13lb/$93 Lobster bought on food stamps

[NHpowderhound]

True. I saw it with my own eyes. This guy at the grocery store first tried stealing the damn thing then when the store pursued him and made him pay for it, he used his EBT/food stamp card to pay for it!13+lbsx$6.99lb :angry: :angry: :angry: $93 of our tax money! :angry: :angry: :angry: I hope he got sick eating all that underwater cockroach. Makes me want to run for president.
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[teachski]

I love LOBSTER. I have a good job and make decent money. I can't afford to pay $93 for a lobster, but I just paid for someone who is on foodstamps to eat lobster...that's not right. They should not be able to use an EBT card to buy Lobster and other "Luxury" items. I eat the cheaper cuts of meat and they eat prime rib...I don't get it!

 

[andyzee]

Hmmm. Lobster, my best one was like 19 lbs :lol:

 

[bvibert]

Thats just not right! :angry:

 

[NHpowderhound]

Everybody needs to work harder, millions on food stamps are depending on you!
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[ctenidae]

I'm a big fan of seeing people buying sodas, cookies, and all sorts of really healthy processed foods with food stamps. Particularly the 300 pound women with 6 overweight kids. Makes me feel certain the welfare system is truly working the way it should.

 

[riverc0il]

while i do agree with teachski that 'luxery' food items should not be purchased with food stamps as folks on that program should be budgeting their money and needs accordingly, the program does have it's good intents. just a matter of reforming the system. there are those out there that abuse the system, but if you study the rules of welfare after the last set of reforms, it is pretty hard to cheat the system now. the amount of people cheating the system are far less than the amount of needy people not allowed on the system because they can not meet a really tough restriction. again, i'll repeat the purchasing of a lobster (of any size) on food stamps is really lame and not what that program is designed to do. just would hate to see this turn into a flame the system type thread because of one anecdotal story of someone abusing it.

 

[skijay]

Unfortunatley the EBT programs do not discriminate against a live lobster purchase. (to my knowledge) If the customer was to buy a bag of frozen tails it may.

The other variable is if the store "flags" the sku / plu code so when the transaction is nearing completeing and the EBT car is swiped it will cause the sale to stop and the item be removed.

I dislike abuse in these assistance programs.

 

[Paul]

On the bright side, a bug that size is probably tough and getting bitter.

 

[ctenidae]

The Phantom Gourmet Sunday talked about eating a 15 pounder (his second, he was embarrassed to say), said it tasted just as good as a chicken lobster. That's a whole lot of ocean roach, though.

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

Generally speaking, from what I’ve seen, I believe people who receive welfare benefits are usually not well educated, lack basic (and most certainly technical) job skills and lack of confidence to truly succeed...add these together and usually bad decisions are the results...they tend to be lazy, overweight, jobless, and are almost always in poor health (ultimately using emergency rooms as their primary care physicians)...instead of eating well they eat poorly, instead exercising they smoke & watch television…instead of working & saving their earnings, they spend it on junk (fast/snack food, games, alcohol, gamble, you name it...) and it always seems they burden their family, friends and neighbors...however this is the USA and we are a civilized society, and we should act as much...

REFORM through education!

 

[awf170]

Generally speaking, from what I’ve seen, I believe people who receive welfare benefits are usually not well educated, lack basic (and most certainly technical) job skills and lack of confidence to truly succeed...add these together and usually bad decisions are the results...they tend to be lazy, overweight, jobless, and are almost always in poor health (ultimately using emergency rooms as their primary care physicians)...instead of eating well they eat poorly, instead exercising they smoke & watch television…instead of working & saving their earnings, they spend it on junk (fast/snack food, games, alcohol, gamble, you name it...) and it always seems they burden their family, friends and neighbors...however this is the USA and we are a civilized society, and we should act as much...

kinda sounds like more than half the people in the beautiful town lynn

 

[riverc0il]

REFORM through education!

preach it brother! a lot of problems this country faces could be solved by education. then you could really throw the book at someone for screwing up because they really should have known better. but our backwards society is all about band aid after the fact quick fixes instead of solving the problem at the root which requires a substantial innitial investment in money and man power followed by sustained measures; however, is much cheaper in the long run than having situations in which people keep falling into the same old patterns.

 

[noreaster]

Generally speaking, from what I’ve seen, I believe people who receive welfare benefits are usually not well educated, lack basic (and most certainly technical) job skills and lack of confidence to truly succeed...add these together and usually bad decisions are the results...

REFORM through education!

Let me see here this guy doesn't work and purchased a lot of lobster that the rest of us hard working well educated and highly skilled individuals can't afford. H'mmm maybe this guy is smarter that all of us highly skilled workers. :angry:

 

[skijay]

I have volunteered at orginizations that I do not want to identify and for the most part many people who end up receiving benefits do it at last resort.

I have witnessed people go on assistance and use the benefits and overcome the obstacle(s) that put them in the situation that they found themsleves in.

The success comes when they are back on their feet in their own home and able to be self supporting.

Welfare was designed to be a "safety net" not "life support". It is people who use it that way that give decent, down on their luck people a bad name.

 

[NHpowderhound]

Remember, this clown that "bought" this lobster, first tried stealing it! He concealed it in an empty box he got from the store and placed it under the carriage! He was pursued by the store management in the parking lot and said he "forgot he had it under the carriage." Ya right! :angry: :flame: :uzi: :dunce: How do you forget that you have a 13+lb lobster in your possesion?I bet he would have remembered to get the "13+lb empty box" from under the carriage when he got to his car!Only then did he pay for. And he used his EBT/Food Stamps.I saw it with my own eyes!
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[teachski]

REFORM through education!

preach it brother! a lot of problems this country faces could be solved by education. then you could really throw the book at someone for screwing up because they really should have known better. but our backwards society is all about band aid after the fact quick fixes instead of solving the problem at the root which requires a substantial innitial investment in money and man power followed by sustained measures; however, is much cheaper in the long run than having situations in which people keep falling into the same old patterns.

RC, the real problem is that they would rather give our money to other countries and projects than invest in the education of our children. We have all these wonderful initiatives that the state and federal goverment started, they mandated these programs and funded them initially. Now they have withdrawn (all of) the funding, and want the towns to continue them.

We also have a great social service system that rewards laziness and the poorly educated. Instead of requiring them to take classes and hold down a job (even if it is a menial job), they just hand them the money. Some have it all figured out...they claim disability for one reason or another...it's not that difficult to get some doctors to go along with it.

THIS, I see, is the place where the reform needs to really start. It's pretty sad to get an 8th grader who is already collecting disability of some sort that says, "what do I have to learn for, I can collect disability". It's also pretty sad when the kids think it is just fine to do as mom and dad do, collect welfare, and have no goals in life. If the welfare system were made more difficult by requiring the people that receive it to take courses and have a public service type job (mowing the commons, caring for the ballfields, picking up trash off the streets, etc.), then maybe it would be looked upon differently. Until that happens, there will be no change, and the schools will continue to be blamed.

 

[riverc0il]

We also have a great social service system that rewards laziness and the poorly educated. Instead of requiring them to take classes and hold down a job (even if it is a menial job), they just hand them the money.

actually, programs do have certain requirements depending upon what type of aid a person is receiving including work and education requirements. generally, in order to receive aid, you have to be pretty bad off. i know a lot of folks that are poor or down on their luck that still can not get aid.

i fail to see how one person trying to cheat and steal can be generalized to an entire system. a lot of people here are blowing off a lot of steam at a system i don't think any one here has researched and fully understands. few folks want to be on aid programs, it is a negative stigma and generally means you don't even have enough money to meet basic standards of living. federal minimum wage is $5.15 for a yearly salary of $10,712. what are you making? now you do the math, could you even survive if you lost your job and had to take a minimum wage job just to get by until you found something better? wouldn't you want a safety net below you if you couldn't find a decent paying job for a few months?

seriously folks, do some research. these programs have very tough requirements. some folks do find loop holes unfortunately. so do folks at the corps like enron and in the government working on our tax dollars, ya know? people will take advantage of any system the world imposes, that is human nature. an ugly side of it, taking advantage. but most people are ashamed of receiving aid and want off ASAP.

teachski, ALL the funding has not been withdrawn regarding educational programs. i really hate what the current admin did to education, but i wouldn't throw down that all encompassing overly broad term.

 

[teachski]

[quote="riverc0ilteachski, ALL the funding has not been withdrawn regarding educational programs. i really hate what the current admin did to education, but i wouldn't throw down that all encompassing overly broad term.[/quote]
Funding for the programs I am talking about,has virtually disappeared. These have to do with MCAS , after school(extended day) programs,and all day kindergarten programs. I am in no way saying that all federal and state funding of schools has stopped. What I am trying to say is that there are MUCH better, much more important things that money could be spent on, than aide to foreign countries, etc. How about doing something for the people here?

 

[ctenidae]

Aid to foreign countries is more a political than social thing. It serves a purpose, generally, just not what you'd think "Aid" would be for. I disagree with a lot of the end goals, but certainly see the reasoning.

Unfortunately, the same is true of domestic programs, as well. What Congressman is going to get re-elected after cutting Welfare? Not many. The abuses of the welfare system are greater than you think, riverc0il. I agree, many programs are tough to abuse, and the majority of people are deserving and try to get off the programs as soon as they can. Others, not so much. When I ran a restaurant in NC, most of the kitchen staff were female, and 85% of them were on welfare. The thing is, they ahd jobs that paid above minimum wage, and did, for the area and all things considered, fairly well. Certainly a living wage. One loophole they all exploited involved being a "single parent"- as long as only one wage earner lived in the family, they got public assistance on housing, food stamps, the whole deal. Of course most of their husbands lived with them, but when the DSS inspector came by, the husband (and his belongings) went out the back door as the inspector came in the front. Look! Single income family! We'd also get a lot of people coming in asking us to sign a form saying they'd applied for a job, just so they could stay on unemployment/welfare. None of them would take a job if offered, and most got very upset when I refused to sign off. The worst, though, were the recently paroled guys the halfway house would send over- they wouldn't even take a dishwashing job to try to get on their feet, and would get very angry when we told their probation officers that they'd turned down a job.

In any system, people will find a way to abuse it. If they spent as much time and energy being productive rather than looking for loopholes, we'd be all set.