North Country [chat]land

Dark Raven X

"gonna make the DLC podcast consistent, like PATV"

But you guys stopped doing PATV as well.

Though Strip Search more than makes up for it.

MadCaddy

Couscous wrote: »

Deebaser wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

If the outcomes are the same or better when just giving them cash and easier to administer, you might as well just switch to giving cash.

The goal is to keep people from starving to death. Giving people food credits does a lot more to ensure this than giving people cash.

How many people do you think will starve if we just give them cash instead of food stamps? Do you really think that is such a huge problem that we need food stamps?

So many people.. It's unfeasible. Health care costs would surge too, at least in correlation with the obesity crawl on food assistance rosters.

emnmnme

Gambling addicts and alcoholics not making an effort to stop drinking.

kaleedity

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT wrote: »

PA doing a kick starter sorta bothers me. This is for projects that have no funding right? So why is PA doing kicks tarter stuff?

no, it's for projects to meet demand of consumers that want their shit

AManFromEarth

Dark Raven X wrote: »

"gonna make the DLC podcast consistent, like PATV"

But you guys stopped doing PATV as well.

Though Strip Search more than makes up for it.

They did Strip Search instead of PATV this year, according to one of the recent newsposts.

Which is a shame, but I guess the Desert Bus guys can only edit so many videos a week.

Cinders

Bring back Mincome or a negative income tax!

Gooey

syndalis wrote: »

Gooey wrote: »

I have a position that is now +201%

i think all the inherent value has been extracted at this point and i am just riding the wave of the Dow

it is a leveraged position so once the merry go round stops the entire thing will basically come crashing down

so the question is how long is the dow rally going to last, and also how greedy am i

i am feeling very greedy

Gooby:

couldn't you skim some of your winnings off, and let what is left ride the wave however it goes?

That way, you have made moneys, and can still make more moneys.

yeah i suppose i could

that might be a thing that i do

matt has a problem

skippydumptruck wrote: »

matt has a problem wrote: »

It's not "their" money though. It's government assistance. It's designed to both help them when they need it, while getting off it as soon as they're able. It's not supposed to be a crutch.

is your tax break for being married your money, or the one for owning a house

Yes? The government isn't giving me money. It's saying "well, you don't have to pay us quite as much."

bloodyroarxx

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT wrote: »

PA doing a kick starter sorta bothers me. This is for projects that have no funding right? So why is PA doing kicks tarter stuff?

Its barely a KS, with a $10 goal all they are doing is selling merchandise and making easy money

AManFromEarth

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

I'd consider donating to a PA Kickstarter but their rewards always fuckin' suck, so no thank you.

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT

Hmm. I guess I just don't see the point then. Couldn't they just put the rewards for sale on their store?

MadCaddy

Evil Multifarious wrote: »

I explained short selling to my dad the other day, as best I could

We sipped our beers and nodded and agreed that financiers are dark sorcerers and we should abolish the wage system

It really is funny how few people actually get it, even in the industry. It is just one elaborate con for vig. There's reasons I'm playing the track instead of day trading now. At least he track makes inside information discernible by money underlays.

matt has a problem

AManFromEarth wrote: »

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

Charge everyone making over $250k a year $10k to shoot someone making under $10k a year

Instant balanced budget.

21stCentury

What we should do is outlaw being poor. if you household makes, say, the bottom percentile, you go to jail until you can work off your debts to society.

Couscous

Wouldn't an alcoholic just trade the shit he bought with food stamps for some booze?

AManFromEarth

matt has a problem wrote: »

skippydumptruck wrote: »

matt has a problem wrote: »

It's not "their" money though. It's government assistance. It's designed to both help them when they need it, while getting off it as soon as they're able. It's not supposed to be a crutch.

is your tax break for being married your money, or the one for owning a house

Yes? The government isn't giving me money. It's saying "well, you don't have to pay us quite as much."

Marriage credits are not cuts. That money wouldn't be yours if the program didn't exist.

DoctorArch

Eh, that money I could send to the Kickstarter could fund a new champion on League of Legends. (Help me, I just got bit by the bug after trying the game 5+ times!).

P10

bloodyroarxx wrote: »

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT wrote: »

PA doing a kick starter sorta bothers me. This is for projects that have no funding right? So why is PA doing kicks tarter stuff?

Its barely a KS, with a $10 goal all they are doing is selling merchandise and making easy money

It's stupid that KS is allowing it because it seems to be against the 'spirit' of Kickstarter. Then again I imagine Kickstarter makes its money so what do they care.

Other than that I don't see an issue. Don't like it don't gib monie

Deebaser

I think my boss likes me to head up this new, more prestigious team. ++
The team will deal exclusively with regulators. minusminusminusminusminusminusminusminusminus

matt has a problem

Couscous wrote: »

Wouldn't an alcoholic just trade the shit he bought with food stamps for some booze?

One of the popular LINK scams is to go to an unscrupulous merchant, "pay" them $20 in LINKbucks, and they give you $15 in cash.

Feral

MadCaddy wrote: »

Feral wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

There's a lotta really awesome freakonomis about government aid and the signals and data we have on it. I was listening to the most recent one about obesity, and they were touching on the food stamps/obesity in kids issue. Do you think that just relabeling obesity/fat as malnourished would make lower socio-economic ladder parents more likely to educate themselves about food?

The problem is that education isn't likely to make a large impact.

But would it be a good way of activating critical thought in those predisposed not to do so? The paradox of the statement is rather compelling, and I could see it having an effect, as a big part of childhood obesity is the parental loving their child so much it's killing them both (in a way).

That's just a restatement of the same idea - "the poors are fat because they make bad food choices."

There's evidence that this is a factor, but it's a weak factor. It's overshadowed by issues of affordability and access, and doesn't take into account the contextual nature of perceptions about food.

AManFromEarth

Got good news today re: my legal battle with family.

It will be resolved soon(ish) in as amicable a fashion as it can be. Which isn't very, but needs must. How someone as decent as the man who adopted me came out of that bunch of swamp trash I will never know.

P10

also i've only kickstarted one thing because i'm a massive obsidian fanboy and they aren't no-namers so i have some faith the project will happen/won't suck

i would have kickstarted skullgirls but i didn't hear about it until 2 late

Zephiran

AManFromEarth wrote: »

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

A modest proposal.

I like it.

emnmnme

Couscous wrote: »

Wouldn't an alcoholic just trade the shit he bought with food stamps for some booze?

Yeah, that would be fraud. His SNAP benefits would be terminated.

Couscous

Really, any compulsive gambler could do the same thing. Spend the food stamps on some high value items then sell it for less than it is worth. It wouldn't be rational but we are already assuming that they are about as irrational as possible.

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT

Hmm. I guess I just don't see the point then. Couldn't they just put the rewards for sale on their store?

matt has a problem wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

Charge everyone making over $250k a year $10k to shoot someone making under $10k a year

Instant balanced budget.

They did this already. Hard Target starring JCVD.

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT

Hmm. I guess I just don't see the point then. Couldn't they just put the rewards for sale on their store?

matt has a problem wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

Charge everyone making over $250k a year $10k to shoot someone making under $10k a year

Instant balanced budget.

They did this already. Hard Target starring JCVD.

Zephiran

My personal hygiene has improved since my tinnitus worsened.

Mostly because the shower is the only place where I can feel genuinely normal for a few minutes.

Couscous

emnmnme wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

Wouldn't an alcoholic just trade the shit he bought with food stamps for some booze?

Yeah, that would be fraud. His SNAP benefits would be terminated.

Only if he is caught. And if we are assuming alcoholics who are almost completely irrational in their spending, they would try it anyway, resulting in the same shit as just giving them cash.

Evil Multifarious

MadCaddy wrote: »

Evil Multifarious wrote: »

I explained short selling to my dad the other day, as best I could

We sipped our beers and nodded and agreed that financiers are dark sorcerers and we should abolish the wage system

It really is funny how few people actually get it, even in the industry. It is just one elaborate con for vig. There's reasons I'm playing the track instead of day trading now. At least he track makes inside information discernible by money underlays.

Am I reading this right, as "market trading is a scam so I gamble instead"?

Irond Will

override367 wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

So It Goes wrote: »

Irond Will wrote: »

So It Goes wrote: »

also if you're poor you no longer get to make ethical food choices yay

you don't get to be too picky at the soup kitchen, i guess.

this type of attitude (of course amplified) is what drives this "welfare poor shoudn't get nice things"

"beggars can't be choosers" suddenly becomes "government assistance shouldn't actually be helpful because then everyone will use it!" which is just ugh

what is the right solution? should we have any restrictions on public assistance?

would you be okay with allowing organic milk on wic vouchers (and cage-free eggs and the equivalent across the various vouchers) if it meant that the funding didn't go as far only half the number of people were allowed to qualify?

should there be any guidelines, structures or restrictions to encourage people from spending all their food stamp money on junkfood? is it problematic if people do this?

This strikes me as a massive strawman.

Here's a better question: is this actually an issue? Are there legions of starving children out there because their parents spend WIC coupons on organic milk and cage free eggs so by the time the 15th comes around they're out of food?

WIC isn't a dollar amount - it's a fixed unit based on a coupon.

so if you buy the expensive milk, the government gets charged twice as much

i guess the way they normally handle it is to scale the amounts depending on the cost. like the option of three cans condensed milk, one gallon of milk, or a half-gallon of organic milk.

i'm not really sure if that solves the problem, exactly, since the half-gallon of organic milk has half the nutrients of the gallon of milk. but i think that's how they generally do it.

which is why this is a straw man because it's not what we were talking about

we aren't talking about increasing the expense to the government to give the poors a choice (although I could argue WIC is a horrendously flawed program, it gives out vouchers for sugar water called Juice)

We are talking about food stamps, you have a finite amount, if you use them to buy a single 72 ounce dry aged piece of beef for the month and a lobster

well you can still do that after these restrictions!

But god forbid you buy the $2.99 eggs instead of the $1.99 eggs

right

i'm okay with the wic restrictions

i agree that there's not a convincing reason for applying the wic restrictions to the food stamp restrictions

but am okay with legit "junk food" restrictions for food stamps and wouldn't have a problem with these being expanded (and also the juice/ sugar-water thing in wic)

Deebaser

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT wrote: »

Hmm. I guess I just don't see the point then. Couldn't they just put the rewards for sale on their store?

matt has a problem wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

What we should do is just shoot everyone making under 10k a year and feed them to everyone making under 20k a year.

Charge everyone making over $250k a year $10k to shoot someone making under $10k a year

Instant balanced budget.

They did this already. Hard Target starring JCVD.

That kind of reminds me of Inspector Temporal Policeman

Sir Landshark

doot doot never designed this kind of complex bridge before doot doot

doot doot making it up as i go doot doot

SammyF

P10 wrote: »

also i've only kickstarted one thing because i'm a massive obsidian fanboy and they aren't no-namers so i have some faith the project will happen/won't suck

i would have kickstarted skullgirls but i didn't hear about it until 2 late

I kickstarted two things for very minimal amounts, and I honestly can't even remember what they are now.

MadCaddy

Feral wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

Feral wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

There's a lotta really awesome freakonomis about government aid and the signals and data we have on it. I was listening to the most recent one about obesity, and they were touching on the food stamps/obesity in kids issue. Do you think that just relabeling obesity/fat as malnourished would make lower socio-economic ladder parents more likely to educate themselves about food?

The problem is that education isn't likely to make a large impact.

But would it be a good way of activating critical thought in those predisposed not to do so? The paradox of the statement is rather compelling, and I could see it having an effect, as a big part of childhood obesity is the parental loving their child so much it's killing them both (in a way).

That's just a restatement of the same idea - "the poors are fat because they make bad food choices."

There's evidence that this is a factor, but it's a weak factor. It's overshadowed by issues of affordability and access, and doesn't take into account the contextual nature of perceptions about food.

It's not that at all because obesity is on the rise across income levels. It's reframing the conversation about obesity from fat shaming, and trying to depoliticize it, which happens with First Lady initiatives apparently these days.

STATE OF THE ART ROBOT

STOP SAVING DRAFTS VANILLA!

emnmnme

Couscous wrote: »

Really, any compulsive gambler could do the same thing. Spend the food stamps on some high value items then sell it for less than it is worth. It wouldn't be rational but we are already assuming that they are about as irrational as possible.

You'd skip the 'buying food' step and sell your card to the shady guy hanging out behind the gas station. $100 worth of food stamps for $50 in cash.

EDIT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d3Qo8WU_-M

override367

I'm okay with the government restricting what food food stamps can be used on as long as poor people can tell anyone who gets a tax credit what they can spend that on