Various levels of government have made the supermarket and restaurant donations charitable contributions suitable as tax deductions and in that way help to support the kinds of food banks you describe. The churches that very often are the conduits and organizers of such food banks receive favorable tax treatment as well. I’m all for these government decisions, but I also know that they mean higher taxes for wage earners and others.

If you don’t think it’s a scandal that so many millions people are struggling to feed themselves in a country with probably the highest standard of living in the history of the world, then you certainly are a “glass half full” kind of guy, but the book is about what is happening now, not what Sasha expects to happen after a dam (or a damn) breaks. If anything, I personally think he may in fact be too sanguine about what miseries the next half-century may bring, as we adjust to life without cheap hydrocarbons, but that’s a topic for another day.

eric: Since I’m only 50 pages in, I can’t say much about the “how to fix it” part yet, but so far the solutions mentioned have involved a strengthening of the safety net, but not any wholesale overhaul of society. I know that later parts of the book get more into the horrors of our WalMartized economy, and based on the Truthdig interview, it sounds like Sasha yearns for a government that doesn’t instinctively favor corporate executives over the struggling masses (“Empathy” as government policy! Imagine that!).

avoice: If pulling a fire alarm when there’s a fire makes one an “alarmist,” then sure. It’s easy to be complacent if you’re not one of the 25 million people who rely on food banks for breakfast or dinner because they’ve already eaten the “just in case” Campbell’s soup in the pantry.