View Full Version : I would call this looting..........
I wasn't sure where to put this.
This is disgusting. Its looting. When the Food Stamp glitch was fixed, all these people just left their carts and ran out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57607332/ebt-benefit-card-glitch-sparks-walmart-shopping-sprees-in-louisiana/
iris lilies
10-14-13, 8:50am
I wasn't sure where to put this.
This is disgusting. Its looting. When the Food Stamp glitch was fixed, all these people just left their carts and ran out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57607332/ebt-benefit-card-glitch-sparks-walmart-shopping-sprees-in-louisiana/
Walmart purposely allowed it.
Just remember this you all the next time a bash-Walmart thread starts up.
What do you mean IL? That they let some go through at first?
The Storyteller
10-14-13, 9:45am
My guess Walmart allowed it because the government is obligated to pay bills that were authorized by the system.
So, in a way, Walmart is looting government coffers. :)
That said, I don't blame people for wanting to feed their families. Food stamps is a pretty meager way to get food to your children. I highly recommend the recent doc "A Place at the Table".
catherine
10-14-13, 9:48am
While I would normally agree with a looting assessment, I also feel that calling it looting is simply "middle class morality" speaking. For people who chronically don't have enough, doing what many of them did is unfortunately a natural, and in some ways, justifiable, response.
iris lilies
10-14-13, 9:52am
What do you mean IL? That they let some go through at first?
Yes, just taking it from the article you linked. I don't know if that was an act of generosity, an act of ignorance, or as Storyteller says, and act of greed on the part of Walmart but I suspect that the manager of the day didn't have much time to think about how Walmart would be able to game the system.
Yes, just taking it from the article you linked. I don't know if that was an act of generosity, an act of ignorance, or as Storyteller says, and act of greed on the part of Walmart.
I would consider it a conscious act on the part of Wal Mart to prevent being characterized as a soul-less corporation who wouldn't allow food stamp recepients to purchase much needed food.
Naturally, they get just the opposite, a soul-less corporation intent on taking as much from the government as possible. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kinda world.
As for the possible "looters", this seems to me to be a sad commentary on the state of the welfare state. As so many have said in various threads, people "deserve" basic necessities and society "owes" the less fortunate. If you live under those beliefs, is it really so wrong to "loot" if the opportunity arises?
The Storyteller
10-14-13, 10:32am
I would consider it a conscious act on the part of Wal Mart to prevent being characterized as a soul-less corporation
All corporations are soul-less. I don't hold it against Wal Mart. They exist to make money, period.
You have to be a living being to have a soul, and Supreme court decisions to the contrary notwithstanding, corporations are not living beings.
It is quite possible many of the individuals involved were trying to do the right thing by these poor folk, but I have no doubt they ran it by the bean counters and lawyers before they made the decision to accept them.
Its a very complicated issue. First of all, I agree that it probably happened so fast that it was too much for the check-out people and maybe even the manager to deal with. I would like to know how many cart-loads got through, before it was stopped. Also..........I would like to know more about the people who were (in my words looting......stealing) doing this. I would like to know what was in their carts.
How do we deal with this? How do we deal with people on welfare? Its all such a mixed-up, out-of-control country.
I agree.......I have no concept of what its like to be hungry and not have food. I would hope that I would do what I needed to do in order to earn money, not have more children than I could afford, try to become educated, raise children who could be in a better position than I was, etc., etc., etc. But not all people think like that.
I wonder how many people who ran out and left all those over-flowing carts are really trying to have it any other way?
I keep thinking about the Tsunami in Japan, where there was no looting. And people who had lost everything were waiting quietly and peacefully in line for some help.
I think we should demand/expect more from people, or we're all doomed.
People do deserve basic necessities. Our species has organized civil societies around this most fundamental moral principle, and is the reason most of us are so appalled & grieved by the disintegration of places like modern day Somalia. The equitable distribution of basic needs; food, shelter, and so forth, is the basis of human society.
This article has the desired effect on people -- they take a tiny incident like this, involving two small towns and a handful of people in our 300-million population, and it creates a tidal wave of "those stinky cheater poor people! they are all like that! America is getting so horrible!"
I no more believe that than I believe that all corporations are evil. It's just black and white thinking, and that's the kind of thinking that is driving us apart as a nation. I see that kind of reaction as far more worrisome than the fact that there are a few dozen unethical people in Louisiana.
CathyA, do you know that the EBT card tracks what you purchase - above or below your limit? So next month, anyone buying those basketsfull of food (food, not yachts) will very likely see they are in the negative on their card, or at least at zero? I hope they bought nutritious things.
I'd call it "stupid looting" for that reason - like stealing a television with a tracking device in it, or a car and leaving the license plates on. Of course it's ugly. That's why it's in the news -- good news doesn't sell ad space.
But to paint all people on assistance programs with such a broad brush is not fair, and doesn't get us anywhere in terms of building a better system. There's enough shrieking and finger pointing going on all over the nation right now already, isn't there?
Who's painting everyone on assistance with a broad brush? I was only referring to the pictures of people with over-flowing carts. And apparently this kind of thing happened in other states too.
And if they were worrying about their families starving until the system was up again, did they need those over-flowing carts? I'm sure there are LOTS of people on assistance who are hard-working and are genuinely struggling to do all they can to get off the food stamps. But you can't tell me the people in these pictures weren't trying to take things that they thought they could get away with (without paying for them). We have so much crime in this area, that seeing this just really ticked me off.
I'm seeing this kind of behavior growing and growing in numbers, and it really frightens me as to what kind of world I am leaving for my children.
Do you still like me Pug? ;)
People find out they can get unlimited free cheese. People grab as much cheese as they can carry. When they find out the cheese is no longer free, they move on.
No surprise...
Do you still like me Pug? ;)
YOU BET! :D
But I just want to gently offer that it may not be correct that "these things are happening more often." The news media is certainly reporting them more often, but I'm not convinced that we - as a nation - are any more or less dishonest/mean/evil than we used to be. It's just the nature of this overwhelming mass media world we live in, which feels the need to report every small town debacle like this, every person on welfare who buys a new car, every company (to be fair) that does something hurtful or damaging to loyal employees. Same thing with reporting crime. You happen to live near a city that has a rising crime rate, screaming on the news every night, but there are a lot of cities in which the crime rate is actually falling.
I don't think we're worse people now than we used to be, and I don't think large companies are more or less soulless than they used to be. It's just.....louder.
I like to focus on the problem, and finding answers, rather than despairing: How do we run assistance programs at maximum efficiency, make them available to those who are really in need and who are willing to be good citizens, and minimize fraud? Isn't that what we're all after?
And forgive me - by your comments it did seem that you were using this story to illustrate why America was going to hell (with or without handbasket) Sorry if I mis-read you.
It's just been killing me lately to hear everyone everywhere bickering about how awful everything is and whose fault it is, when underneath the surface, we all sort of want the same thing, don't we?
SteveinMN
10-14-13, 3:49pm
The news media is certainly reporting [events like this] more often, but I'm not convinced that we - as a nation - are any more or less dishonest/mean/evil than we used to be.
<snip>
It's just been killing me lately to hear everyone everywhere bickering about how awful everything is and whose fault it is, when underneath the surface, we all sort of want the same thing, don't we?
I agree there is more coverage of incidents like this. I didn't see it on TV, but I did read reports of how Xerox's system failure caused many people to get to the checkout with their usual purchases only to find the EBT system down and few procedures in place to deal with that kind of outage.
But I'm not sure we all want the same thing. Maybe two-thirds of us really do. Perhaps another 30% say they want the same thing but secretly hope they're among those on the ark when the flood comes. And the remaining 3% are sure they're on the ark because they have the money to build their own.
Over the last 35 years or so, we have done a fine job in this country of pitting citizen against citizen. There always have been suspicions of individuals gaming the government. But Ronald Reagan's apocryphal Cadillac-driving welfare queen sparked a national discussion that cast poverty in terms of what it was taking away from the middle class -- distracting the middle class from the high-level looting of their treasure that began then. The "conversation" has continued to the present, where Captains Koch and their purchased minions in Congress couch the budget in terms of "waste" (code language for government spending that does not benefit their constituents), leading people to believe it is better to spend tax dollars on keeping the Washington Monument open for some veterans to visit rather than fund programs for developmentally-disabled children. (Better yet are the low-information voters who believe Obama shut down the government by himself.)
On the news this morning, there was a story about cattle ranchers in the Dakotas whose herds were killed en masse by the freak blizzard they had a few weeks ago. The story was about how some ranchers were going to go out of business because of their losses and because government price-support programs are not operational courtesy of the shutdown. Given how "red state" the Dakotas are, I'm wondering if any of those ranchers recognize that government price supports are handouts -- our taxes at work. My guess is they don't. There's a much better public perception of that sociallization of loss than there is of sending EBT cards to poor people every month. That is the battle being fought. No, I don't think all of us want the same thing.
iris lilies
10-14-13, 4:06pm
... I'm wondering if any of those ranchers recognize that government price supports are handouts -- our taxes at work. My guess is they don't. There's a much better public perception of that sociallization of loss than there is of sending EBT cards to poor people every month. That is the battle being fought. No, I don't think all of us want the same thing.
Oh please, you deliver a lecture on demonizing EBT recipients but it's ok for you to dis the farmers (it's a handout, stoopid!)
FYI, my FIL is a farmer who votes Republican and understand that handouts to farmers are just that, and he's not enthused by them.
FYI, my FIL is a farmer who votes Republican and understand that handouts to farmers are just that, and he's not enthused by them.
I know plenty of farmers who would be happy to gut the Farm Bill, eliminate price supports and subsidies, and all that good stuff.
Free cheese is free cheese, no matter who is getting it, or making it. Or getting paid not to make it.
I agree there is more coverage of incidents like this. I didn't see it on TV, but I did read reports of how Xerox's system failure caused many people to get to the checkout with their usual purchases only to find the EBT system down and few procedures in place to deal with that kind of outage.
But I'm not sure we all want the same thing. Maybe two-thirds of us really do. Perhaps another 30% say they want the same thing but secretly hope they're among those on the ark when the flood comes. And the remaining 3% are sure they're on the ark because they have the money to build their own.
Over the last 35 years or so, we have done a fine job in this country of pitting citizen against citizen. There always have been suspicions of individuals gaming the government. But Ronald Reagan's apocryphal Cadillac-driving welfare queen sparked a national discussion that cast poverty in terms of what it was taking away from the middle class -- distracting the middle class from the high-level looting of their treasure that began then. The "conversation" has continued to the present, where Captains Koch and their purchased minions in Congress couch the budget in terms of "waste" (code language for government spending that does not benefit their constituents), leading people to believe it is better to spend tax dollars on keeping the Washington Monument open for some veterans to visit rather than fund programs for developmentally-disabled children. (Better yet are the low-information voters who believe Obama shut down the government by himself.)
On the news this morning, there was a story about cattle ranchers in the Dakotas whose herds were killed en masse by the freak blizzard they had a few weeks ago. The story was about how some ranchers were going to go out of business because of their losses and because government price-support programs are not operational courtesy of the shutdown. Given how "red state" the Dakotas are, I'm wondering if any of those ranchers recognize that government price supports are handouts -- our taxes at work. My guess is they don't. There's a much better public perception of that sociallization of loss than there is of sending EBT cards to poor people every month. That is the battle being fought. No, I don't think all of us want the same thing.
Yes! Yes! A hundred times yes! ++1
When I see Palin and Cruz inciting riots because some people can't walk around some monument, I wonder if any of their followers actually realize that WIC and Head Start, and food banks are also shuttered. Clearly Palin and Cruz don't care. I haven't heard a peep out of the tea party taliban about any of these programs other than some vague (or not so vague) reference to the 'dependence' of these leeches (and how it makes them not want to be real 'Mericans, or something like that).
I wonder if they realize that furloughed government workers are in fact their neighbors and friends/families who didn't actually just lay on the couch eating bonbons and watching Oprah in their jobs. They actually did stuff. Stuff that we (surprise surprise) depended on. Ironically enough, but not really surprising considering the intelligence level of some of these knuckle draggers, they are shocked...shocked I tell you, and outraged that 'Obama' has shut down THEIR parks and monuments...apparently to punish them...and have called for an investigation into WHY parks and monuments are shut! As demonstrated by Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gop-congressman-confronts-park-ranger
Really? Really? The ignorance is stunning!
This whole thing, the pending default and partial shutdown is a totally, and completely, and 100% made up crisis by the GOP. More specifically the tea party taliban and Boehner, who completely lacks a spine.
This isn't something to 'negotiate'
There is nothing to 'compromise' on.
Both sides are NOT at fault. There is no equivalency here.
If it were a 'negotiation', the democrats/Obama would 'get' something, right? What exactly do they get? What? The republican house to do it's job? Is that what they get? The promise from the GOP to not force the nation to default? Their 'word' that they will pay our bills, that they actually racked up? Is that what democrats get? Or is that what the nation 'gets'? Considering the majority of Americans, right and left, don't want the nation to default, and would be affected by that, and ARE affected by the shutdown, I would say these few radical taliban tea party are holding us ALL hostage. All of us, including their supporting idiots who are just too stupid to understand the danger.
They don't like the law. Tough! It passed both houses of congress, was upheld by SCOTUS, while Obama was re-elected on the strength of it. They tried to repeal it 40 something times and failed. For them to now threaten to destroy our economy, and ruin our credit rating unless the law is repealed is nothing short of terrorism.
I read several different forums, one local, besides SLF. There have been lots of reports of individual EBT users behaving badly when told their cards couldn't be used. These were incidents reportedly observed by others in the store at the time. Everything from ripping the cashier a good one, to threatening the store manager. One woman apparently dumped all the food in her overflowing cart on the floor.
A friend of mine works at a regular local grocery store (not Walmart) at the customer service desk, which faces all of the checkouts. Her store put up signs on the doors that EBT was not working and made announcements every 15 minutes to that effect. She said people were still trying to get through the checkout with EBT cards (known as LINK here in IL). My friend had several people get in her face and was on the verge of calling the cops about one woman, when person left.
Unlike Walmart, this store did not allow people to leave with items when the card balances could not be verified.
This sort of behavior seems to be par for the course with *some* people when the freebies are unavailable for any reason.
Another friend of mine has worked in the office of a social service agency for years. For most of the years she's worked there, they offered giveaways of various items: school supplies, Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets, Christmas gifts for the kids, that sort of thing. The agency never funded these programs themselves, but instead local community groups, churches, and so on. Since 2008, the donations (whether of cash or actual items) from the community groups/churches have all dried up. They're stretched thin themselves.
It's been a full year since any of these giveaways were held. My friend said her agency put up a sign on the doors, as well as in reception area, this summer announcing that the school supplies, Thanksgiving, and Christmas giveaways would not be held at all this year. She says that at least several times a week she is verbally abused by someone who had gotten stuff through those programs before, all because the "free stuff" is not going to be available this year. The people yelling the most about their free stuff being gone have nicely done hair, fresh manicures, up to date smartphones, and fashionable clothes. (ETA: my friend is not a conservative at all...)
On some websites and blogs of the more conservative persuasion, people write that the entitlement programs (especially EBT, section 8, Obama phones, etc.) are the "bread and circuses" to keep a certain segment of the population preoccupied.
I tend to agree with Steve's assessment. We're encouraged by the media to focus on poor people gaming the system and ignoring the wealthy who do the same thing with a much bigger impact (anybody remember the banksters?).
It's like how we point and snicker at the middle class hoarders while ignoring our "betters" like Jay Leno, who hoards (where's that strike-through feature?) er, collects, cars or Oprah with her multiple houses and cavernous closets full of clothes. Not that there's anything wrong with that...:cool:
SteveinMN
10-14-13, 6:34pm
Oh please, you deliver a lecture on demonizing EBT recipients but it's ok for you to dis the farmers (it's a handout, stoopid!)
FYI, my FIL is a farmer who votes Republican and understand that handouts to farmers are just that, and he's not enthused by them.
a. Not a lecture. Just stating my view of it.
b. Your FIL appears to be quite the exception as a few other people here can attest.
A cousin of mine and his wife foster a bunch of kids for their county of residence. They get a fair amount of government money to cover the expenses of caring for these kids. I don't begrudge them the money at all -- they do necessary work and some of the kids they foster are quite the challenge. Yet the other day the wife posted on Facebook about how Obama was "crazy" to shut down the national parks and how he needed to be removed from office for that. Low-information voter there.... Their daughter serves in the Armed Forces and also posts frequently about government spending -- with absolutely no irony reflecting her being a government employee or that the military demonstrably has problems in spending money. And I will refer once again to the NY Times article pointing out that many people even in this educated, generally-blue state, don't recognize their handouts but are only too willing to point out how much is spent for others' handouts.
Not a matter of dissing anyone. A handout is a handout, whether the recipient is rich or poor. But we as a public seem to be quite okay -- or at least willing to look the other way -- in supporting the banksters and car manufacturers and military contractors in their handouts while making Internet memes of people who are nowhere near as well off. Or scary.
ApatheticNoMore
10-14-13, 6:58pm
We're encouraged by the media to focus on poor people gaming the system and ignoring the wealthy who do the same thing with a much bigger impact (anybody remember the banksters?).
It's too difficult to even understand. If you were asked exactly what happened with Lehman could you give an answer? I couldn't. What about MF Global? Etc.. Not that it's actually too difficult to understand if one set about trying to understand it (or at least the outlines, seems sometimes that noone understands things like derivatives), but it takes a great deal more effort than understanding problems with some EBT users loading up their grocery carts. And even the simple stuff like the banksters being bailed, the banksteres got TARP but they paid TARP back mostly, the real bailout there was via the Federal Reserve and we're back to difficult to even understand.
The Storyteller
10-15-13, 2:50pm
Well, it appears I was wrong.
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20131014/NEWS01/310140032/Retailers-hook-EBT-card-purchase-snafu
Or Walmart guessed wrong.
Wow.......what a mess/loss for these stores. They will probably have to throw out all the meat and dairy products. I hope they rush it to a local soup kitchen, etc......but there are probably laws against that.
From the video that Storyteller posted, it didn't look like the store wasn't in any hurry to put things back. Looked like only 1 employee around. Crazy. Sad commentary on lots of different issues.
Very sad-making on many levels to me too, CathyA. I was glad to notice in Storyteller's link that far more people did NOT behave this way (outside these towns), than did. I really do believe the vast majority of people are good.
It's too difficult to even understand. If you were asked exactly what happened with Lehman could you give an answer? I couldn't. What about MF Global? Etc.. Not that it's actually too difficult to understand if one set about trying to understand it (or at least the outlines, seems sometimes that noone understands things like derivatives), but it takes a great deal more effort than understanding problems with some EBT users loading up their grocery carts. And even the simple stuff like the banksters being bailed, the banksteres got TARP but they paid TARP back mostly, the real bailout there was via the Federal Reserve and we're back to difficult to even understand.
Try The Big Short by Michael Lewis...fascinating and makes the whole thing much easier to understand. What a great writer. As for gaming the system, oh yes those bankers were. It was a group thing though-not one leader doing it and making everyone else follow suit. Group behavior is pretty interesting that way, as is shared responsibility. As for looting, yes, it is morally repugnant but OTOH, I heard people describe men "looting" baby diapers in New Orleans after Katrina. Um, grown men do not really normally loot stuff like baby diapers, unless they know there are women with their babies trapped by floodwaters and the men are doing what they think will help the situation. In the case posted here, it's more taking advantage and thus probably more like actual looting. But perspective is often in the eye of the beholder if you have hungry kids or are just tired of always trying to do the right thing and never getting anywhere. Not saying it's right, just that it may be more understandable than it's made out to be.
iris lilies
10-18-13, 9:19am
I tend to agree with Steve's assessment. We're encouraged by the media to focus on poor people gaming the system and ignoring the wealthy who do the same thing with a much bigger impact (anybody remember the banksters?).
It's like how we point and snicker at the middle class hoarders while ignoring our "betters" like Jay Leno, who hoards (where's that strike-through feature?) er, collects, cars or Oprah with her multiple houses and cavernous closets full of clothes. Not that there's anything wrong with that...:cool:
I can relate to hoarding cars. If I won the lottery big time I would have garages full of cars, little weird cars. Yesterday I saw two Honda Cubes parked next to each other and I let out a screech, so cute! A mini-clump of Cubes! Funny little cars give me such pleasure.
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