I recently spent a week in the Heartland deer hunting with friends. It’s something that I’ve done off and on for a number of years, albeit the last time I went was back in 2006. What struck me as particularly shocking on this visit was the abject poverty to which many Americans have sunk, living in conditions of squalor that are more in keeping with the Third World. It isn’t localized to any one specific area, either. One finds it in places as diverse as Vermont, Upstate New York, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and a plethora of other states.