There is no end in sight to the rise in food prices, and every other product that needs to be transported to us, now that we are on the downside of the oil bell curve. I strongly urge your readers to check out a film called "The End of Suburbia." It explains the future, and it is amazing. It will scare you, but it will also outline how we can survive it.

While we are busy advocating for the elders, we could also be educating the youngsters. They need to understand that uncontrolled population growth has a huge cost, globally, and that they should not just live within their means but live so that they can save for their later years. My years of living on 1/3 of my income (with 1/3 for taxes and 1/3 for investments) were ridiculed by some of my peers; but, it was an investment in my future.

The future is here. Now my peers are whining that they don't have enough retirement savings. It's hard for us "ants" to have much sympathy for the "grasshoppers". That said, I do understand that not all elderly poor were profligate spenders in their youth; however, there are surely too many who fit that description.

It doesn't feel right to be constantly bailing out those who were unwise--consider the mortgage market fiasco. Why in the world should we be making unthinking people whole? (There were interviews on the radio of people crying about losing their "starter, 6-bedroom, $675,000 'dream' home" or their "$2 million dollar house"--homes that most of us could/would never have considered buying.) I'm getting far afield, so I'll stop there.

Yes, Ronni, and the worst part of the terrific rise in food costs is that those prices snuck up on us and we weren't prepared.

Remember back in the late 70's when inflation was rampant? When you bought a can of peas it had 6 price labels on it. As you were walking up the canned vegetables aisle the boy was sticking a label with a higher price on it to the top of the can.

It was terrible but everybody knew what was happening and you watched prices being adjusted and you adjusted your shopping habits,too.

But,now,there is no mention of serious inflation. All you know is that you are spending more and more money for less and less food.

Like everything else that the Bush Administration has brought us,rising food prices just happened when we weren't looking and naturally, Dubya and gang didn't feel the urge to warn us or try to curb it.

Remember this treatment in November and vote accordingly!

Cop Car:

While I agree in principle with your "thirds" behavior, not many people make enough money to live that way, especially now when inflation has outstripped salary increases for more than a decade.

Often too, catastrophes wipe out the ability to save for several years - family difficulties, health, accidents, job loss.

Three times in my working life, such things happened that wiped out my savings and took several years to pay off the rest.

On another occasion, near the end of my working life, I showed up at the job one day to find the door padlocked and the owner gone - owing me back pay and expenses of more than $30,000.

It was at the beginning of the dotcom bubble burst and took me 14 months to find another job (at half the salary) by which time I had used up my savings just to live, keep from losing my home and pay off those expenses that were on my own, not a company credit card.

Plus, I was halfway through about $12,000 in dental work that could not be left unfinished. I know all about taxes on early withdrawal of IRA money.

Mine is not an isolated case. Sure there are some stupid people, especially those who bought mini-mansions with no money down on adjustable-rate mortgages and I almost agree that it's not the taxpayers' burden to bail them out. (No one bailed me out on those catastrophes I went through and they were painful, scary years.)

But I don't want to judge all these people either. I made some (much less expensive) stupid money mistakes when I was young. But back in those days, there were no predatory lenders luring me into gigantic debt that I didn't understand. And not everyone is as smart as thee and me ;-)

We as a country must find a way to more equitably share the wealth. We could start with universal healthcare and salaries that match productivity which has increased enormously while salaries have stagnated.

Reading this and listening to the Senator brings to mind what I witnessed recently. As I was sitting at the CVS waiting for a prescription to be filled for my husband, an older woman was informed by the pharmacist that her medication was no longer covered by insurance and would cost $88.00. She was stunned. The reason given was that something similar was now available OTC. She turned and walked out of the store. I felt horrible as I'm certain all who heard did as well as the pharmacist himself.

Here in the deep south, the situation with heating is reversed. In the summer, with temperatures in the 90's and 100's, we see older citizens dying because of the heat. There are some charities that pass out fans occasionally, but it's not nearly enough.

Many elders turn off their air conditioning because they cannot afford the electric bills. I wonder how many elders have their lives shortened by the extreme heat?

My wife will be working for a few years more, so we are not hurting right now. But we've seen the value of our investments dwindle with the stock market, and live in fear of what we'll have to live on when she does retire. We're trying to save now, pay off what we can and sell what we don't need to get ready for that dreaded day. But at the rate things are going, it might not be enough.

The current situation cannot go on forever, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer; the country squandering billions on tax cuts and a misguided, futile war; with prices getting higher and higher with no end in sight.

There is a day of reckoning coming, and I tremble at the thought of what that might entail.

Is this a great country or what? ;(
Bernie Sanders does what I wish every politician would do; he backs up his position with indisputable facts.

Voters must start looking at facts instead of listening to sound bites. Hold the candidates feet to the fire and check out what they are saying. Make them prove it as Sanders did.

While I strongly agree with the senator's message I think that there is a problem with how this issue is being communicated. For many Americans when they here that "we have a problem with inequality of income" they assume that the speaker thinks that we should have equal income. Which is almost unAmerican :-) That is why it is much better to talk about the shrinking of the middle class or the robberbarons or the unfairness of our tax system. I hope that Obama as a great communicator can come up with a way to shape this issue that reaches the hearts of the vast majority of Americans who believe in fairness but don't believe in equality of income.

I "retired" a little more than a year ago and my timing couldn't have been worse! Since then my investment portfolio has tanked by 25% and I can no longer look at it.

Our house is paid for and we carry no other debt. I am not old enough to collect social security so we are living on my husband's $961/month plus our RMD of about $4K per year, or $16K/year.

When I start to worry (mostly at night when I can't get to sleep) I think about the other half of the world, 3 billion poor souls, who are living on less than $2 per day.

I then feel blessed to have my health, a warm, comfortable bed to sleep in, and food in my stomach.

We don't eat steak every night, but I know we consume more calories than at least half the world.

And yes, I'm back in the job market, but finding anyone to hire you after 40 is depressing beyond words.

Powerful post and video! Wish I could figure out a way to make my Representative view it, then respond by justifying some of his issue votes. My Senators do relatively well in their issue voting, but clearly as a whole our Congress does not. The current Administration, not surprisingly is, as I anticipated 8 years ago and still is, a lost cause.

I would like to see a list naming all the Senators present when Sanders was speaking. Were the ones there actually paying attention or was he preaching to the choir? Maybe there isn't even a choir or the country wouldn't be in this mess.

The financial crisis in this country is likely a consequence of many causes commenters above have noted. Certainly, individual responsibility and choices must bear some of the brunt as a cause of some people's insecure financial situation. So, do we just write them off and say tough nuggies?

Also, unexpected circumstances beyond an individual's control accounts for some of those same people and others similar financial insecurity. Are we going to allow them to flounder, too?

I've experienced ups and downs in my life from the time I was a child for all the reasons above. I think a lot of factors came into play, some for which I cannot take full credit, or accept full responsibility for the mistakes. I am not so naive as to believe that until the day I die there still remains the possibility my situation could change.

Much depends on an individual's health, or that of a loved one, and that can change from moment to moment.

There is something obscene about a nation's population and government that would allow others, whatever the reason for their poor living situation, to lack having their most basic needs met, or to be unable to have an opportunity to try and fulfill those needs themselves.

Yes, we must hold "feet to the fire" of those we elect to Congress and entrust to top leadership positions. We must find a way to empower them to make the hard decisions setting our policies on a track to re-build this nation. We must assure them we will stand behind and support them against the forces of greed and self-interest.

Writing about issues on blogs is important, but not enough.

Contacting those we put in office is vital, but not enough.

Voting en masse for change is critical but just a beginning.

You might find it interesting, illuminating, to read about the Nationall Elder Economic Security Initiative. It's one way of trying to address this issue.

That's a great idea, Cop Car, for those who don't worry about making it until the end of the month. As a single-parent public school teacher since 1975 with a five year old son and sporadic child support at best, I barely made it. One-third of my salary would have been from almost $4K to $16K a YEAR from then until I retired.

For some reason I'm doing OK now with my teacher retirement and social security, but it gets more expensive every month. I'm working some part-time jobs and saving that and a bit more from my retirment. So far, so good, but I'm used to living within my means.

And spare a thought for retirees who have emigrated to other countries and now find their fixed incomes are falling behind rapidly. No-one knows the exact number here in Turkey but it is possibly in the tens of thousands of mainly German and British. Often they sold everything to buy property here and make the move and now they are stuck whether they like it or not. The majority find learning the language really challenging and are unlikely to ever master it to the point where they can have real conversations with Turks. We are fine as I still work at a variety of freelance jobs, but I speak the language fluently which is very much the exception. Also everyone here is still able to lead a healthy lifestyle thanks to good cheap fresh food. But so many of the immigrant retirees thlought that they'd be dining out for the rest of their lives and that just isn't possible as inflation bites. During the winter ahead I am hoping to do some serious research into aspects of this issue and, if it happens, I'll be sure to let Ronni have the results.

Cop Car: I didn't misunderstand you. I was just noting that early withdrawal, which can't be avoided sometimes to continue eating, carries horrendous tax penalties.

Thanks, Cop Car.

I'm planning a little personal protest against supporting the wealthy this year. My definition of wealthy is "can afford to save while paying for HBO."

My protest is to stop donating to the United Way. With automatic monthly contributions so easy to make, I can give directly to the charities I choose...without supporting "community leaders" (read: rich people who are potentail major donors) employed by the UW. I'm beginning to think that if all those six-figure-income folks would quit *giving* to the poor and just pay more taxes, they'd be doing us all a favor.

Assuming the taxes weren't used to invade Iran or Georgia.