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On June 28 2025 00:45 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:Haven't read the whole conversation about city-run grocery stores but it doesn't look like anyone's mentioned that it was only for communities that are food deserts. They're not competing with private grocery stores. The general concerns people have brought up more so relate to the grocery store having zero accountability and being a black hole of tax payer money. Which I think is entirely valid. But I also think there are plenty of ways the idea can be strengthened and guarded against that kind of thing by simply putting effort and detail into the planning.
Mismanagement is the problem, not for-profit or non-profit.
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On June 28 2025 01:38 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 00:45 Mohdoo wrote:On June 28 2025 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:Haven't read the whole conversation about city-run grocery stores but it doesn't look like anyone's mentioned that it was only for communities that are food deserts. They're not competing with private grocery stores. The general concerns people have brought up more so relate to the grocery store having zero accountability and being a black hole of tax payer money. Which I think is entirely valid. But I also think there are plenty of ways the idea can be strengthened and guarded against that kind of thing by simply putting effort and detail into the planning. Mismanagement is the problem, not for-profit or non-profit.
This is correct.
My complaint about socialist rot is actually a complaint about bureaucracy, no matter if it's public or private, for profit or not. Any business that gets too large suffers from bureaucratic rot. However, the big difference between a private business and a public one suffering from that rot is that a private business will simply go out of business or be forced to shrink back to a more agile model... layoffs or split-offs of various divisions where some go out of business and some find stability or new growth.
A public company will just keep digging into the taxpayer well for more money and allow the inefficiencies to continue. Once something is started, people fall into sunk cost fallacies. People also feel ownership of that thing and don't want to lose it (endowment effect)... so the black hole continues.
Moodoo's suggestion of metrics for staying in business is a good start and can defend against sunk cost and the endowment effect, but it's far from perfect.
Let's try to make a semi-realistic example: NYC's new LeninMart goes into a "food desert". Okay, why was it a food desert in the first place? If there was profit to be made, wouldn't a for-profit business move in there? People need to eat, right? It should be easy. Some condition is making food in a food desert unprofitable (it's crime). So LeninMart comes in with a nice business model to break even or turn a small profit, and then gets robbed blind and turns a loss.
It fails Moodoo's metrics and so is scheduled to shut down. In turn, voters in the food desert throw a fit... they're going to lose their only source of grocery shopping. They put pressure on the politicians and the politicians extend the metrics for another period of time. Repeat forever.
Better solutions:
A co-op, which I'm fully in favor of. People in a food desert want to start a co-op? Great. Do it. Either on their own or partner with an experienced co-op to put one in.
Major property tax break to a grocery store (or the co-op) for moving into a food desert. Basically make that part of the ledger free so that someone can be enticed to build there and stay.
A food pantry. They give away food for free, it's a reasonably well known sunk cost that can be budgeted for. If that's what we need to feed people, go for it. Just go in with clear eyes that it is a cost and we are making a choice to spend tax money to feed the poor and not some deluded plan for socialist grocery stores.
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On June 27 2025 22:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 21:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2025 21:17 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 27 2025 21:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2025 21:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 27 2025 20:45 GreenHorizons wrote:As expected (and obviously hypocritical af), many "Vote blue no matter who" Dems are hesitant to get on board with the Dem party nominee. On Wednesday, many Democratic lawmakers and officials either denounced Mamdani or notably declined to rally around him.
The top two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, declined to endorse Mamdani even as they applauded his victory.
New York Rep. Laura Gillen, from Nassau County, called Mamdani the "absolute wrong choice for New York."
Rep. Tom Suozzi, also from Nassau County, said he had "serious concerns."
Other House Democrats from New York who hadn't backed Mamdani were mostly tight-lipped Wednesday.
Reps. Pat Ryan, Josh Riley and Ritchie Torres — who went so far as to say he wouldn't run for governor if Mamdani won — all dodged reporters.
Rep. Dan Goldman, asked if he had any thoughts on the result, told Axios: "Not right now."
Major Democratic donors — who poured tens of millions into a Super PAC for Cuomo — were having private discussions Wednesday about whether to back an independent run by Cuomo in November's general election, or rally behind unpopular incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who's also running as an independent. www.axios.comThere's also Hochul's hesitation: New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul directly avoided saying whether she will back Democratic mayoral primary winner and assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the upcoming election for New York City mayor. www.newsweek.comAdams and Cuomo are such obvious scumbags, I have a hard time believing Dems won't eventually reluctantly rally around Zohran, but I can't rule it out. Of course, if they don't, then it exposes the "vote blue no matter who" crew as hypocrites and/or useful idiots. It definitely pisses me off when some Democratic leaders who push for the "vote blue no matter who" argument end up being hypocrites when their preferred "blue" candidate doesn't become the nominee. I had no problem uniting behind the moderate Democratic nominees when my preferred progressive candidates lost their primaries, but if the Democratic establishment is going to actively sabotage left-wing nominees instead of getting in line, the party will eventually split and be screwed. Would you feel like those Democratic leaders exploited you as their useful idiot? I united behind Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden because I actually felt they were the best nominees in their respective general elections, based on their histories and policy proposals, not because I was persuaded or tricked by some of the potential hypocrites you listed, so I don't personally feel like I was being exploited. I was always going to vote for the Democratic nominee, because I actually prescribe to the "vote blue no matter who" perspective, when the alternative is the current Republican party. (I know you and I disagree on the "lesser of two evils" approach, and the potential shifting of the Overton window, and so on.) So they will take advantage of your sincerity again. You'll be pissed, see their hypocrisy, then fall in line behind them again, indistinguishably from a useful idiot, but actually as someone with a sincere belief in something. This should help you and others understand how people on the right keep apparently being useful idiots for their politicians despite their hypocrisy and ineffectualness at achieving the things that actually serve their voters and/or adhere to their principles. I think we might be missing each other semantically on how "useful idiot" is defined. I don't consider myself a naive supporter of 2016 Clinton or 2020 Biden or 20204 Biden/Harris in their respective general elections. I don't think they took advantage of my vote, and I don't think voting for them undermined my other preferences during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries. I also think that 2020 Biden was a generally successful presidency, and that 2016 Clinton and 2024's Biden or Harris would have been far more successful than Trump's presidencies. I would have been happy with all of those. Would a Sanders presidency have been even better? Maybe! But my general election votes for Clinton/Biden/Harris weren't due to some promise or belief or trusted reciprocation that they would rally behind a more progressive nominee if there ever was one in a future election. I think it's actually that I missed a "functionally", as in "You'll be pissed, see their hypocrisy, then fall in line behind them again. *Functionally* indistinguishable from a useful idiot, but actually someone with a sincere belief in something."
Also, the implication (or outright explicit argument, that I remember rejecting multiple times) was always that there was the expectation that if Bernie won a primary then the "vote blue no matter who" crowd would fall in line behind him instead.
That was always an indispensable part of the rationale behind all the variations of "if progressives/dem socs win the primaries" rhetoric.
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On June 28 2025 02:31 RenSC2 wrote:
It fails Moodoo's metrics and so is scheduled to shut down. In turn, voters in the food desert throw a fit... they're going to lose their only source of grocery shopping. They put pressure on the politicians and the politicians extend the metrics for another period of time. Repeat forever.
Better solutions:
A co-op, which I'm fully in favor of. People in a food desert want to start a co-op? Great. Do it. Either on their own or partner with an experienced co-op to put one in.
I think this distinction is worth a bit more analysis and discussion. At face value, you broadly gestured towards "government is inefficient and ineffective, whereas private ventures or ventures with less people are better". But it does not need to be this way and there are many examples of government programs or government efforts being entirely efficient and effective.
The species of humans are the same in both cases. People will need to learn along the way and nothing will go perfectly in both cases. In theory there should be no barriers to the co-op outperforming the city-run grocery store. I think a better reason needs to be given. If nothing else, we ought to strive for better than that. Giving up so easily doesn't provide value.
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"But the tax payer money" is the biggest fucking joke when we let Walmart let pay people like shit and cause their workers to need to rely on government assistance to get by.
Oh, right, but then we can just call them welfare queens that need to pull themselves up by their boostraps.
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In GH's world a useful idiot is a person who is coherent to their values and morals and votes accordingly. He doesn't like it when other people use his justifications for their voting behavior because only he is worthy of choosing who to support and who not to support. If you happen to fall apon a meridad of tripwires it is then infinitly better to allow a regime to do the worst they want to, beacuse getting part of the way to where you want to go is the worst outcome.
See Kamala not denouncing Israel justifies GH's material support in the election for concentration camps and ICE black bagging civilians on the street. I don't see why no one else doesn't see the sense in this.
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Liberal vs. progressive friendly fire is fucking stupid no matter who does it. There aren't enough liberals or enough progressives to win any elections on our own, we need to be coming together to stop authoritarianism. There isn't going to be a rule of law or scientific community remaining if we keep up this circular firing squad bullshit.
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Agreed. Also, celebrate those wins, the last month has been all about how the establishment dems were so bad and evil this would never happen. Now it happens and we are on to how they are going to definitely going to do evil stuff behind the scenes. Now is the time to celebrate, work together to get him elected AND then make sure his policies work. The bad Dem bad no matter what talk is just grating and pointless.
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Hoffman is laying in state today alongside her husband and dog. They've got 12 golden retrievers rotating in as an honor guard for the dog who was too much of a good boy to be a therapy dog. Only the 20th to lay in state in Minnesota and the first woman.
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On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America?
No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago?
+ Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
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Northern Ireland26044 Posts
On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I can understand resentment that benefits recipients get money for nothing (and their chicks for free), although I disagree.
It’s always boggled my mind though that people think they’re living the life of luxury.
I’ve never been unemployed since the age of 17, but I did go looking the various benefits payments given people moan so frequently.
Good fucking luck living this luxurious life was my takeaway from that research.
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I can understand not processing the data from climate sensors in orbit for most of the year if you don't feel it's worth the cost for some reason. But what I don't understand is stopping that processing right as we head into another hurricane season with no meteorological shield against hurricanes. The worst years come from patterns like this and it's not like things are going to get better.
A half way competent trump would have slotted the weather infrastructure into space force, as those things are in space and its getting a massive increase in funding for no reason.
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On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof.
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On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof.
Hm. Did this nugget of wisdom come from living in the US of A? No wonder people here complain so much about your education system.
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United States43240 Posts
On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
Food stamps are loaded onto a debit card that can be used for basically anything you can put in your mouth (SNAP is different). The allowances are actually quite generous. I qualified for them after I stopped working and left thousands unspent because I just couldn’t buy enough expensive food to get through it all. My spending habits didn’t change whether I was spending taxpayer money or my own and so I didn’t switch to the steak and lobster diet. But after eating normally for a bit I could have done a government funded lobster month.
None of that is to say that the program shouldn’t exist. It’s a godsend for people who need it and America is an absurdly wealthy nation that spends its money in absurd ways (golden dome for example). If we’re cutting wasteful government spending then the one that makes sure people have enough to eat but sometimes goes too far is not going to be a priority. Anyone who treats it as a priority when it comes to waste is likely motivated by ideology rather than any kind of objective analysis.
But to the core point, the benefits are unrestricted and extremely generous. It’s absolutely nothing like my understanding of the system in the UK. If you normally have brand name more expensive preprepared food then you can continue to do so without change once on food stamps. If you practice any kind of grocery budgeting and cook your own meals then you can very quickly afford “luxury” items.
SNAP WIC works a lot more like people think food stamps work. It has a prescription for specific items your family is entitled to like baby formula if you have a baby. But food stamps is unrestricted.
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On June 28 2025 16:43 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof. Hm. Did this nugget of wisdom come from living in the US of A? No wonder people here complain so much about your education system.
oBlade hasn't been living in the US long enough to know more than a fraction about what life is like over there. Several non-US citizens in this thread know a lot more about the country than he does.
Right-wingers globally are in a rabbit hole of propaganda. It's very effective.
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United States43240 Posts
On June 28 2025 17:43 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 16:43 Acrofales wrote:On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof. Hm. Did this nugget of wisdom come from living in the US of A? No wonder people here complain so much about your education system. oBlade hasn't been living in the US long enough to know more than a fraction about what life is like over there. Several non-US citizens in this thread know a lot more about the country than he does. Right-wingers globally are in a rabbit hole of propaganda. It's very effective.
Oblade is a broken clock on the correct hour this time. The Europeans who have not lived in the US are imagining a benefits system comparable to what they have in Europe. “Have you actually looked at the benefits system in America before you conclude there’s no chance of lobster” is a fair comment by him. It’s not like Europe.
The better responses to the welfare queen bullshit is
1. Most of the time you have no idea who is on food stamps and who isn’t. You’re not looking into a trolly marked food stamps and seeing lobsters, the food stamps can just as easily be connected to your online supermarket pickup order account and used digitally. What is happening here is people are seeing a black woman eating better than they are and getting triggered for entirely racist reasons. Consumption in the US is linked to virtue, you consume to show that you can spend to show that you can earn to show that you’re the smartest most hard working Protestant in all the land. Being out consumed by the lobsters of the blacks is mentally damaging to a lot of poor whites on a fundamental level and so they instinctively resort to “they didn’t earn that lobster, they stole it, and in a way they stole it from me, I earned that lobster”. They have no idea who is on food stamps and who isn’t, they’d never have clocked me for example. It’s a defence mechanism that allows them to rationalize not consuming as much as others.
2. “Oh no my incredibly rich nation is doing too good of a job of feeding people. Even relatively poor people have lobster sometimes. Someone help!”
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On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof.
When a poor person games the system, they get to eat some nice food. When a rich person games the system, they get a yacht.
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On June 28 2025 17:43 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 16:43 Acrofales wrote:On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof. Hm. Did this nugget of wisdom come from living in the US of A? No wonder people here complain so much about your education system. oBlade hasn't been living in the US long enough to know more than a fraction about what life is like over there. Several non-US citizens in this thread know a lot more about the country than he does. Right-wingers globally are in a rabbit hole of propaganda. It's very effective.
For reference, what level of US residency do you believe would be sufficient for a hypothetical right-winger to match the knowledge you've gleaned from googling articles with the title "I'm Right" and never reading them? Maybe in terms of years - 5 years, 10?
On June 28 2025 18:00 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2025 16:31 oBlade wrote:On June 28 2025 09:35 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 18:38 oBlade wrote:On June 27 2025 15:12 Acrofales wrote:On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote:
Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it. The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items. Have you ever lived in America? No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago? + Show Spoiler +
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
I get it. It's physically impossible for anyone to take advantage of the system, because once they get the benefits, the benefits are theirs to do with as they please. So by definition, it never happens. Welfare is logically foolproof. When a poor person games the system, they get to eat some nice food. When a rich person games the system, they get a yacht.
Good on you for calling out the hypocrisy of my professed undying love and support of Bernie Madoff with my crusade against poor people.
In my opinion, gaming systems are good, but gaming systems is bad, regardless of the people involved. There isn't a 1:1 ratio of poor people to yacht owners. Therefore the magnitude of money lost to benefits can't be concluded to be a pittance compared to white collar financial crimes you're alluding to just because one lobster is smaller than a ship. That would be equally as illogical as saying the US spends trillions on entitlements but one yacht is only $10 million so the issue is the poor. So I don't see your point except possibly you're supporting the attitude that makes endemic shoplifting possible because "they like have insurance anyway so yeah." They're both bad. When entitlements prop up bad spending habits and credit debt for poor people, and they go bankrupt, it affects interest rates for everyone who wants a car loan, it affects everyone's taxes. When illegal immigrants get ER healthcare, that cost is absorbed by everyone. There isn't an independent "system." Our society is the system. When someone defrauds it, they are defrauding all of us.
In the case of a yacht specifically, for context, the government can actually seize it back, as long as the guy didn't sink it like Belfort. Whereas trying to repossess eaten food is not advised. Unfortunately Madoff's crimes weren't confined to yacht form, and since there's no capital fraud statute he wasn't able to be executed despite stealing billions.
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what a mess of a post. gaming systems is... kinda inconclusive for some it seems.
let them eat yachts and repossess spoiled food!
so apparently they are REALLY going into and to town (Washington on a saturday!) with this abomination of a - for no reason braggadocious, and for many other reasons - imbecilic bill(@crfb.org).
These estimates are preliminary, and lawmakers should wait for an official score from the Congressional Budget Office before voting on the bill.
Although many parts of the Senate bill are in flux, a Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) score of the tax portion of the bill, the official estimate of the House bill, and reports from committees themselves allow us to construct a preliminary estimate of the bill both as it stands and assuming the removal of provisions that the Senate Parliamentarian advised violate the Byrd rule.
Based on these sources, we estimate the pre-Byrd rule Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would increase primary deficits by $2.9 trillion through FY 2034 and, after accounting for interest, increase total borrowing by $3.5 trillion. Removing provisions that have been flagged for noncompliance with the Senate’s Byrd rule, we estimate the bill would increase primary deficits by $3.5 trillion, boosting total borrowing by $4.2 trillion. With various rumored adjustments – especially to the SALT cap and Section 899 tax – borrowing could rise to $4.5 trillion.
scrambling to pass it come hell or high water. while having massive deficits - which this bill won't address but make worse - and fucking over Medicaid/Medicare recipients.
but no worries, the donor class gets their pound of flesh tax cuts!
if Democrats fail to run Republicans into the ground for the midterms with this record... I might actually Venmo GH some I told you so beer money.
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EPT
