Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker • Hacker News Board

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#301

Post by bosie » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #177

bosie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your first paragraph: At least in a lot of european countries, income tax isn't even the most lucrative tax for the government. Additionally quite a few working people aren't paying income tax. When you can deduct 13k from your income each year, not many people working for a supermarket are paying income taxes for example. Example, Amazon and VW are creating high revenue in Austria and Germany yet their tax…

>At least in a lot of european countries, income tax isn't even the most lucrative tax for the government. Can you provide a few examples? What other revenue streams do those governments have?

In Austria government collects more VAT than it does from income tax.

Then you have property tax, car tax (an additional 20% to the already 20% VAT), drugs tax (alcohol, beer, cigarettes ...), gas/fuel tax, flight tax, capital gains tax and probably many more i am forgetting now. those are just consumer taxes though

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#302

Post by ttul » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

tren-hard wrote: post #18

One of those things I wish could out last this virus. We'd be so much better off as a society if we could at least keep our people fed. The comments in here seem a little negative currently but this is great news. Think of all the people in NYC who didn't have access to clean and regular food before the virus.

A general leftward trend is inevitable after this crisis passes. Neoliberalism is facing its toughest challenge; the nordic socioeconomic model has never looked better.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#303

Post by oroul » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #172

cs702 wrote: post #9

This is wonderful to see and badly necessary, particularly in a country like the US, where most people do not have ability to cover a $500 surprise bill in normal times: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-handle-a-50... -- and we are definitely not in normal times. Kudos to the NYC administration for putting this together so quickly.

The data shows the median net worth is around 100k. I'm very suspicious of claims about what the average American can afford based on surveys. Often they ask people how they would pay for something, and if the answer is "credit cards" they interpret it as that they can't afford it, which is plainly nonsense. Edit: took a look at your source. >“The survey shows that a very significant minority of American households a…

Can you provide a link to your source on the 100k net worth figure?

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#304

Post by folmar » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

jshevek wrote: post #104

Zenst wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will find there are more than just `three` people given how many gluten-free restaurants there are in the area: https://ny.eater.com/maps/nyc-best-gluten-free-restaurants Maybe you have data that shows those `three` people eat a lot and able to sustain all those restaurants?

I don't know how many people have a valid medical need to avoid gluten, but I do know that in certain subcultures it is popular to imagine one has a gluten intolerance. Edit: Just discovered spurious accusations of racism in this thread so let me clarify that the "certain subcultures" are not ethnic nor religious. I'm talking about the kind of people who believe in astrology, homeopathy, and acupuncture, who talk abo…

Wikipedia put it around 1% for celiac disease.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#305

Post by gowld » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #247

bloopernova wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, SNAP and other federal/state programs do not go far enough to feed a family. And the poorest families are constantly demonized as some sort of "Welfare Queen" living large on steaks and top shelf liquor.

>> living large on steaks and top shelf liquor More like frozen foods and sugary drinks

Frozen foods are cheap and healthy. Freezing is a cost-effective way to distribute vegetables and meat.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#306

Post by seneca » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

ping_pong wrote: post #132

This is great, but a sobering idea of how bad things really are. This sounds like Great-Depression-like conditions and feels like a "Don't look behind the curtains" moment as to how bad our economy really is for many, if not the majority, of people.

How is responding to a less than once in a lifetime pandemic a condemnation of the economy? The economy is largely shutdown.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#307

Post by umvi » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #218

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think SNAP is supposed to always cover 100% of food expenses. If you're near the cutoff point for benefits, you get some allowance, but you're expected to cover some of the food cost from your income. You would of course use your SNAP benefits first, since they are not fungible, so it is not surprising that you would run out before the end of the month. This does not mean that such households are unable to af…

That's the point. It should. If we remove the fear of starvation (we can afford to feed everyone twice and barely put a dent in our military budget) a lot of people will have a HUGE improvement in their day-to-day happiness. This is one of those obvious huge moral positives we can do. The only "down side" is there will never be fear of starvation. Edit: The one progress I can see in a society is when we can basically…

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that people should strive to be self-reliant. Not: "how can we meet people's needs?" but "how do we help people meet their own needs?". Like the old proverb about giving a man a fish vs. teaching a man to fish.

Everyone always shuts down that second question with "they can't help themselves until their basic needs are met" which is incredibly hand wavy and disingenuous, in my opinion. Half of being poor is in the mind. If poor people are to become middle class people, there needs to be a change in the mind. This change doesn't automatically happen "because money". Changing the mind needs to come from teachers and mentors and the poor person has to want to change and start thinking and acting differently.

If you get everyone reliant on a monolithic omnipotent government, then when said monolithic government fails all of helpless leeches will die (and that could be millions).

I think it's better if we strive for a minimalistic government where members of society strive to be self-reliant and in terms of "safety nets" the government's goal is to promote and encourage self-reliance.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#308

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #277

crazygringo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally just all (or close to all?) existing public school cafeterias staying open. Same cafeteria workers as always, same types of menus. The biggest change in logistics seems to be that all the meals are now to-go, so goodbye trays, hello bags.

... and hello infection increases as people line up for them.

It's no different from lining up at the supermarket.

In theory everyone's supposed to be lining up 6 feet apart.

In practice... well, NYC grocery store aisles are some of the narrowest corridors you'll ever encounter in your life, and there often isn't even space to line up for a cashier.

So social distancing in supermarkets is a total joke. But the alternative is starving to death, since the grocery delivery services are all sold-out. So people line up for food wherever they go.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#309

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #19

fraktl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were given food for free when I have no food, I'd eat anything. Not a New Yorker, was through war when I was a kid, speaking from experience.

Yet they singled out one religious dietary requirements whilst ignoring a whole demographic with a large populus and history of the area - colour me perplexed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_in_New_York_City Still, thank you for replying instead of blind downvote because antisemitisim has many forms it seems, even here :( [EDIT ADD] WOW this comment has gone up and down like crazy - was +4 few mins ago, now -2 (a…

> as I do not wish to draw sad conclusions that appear evident

The sad conclusion that appears evident would seem to be that you didn't do the research.

Any commercial kitchen can, without significant difficulty, produce halal food. The same certainly isn't true of kosher food. Here's an account of making a (fairly simple) food factory kosher: https://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/getting-certified/c... . For a commercial kitchen, you likely have worse problems; beyond the initial setup, you'd at a minimum need segregated areas, utensils and appliances for milk, meat and neither. You'd also need a lot of training.

There's no reason to think there's any anti-semitism here; it's just an issue of practicality.

Re: Three free meals available daily for any New Yorker

#310

Post by fragsworth » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #252

I find it fascinating that it seems so many people are against (sometimes vehemently) against others getting free food and shelter. There is no excuse for a modern civilization to not ensure that everyone has basic human needs met. Sure, we can argue some details like, "Is Netflix really a basic human need?"... joking aside, we as humans should endeavor to ensure that all people have their Maslow pyramid filled in.

I think the fear some people have is that if everyone has free food and shelter, we'll lose a massive portion of the labor force because they would have no need to work.

It is not clear at all to me that it would be objectively good or bad, but some people appear to have picked the other side because they think we'd lose a lot of our nice things.