 17 million children -- one in every four American kids.
A study from Northwestern University found that because of the pandemic, "food insecurity has doubled overall, and tripled among households with children." When children are food insecure, they face a host of ills. Their cognitive function is impaired. They are more likely to have asthma and anemia. And, of course, these children (and their parents) are more vulnerable to Covid-19.
Many of us are grateful to have avoided the disease this year. But many others have struggled through sickness -- through damage to their bodies -- and also lost loved ones to Covid-19. It can be hard to feel too grateful for your own health when you know that more than a quarter million of your fellow citizens (maybe people that you knew or loved) have died of coronavirus, and that many of those deaths could have been prevented if our government had taken the threat more seriously and acted as necessary.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at...on/ar-BB1bmol5
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