Live data from Hacker News

I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

huffpost.com

701–710 of 918 posts

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what humanity must aim for.

[flagged]

i say this genuinely, with as much love as i can muster for a stranger on the internet: this line of thought is annoying to most people who understand that living collectively requires sacrifice and accepting imperfect solutions in the pursuit of good. individualism is a weird personality myth that 99.9999999% of people will never realize. kids are hungry and we can feed them. one thing cannot be concretely addressed and the other thing can.

> should I have my wealth forcibly extracted to do so anyway?

if you have amassed anywhere near what most people would consider "wealth", then yes, you should.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#702
post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure, am a parent who sends their kid to a charter school and strong advocate for parents to be allowed to choose where to send their schools. That being said, the strong version of the argument being made is that if all schools are funded nationally (so that schools in more affluent areas don't automatically get more money) and rich people and people of influence were forced to send their kids to the same…

I understand the argument, but I’m trying to point out that similar claims were made about eliminating advanced math classes in California and it did not work at all. I think the claim appeals to some people because they’re bought in to the idea that a small fraction of wealthy people control everything from school budgets to taxes, and therefore if you force them into your space and restrict their rights to other op…

> the idea that a small fraction of wealthy people control everything from school budgets to taxes

It's not control.

It's simply that there exists a (relatively-speaking) small fraction of wealthy people. To wit, income inequality.

If we had less income inequality in the US, there wouldn't need to be nudges to align wealthy people's interests with everyone else.

If we're fine with large amounts of income inequality, then we're going to need to put in some utilitarian guardrails, given that $ = political power and political power controls school funding.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not that I don’t want kids fed. It’s that I know deep in my soul that $100 will be spent per child, with $99 extracted along the way by various politicians / consultants / unions, and $1 of disgusting food will (sometimes) be provided to a child. If you oppose any actual steps to feed kids, then you don't want the kids fed. The rest of this is just you justifying why you don't want the kids fed. If you want th…

The arguments are so facetious and facile. India has more corruption then the US and they can handle a free lunch program for all kids. Why can't America?

Because many of the people that need it the most keep voting against their own interests. Because education is terrible in all the the states that vote red.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#704
post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure, am a parent who sends their kid to a charter school and strong advocate for parents to be allowed to choose where to send their schools. That being said, the strong version of the argument being made is that if all schools are funded nationally (so that schools in more affluent areas don't automatically get more money) and rich people and people of influence were forced to send their kids to the same…

I understand the argument, but I’m trying to point out that similar claims were made about eliminating advanced math classes in California and it did not work at all. I think the claim appeals to some people because they’re bought in to the idea that a small fraction of wealthy people control everything from school budgets to taxes, and therefore if you force them into your space and restrict their rights to other op…

The wealthy have much more influence on the politicians that write the funding bills than poor people do. Surely you realize this.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#705
post #534

> The thing about witnessing a 7-year-old having their hot lunch tray yanked away and replaced with a cold sandwich It's bizarre that this happens in America.

Well in the Netherlands all kids are basically expected to bring their own cold sandwiches every day, so that isn't seen as a punishment. Primary schools don't even have separate tables for meals, let alone canteens: kids just eat their cold sandwiches day after day (and still grow into the tallest people in the world).

> in the Netherlands all kids are basically expected to bring their own cold sandwiches every day

Nothing wrong with that. But there's a massive difference of everyone bringing their sandwiches vs. everyone getting a hot meal but little Johnny having his yanked away because his parents can't afford it.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aggregating statistics regarding age has very little explanatory value in regards to fraud and is a non sequitir. I would not be surprised if the average age of a convicted insurance fraudster has remained relatively constant over time either. The example in linked materials of 1 in 4 adults in Hale County receiving disability payments is a clear example of a situation where individuals and healthcare providers have…

This is my claim: the narrative that these programs incentivize and facilitate freeloading is false. Let's use your example: NPR's exploration of Hale County [0], which I'm not sure you've read/listened to. The first interview [1] is exactly what I've written: baby boomers got older and more disabled, and economic conditions pushed people into disability. Quote: "consider this: Since the economy began its slow, slow…

Your method of argument relies on lumping all persons into one category. The annoying detail about designing public policy is that policy changes happen on the margin, and it is the marginal cases where moral hazard presents itself first. If you continue to boundlessly extend your empathy for everyone that walks into their doctor's office to anybody that says they have back pain, you will clearly have fraud. And Hale County is clearly a case where this fraud is broadly present. You have presented your argument in the best way to try to lump the fraudsters in with the rest of the empathy-deserving recipients.

When Hale County has 1 in 4 adults on disability, it is beyond evident that the system is not working as intended. Yes, it is distinctly clear that some of those adults should be getting jobs. Your question "What do you want these people to do, manifest new jobs?" implies that this must be some unthinkably cruel thing to believe.

>If your model of this problem is "there's a bunch of people too lazy to work who are freeloading on the public dole" you will be unsuccessful at solving it, because your model is wrong.

Even if freeloading is unsolvable, the moral hazard exists. My primary claim prior to this comment has been limited to the fact that the moral hazard is present. Your argumentative strategy to claim that because the problem isn't solvable, it must not exist, strikes me as dishonest.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fence, verb, meaning to shift stolen goods. Does it not also have that meaning in commonwealth countries?

I'd never heard it before, from googling it seems to be antiquated language in Britain.

I (British) am familiar with the term, especially as a verb like "fencing stolen goods". You can find British newspapers reporting this in the last decade.

The legal term since 1968 seems to be "Handling Stolen Goods", which might have made the word "fencing" less common: https://mcgeemcgeeagarlaw.co.uk/criminal-defence/handling-st...

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this wasn't all over the US, but in the 90s I helped serve and clean up our elementary school lunches. There was a rotation through all of the older classrooms.

Mind sharing which school?

It was a public elementary school in Bay City Michigan.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this wasn't all over the US, but in the 90s I helped serve and clean up our elementary school lunches. There was a rotation through all of the older classrooms.

On the internet it’s easy to forget that the US education system is extremely heterogeneous. There isn’t one set of practices or laws that are shared across the country. It’s very local. For me, I can barely remember school provided lunches existing as something that a small handful of students got. The majority of students brought a lunchbox from home that our parents prepared.

Yup, we had "hot lunch" available or you could bring your own. Some kids had meal cards that got them free lunch (or maybe just reduced lunch? I was like 8 years old so I don't remember.)

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#710

As someone from Europe, I had heard before about bankrupting ambulance rides, slavery in prisons, and food deserts. I did not expect to add “lunch money humiliation ritual” to that list. I’ll think of this next time I complain about my 50% income tax.

50% sounds manageable still. Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot. Assuming no costs to deliver, I need to bill 10K€ to net ~3,5K€. It makes exports uncompetitive with other lower taxed countries. Despite this, seeing a general practitioner can take months for issues that aren't-killing-you-right-now.

To make a useful contribution to the discussion, at least say what country this applies to.

You also seem to have added business taxes onto the income taxes.

Post reply on HN