-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
“We’re running out of food,” said Pastor Sandra Gillespie, who runs Chosen Bethel Family Ministries Food Pantry in Englewood. “If this rate of increase continues, we’re going to have to change something.” For many nonprofit food distributors, hourslong lines have become the norm. Many pantries have reduced the number of allotted visits per month to stretch supply. Others are rationing food products offered to guests.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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I hate poor people charities. I will give to any charity other than poor people charities. Animals, health, cultural, educational, I give to all of them. I do not give charity to poor people. “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for live.” There’s a new addition to that, “Give the migrants all the food, and they freeloaders complain and threaten to vote Republican, but everyone knows they won’t actually do it, because they’re too lazy, that’s why they go to the food pantry in the first place.”
America is a lazy spoiled society
There are many reasons why some people are very poor and others are not. Its not nearly as simplistic as you choose to state here. If you don’t recognize that chances are you’ve been able to live a privileged life as compared to those who may well seem to be able-bodied people to the general public but have debilitating circumstances not readily apparent.
James, you have no idea what my ‘privileged’ life has been like. Not a clue. And because my early life was very unprivileged, and difficult, and I didn’t do the stupid things that everyone else around me did, I became moderately successful. And now they all come around asking me for money, and I tell them NO. I ask them if they did all things I did to improve my life, and I ask them what they were doing while I was away at school. It’s Aesop’s parable of the ants and the grasshopper every day in America. And I… Read more »
I am sympathetic to your point of view, but it seems you want to assume all, or nearly all, poor people are that way as a result of their own slothful predilections. But, some are there for reasons you fail to appreciate as not under their reasonably predictable control. …. sometimes happens to some nice people along life’s journey. Food for thought: “There, but for the grace of God go I”.
Working hard, taking care of one’s family and having an ethic of being responsible for one’s actions is hardly privileged. It’s called accountability and being a mature adult.
Wow, what a revelation; I think I’ll write it down in my diary! Thanks, Dr. Einstein.
Idle people learn about free stuff and suddenly demand exceeds supply. I assume this is a no-questions-asked distribution center so free food becomes fast-disappearing food. I also assume those “who lunch” have free public transit so why not pick up two bags and sell the extra in the hood. I was not born cynical. I didn’t learn it in Sunday School or in college. In fact, I assume that idle people with time to seek out free food probably wish for something better. They are said to look after one-another after dark. Despair may be treatable @ $250 per hour… Read more »
Of course poor people wish for something better. They just want YOU to do the work for it, and they want YOU to give it to them for free. I have much experience with this. I have an entire extended family full of grifters who can’t be bothered to work but always find a way to survive and be ‘well nourished’ as the doctor’s notes like to say. And most people who get out of the ‘hood or bad neighborhoods and they don’t look back at the dysfunctional life these people choose to live. What I say is this: Not… Read more »
And remember, the US is the *first* society in history where the majority of “poor” people are *fat*… another result of LBJ’s “Great Society” programs. I’m old enough to remember when “poor = skinny”…
Hmm, the cost of groceries is pinching my former diet.
Old Joe, it’s called “Bidenomics”… just did my weekly Walmart grocery shopping, it was almost a hundred bux – that’s all house brand/cheap staple stuff, no expensive meats, etc…that’s about a 30 – 40+% rise since the Trump years… hamburger now costs what steak did, the 39 cent Walmart Great Value plain yogurt cup is now 65 cents, etc…. And as one who’s familiar with the SNAP and food pantry programs, many, *many* who visit food pantries have plenty of funds left on their food stamp cards – but they choose to “sell” stored value for $$$ for booze, drugs,… Read more »
Yup, exactly… the budget for SNAP benefits could *easily* be cut by at least 60%, it’s a program riddled with grift and waste…