WWTBAM Bored

Something is wrong here.


Jeff Bezos Is Now Worth $150 Billion
https://qz.com/1330631/jeff-bezos-is-no ... k-markets/


Hundreds Of Amazon Employees Are On Food Stamps
https://www.newsweek.com/jeff-bezos-ama ... mps-782714

elwoodblues wrote:Something is wrong here.


Jeff Bezos Is Now Worth $150 Billion
https://qz.com/1330631/jeff-bezos-is-no ... k-markets/


Hundreds Of Amazon Employees Are On Food Stamps
https://www.newsweek.com/jeff-bezos-ama ... mps-782714

Obviously we need to cut back on Food Stamps.

Share the wealth is such a noble concept. If you're the one who doesn't have the money.....

lb13

littlebeast13 wrote:Share the wealth is such a noble concept. If you're the one who doesn't have the money.....

lb13

Unless you want to do away with food stamps, share the wealth is here to stay either way. The issue is whose wealth is to be shared.

I'm okay with requiring employers (via a minimum wage) to share enough of their wealth to ensure that full-time employees don't need food stamps. Because otherwise I'm subsidizing the employer who doesn't need to pay a living wage. I don't want to do that, and I can't imagine any policy reason I should do that. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

littlebeast13 wrote:Share the wealth is such a noble concept. If you're the one who doesn't have the money.....

lb13

Unless you want to do away with food stamps, share the wealth is here to stay either way. The issue is whose wealth is to be shared.

I'm okay with requiring employers (via a minimum wage) to share enough of their wealth to ensure that full-time employees don't need food stamps. Because otherwise I'm subsidizing the employer who doesn't need to pay a living wage. I don't want to do that, and I can't imagine any policy reason I should do that. --Bob

I'm sorry. This is littlebeast13... not flockofseagulls104 or BackInTex. You apparently confused my simple observation with trying to make a political point. it's OK, we all make mistakes...

lb13

Bob78164 wrote: I'm okay with requiring employers (via a minimum wage) to share enough of their wealth to ensure that full-time employees don't need food stamps. Because otherwise I'm subsidizing the employer who doesn't need to pay a living wage. I don't want to do that, and I can't imagine any policy reason I should do that. --Bob

Not all employers are Bezos. Most barely make enough themselves. Many go bankrupt. Not everyone wins, but you are O.K. with limiting who even gets to play. I don't want employment choices to be only large corporate entities. I want everyone to be able to have a chance. The market decides wages. Food stamps falsify the market. They allow folks to survive on half efforts. I'm not saying no one should get food stamps, but many who do shouldn't.

I am BiT.

BackInTex wrote:I'm not saying no one should get food stamps, but many who do shouldn't.

That turns out not to be the case.

There will always be a few who abuse any program, but virtually no one deliberately holds their income down for the "privilege" of subsisting on food stamps.

Real wages (adjusted for inflation) haven't improved in a very long time. Even in this market, real wages aren't increasing. Corporate profits, on the other hand, have skyrocketed. That's not the free market at work. That's a market distorted in favor of employers and against employees who can't organize, who are increasingly unable to enforce their rights through class actions, and who face a legal and regulatory environment increasingly stacked against them. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:I'm not saying no one should get food stamps, but many who do shouldn't.

That turns out not to be the case.

There will always be a few who abuse any program, but virtually no one deliberately holds their income down for the "privilege" of subsisting on food stamps.

You are naive.
There are many who under report their income in order to qualify and receive food stamps. There is a huge black market for food stamps here. I'm sure it is the same there if you'd just open your eyes. If all folks receiving food stamps needed the food stamps to survive there would be no black market.

littlebeast13 wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

littlebeast13 wrote:Share the wealth is such a noble concept. If you're the one who doesn't have the money.....

lb13

Unless you want to do away with food stamps, share the wealth is here to stay either way. The issue is whose wealth is to be shared.

I'm okay with requiring employers (via a minimum wage) to share enough of their wealth to ensure that full-time employees don't need food stamps. Because otherwise I'm subsidizing the employer who doesn't need to pay a living wage. I don't want to do that, and I can't imagine any policy reason I should do that. --Bob

I'm sorry. This is littlebeast13... not flockofseagulls104 or BackInTex. You apparently confused my simple observation with trying to make a political point. it's OK, we all make mistakes...

lb13

How do you feel about many of your coworkers needing to get by on Food Stamps?

BackInTex wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:I'm not saying no one should get food stamps, but many who do shouldn't.

That turns out not to be the case.

There will always be a few who abuse any program, but virtually no one deliberately holds their income down for the "privilege" of subsisting on food stamps.

You are naive.
There are many who under report their income in order to qualify and receive food stamps. There is a huge black market for food stamps here. I'm sure it is the same there if you'd just open your eyes. If all folks receiving food stamps needed the food stamps to survive there would be no black market.

There's something here that isn't making sense. It can't make economic sense for anyone to sell their own stamps instead of using them. They can't possibly get as much as the stamps' face value, so as long as they're buying food at least as much food as the stamps cover, they'd be better off using the stamps and putting away the money saved using them. And if the issue is that they're getting more stamps than they actually need and selling the surplus, that's got nothing to do with income eligibility. It just means the normal allotment of stamps happens to be more than some people (presumably light eaters) need, or that they have some alternative method (perhaps family donations) of acquiring food. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote: You are naive.
There are many who under report their income in order to qualify and receive food stamps. There is a huge black market for food stamps here. I'm sure it is the same there if you'd just open your eyes. If all folks receiving food stamps needed the food stamps to survive there would be no black market.

There's something here that isn't making sense. It can't make economic sense for anyone to sell their own stamps instead of using them. They can't possibly get as much as the stamps' face value, so as long as they're buying food at least as much food as the stamps cover, they'd be better off using the stamps and putting away the money saved using them. And if the issue is that they're getting more stamps than they actually need and selling the surplus, that's got nothing to do with income eligibility. It just means the normal allotment of stamps happens to be more than some people (presumably light eaters) need, or that they have some alternative method (perhaps family donations) of acquiring food. --Bob

Unbelievable.

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:That turns out not to be the case.

There will always be a few who abuse any program, but virtually no one deliberately holds their income down for the "privilege" of subsisting on food stamps.

You are naive.
There are many who under report their income in order to qualify and receive food stamps. There is a huge black market for food stamps here. I'm sure it is the same there if you'd just open your eyes. If all folks receiving food stamps needed the food stamps to survive there would be no black market.

There's something here that isn't making sense. It can't make economic sense for anyone to sell their own stamps instead of using them. They can't possibly get as much as the stamps' face value, so as long as they're buying food at least as much food as the stamps cover, they'd be better off using the stamps and putting away the money saved using them. And if the issue is that they're getting more stamps than they actually need and selling the surplus, that's got nothing to do with income eligibility. It just means the normal allotment of stamps happens to be more than some people (presumably light eaters) need, or that they have some alternative method (perhaps family donations) of acquiring food. --Bob

Haven't they done away with paper "stamps" and gone to a debit-card thing?

Here's a funny one:

https://www.king5.com/article/news/loca ... -558042803

I did not intend for this to turn into a discussion about food stamps. I was just wondering if it was too much to ask for the richest man in the world to pay his employees enough to live on.

Bob78164 wrote: It can't make economic sense for anyone to sell their own stamps instead of using them. They can't possibly get as much as the stamps' face value, so as long as they're buying food at least as much food as the stamps cover, they'd be better off using the stamps and putting away the money saved using them.

Bob, you just didn't think this through far enough. People who sell food stamps do so in order to get money to pay the rent or keep the power on or buy some clothes, things that food stamps can't help with.

And, while food stamp fraud does exist, like most cases of "fraud" that conservatives allege, they are usually blown way out of proportion in right wing media, in comparison with the actual size of the problem. This article gives a bit more nuanced of an analysis of the problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/us/f ... onomy.html

silverscreenselect wrote:

Bob78164 wrote: It can't make economic sense for anyone to sell their own stamps instead of using them. They can't possibly get as much as the stamps' face value, so as long as they're buying food at least as much food as the stamps cover, they'd be better off using the stamps and putting away the money saved using them.

Bob, you just didn't think this through far enough. People who sell food stamps do so in order to get money to pay the rent or keep the power on or buy some clothes, things that food stamps can't help with.

But that still only makes sense if they're getting food stamps for more food than they will buy, because they're not getting 100 cents on the dollar for selling the food stamps. And whether that happens has nothing to do with the recipient's income levels. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

silverscreenselect wrote:Bob, you just didn't think this through far enough. People who sell food stamps do so in order to get money to pay the rent or keep the power on or buy some clothes, things that food stamps can't help with.

But that still only makes sense if they're getting food stamps for more food than they will buy, because they're not getting 100 cents on the dollar for selling the food stamps. And whether that happens has nothing to do with the recipient's income levels. --Bob

Actually, some poor folks will go hungry to keep a roof over their head or the heat on, even though they lose money that way.

I think almost all the Amazon or Mecca employees who need food stamps work less than full time, for one reason or another.

jarnon wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

silverscreenselect wrote:Bob, you just didn't think this through far enough. People who sell food stamps do so in order to get money to pay the rent or keep the power on or buy some clothes, things that food stamps can't help with.

But that still only makes sense if they're getting food stamps for more food than they will buy, because they're not getting 100 cents on the dollar for selling the food stamps. And whether that happens has nothing to do with the recipient's income levels. --Bob

Actually, some poor folks will go hungry to keep a roof over their head or the heat on, even though they lose money that way.

I think almost all the Amazon or Mecca employees who need food stamps work less than full time, for one reason or another.

The reason being that if they work part-time they don't have to be given benefits, such as health insurance.

Bob Juch wrote:

jarnon wrote:I think almost all the Amazon or Mecca employees who need food stamps work less than full time, for one reason or another.

The reason being that if they work part-time they don't have to be given benefits, such as health insurance.

That's one big reason, but some employees work part-time because of family obligations, or a disability, and if Amazon or Mecca didn't hire them they'd be on public assistance. They also hire extra help at peak times like Xmas and Amazon Prime Day.

jarnon wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

jarnon wrote:I think almost all the Amazon or Mecca employees who need food stamps work less than full time, for one reason or another.

The reason being that if they work part-time they don't have to be given benefits, such as health insurance.

That's one big reason, but some employees work part-time because of family obligations, or a disability, and if Amazon or Mecca didn't hire them they'd be on public assistance. They also hire extra help at peak times like Xmas and Amazon Prime Day.

When I worked at the Walmart Home Office in Bentonville, the best person in the support group had her hours reduced from 40 per week to 30 after returning from maternity leave. That's so Walmart didn't have to give her and her baby health insurance which would have cost them a lot more.

Bob Juch wrote:

jarnon wrote:

Bob Juch wrote: The reason being that if they work part-time they don't have to be given benefits, such as health insurance.

That's one big reason, but some employees work part-time because of family obligations, or a disability, and if Amazon or Mecca didn't hire them they'd be on public assistance. They also hire extra help at peak times like Xmas and Amazon Prime Day.

When I worked at the Walmart Home Office in Bentonville, the best person in the support group had her hours reduced from 40 per week to 30 after returning from maternity leave. That's so Walmart didn't have to give her and her baby health insurance which would have cost them a lot more.

Walmart wrote:All of our eligible associates – both full and part-time -- have affordable options that include no lifetime maximum, eligible preventive care covered at 100% and an up-front contribution to help pay for medical expenses.

Even if your colleague was eligible for some kind of subsidized insurance, reducing her hours may have made it cheaper for her to get Medicaid or Obamacare, saving Mecca money.

jarnon wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

jarnon wrote:That's one big reason, but some employees work part-time because of family obligations, or a disability, and if Amazon or Mecca didn't hire them they'd be on public assistance. They also hire extra help at peak times like Xmas and Amazon Prime Day.

When I worked at the Walmart Home Office in Bentonville, the best person in the support group had her hours reduced from 40 per week to 30 after returning from maternity leave. That's so Walmart didn't have to give her and her baby health insurance which would have cost them a lot more.

Walmart wrote:All of our eligible associates – both full and part-time -- have affordable options that include no lifetime maximum, eligible preventive care covered at 100% and an up-front contribution to help pay for medical expenses.

Even if your colleague was eligible for some kind of subsidized insurance, reducing her hours may have made it cheaper for her to get Medicaid or Obamacare, saving Mecca money.

Exactly my point. This was in 1999, before Obamacare.

elwoodblues wrote:I did not intend for this to turn into a discussion about food stamps. I was just wondering if it was too much to ask for the richest man in the world to pay his employees enough to live on.