81–90 of 918 posts
> $835. > ... > It was less than some monthly car payments. I'm not sure what kind of car, but that's way above any car payment I've ever had to pay. ;)
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During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...
My significant other work at a school during Covid where they were giving free breakfasts and lunches. The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The staff always wanted to err on the side of caution, because they didn’t want any kids to miss out. We’re talking sometimes over 200 lunches that were discarded in a day. Some things could be r…
* Against the rules to hand them out to non-students (even after some priority window)
* Operating in an unusual context where relative load is highly unpredictable
* No system of reservation to try to forecast load
There's also a bunch of data that's absent, like any potential causes for the variable load. Plausibly it might have been weather related, or related to families participating in a cultural event that's special even if they were celebrating in quarantine at home.
It's astonishing this is a thing. I'm thankful to live in Massachusetts where all kids can get lunch for free with no questions asked. Where I live, kids can get breakfast too, however I've heard that isn't universal in the state. The article points out another issue that is so widespread. Often times, being right above or below a cut off line can make a huge difference and it's kids just above the cut off line here…
It's more efficient to provide services gratis (think of community-funded fire, police, education, and parks services), and apply the measurement problem to the revenue side through progressive taxation of income or assets (wealth).
This also creates a larger political constituency for the service as everyone benefits. This was the thinking behind a universal social security system, rather than providing a needs-based system.
There's a fair argument for abandoning free market principles when one considers both that children are literally outside the market (they have no independent wage or income), and that the positive externalities of rearing and educating children redound on the local community. (Well, net of out-migration / brain drain, which is in fact A Thing, and not a minor consideration in many cases.)
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"never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"
There is deep, culturally entrenched ideas here about how wealth is equated to goodness and righteousness, signs of $diety's blessings on you, etc. etc. and nobody, absolutely nobody is trying to unwind that. It's as American as Apple Pie and Baseball.
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"never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"
I'm pretty sure this is malice. They know, they don't do anything.
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>Because cruelty is the point for some people. It's not the people peddling cruelty, it's the system. Though obviously people who personally are ok with or like that will be better represented in such a system. > Or said in their parlance, it teaches you self reliance or to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Rephrased another way you're basically saying "it's not my team doing that, it's the other team." And this i…
The rules of the system are made by people. And yes, for quite some of them the cruelty is the point when making the rules.
My poor country (Moldova) just implemented free lunches for kids in primary and middle schools. What is the reason US doesn’t have this already at federal level?
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I'm pretty sure this is malice. They know, they don't do anything.
It's way too simple to categorize behavior like this into good/evil. It's a worthwhile thought experiment (and habit) to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing, and try to understand how they might come to a different viewpoint than you.
What are the good faith arguments in favor of this?
- ignorance
- lack of critical reasoning skills
- religion
- sadism
- ?
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>Because cruelty is the point for some people. It's not the people peddling cruelty, it's the system. Though obviously people who personally are ok with or like that will be better represented in such a system. > Or said in their parlance, it teaches you self reliance or to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Rephrased another way you're basically saying "it's not my team doing that, it's the other team." And this i…
I'd argue that recent elections demonstrate enough of the people _are_ voting cruelty.