by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Mon, July 23rd, 2012
Tags: general debate
General debate, July 23, 2012
Published: July 23, 2012
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Supermarkets shouldn’t profit from the poor
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/paulas-food-parcel-proposal.html
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sprout,
Feel free to start a not for profit supermarket. No-one is stopping the formation of one so go ahead be a leader and put your money where your sentiments are.
Produce will be much cheaper (being “not for profit” then the big two supermarket chains so you will be guarenteed a captive market.
Many small supermarkets in South Auckland already compete with the big chains and are doing very well.
What will you call your supermarket? How will you prevent the rich people from utilising your establishment?
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Disingenuous Gerrit – that is not what Sprout is saying at all! Leaving it to supermarkets to decide what goes into a government-paid food parcel can have all sorts of unintended consequences, some of which he outlines.
Many years ago, I was on a benefit and there was talk of giving beneficiaries food and clothing vouchers. That really would have been stupid in my case as I had a good garden and plenty of cousins to hand on good clothes to my children – what I used any extra money for was books, library fees, school trips and visits to family. Taking away that choice would not have benefitted my children at all – the opposite in fact.
It might be more to the point to support ACE classes in cooking and woodwork – not going to happen though.
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What’s most ludicrous to me is the idea that those on welfare should receive food parcels! Who’s going to pack and deliver those? The cost of such a system would be huge.
Such nonsense from Bennett!
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Jeeze, Frog! The moderation, again!
What gives?
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Gerrit did you read the link? I was referring to Paula Bennett’s scheme to pay supermarkets to make and deliver food parcels to beneficiaries rather than trusting them to buy their own food with the current food grant. Paula implied that few beneficiaries eat healthy food and probably can’t be trusted with the money. Supermarkets are keen on the idea and I know that they would make sure that they profit from the scheme. If you read the link you may appreciate the numerous down sides of this idea.
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sprout,
Yes I did read the link and I repeat, if you are so against supermarkets making a profit on the food parcels start your own “not for profit” supermarket to receive government food vouchers.
Only you can set up a “not for profit” operation to receive government grants to distribute food parcels.
So go ahead, spend your money and set it up.
There are no downsides to the scheme at at all so you would be a hero.
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sprout says “Paula implied that few beneficiaries eat healthy food and probably can’t be trusted with the money.”
Considering the poorest areas support the highest concentration of fast food outlets, and public health nurses have an uphill battle against kids with health problems due to unhealthy diet, rotting teeth in young children etc, there’s probably some truth in your assertion.
A constant topic among our public health nurses is that if the people they see every day were provided with food, shelter, electricty, and clothing, INSTEAD of money, their kids lives would be significantly improved.
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Gerrit, I am against families not being able to have the ability to use the food grant to buy the food that they would like. Anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to base government policy on, to claim that most of those who need the food grant can’t cook and will only spend the money on ready made meals is not fact. http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/losing-it/4681010/My-food-parcel-poverty-choice
People still need to be treated with dignity and taking away choice in buying food is near the bottom in terms of humiliation. I am not against supermarkets making profits, that is what any business needs to do but they already make good profits and to make even more from a scheme the screws the poor is not something I can support.
We now have the working poor, some will be solo mothers who work in rest homes, as teachers aids or home help and although these are necessary, important jobs they only pay a minimum wage and not enough to support a family. Currently when such parents have some financial challenges and they need a food grant to tide them over for a few weeks, they can shop around and buy the sort of food they prefer. A food parcel from a supermarket, while better than nothing, will just be a reminder how little independence or control one has when poor.
Given that you read my original post and you are still responding as you are I think we probably need to agree to disagree, we see the issue from totally different perspectives. The research being done on what should be a liveable wage will be interesting.
The minimum wage currently provides $28,100 for a forty hour week over a year and the median income is only $28,500. Most people in NZ are just plain poor and shouldn’t be constantly punished for being so.
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People still need to be treated with dignity and taking away choice in buying food is near the bottom in terms of humiliation.
Do you support green policy to ban the sale of “unhealthy” food in school tuckshops (and if I recall correctly, a plan to ban unhealthy food outlets within x hundred metres of a school?)
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So instead of the state providing good nutricious food (plus maybe an Allison Holts cookbook – she who taught me to cook) for the “poor” you would instead have the state deprived the “rich” of having a choice in meals.
Well guess what sprout.
The “poor” will certainly find a way to get to the fast food outlets.
In fact All the fast food outlets (except possibly the local fish and chips shop) do home deliveries, so negating any banning from “poor” neighbourhoods.
Going to have the police do road block and car searches for fast food deliveries into “poor” neighbourhoods?
Simplest and most cost effective (less cost = more food vouchers) is food vouchers.
And the “humiliation” of receiving food vouchers is probably more in your mind then the “poor”.
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Spam – adult beneficiaries are not schoolchildren inside of school grounds.
Gerrit – when the vouchers idea was first floated, comments about the easy abuse of that system came in quickly. Trading food vouchers for smokes and drugs seemed likely. At any rate, don’t you favour ‘choice’ over all else? Can these folk not choose their own destiny?
Suggesting that food parcels be packed and delivered to beneficiaries is daft. Who will bear the cost of that?
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Benefiting from climate change?
It would be foolish to think New Zealand is somehow impervious to the effects of anthropomorphic climate change, and that we can somehow benefit from the misfortune of other countries. After all, carbon molecules carry no passport, and it’s only a matter of time before New Zealand experiences a severe weather event of its own.
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greenfly,
Cost will be neutral in that the benificiary will have less cash but more food parcel vouchers.
In fact the state may well get into bulk purchasing arrangements with suppliers making good food cheaper.
Wonder if we will get back to the days of the local cooperative if we dont want the state involved?
And yes food vouchers have the same temptation as cash to be traded for smakes and liquor.
Cant these folk choose their own destiny? Yes they can by becoming enterprenurial (sp?).
As for choice, yes they can. What is suggested is food vouchers, not food parcels.
Those vouchers allow choice, parcels dont.
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“Parcels” were being floated, hence my comments as to their inapropriateness.
Entreprenurial? Trading vouchers for drugs would be just that, wouldn’t it?
Tightening the controls on people who are far from the ‘top of the heap’ results in plenty of entreprenurial behaviour, in my experience, and not always of the good kind.
What makes you think a voucher system would allow choice? Are people going to be able to use them at a farmer’s market, do you think? Or perhaps they’ll only be redeemable at a Foodstuffs outlet? You don’t worry a little that some vested interest will seize upon that opportunity?
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Spam – adult beneficiaries are not schoolchildren inside of school grounds.
So its ok to “humiliate” and fail to “treat with dignity” children? Remember, this is teenagers in many cases old enough to marry, and go on a benefit.
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greenfly
No.
More entrepreneurial spirit amongst the poor in South Auckland then anywhere else.
Would not be suprised that MUMA (Manukau Urban Maori Authority) or similar got into a cooperative to turn food vouchers into food supplies.
Why would it be limited to supermarkets? Can see many farmers market suppliers opening up distribution channels closed to them by the supermarket chains through cooperatives.
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Call me a cynic Gerrit, but I would suggest it would be limited in the spirit of dubious market efficiency and centralisation so dear to our Government’s heart, and more importantly, the intimate proximity of both Progressive and Foodstuffs lobby money to both major political parties pocketbooks.
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Gregor W
You are a cynic
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Gregor – the moment I read Gerrit’s comment, I came over all cynical as well.
You reckon those farmers’ markets are going to be able to compete with Foodstuffs? Interesting to see the supermarkets setting up their own farmers’ markets, shamelessly borrowing/stealing the ‘brand’ the real farmers’ markets have built up over time – entrepenuers, eh!
Gotta admire ‘em!
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Spam – what tosh! You regard the requiring of healthy foods to be available in school canteens, rather than foods that are recognised contributors to obesity as something that will “humiliate” and fail to “treat with dignity”, children?
Pleeeeeeeze!
What are you thinking?
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greenfly,
Thats the problem when you live out beyond the black stump
No supermarket competition.
Here in South Auckland there are many many locally owned markets competing with the large chains.
Take your pick, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, European, Maori, South African, North African, etc., etc..
They are all there with goods not found in the larger supermarkets and at prices lower then them as well.
Competition is alive and well here. Guess the volume and demographic in population makes the difference.
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We have the knowledge and capability to do something about our appalling housing, so why aren’t we?
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/innovative-energy-efficient-housing.html
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Can’t argue with that, Gerrit.
We do have a hardy family that comes up from McQuarry Island on occasion, laden with elephant seal meat and their side-of-the-road market does okay.
Certainly our local supermarket can’t compete with that.
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greenfly,
I trust that those elephant seal meat sellers are declare their icome from the sale to the IRD and pay their taxes due?
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National devalueing our assets
John Key is showing his financial illiteracy again, being that a bonus shares scheme would cost between $250 to $500 million according to Treasury, and perhaps even exceed $1 billion. What information Key is basing his assertion on that free shares could be an economic gain for the government, has not been made public, probably because it doesn’t exist.
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Gerrit – no one dares ask them for it – they’re as wild-eyed and brittle a clan as ever you’d (not) want to meet. You would be too, if you had to subsist inside of a hovel made from whale ribs and turf, heated by smouldering chunks of elephant seal blubber and battered by Antarctic squalls of mythic proportions – you know, the kinds of conditions Shell plan to set their deep-sea drilling rigs up in. Speaking of people not paying their way…
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Are people going to be able to use them at a farmer’s market, do you think? Or perhaps they’ll only be redeemable at a Foodstuffs outlet? You don’t worry a little that some vested interest will seize upon that opportunity?
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Jackal – you talk of financial illiteracy, then show your own.
The loyalty scheme proposed is ONLY for retail investors – expected to be 20% of all investors.
So if tens of thousands of small retail investors ALL keep their shares for three years, and the bonus is 10%, the cost will still be 80% less than what you are trying to claim.
Secondly, the shares can sell for more if there is a loyalty scheme. If I buy shares, they are obviously worth more to me with a loyalty bonus. I wouldn’t expect to pay the same as if they didn’t have it.
As for the institutions – many have to buy them regardless of what the cost is because they have funds that follow the index. They have to invest propotionately in the top 10 / 50 companies etc, regardless of price, and even if a company is expected to plummet in price.
i.e. a large number of funds are not managed – they are set up to mirror the index.
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What the USians will actually do about climate change…
http://boingboing.net/?attachment_id=172926
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…and why
http://i.imgur.com/PVpFY.jpg
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From the top of a card tower a man could be heard shouting, “I’m the Prime Minister, they call me John Key! For I am the Ruler of all that I see !” http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/john-keys-house-of-cards.html
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Our state assets, presently owned by all New Zealanders are going to end up in the hands of Overseas investors and the already better off amongst us, and they will profit at the expense of the many. The free gift/money to the wealthy who have already received large tax cuts from National is absurd and offensive.
Most New Zeadlanders are going to end up worse off from the asset sales, as with most of what National does this will advantage the rich and corporations, in other words the people who donate money too and support national.
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