A small trip to the grocery...

[del]

And it is not soda, it is POP! sheesh

it's tonic

 

[MaggieMae]

Turned out to be just that. A small trip.

I bought some twinkies and shit, opened up a 20oz soda that I got out of the cooler because I was thirsty, paid for my items, minded my own fucking business and didn't give a fuck about what anyone else was doing, and went home.

I thought some people might care though, so I started a thread about it.

You should have realized you were on USMB and not Twitter as soon as you weren't truncated after 47 words, bad boy.

 

[MaggieMae]

Which is all well and good, because you paid for it with your money. You didn't buy it with someone else's money.

Personally, I think twinkies are for twinkies. YMMV. I prefer Cliff Bars.

I'm not exactly the biggest proponent of the food stamp program, but you do realize that a great many people who receive them have also paid their fair share of taxes as well, and as such, the money they receive in food stamp funds can be considered THEIR money as well?

I don't agree with MOST of what my tax dollars go to these days. If I can get some of that back in the form of food money to feed my family, I wouldn't feel all that fucking bad about it.

The problem in a nutshell is the food stamp program itself. It allows you to buy value added, nutrition reduced processed food with stamps and is there fore cataclysmically inefficient.

It would be far cheaper and far more effective to just distribute actual food, like rice, beans, flour etc. Even cheese, bacon and steak would give a bigger bang for the buck.

The government already subsidizes agriculture. Just restructure the subsidy so the government gets agricultural goods at real commodity prices and then distributes it on an industrial scale.

Rather than pay farmers not to grow crops and all.

But Americans never do things sensibly.

There are all sorts of food programs on a volunteer basis that people who want more nutritous food can participate in if they qualify. Small farmers in just about every state that sell locally also offer what doesn't sell to food banks or even via telephone poll advertising. The problem with using food stamps for junk food is that people have to read the ingredients on every carefully placed eye-catching box in the supermarket, and often the choices are fattening and not healthy. I do know a couple of wise shoppers who must use the food stamp program that use their entire allotment to buy fresh meat, chicken and fish, then design meal planning for the month around that.

 

[MaggieMae]

It isn't silly, it is sensible.

It would deliver far more benefit for a far smaller expense.

So what is you angle?

BTW, who said anything about vouchers? A friend of mine calculated that it would cost less to give ALL Americans free food courtesy of the USDA who acquired said food at subsidized commodity prices than it would to continue the food stamp program. A simple pallet of rice, beans etc in front of every grocery store, all free.

The only caveat was that folks would use this free food to feed livestock if there were no safeguards.

I don't think we've quite reached the point where 100# bags of rice and beans needs to be set out. Geeze. That's Depression Era thinking. Both of those commodities are dirt cheap anyway.

As for feeding livestock human food, most grocery stores keep pallets of day-old bread in the back of their stores and trucks drive up all day long picking it up to feed pigs and goats and whatever else eats processed bread (maybe their children). It's always good for French Toast!

 

[MaggieMae]

c'mon, you didn't take a guess.

my angle is that we're a capitalist country, and having tried all what you've suggested, the government realized that maybe the ol' wealth of nations would benefit more efficiently from the invisible hand.

you've got to pay closer attention at present and to history if you think entitlements are just about the subsistence of the entitled, cannon. look at the width of the poor in this country. do you think this is about starvation and nutrition, buddy?

Why don't you spell it out for us? Are you talking about survival of the fittest? Genocide for those who aren't? Is that what Alex Jones is talking about these days?

 

[MaggieMae]

My thought exactly. And along with distributing healthy food, enroll people in cooking and budgeting classes.

And along with enrolling people in cooking and budgeting classes, send government officials out to everyone's home for mandatory monthly inspections of how the progress is going with the cooking and budgeting.

If cholesterol levels, body weights, etc, aren't getting up to strictly set standards, and the personal balance sheets aren't improving, I recommend a harsh fine in the thousands for the first offense.

clearly the solution is just rounding everyone up who can't prove they're not poor and sending them off to prison work camps. think of the efficiency! all you'll have to feed them is water and cream-o-wheat with vitamins crushed up in it. maybe throw in some beef or chicken stock cubes on sundays.

I'm sure some people would prefer they be fed Soylent Green.

 

[ConHog]

Who gives a shit if some are ripping off the food stamp program (by the way its the SNAP program now) if a single child is being fed who might otherwise go hungry. Of all the waste by our government, this is one I don't mind.

 

[ABikerSailor]

And it is not soda, it is POP! sheesh

No. It's a carbonated liquid treat.

Wrong..........BEER is a carbonated liquid treat.

If there is sugar and no alcohol? Soda, Pop or Coke......depending on your location.

If there's alcohol in it? Carbonated liquid treat.

Carbonated water with nothing in it? Tonic (which mixes well with Dalmore 12 yr by the way).

 

[ConHog]

And it is not soda, it is POP! sheesh

No. It's a carbonated liquid treat.

Wrong..........BEER is a carbonated liquid treat.

If there is sugar and no alcohol? Soda, Pop or Coke......depending on your location.

If there's alcohol in it? Carbonated liquid treat.

Carbonated water with nothing in it? Tonic (which mixes well with Dalmore 12 yr by the way).

When we first moved back to Arkansas from California, when we would go out somewhere we'd order a coke and get the "we only have pepsi" line. What the fuck to us coke was just cola flavored soda, that's what we called it, the hicks called it pop no matter the flavor then you specified if you wanted a specific brand. I now call it pop.

 

[antagon]

clearly the solution is just rounding everyone up who can't prove they're not poor and sending them off to prison work camps. think of the efficiency! all you'll have to feed them is water and cream-o-wheat with vitamins crushed up in it. maybe throw in some beef or chicken stock cubes on sundays.

I'm sure some people would prefer they be fed Soylent Green.

meh... i hear that stuff's too expensive. look at our national debt!

 

[antagon]

c'mon, you didn't take a guess.

my angle is that we're a capitalist country, and having tried all what you've suggested, the government realized that maybe the ol' wealth of nations would benefit more efficiently from the invisible hand.

you've got to pay closer attention at present and to history if you think entitlements are just about the subsistence of the entitled, cannon. look at the width of the poor in this country. do you think this is about starvation and nutrition, buddy?

Why don't you spell it out for us? Are you talking about survival of the fittest? Genocide for those who aren't? Is that what Alex Jones is talking about these days?

i'm not sure who alex jones is. to put it succinctly, economies are dependent on demand.

via entitlements and labor reforms, we have made that demand a domestic characteristic. they are there for that purpose such that if you are lazy, unlucky or otherwise unable to work, you can participate in this demand structure. this is not the same as merely not starving. this demand structure is the reason why a large portion of our labor market is employed in the first place, and why a moderate portion of the chinese labor market is employed, too.

 

[MaggieMae]

c'mon, you didn't take a guess.

my angle is that we're a capitalist country, and having tried all what you've suggested, the government realized that maybe the ol' wealth of nations would benefit more efficiently from the invisible hand.

you've got to pay closer attention at present and to history if you think entitlements are just about the subsistence of the entitled, cannon. look at the width of the poor in this country. do you think this is about starvation and nutrition, buddy?

Why don't you spell it out for us? Are you talking about survival of the fittest? Genocide for those who aren't? Is that what Alex Jones is talking about these days?

i'm not sure who alex jones is. to put it succinctly, economies are dependent on demand.

via entitlements and labor reforms, we have made that demand a domestic characteristic. they are there for that purpose such that if you are lazy, unlucky or otherwise unable to work, you can participate in this demand structure. this is not the same as merely not starving. this demand structure is the reason why a large portion of our labor market is employed in the first place, and why a moderate portion of the chinese labor market is employed, too.

Sounds like someone's got a very active imagination. Does that theory have a genesis put forth by some philosopher? If so, who?

 

[antagon]

Why don't you spell it out for us? Are you talking about survival of the fittest? Genocide for those who aren't? Is that what Alex Jones is talking about these days?

i'm not sure who alex jones is. to put it succinctly, economies are dependent on demand.

via entitlements and labor reforms, we have made that demand a domestic characteristic. they are there for that purpose such that if you are lazy, unlucky or otherwise unable to work, you can participate in this demand structure. this is not the same as merely not starving. this demand structure is the reason why a large portion of our labor market is employed in the first place, and why a moderate portion of the chinese labor market is employed, too.

Sounds like someone's got a very active imagination. Does that theory have a genesis put forth by some philosopher? If so, who?

i'm the philosopher.

unlike some theories which dabble in hypotheticals, mine observes history. rather than using your imagination, try looking at the countries which defer to production and supply and those which defer to consumption and demand. alternatively, look at the evolution of US policy whereby we transitioned from the former to the latter over the course of the last 100 years. instead of imagining, study the empirical and statistical support for the correlation between countries which have entitlements (to include food stamps) and those which dont. night and day.

i think it would take a vivid imagination to presume that this connection is coincidence or was stumbled across by virtually every developed nation on the planet.

 

[MaggieMae]

i'm not sure who alex jones is. to put it succinctly, economies are dependent on demand.

via entitlements and labor reforms, we have made that demand a domestic characteristic. they are there for that purpose such that if you are lazy, unlucky or otherwise unable to work, you can participate in this demand structure. this is not the same as merely not starving. this demand structure is the reason why a large portion of our labor market is employed in the first place, and why a moderate portion of the chinese labor market is employed, too.

Sounds like someone's got a very active imagination. Does that theory have a genesis put forth by some philosopher? If so, who?

i'm the philosopher.

unlike some theories which dabble in hypotheticals, mine observes history. rather than using your imagination, try looking at the countries which defer to production and supply and those which defer to consumption and demand. alternatively, look at the evolution of US policy whereby we transitioned from the former to the latter over the course of the last 100 years. instead of imagining, study the empirical and statistical support for the correlation between countries which have entitlements (to include food stamps) and those which dont. night and day.

i think it would take a vivid imagination to presume that this connection is coincidence or was stumbled across by virtually every developed nation on the planet.

I see no "transition" at all. I see ebbs and flows depending upon events occuring at the time. How would you explain the boom years of the 90's when it was an employEE's job market, where people with experience and education could practically pick their own place to work and potential employERS competed to get them on board? That dissolved in the last several years as many of those employers decided that expansion meant investing in foreign markets as a result of profit windfalls from the tax reductions. Trickle down by way of tax cuts were supposed to boost their own companies and American workers up the chain, but instead they began cutting back on salaries and benefits because they could see even bigger gains by using cheap foreign labor and importing real talent through H-IB visas.

If there's any conspiracy to maintain consumption and demand over production and supply, it's because people have to work, even if they have to work for less money and alter their lifestyles. And they spend accordingly.

 

[antagon]

Sounds like someone's got a very active imagination. Does that theory have a genesis put forth by some philosopher? If so, who?

i'm the philosopher.

unlike some theories which dabble in hypotheticals, mine observes history. rather than using your imagination, try looking at the countries which defer to production and supply and those which defer to consumption and demand. alternatively, look at the evolution of US policy whereby we transitioned from the former to the latter over the course of the last 100 years. instead of imagining, study the empirical and statistical support for the correlation between countries which have entitlements (to include food stamps) and those which dont. night and day.

i think it would take a vivid imagination to presume that this connection is coincidence or was stumbled across by virtually every developed nation on the planet.

I see no "transition" at all. I see ebbs and flows depending upon events occuring at the time.

there are ebbs and flows, however as a whole, the policies of the 19th century are 180* from those of the 20th century. policies establishing labor standards and entitlements exist in all 'developed nations'. all of these countries support higher per-capital product and earnings than do developing countries. in these developing and undeveloped nations, these policies have not been adapted or the economic transition is not complete. this is why countries like china and india are similar to the US prior to this transition. ebb or flow, there has been a consistent swing in the direction of what defines modern economics, and it is naive to reduce these economic policies to mere social justice issues.

How would you explain the boom years of the 90's when it was an employEE's job market, where people with experience and education could practically pick their own place to work and potential employERS competed to get them on board?

higher demand for labor.

That dissolved in the last several years as many of those employers decided that expansion meant investing in foreign markets as a result of profit windfalls from the tax reductions. Trickle down by way of tax cuts were supposed to boost their own companies and American workers up the chain, but instead they began cutting back on salaries and benefits because they could see even bigger gains by using cheap foreign labor and importing real talent through H-IB visas.

it is important to account for the bust of the dot-com bubble in this roundup as well, but outsourcing is certainly a factor in our economy. the changes in wages reflect a recession in demand on the labor market from these factors among automation and deindustrialization.

If there's any conspiracy to maintain consumption and demand over production and supply, it's because people have to work, even if they have to work for less money and alter their lifestyles. And they spend accordingly.

there is a conspiracy, but it is not a secret. it is for the purposes of jobs and general prosperity. it works.

if you are implying that lowering wages until everyone gets a job is competent policy, then you are in the realm of imagination again. i'd argue that your according expenditure would not suffice to maintain the jobs you'd hope to create with such a plan.

at any rate i'm keeping to history and track record. the track record on crossed fingers and free labor markets is bleak. great depression bleak.