The Silicon Valley Paradox: One In Four People Are At Risk of Hunger (theguardian.com) 372
Zorro shares a report from The Guardian: One in four people in Silicon Valley are at risk of hunger, researchers at the Second Harvest food bank have found. Using hundreds of community interviews and data modeling, a new study suggests that 26.8% of the population -- almost 720,000 people -- qualify as "food insecure" based on risk factors such as missing meals, relying on food banks or food stamps, borrowing money for food, or neglecting bills and rent in order to buy groceries. Nearly a quarter are families with children. "We call it the Silicon Valley paradox," says Steve Brennan, the food bank's marketing director. "As the economy gets better we seem to be serving more people." Since the recession, Second Harvest has seen demand spike by 46%. The bank is at the center of the Silicon Valley boom -- both literally and figuratively. It sits just half a mile from Cisco's headquarters and counts Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg among its major donors. But the need it serves is exacerbated by this industry's wealth; as high-paying tech firms move in, the cost of living rises for everyone else.
The scale of the problem becomes apparent on a visit to Second Harvest, the only food bank serving Silicon Valley and one of the largest in the country. In any given month it provides meals for 257,000 people -- 66m pounds of food last year. Because poverty is often shrouded in shame, their clients' situations can come as a surprise. "Often we think of somebody visibly hungry, the traditional homeless person," Brennan said. "But this study is putting light on the non-traditional homeless: people living in their car or a garage, working people who have to choose between rent and food, people without access to a kitchen."
The scale of the problem becomes apparent on a visit to Second Harvest, the only food bank serving Silicon Valley and one of the largest in the country. In any given month it provides meals for 257,000 people -- 66m pounds of food last year. Because poverty is often shrouded in shame, their clients' situations can come as a surprise. "Often we think of somebody visibly hungry, the traditional homeless person," Brennan said. "But this study is putting light on the non-traditional homeless: people living in their car or a garage, working people who have to choose between rent and food, people without access to a kitchen."
Don't blame it on my neighbors (Score:2)
They are paying around $36,000 in property taxes a year in Silicon Valley.
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Obviously it's not enough. People gotta eat, taxes must go up!
Re:Don't blame it on my neighbors (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxes don't matter because the money goes to government worker pensions.
Pensions don't build or repair roads.
Pensions don't teach schoolchildren.
Pensions don't put out fires.
Pensions don't solve crimes or keep the peace.
Pensions don't feed the poor or provide for the needy.
Pensions don't keep the air and water clean.
They do feed the poor. What do you think retired civil servants will be if they don't have pensions? Many of them worked below-market-wage jobs for decades, which means they won't have nearly as much saved up for retirement as their private sector peers. Compound interest means even a small difference in income adds up to a huge difference in the size of the retirement fund.
Not to mention what a dick move it would be to promise pensions then take it away when it's inconvenient.
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Is that more or less of a dick move then promising them pensions that would come from future tax revenue? If you can't fully fund pensions today, you are demanding money from the future to pay for today. That's a dick move to me. Taking it away when the dollars don't magically appear in the future isn't a dick move, it's reality.
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They do feed the poor. What do you think retired civil servants will be if they don't have pensions? Many of them worked below-market-wage jobs for decades
Government employees average higher pay and better benefits than private sector [careertrend.com]:
Look it up yourself if you want a different source: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=governmen... [lmgtfy.com]
Not to mention what a dick move it would be to promise pensions then take it away when it's inconvenient.
It's a super dick move for well off government workers to take so much when poor people need government services
Re:Don't blame it on my neighbors (Score:4, Interesting)
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Maybe the government just hires more people in the higher-paid professions than the private sector.
So now you're saying government workers aren't poor. You should stop changing your mind.
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Pensions, Social Security, both Ponzi schemes.
Look at your SS deduction, or get a statement from them. Then do a Future Value calculation using the average market return for the time you've been in the workforce. How much would you have if instead of going to SS, that money was invested in the markets every paycheck, Be prepared to be astounded and pissed.
Now do it again and include your employer's SS contribution. Just make sure someone is around to keep you from harming yourself when you see THAT number.
Taxing the currentworkforce to pay for the previous work force is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
The average market return is speculation, nothing more. What if you had wanted to retire in 2008? Would you still be so enthusiastic if half your investments were suddenly gone?
Look, I have an IRA and 401k to get those possible market returns. The SS benefit is guaranteed, and not subject to the whims of the market. There is value in that. And as long as the government properly funds SS, it will not run out. There are ways to do that like raising the FICA contributions or the income cutoff.
Government regs are the problem (again) (Score:5, Insightful)
Silicon Valley has some of the most draconian development regulations in the US (part of it is a field used for grazing cows). And when you can't develop, you can't build houses and apartments to build up the existing housing stock, and people end up living in cars and garages. Silicon Valley won't become exactly affordable, but at least people will have more places to live at lower rents and prices.
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Housing needs to go up. As in multistories. But most people don't want to live in high rises or in high density areas. A few people do, but most prefer elbow room. But the bay area is impacted; it can't grow outwards easily (like LA) because it's surrounded by water and mountains. So it can only grow upwards. But the higher density also means it must have better roads and mass transit at the same time, which is a major snag.
Overall, we've just got too many people. The tech industry should spread out. T
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These are nice suburban areas. Suburbs beat the squalor of the inner city any day. The snag is that the population boomed very quickly, faster than anyone could plan for. And as well it's not an area with easy access in and out of and no room for more housing without ripping and those suburbs and putting in high rises (nice for those raised in cities but bleak for those don't like density). The few high rises that do exist are extremely expensive anyway, yuppie magnets.
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I do think it's surprising that tech industry doesn't split up and move away. Why do they all insist on being within a twenty mile radius of each other? We don't even have that much "high tech" anymore, we're dominated by advertising companies (google) and social media, if those people actually saw real life silicon chips they wouldn't know what to do with them.
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No. This isn't how democracy is supposed to work (Score:2)
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Owning regulations serve many purposes-- managing the character of a place, managing traffic, ensuring public open space and access to it, etc.
Where I live, multi-unit buildings are being demolished to make way for mansions that are occupied a few weeks per year; the only artificial zoning requirement is maximum building height, which is done for collective benefit (views). When the land is worth over $2,250 per square foot you just aren't going to be able to create middle-income homes.
The issue though is
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Not buying it (Score:2)
The real headline should be "1 in 4 are at risk of being homeless".
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You must make over $276K a year or not live in Silicon Valley then?
I'm not sure how I even feel about this. On one hand, it sucks to be upside down like that. On the other hand, if you can't make ends meet in an area like that, it's probably time to bite the bullet and move elsewhere. You should not have to live as a modern day serf.
You may not be able to live in California, but you will be able to live in a house with food. (And I type this as someone who moved away from California.)
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I spent about 50% - 70% of my income on foods and drinks ... no idea for what else I should spent it.
Shit hole city planning and false liberals (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of this is the fault of shit hole city planning and false liberals. Everything within a half hour drive of google or apple headquarters should be 20+ story buildings and largly would be if zoned appropriately. It's the "perserving" of the old communities that has created a completely unsustainable environment for working class people. Far to many "liberals" are happy to maintain backwards city planning that leaves the working class impoverished so they maintain their own property values and quaint downtowns at the expense of any type of livable environment for those who sell them their food.
I live in the Northbay of California (an hourish drive from SF) and we're experiencing the same thing up here (to a lesser degree of course). Tons of "liberals" who demonstratably don't give a rats ass about anyone earning less than 50k.
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> should be 20+ story buildings
Salt Lake City is reasonably close to the San Andreas fault, which many geologists consider to be overdue for a major earthquake. Tall housing could be a serious safety problem.
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Salt Lake is 500+ miles from there.
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Oh, dear. You've my apology for that. I was recently dealing with a business there, and they were on my mind. I did check correctly in the first place, Silicon Valley is near the San Andreas fault and the region is overdue for a sizeable earthquake.
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Sorry, but except perhaps the great pyramids, nothing will withstand a mag 9 earthquake. ...
If you want to refer to Fukushima, the quake was 450 miles away from Fukushime
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2011 tsunami was indeed different - the epicenter was 90 miles from the shore, of "megathrust" geologic class, equivalent of which in bay area would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. When this happens, the biggest problem is obviously the tsunami, the earthquake as such is fine (as long you build for it). The trouble of when this got twisted and politi
Re:Shit hole city planning and false liberals (Score:5, Interesting)
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My tiny brain? What an idiot you are. We are talking about very simple supply and demand concepts here and you tell me I have a tiny brain because I acknowledge fundamental truths.You can't fix a supply shortage with wishful thinking, you can only fix it by increasing supplies. There is a truly massive shortage of housing in the valley, well above and beyond anything happening in New York, and it is due to a complete denial of reality. If any of our major cities took this approach a century ago we wouldn't
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The more I talk to you the more I feel like I'm talking to a child. Lots of name calling and no substance.
I'll break it down for you as simply as I can. If city housing planning doesnt allow for housing growth to meet demand, as it does not in silicon valley, then it is hindering supply in the face of demand (in this case, overwhelming demand). I've never said other factors don't come into play with growth (you're just making things up there) but there is a very obvious road block to housing growth in silic
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Quit having offices! Alright, so how do we do that? Clearly these company's think it is worth the money to maintain them or they wouldnt still be doing it.
The company's should move! Alright, so how does that happen. They clearly see advantages to staying in the valley or they would have moved already.
Pay a living wage! I am generally in favor of living wages but a living wage does absolutly nothing to solve a housing shortage. Everyone is still competing over the same scarce resources, the bids just go high
The real SV paradox is (Score:5, Interesting)
that all of the companies there that cause inequality there, ie. successful ones attracting highly paid employees are internet based businesses. The internet is a thing that allows remote collaboration and global reach to whatever, be it markets or talent.
It's shocking that as the internet grows, it's being eclipsed by the growth of Silicon Valley as its driver, a single-node dependency.
Corps that happen to have significant production offices elsewhere also seem to drink the "work in person" cool-aid.
So in effect, a global network enabling remote collaboration spawned companies whose job posts are all "ah you must come to the office, share bathrooms, smell others' food, showcase piercings and tattoos, do a useless standup ritual every morning though we get work done on git repos, slack etc. because we're building out this global collaborative network!"
Google, Facebook, ... why aren't you dogfooding?
It's hardly a paradox (Score:2)
"The economy is getting better".
But that doesn't mean it's getting better for everyone. And the wealthiest don't notice, because no one's really poor any more, are they? Well, no one important, anyway.
It's not exactly rocket science it?
How the experts will respond to poverty (Score:2)
2. Build big buildings. Demand 30% of the building is reserved for poor people. No permission to build unless poor people are given 30% for free.
3. Fill the vertical slums with poor people.
4.
5. Reflect back to when regulations kept the area nice.
6. Smart new money quickly moves to a gated community.
What makes a good economy? (Score:2)
> "As the economy gets better we seem to be serving more people."
By "better" he probably means a rising GDP or Dow Jones Industrial Average, but the average isn't the only measure. The distribution matters too, and it's hard to argue that a growing gap between the rich and poor is an improvement.
For a market problem, apply a market solution (Score:2)
A pure liberal market solution (and I'm using "liberal" here in its correct sense, not in the sense that far too many American think) would fix this.
OK, so janitors, restaurant workers, nurses, generally what you might term service sector workers, can't afford the rents in a certain area because their wages are too low.
Those people remove themselves from the labour market: they move away.
Businesses that provide services find themselves without staff.
What to do? Go out of business? Or offer higher w
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Plenty of demand for housing, but none being built due to government interference.
Not just SV, but SV is really bad (Score:2)
Living near NYC means I certainly shouldn't throw stones about expensive housing. But California real estate is completely out to lunch. If you don't already own a house, you're either paying over a million for the cheapest places that aren't a 2-hour commute to work, or thousands and thousands a month in rent. Outside of Manhattan and gentrified parts of Queens and Brooklyn, I haven't seen anywhere else in the country where everyone wants to live in the exact same location so badly and are willing to saddl
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....I've often wondered how people with ordinary jobs and incomes live in bubble areas like this. Metro NYC is a good example, and there's a lot of stratification in the suburban towns because of it....some places are just "working class towns" ....There are so many more affordable places to start up a business!
That's exactly the point. People say "if you can't afford it, don't live there". But where should the police, firefighters, ambulance, teachers, etc. live? In CA, most of these public workers earn just enough, they cannot qualify for "low cost" housing, but also cannot afford to live near where they work.
It will be interesting when the "big one" (earthquake) arrives and people in some of the more affluent areas will suddenly realize there are no emergency services because all those workers are staying hom
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Odd how the people who talk like this are the first scream and complain about losing their jobs to overseas IT outsourcing.
Just sayin'
Re:Move those people out ! (Score:5, Informative)
The rental in the Silicon Valley area are ridiculously high, and one reason being there are way too many people competing for the housing
Nonsense. This is exactly backwards. The problem is supply not demand. The rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction.
So the rich get richer, renters get screwed, the poor get squeezed out, and there isn't a Republican in a 50 mile radius to blame.
Re: Move those people out ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Itâ(TM)s not a liberal thing, itâ(TM)s a rich thing. People who are rich tend to want to stay rich and tend to want other rich people to be their neighbors.
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The rental in the Silicon Valley area are ridiculously high, and one reason being there are way too many people competing for the housing
Nonsense. This is exactly backwards. The problem is supply not demand. The rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction.
Trying to understand the distinction you're trying to make - the OP said there are "way too many people competing for the housing" and you said "The problem is supply, not demand."
Supply and Demand are two sides of the same coin.
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The rental in the Silicon Valley area are ridiculously high, and one reason being there are way too many people competing for the housing
Nonsense. This is exactly backwards. The problem is supply not demand. The rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction.
So the rich get richer, renters get screwed, the poor get squeezed out, and there isn't a Republican in a 50 mile radius to blame.
Wealthy people want to protect their wealth and the luxuries it provides. It's got nothing to do with political ideology. Both parties serve the wealthy. One is just more blatant about it.
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> rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction
Problem is not that the rich have too much power but that the poor have too little power.
Why?
Machines are taking the power away? This is the mechanics but not the cause.
The cause is that the people are not taking the power back. People just keep doing the same thing that they did traditionally, thinking that things have been
And the 99% scwabble amongst themselves (Score:5, Interesting)
Liberal and Conservative are just bullshit labels that the 1% uses to divide us. It's no accident either, this has been going on for a century with right wing radicals such as William Randolph Hearst controlling the media, rabid anti-socialist Fred C. Koch with his hand on industry, Thomas Mellon and sons running much of the banking in the new industries and many more.
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Liberal and Conservative are just bullshit labels that the 1% uses to divide us. It's no accident either, this has been going on for a century with right wing radicals such as William Randolph Hearst controlling the media...
What more relevant is that at the time when Hearst controlled the media, the Democrats were the party that built things, and was highly popular for doing so. Now it's the party that prevents anything from getting built.
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Re: Are you sure they are liberals?! (Score:2, Funny)
may your kindness and compassion be returned 100-fold.
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You mean some are more equal than others?
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While it is hurtful to society that there are places like SF where their irresponsible radical liberal views hold people down
What on earth are you talking about.
Re:Move those people out ! (Score:5, Interesting)
You do realize people are born into widely different circumstances and those circumstances, both biological, social and economic have a huge impact on their capabilities to function in a modern society, right? I was born with cerebral palsy and the initial estimate of the doctors was that I'd likely never learn to read or write, yet I now do so fluently in 2 languages and less fluently in 2 others. Is this all because I'm some kind of a superman who beat all the odds with sheer willpower and managed to lift myself up by my own bootstraps? Well, yes and no. You see, my parents decided they weren't going to just give up on me and decided to try and put me into a normal elementary school, where I needed an assistant to help me. The first couple of years were hard and I took a lot longer than most people to master reading/writing, and almost gave up a couple times, but the encouraging support from my family as well as my then doctor kept me going. I also had to have several surgeries performed to hone out major physiological issues that were making my movement really hard, received physical therapy 2-3 times a week (still do) and had to spend quite a while learning basic motor skills with the help of a therapist. This all obviously took motivation and desire to progress from me, which I did have because as soon as I learned to read it became clear to me that the only way of getting on par with the rest of the people out there is to educate myself. However, it also took insane amounts of resources. The amount of money poured into me at an early age is staggering when you factor in the surgeries, the therapy, the costs for the assistant at school, my wheelchairs, mobility scooters, medication (I had to be injected with synthetic growth hormone because my body proiduced almost none of it naturally and synthetic human growth hormone costs a ton) and so on.
Lucky me for being born into a wealthy family right? No. My parents are firmly middle-class, so while we're never dirt poor, I have 2 other brothers so money was often tight, and there's no way my parents could have afforded all these things for me had it been up to them. Luckily I happened to have been born into a country (Finland) in which the constitution guarantees people certain rights, one of which is the right to social security and health care. This means that in fact the state paid for all of these things. All of them. Later on when I graduated high school, at that point having become quite good at studying once my biology was no longer in the way, I managed to get myself into a university here on my second attempt, and that too was paid for by the state as it is for everyone here, for education is also universal here and is a constitutional right, so I eventually graduated with 0 student debt. During my final year at the uni I happened to land an office job working for the health care sector which I stayed on after graduation for a while until a position opened up on the IT side and I moved there. Finally, with a steady income and no existing debt I was able to get a mortgage and buy myself an apartment and move out on my own. Now, at the age of 27 I live by myself still, but I have an assistant who comes by a few times a week to help with cleaning and other laborious tasks that are difficult for me to do, again paid for by state (as is my still continuing physical therapy that's a requirement for me staying functional physically) which is good because although I make enough money to pay my own expenses, I don't have the kind of excess income that would allow me to hire those people on my own dime. Last year I also started a small startup with a couple of friends from the uni that currently is still a part time thing as we've all got our day jobs but the hope is to one day be working for ourselves.
Now I agree w
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This is a fundamentally flawed idea for multiple reasons, but I'll focus on the most apparent one explained through the concept of the veil of ignorance [wikipedia.org] by the American philosopher John Rawls.
Thing is, none of us get to choose the conditions we're born into. We don't choose our parents or the community we're born to. The point of the veil of ignorance is to highlight that in light of this fact societal systems should be designed with that
Re:Move those people out ! (Score:5, Informative)
You know all of San Francisco is in the liquefaction zone right? That means the ground isn't really ground but more like water when there is an earthquake. That's why zoning policy limits development on that tiny peninsula.
This is a load of horsepucky. Tokyo is way more earthquake prone than SF, and they have 54 story skyscrapers. In 2011, they rocked to a 9.0 earthquake. Number of skyscrapers that fell down: 0.
SF has 60 story skyscrapers. The danger is far worse with OLD buildings than tall buildings. They can tear down old low rise structures in SOMA and replace them with much taller and safer buildings that can provide far more housing, and boost the local economy ... but they would also put competition into the housing market, so rich property owners vote it down.
It has nothing to do with "earthquakes".
Re:Move those people out ! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in Tokyo back in March 2011 for the big one. The epicenter was out to sea so it wasn't a 9.0 in Tokyo itself, but still pretty powerful.
The thing is, they have plans for when a big one does hit Tokyo. A few million homeless are being provisioned for. The large buildings will be fine, but lots of smaller ones maybe not, and even if they are the people inside them could be injured.
They only build there because they have to. America is big and lots of it is sparsely populated. You should build new cities in better locations. I think the real problem is that because of the way states and the federal system work, and a general dislike of government planning and infrastructure projects, there is no ability to make sensible decisions like that.
Re:Move those people out ! (Score:4, Insightful)
They only build there because they have to. America is big and lots of it is sparsely populated. You should build new cities in better locations.
The San Francisco Bay Area is absolutely beautiful, though not what it was 20-30 years ago (imho). The weather is rarely too hot, or too cold. You almost never see anything close to a tornado, and definitely do not find hurricanes in that cold pacific water. The skies are blue, it rarely rains during the times of year that people want to be outside enjoying life. There is practically no humidity to deal with. It is one of the most beautiful and ideal places to live on the planet. No amount of government intervention would prevent people from wanting to live there. The only thing that could make that happen is for some sort of change upon the landscape that made habitation impossible.
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Oh, I never checked how far away the earthquake was from Tokyo, but from Fukushima it was 450 miles.
If you belive an building can withstand a 9.0 mag earth quake, you are not very smart.
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Spotted the Green!
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Re:Not much of a paradox (Score:4, Insightful)
"At risk of hunger" would suggest only that these people are living in poverty... that while not necessarily severely undernourished, they do not make enough each month to make ends meet, and that means they are not eating well.
Living in a cheaper neighborhood could save them a lot of money each month, but then they could easily end up paying more than whatever they save on the increased commute requirements that they create for themselves by doing so.
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It doesn't even suggest that.
You can be "at risk of hunger" if you missed a meal last month. Which puts me "at risk of hunger". Mind you, having no pancreas makes missing a meal slightly more serious than for the population at large, but it's still not worth worrying about unless I make a habit of it....
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I think it means a missed meal because they couldn't afford such a meal. Vs. skipping a meal because you are trying to diet, or was just really busy and you forgot to eat. Normally these categories are used to help classify a group, vs an actual health definition of hunger.
Re:Not much of a paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
First question on USDA questionaire:
Which of these statements best describes the food eaten in your household in the last 12
months: —enough of the kinds of food (I/we) want to eat; —enough, but not always the
kinds of food (I/we) want; —sometimes not enough to eat; or, —often not enough to eat?
[1] Enough of the kinds of food we want to eat
[2] Enough but not always the kinds of food we want
[3] Sometimes not enough to eat
[4] Often not enough to eat
[ ] DK or Refused
Most of the questions that follow include some sort of "because there wasn't enough money for food?" or " but you just couldn't afford more food?"
Of course, the questionnaire never questions WHY there wasn't enough money for food, so it is impossible to distinguish the "deserving poor" from the meth addicts who blew all their money on meth. Or for that matter, from people who simply spend some portion of their income on cigarettes, beer, tattoos, TVs, lottery tickets...people who could afford food for their families if they made food a priority over minor vices and entertainment.
Re:Not much of a paradox (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen, but cannot find now, that the US Department of Agriculture defined being "at risk of hunger" when the particular food you wanted was not immediately on hand. Best I could find was ranges of "food insecurity" [usda.gov]
Specifically:
Food Security
High food security (old label=Food security): no reported indications of food-access problems or limitations.
Marginal food security (old label=Food security): one or two reported indications—typically of anxiety over food sufficiency or shortage of food in the house. Little or no indication of changes in diets or food intake.
Food Insecurity
Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake.
Very low food security (old label=Food insecurity with hunger): Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.
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Having took training classes to be foster parents. They covered that food security is a big issues. Foster Kids may horde food, even at a risk of it spoiling and being unhealthy to eat, because their living conditions caused them to have food security issues. The main suggestion is to have an open fridge polity where kids can get food whenever they want, even if it seems a bit odd. Where most families tend to have some sort of scheduled eating times and portion management, but for these kids their idea of
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No it is my general diagnosed dyslexia, that I need to struggle with on a daily basis.
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While I expect you are Fox News level trolling.
However if you are living in poverty people may choose different actions to do with their their food stamps and welfare money... Also they may have different levels of support from family and their community.
You can buy yourself a $10 steak once a week, however you may choose to not get yourself something else or buy some cheaper versions of products to make up the difference.
People in poverty should still be allowed a degree of freedom and dignity, to make cho
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The paradox in this story isn't that people earning minimum wage are unable to survive in Silicon Valley, it's that engineers/professionals earning $50K+ are unable to survive in Silicon Valley. The vast majority of the "food insecure" residents are gainfully employed at wages that would secure a comfortable lifestyle almost anywhere else in America, but in Silicon Valley it comes up short.
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Yeah, because people living in their cars have refrigerators and access to a wall socket at all times.. I can see it now, a bunch of semi-homeless hipsters each with a laptop and a crockpot taking up a table at the local Starbucks.
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You don't need a fridge for bean storage, and some how people found ways to eat before the discovery of electricity.
Cooking simple food at home can save money over eating out (obviously), and TFA does not say that 1:4 valley residents is homeless, AKA living in a van down by the river, just that they struggle to afford food.
Re:Not much of a paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, the USA, the richest country in the world. That Janitor should just live 40 miles from his job, bike to work, and live off lentils and splitpeas.
I'm not saying we should give everything to everyone for nothing, but when you have 0.01% of the population with as much wealth as the bottom 90%, placing the problem at the feet of our poorest citizens seems to be missing the mark.
Maybe, just maybe, there is a runaway problem with the way our system is currently setup that is allowing the richest of the rich to consolidate large amounts of wealth, damaging an otherwise healthy market economy. I'm sure that top weighted market is infinitely sustainable, we certainly don't need a strong middle class to drive our economy. And obviously those poor people are lazy and entitled. They have plenty of beans to eat. Ungrateful beggars.
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Give Lister some slack, he posted it early in the morning. Probably with his phone, half asleep. So grogginess+auto correct = odd words.
Re:Not much of a paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
It means your income to mandatory expenditure ratio is so bad that a single event can leave you unable to afford food. Car breaks down, you get ill etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps the people that can't afford food should move to Gilroy and save $1000 per month in rent (per bedroom).
And because their diet would be nothing but garlic, you wouldn't have a big concentration of homeless in one place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What percentage of them are running around with a smart phone? The cheapest data plan per month will buy a sack of flour, a bag of sugar, and some beans. You can live on that. I have to believe some of this is a matter of priorities
This is 2017, you need a phone to work. Especially in a techie wonderland like San Francisco. So no, the phone isn't optional. Also, we're talking about people living in cars and garages without stoves/refrigerators, wtf good is a sack of flour and some beans going to do them?
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In order to manage in today's society, a smart phone is a good investment, IT can replace a TV, Computer, and a LAN-Line in one square glass box. Communication is an important aspect for survival. Especially when in poverty conditions keeping contacts with your friends and relatives is very important, as they will be able to help you out. Also you can use this device for job hunting, and communication between potential employers.
If the point of welfare is just raw survival then it will be nearly impossib
Re: (Score:2)
What percentage of them are running around with a smart phone? The cheapest data plan per month will buy a sack of flour, a bag of sugar, and some beans. You can live on that. I have to believe some of this is a matter of priorities
I love how some people think that if the lower class isn't living in the 1800's they aren't trying hard enough. Sure they live in a country with marvelous, empowering technology, but they should be satisfied with eating beans and rice instead. They probably even have electricity! What a luxury! People survived for hundreds of thousands of years without electricity, so they could do it too. But no, they waste their money on frivolous luxuries so they deserve what they get.
Re: (Score:2)
It means they do not have enough money to pay for the basics in life, which are usually considered shelter, food, and health.
Of course they may prioritise other "modern conveniences", such as mobile phone, laptop, internet etc. But it is difficult to imagine how you could lead a life and job without those "conveniences".
Some may just be bad a spending money, or at cooking, or lazy. It is hard to know the full story, and it is hard to generalize.
Re: (Score:2)
What does it even mean to be "at risk" of hunger?
The same way having less than some contrived amount of income in the bank means one is "at risk of being homeless" despite having a stable job, paying all your bills, and renting/paying mortgage payment on-time for years. The argument goes "if they lost their job, they don't have sufficient funds in the bank to cover 2,4, 6 whatever arbitrary number of weeks of living expenses". Of course, with the vast majority of Americans having effectively no savings and negative net worth, that isn't so surprising.
Re: Not much of a paradox (Score:2, Insightful)
You help build a city and then you are forced to leave? It doesnâ(TM)t seem right a society that does or allows that. We should be finding ways to help our neighbors not ways to get rid of them.
Re:The Alabama Paradox (Score:5, Informative)
That the Moore signing in the yearbook was forged was fake news that Fox put out and they retracted the story after they had spread it around. Breitbart and other news kept their copies of the stories even after Fox retracted the source story.
http://thehill.com/homenews/me... [thehill.com]
http://www.politifact.com/trut... [politifact.com]
I find it twisted that Republicans are the ones who complain about fake news the most, except the news they watch and read puts out much more fake news than most mainstream media. I guess it's the same as Trump having called Clinton a liar, when he's Mr. 5 public lies a day.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It wasn't confirmed to be forged, this is true. That's because the bint outright refuses to let independent experts analyze the handwriting. It takes maybe a week at most to analyze something like that from past samples. The claims that it was fake/doctored came out a month ago. She ran out the clock till the last fucking minute to admit that she futzed with the document. If it was actually written by Moore she could have made giant fucking production out of it when Moore claimed it was fake and nailed his
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Tu be fair he is a shitty individual in many other ways too, that more than justify not voting for him.
Anyway, it's done now. Let's see how long it takes Trump to turn on him. I haven't checked but there's probably already a tweet.
Re: (Score:3)
Tu be fair he is a shitty individual in many other ways too, that more than justify not voting for him.
Anyway, it's done now. Let's see how long it takes Trump to turn on him. I haven't checked but there's probably already a tweet.
Oh, there's a tweet, and it didn't take long.
The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!
Re: (Score:2)
Really, so the yearbook has been analyzed by independent experts already? Interesting. Oh wait, no it hasn't. Moreover, now that the election's over it never will be and Nelson will quickly fade back into obscurity. It was quite a masterful snow job
Re: (Score:2)
They had to admit part of the Yearbook script was forged because it was so damn obvious. But the other part was real, trust us we only lied on part of it! LOL!
Re: (Score:2)
There was a time where we actually waited for a court to determine the innocence or guilt of an accused person.
I agree. What happened to Al Franken was disgraceful.
But hey, this is 2017, and to your average idiot liberal the three branches of government are the legislature, the executive and CNN.
Imagine my contempt for them.
We don't have to imagine it. It comes through quite clearly in your posts.
Re: (Score:2)
I hope someday someone makes such an accusation against you and you end up having your life destroyed. Karma is a great and wonderful thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
> ... Your child molesting senate candidate was banned from shopping malls for harassing young girls ...
Telling lies will never transform you into a good person
https://www.snopes.com/2017/11/17/roy-moore-banned-mall-harassing-teen-girls/
Your link only says that the mall does not have records going back that far, and thus cannot say for sure that he was banned. Telling lies will never transform you into a good person.
Re: (Score:2)
Rationalism is fucking GONE. These people are going to attack this president no matter what. They will say anything. Do anything and run fast and loose with the facts until the day he leaves office. While I deeply loathe Chump I really hope he gets a full eight year term just so that these crazy left wing nutters suffer for eight years.
Hey, Rip Van Winkle, were you around for the Obama administration? Do you remember the bullshit being slung at him for those 8 years? Or do you think Obama was really a secret-Muslim Kenyan Socialist who gave free phones to black people? Seems to me attacking the other side is what politicians do, regardless of party.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of "people problems," however, don't reduce easily. Insufficient data, poor algorithms, and a failure to account for humanity conspire against reductionism.
People are machines. Complex, biological, but still just machines that act according to a predetermined set of rules. You can't predict the outcome 100% of the time, but you can definitely do better than 50%. Just look at what happens during an election. A couple of negative stories come out for a candidate, and 9/10 times their poll results tank. This is why you hear so many allegations of sexual harassment right around election time. A court would never accept a case for which there are no evidence and ha
Re: (Score:2)
I think that if we had a UBI they could just move to wherever housing was cheaper.
UBI wouldn't make a significant difference in this situation, the issue is a lack of housing, not a lack of affordable housing. The basis of the paradox is that the vast majority of the people discussed in this piece are gainfully employed, making decent or better incomes, but there is a lack of housing. Handing these workers a bit more money ($12-18K/yr in UBI) won't suddenly cause apartment buildings to spring up in Atherton.