Xerox "Routine Backup Test" Leave 17 States Without Food Stamps

An anonymous reader writes "People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. Xerox announced late in the evening that access has been restored for users in the 17 states affected by the outage, hours after the first problems were reported. 'Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,' spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer said in an email. An emergency voucher process was available in some of the areas while the problems were occurring, she said. U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown."

Comments

GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

N/t

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[amiga3D]

It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Repubtards want to cut spending. I guess they want wages to decline even faster.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Rick Zeman]

It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.

It does? Where? Since when?? The closest my US Constitution comes is "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

It might help if the Dems quit importing competition for all those unemployed.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

How does one stay alive without food or shelter?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT ABOUT BLOWJOBS?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[jjjhs]

I think you are confused, that is from the Declaration of Independence..

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Overzeetop]

To be pedantic: life does, in fact, require food. One might even include shelter in that requirement given that much of the US climate can be considered deadly to the unsheltered at certain times of the year. Reasonable transportation is a bit of a longer stretch, but liberty would include at least the freedom to move about, and the pursuit of happiness could imply at least the ability to find transportation which enabled such a pursuit.

Personally, I'd like to see them starve, die from exposure, or - at the least - hear them complain about lack of efficient bus routes.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

>It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.

Citation needed.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

So increasing taxes to help government spending helps private employment?

Lets double the tax rates on everything if thats the case, or triple and then those 3 people looking for jobs will easily be able to find them.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

And libtards think employment is supposed to come from daddy government.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[cdecoro]

Here you go. :-)

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Xicor]

there is ABSOLUTELY NO SUCH STATEMENT in the constitution. according to the constitution, you have a right to life, liberty and property. you do not have a right to food, shelter, or even transportation. quit being a bum and get a job.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

Natural rights are those that cannot be taken away by others, not a declaration of entitlements. Someone else cannot take your liberty, but you are welcome to chain yourself to a fireplug.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[sjames]

So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[roc97007]

There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening

But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.

This doesn't take into account people like, for instance, my sister, who hasn't worked since the mid-nineties and is grimly determined to do whatever it takes to remain on government assistance for the remainder of her life. Justified by "I had bad things happen to me in my youth; society owes me a comfortable living in the manner and place of my choosing as a result."

I'm pretty sure she's not the only one.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[roc97007]

Government spending != wages, unless you're talking about government wages, which I don't believe we were.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Another citation

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

How much are you paying? When and where should I report for work?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[__aaltlg1547]

In other words, they don't exist. Because you may think you have a right to live, but anyone can take away your life. If the right to live isn't a natural right, nothing else is either.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

How does increasing spending help employ people? Unless you just want everyone to work for the government and make everything state run....
 
Oh, wait....

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[amiga3D]

Ugh! The only American made car uglier was the AMC Pacer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1975_AMC_Pacer_base_model_frontleftside.jpg

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[amiga3D]

Go back and look, the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" quote (happiness not property) is from the Declaration of Independence.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

It is exactly because natural rights are violable that it is important to protect them.

Your "right to life" is not a directive to the rest of us to keep you alive, it is a directive to the rest of us not to actively try to kill you.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

The fact that we have natural rights does not preclude us from making other laws. Are you serious or trying to build a straw man?

By the way, I would like very much if someone would like to come safely hunt or trap the deer and rabbits that are eating my garden. I have a neighbor with crops in the front yard. Eclectic, but whatever. There are no cows, but one lady (same as the crops) does have chickens in a movable pen. Another guy moved up from Texas and had chickens for a while, but he seems to have given that up.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[DarkOx]

So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?

I am fine with all of that. Although if you try hunting on my lawn, I'll consider you a poacher and a legitimate target.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[tepples]

One might even include shelter in that requirement given that much of the US climate can be considered deadly to the unsheltered at certain times of the year.

In that case, plenty of cities and states are violating the right to life by denying people the right to pitch a reasonable tent on public land.

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, she's a statistical minority. She's only your sister, not mine.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[jedidiah]

> So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?

No, not really. I are proceeding from the false assumption that those of us that believe in personal property rights are flaming hypocrites.

Truth be told, there isn't much good hunting to be had in my neighborhood. That whole "urban" thing has scared off most of the wildlife. I am not sure how much you could make out of the few rabbits and squirrels that remain.

As far as "agriculture" goes, I don't have much tolerance for purely decorative landscaping anyways. I would much prefer it if all of the bushes and trees in the neighborhood provided something edible.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[sumdumass]

To be even more pedantic, the life mentioned in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not a right to live, but your right to control your own destiny or die trying. That is where liberty and pursuit of happiness come into play. It is only limited by your abilities and resources due to the life you created for yourself.

The concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not about what a person is entitled to. If that was the case, the very first congress would have instituted welfare. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it became part of the political landscape and that wasn't because the sudden invention of TV or Radio and congress somehow knew some of the people were in need. No, the concept is about what you can attempt to strive for and achieve.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it. The money has to go somewhere. All money eventually ends up in the private sector. If the government contributes towards building a new research building, where does that money go? Private contractors, and private companies selling stuff. New permanent jobs are created when a new building is put up, and it also contributes to the number of employees needed for all the support companies.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[sjames]

The point is that that all of that has been made illegal in many places. Many of the means by which a non-lazy person might gather the essentials for living in the absence of offered employment have been taken away, but no suitable replacement seems to be on offer. That is at the least unethical.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[sjames]

I'll bet you'll find there are laws forbidding it where you live. You might should get those repealed since you are fine with the behavior. That or offer a suitable substitute.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dkleinsc]

But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.

1. To be counted as unemployed, you must be actively looking for a job. If you aren't, you are officially a "discouraged worker" and removed from the unemployment rolls. So, for example, if your sister hasn't worked since 1995, an hasn't even been trying to get a job, she isn't one of those 3 people trying to fill a single opening.

2. Even if, say, 1/3 of people who are counted as unemployed are really bums trying to mooch off the government, that still means that half of the people legitimately looking for work are coming up empty.

It was even worse a few years ago, when the ration was more like 5 unemployed people to 1 job. In that situation, you could be demonstrably good at your profession, and still not be hired because they could get the best-of-the-best for a pittance in that economy.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[sjames]

So the commons were closed. In most cases, agriculture beyond a small garden somewhere in the yard are forbidden. meanwhile, no reasonable alternative has been offered.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Xicor]

thats not the constitution, thats the declaration of independence. also, being the declaration of independence, it does not actually grant ANY rights to anyone

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

And job openings don't actually mean potential hiring since many job openings are just a honeypot for HR to process resumes & justify their existence. The posted openings are also leaving open the possibility of finding a superstar for the position to replace a current mediocre employee. So of the 3 competing for every position, I'd guess 0.75 will get hired, meaning its really 1 in 4 who are going to find eventual success.

                       

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember that it is written in UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights , however I am not sure if USA has ratified it completely.
  But as US laws are not compliant with UDHR ( allow torture, deny fair trial etc.etc. ) it does not even matters...

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[felrom]

Please take the time to read about the distinction between positive rights and negative rights. Wherever a positive right is claimed to exist, there must necessarily exist slavery in order to provide it, and thus there can be no valid positive rights, only negative rights. In modern America, we've simply decided that in order to indulge a lot of positive rights that we create by fiat, we will enslave wage earners. It neither makes it moral, nor rational. Claiming to have a right that requires the enslavement of others is no more rational than claiming to be a married bachelor.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

thank god the other 3 are at home watching TV!

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

You learn that in economics 101, if you lack common sense to understand why.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[drinkypoo]

There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening

But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.

1. Is this a measure of jobs offered in good faith, or jobs which are being offered in bad faith which will be granted to no one in order to justify hiring an H1B or outsourcing?

2. Are these jobs you can live on? From TFA, I see it isn't. ("Not coincidentally, most of the industries with the highest numbers of job openings in May, according to the JOLTS data, were lower-paying sectors, including health-care services, retail sales and restaurants.")

3. The article expressly addresses your objection and explicitly states the opposite of your conclusion. This is a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith (11.8 million) and not the number of people counted as being unemployed (7.6 million back in June, per article linked from TFA.)

This doesn't take into account people like, for instance, my sister, who

...is neither statistically significant, nor relevant to this discussion as we are counting actual job-seekers and not just people who are eligible to collect unemployment benefits.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyMartian]

So letting someone starve violates no rights.is that about right?

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyMartian]

Every civilization since the dawn of time has requires taxes. Get out of your retarded fantas. Paying taxes is no more slavery than obeying speed limits is slavery.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[XcepticZP]

Think about it. The money has to go somewhere. All money eventually ends up in the private sector.

And if the money stayed with the taxpayers from the start, where do you think it will eventually end up? Yup, you guessed it, the private sector, maybe. The big difference between government spending and individuals having less taxes is that less taxes allows people to save, and it allows them to have absolute freedom to choose how that portion of their money gets spent.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

That is at the least unethical.

Fair enough. I'm afraid I didn't get where you were coming from. I think we agree - I'm not a staunch libertarian. Once you implement something like property rights (not to mention property tax!), you pretty much sign a social contract to help those who lose out as a result of your legislation.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

It violates no natural rights, but it's not very compassionate. I'm actually a supporter of government-sponsored charity, even though it involves coercion.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Letting someone starve does not violate their natural rights. Preventing someone from acquiring food to eat, and therefore starving, does. Sometimes the line is obvious, and sometimes it's pretty thin.

This isn't to say that we should have no compassion. Nobody has a right to be fed by society. Rather, as a society we'd rather not have people around us starve. There's a big difference.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[XcepticZP]

You've already lost your liberty, you just haven't realized it yet. Open your eyes.

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Vaphell]

if your right is dependent on taxes then it's not a right. If you land on a uninhabited island and there is no state, your 'right' to a tax funded food disappears but you still have your self-ownership, right to speech, right to be happy, right to provide yourself with means of survival. What about natural disasters? same deal - people cut off from the rest of the world, no food on the store shelves, no water in taps... Suddenly the right to food goes poof. Call these things perks of civilization or whatever but don't mistake them for true rights which don't go away if you are alone and when the weather is bad.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[XcepticZP]

Of course... it's "public" land. That means it simultaneously belongs to everyone, and no one except the government. It is essentially the government equivalent of Nelson's "Haw Haw" laugh, aimed at the poor and unfortunate.

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyMartian]

Rights are in general what a society deems then to be. "Natural rights" are in essence a fiction western civilization has largely agreed are inherent, and ought not be violated save in very specific and limited circumstances. Other societal rules also come into play; in particular enlightened self interest, wherein you agree to certain basic protections in exchange for your potential (though possibly never realized) need of them at some future date. Along with that goes the idea that such programs means desperate people don't do what desperate people throughout history have done.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

Fair enough, but just because most countries don't respect natural rights, doesn't mean there isn't a whole ideology built around them.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[mspohr]

The only people saving money now are the rich 1%.
They put their money in Swiss bank accounts.
They are free.
The rest of us are wage slaves.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Point 1 is technically wrong. Discouraged workers are those that are not actively looking for a job OR those who have been unemployed for at least 12 months. That means that there are actually more than you think for each job.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dbIII]

where do you think it will eventually end up

Being hoarded by Murdoch or similar or getting blown on risky ventures by Trump.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dbIII]

Extended unemployment does that to a lot of people. It's called giving up hope. Some people recover from it and try to rejoin the workforce and others don't. Trying to force the issue just proves that some people can't get over it instantly even if they are threatened with the short brutal life of homelessness, so those who force it just end up with blood on their hands without any sign of success to show for it.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dbIII]

One example of that was my uncle who had problems for many years with his rural town council because he had a lot of fruit trees in his yard and they declared that orchards were not permitted within town limits. It was a normal town block so couldn't have been more than a dozen trees of different types (apricot, peach, cherry etc), the place was tidy and he had his own bore for water, but the council made an issue of it for years.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dbIII]

Personally, I'd like to see them starve, die from exposure

That's what the rest of the world already thinks is the prevailing attitude in the USA of the homeless, mentally ill and hospitality workers that just about have to prostitute themselves to complete strangers to get the tips they need to live. That's good work at reinforcing the stereotype of barbarians that should only be treated politely while they have money.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[XcepticZP]

The majority of money you call "hoarded" is actually just re-invested. That's due to everyone wanting to beat inflation, so they save their money as investments.

As for your "getting blow on risky ventures by Trump" comment. Well, if he loses it, it still goes somewhere. It pays for stuff, it hires people, it goes into someone's investment account, whatever. The point is that, either way, that money is getting used and circulated, somehow.

Any other misguided ideas?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[XcepticZP]

The only people saving money now are the rich 1%.

I'm saving money, and I'm not part of the 1%. How do you mean?

They put their money in Swiss bank accounts.

It's their money, they earned it. If they wish to keep it there, then that's their prerogative.

They are free.
The rest of us are wage slaves.

If you don't like it, you're "free" to start you own business. It means you won't be a wage-slave anymore. Either way, why exactly do you have a problem with earning a wage? You are selling your labor. Why use the word slave? Sounds like you have some very deep-seated anger issues towards those that are somehow currently more fortunate than you.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dryeo]

The money will go to the politicians instead. Costs a lot of money to get elected and the return on investing in some politicians is probably better then most investments.
I guess you can argue that the politicians will spend the money but it is sorta like arguing that breaking windows is good for the economy as it employs glaziers.

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

real admins NEVER test their backups. I mean what's the better blame game? sorry board, we had a perfectly good backup plan in place but the flux capacitor failed. or Yeah, Sven forced the tape in backwards and pressed ok to ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[roc97007]

Luckily, she's a statistical minority. She's only your sister, not mine.

Agreed. I wouldn't wish her on anyone. But I'm not so sure people like her, (not just her) are a statistical minority. I'd like to think so.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dryeo]

To be even more pedantic, the life mentioned in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not a right to live, but your right to control your own destiny or die trying. That is where liberty and pursuit of happiness come into play. It is only limited by your abilities and resources due to the life you created for yourself.

It's a combination of the life you created for yourself and circumstances. For example my life is probably much better due to my parents decision to emigrate to a new land with much better opportunities.
The kid who was born to an alcoholic mother who was drunk throughout her pregnancy is at a huge disadvantage in creating much of a life for themselves due to brain damage.

The concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not about what a person is entitled to. If that was the case, the very first congress would have instituted welfare. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it became part of the political landscape and that wasn't because the sudden invention of TV or Radio and congress somehow knew some of the people were in need. No, the concept is about what you can attempt to strive for and achieve.

Actually one of the driving forces behind the American revolution was welfare in the form of land. Americans had a sense of entitlement to all that land to the west and the government made it possible to cheat or kill the occupants and take it.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool what's your address, my family and I will be over so you can provide us food and shelter, you are not going to deny us our rights are you? Also I want a Tesla, make it green please

Re: GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dryeo]

Slavery implies no choice. You have chosen to take advantage of civilization and work and get nice stuff and now you don't want to pay. You could have chosen to not take advantage of civilization and not pay taxes. If you don't like paying taxes, quit working and don't pay them. Instead you sound like someone who went to a restaurant, ate a nice dinner and then bitched about getting a bill with the threat of prison if you don't pay.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[dbIII]

No point. I'm over twenty (40+ actually) so you obviously will not believe me.
I suggest taking a look at places with no functional government if you wish to see what you are advocating. I'm sure if you ask nicely the Taliban can show you a few areas.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Smauler]

I'll just make a note here... Anyone who makes a fucking party political issue about a story which is not a party political issue, I'm going to mod down as offtopic from now on in. I don't care whether you're replying to someone, if you're commenting on a topic which has no fucking relevance to party politics, you're the fucking dipshit.

It might help if the Dems quit importing competition for all those unemployed.

Who the fuck modded this AC "insightful" in a story about Xerox. Fucking kill these comments.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[lgw]

If you're going to plant crops, a straw man can be useful to keep the crows away - maybe he is building one. Last place I lived there was a "Lost Chicken" poster up on the telephone poles one week, funniest thing I saw all year.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[lgw]

Well put. But I despise government-sponsored "charity" because the extortion makes it not charity. Charity is giving your own money to the needy, and is perhaps the most good thing most of us get to do in our lives. Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.

Well, there are plenty of needy in the world for those of us who have money left after taxes, so there are still plenty of opportunities for charity, but the distance makes it less personal.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

quit being a bum and get a job.

I would like your job, but it is not vacant. First, I must manipulate you into getting yourself fired. The 1st Amendment gives me the right to call you and tell you what I think of you. I'll do this right after you doze off to sleep each night, to make sure you never get any rest. That Amendment also gives me the right to publicize what a cruel louse you are, bereft of empathy. I think handing out flyers at places where you frequent should do the trick... and possibly draw you into a physical altercation where I can then press charges for aggrivated assault... anything to get you to miss work, and get fired. Perhaps a donation to the campaign of a local prosecutor will help with getting a felony conviction for you. While you're dealing with that, I'll see if there are any people in your past that are in the least bit unhappy with your treatment of them, and see if they'd be willing to bring lawsuits against you. I'll hire them attorneys with the fortune I make collecting unemployment. It doesn't matter if they win... what matters is you will be forced to spend to defend yourself, weakening your economic position. However it happens, eventually you will be unemployed and broke, and I will have the opportunity to take your previous job, and then I will be forced by principle alone to tell you that you should quit being a bum and get a job.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[wonkey_monkey]

How many jobs have they each applied for?

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[MightyYar]

Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.

While I agree with that sentiment, I feel that it is warranted given the current state of regulation. The government seriously restricts what we as citizens can and cannot do to make ends meet... gone are the days where it is possible for someone to disappear into the bush to forage when times are tough. I'm not waxing nostalgic for the days of crop failures equaling widespread starvation, but there is something rather rude about telling someone that they cannot raise their own food and livestock on their own property - if they even have property - and then also telling them that they are on their own if they can't earn enough money to feed themselves.

Even the issue of property ownership... those with real estate get all sorts of government protection for their property. If they get this additional granted right from government, then why not all sorts of other granted rights? It's almost completely arbitrary once you stray off of the "protecting natural rights" path of limiting government.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Redmancometh]

"I'll just make a note here... Anyone who makes a fucking party political issue about a story which is not a party political issue, I'm going to mod down as offtopic from now on in."

User RedmanCometh has joined your bandwagon..

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[guruevi]

From the same article: There are always more job openings than there are workers to fill them

I was in a small town this weekend and practically every business had a 'looking for help' sign. If you want to work, you can work. I get offers all the time even though I'm not looking.

In the tech industry there are indeed always dozens of people applying for jobs but most of them simply aren't qualified. In the tech industry at least we've created an environment where we have given these kids degrees for minimal effort. There are thousands of kids graduating with some random tech degree they aren't interested in or qualified for but when they started their 4 year education, there was high demand (and there still is high demand). There is high demand for qualified workers, people that can think, half the college graduates can't think for themselves, most of them can't even do high school mathematics or have a clue about basic physics, heck half the population still believes in a magic sky daddy and that the earth was created 6000 years ago.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving

Won't someone please think of the more fortunate? Truly, they are the real victims here.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[operagost]

I'm also saving money. Some of it is for retirement, some in other investments (essentially also for retirement), some it is a liquid emergency fund, and some of it is for charity. I do this because smart people recommend it, and I, through study, have found it to be smart and moral. I am not in the 1%. Neither are the folks who write to Dave Ramsey, or call in to Suze Orman. There are people who make $45,000/year, and they still have 3 month emergency funds. Figure out a way to get it done. If anything is in your way, solve it, then get it done. BTW, the Swiss bank accounts were opened up years ago. Get a new meme.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[frank_adrian314159]

Well, without food, the "Life" part is going away fairly quickly (a few weeks at most). Shelter? I guess it's a luxury in some places all of the time, and in some of the places some of the time, but probably not in all of the places, all of the time, unless you like expiring of hypothermia. And I'd dare say that reasonable transportation is a pretty big prerequisite to many who are looking for Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Not to mention that the stress of not having food, shelter, and reasonable transportation would tend to make maintenance of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness rather difficult. But then, I'd throw in access to clean water and clean air and to health care as fundamental rights, too... Just sayin'.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[psithurism]

1) No, you have to appear to be looking for a job. I've known many unemployed people and appearing to be looking for a job is pretty easy. For example I recall the requirement in my state being something like, apply for 3 jobs a week, which is easy, apply for the same four that rejected you last week, the extra job is in case one of those wants to move forward toward offering you a job in which case you don't report it and find another place that wont hire you next week. These were of course my more educated friends who wanted all their paperwork to be truthful and verifiable; they reportedly heard from other unemployed folks that you could just make everything up.

Of course, that's talking about unemployment benefits, there are other programs you can continue to take advantage, but in different ways and I suspect that GPP's sister is not applying for jobs and therefore correctly not counted as you pointed out.

2) Regardless of the ratios, as long as we offer aid, some people undeserving people will take advantage of it. Even if there are more moochers than deservers, we either have to accept the fact of moochers or obliterate the system, because moochers are far craftier than the costs to keep them out of the system.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[multicsfan]

Just because there are jobs, does not mean that the person(s) on welfare are qualified for any of those jobs and/or have the ability to even get to the job if they are qualified.

Some of those jobs pay so little that people on welfare can't afford to get the job. With the job they could not afford housing, food, transport to/from work, child care, medical expense, etc.

I am not saying that there is no fraud in the system, but the job situation is not that simple.

One way to improve the situation is to maybe do something like instead of benefits being a binary situation, ie you either qualify or don't to make it a graduated situation. You loose maybe $1 in benefits for every $2 you earn.

I'm also not sure how many of those jobs are not real, i.e., the advertized job may kinda exist, but the employer has no plans to actual hire anyone.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[samwichse]

Good idea, I'll do the same.

Re:GET A JOB YA BUMS

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to blow your mod points moding down ACs, by all means be my guest!

Words that should never be spoken

[ThatAblaze]

"[A politician] underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown."

These words should never have to be said.

Re: Words that should never be spoken

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be funny it if was, in fact, related..

This is exactly why testing backups is necessary

[dwhitaker]

Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too. It's unfortunate that the system was down, but it seems they got it back up in a reasonably quick time frame. Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.

k-ROGER that!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Hahaha I was walking thru Kroger's yesterday and they kept announcing over the speakers "We cannot accept EBT today because our computers are having problems."

OS Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox makes extensive use of GNU/Linux.

Re: OS Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also outsourced their IT to EDS a long time ago (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=xerox+eds+outsourcing).

Fail-safe

[girlintraining]

People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday,

Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working? Credit card systems are, at every level, designed to cope with a failure by simply authorizing the purchase. Only a very small number of transactions would have been failed anyway for insufficient funds, etc., and these are reconciled when that part of the system is restored to service... meaning there's very little loss to the provider for this.

For that matter, if they've decided to design the system in this fashion, where were the redundancies? If a routine backup can result in failure on this scale, then it begs the question of where and how the backup of the actual systems, not just the data, got overlooked.

Re:Fail-safe

[dwhitaker]

One of the news articles mentioned that merchants were supposed to record transactions manually and allow purchases up to $50. Not ideal, and not the same as allowing all purchases, but it is a provision of the system that is supposed to ensure people aren't deprived food and necessities during a short outage. Now, whether retailers actually followed protocol is an entirely different matter (and one that does have implications for the way the system is run).

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what it'd take to get the EBT cards knocked out in the other 33 states?

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working?

In the case of credit cards, the CC companies will just tell the merchant to eat any fraud. Surprisingly, the States did not sign up for this method.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday,

Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working? Credit card systems are, at every level, designed to cope with a failure by simply authorizing the purchase. Only a very small number of transactions would have been failed anyway for insufficient funds, etc., and these are reconciled when that part of the system is restored to service... meaning there's very little loss to the provider for this.

For that matter, if they've decided to design the system in this fashion, where were the redundancies? If a routine backup can result in failure on this scale, then it begs the question of where and how the backup of the actual systems, not just the data, got overlooked.

"Allowing all purchases" is oversimplifying how it works.
Not ALL processors have an agreement with ALL their switches to do stand-ins, and if they do, there are limits.
Stand-in processing is not free.

If stand-in processing was happening:
A: I would assume the transaction limits could be lower than quite a few grocery bills because most people buy weeks worth of food at a time.
B: You _NEVER_ tell cardholders "When our system is down, all transactions under $50 are automatically authorized". You have no idea the amount of fraud that would cause. No cardholders should know when stand-ins are happening or what the limit is, period.

Re: Fail-safe

[Mabhatter]

That's because the EBT cards function like Debit cards, not credit cards. So they need to contact the account to verify funds every time.

They could make it some other way, but we wouldn't want people cheating the government by getting one extra cart of groceries early, would we. All because we didn't program the computer to check the cards balance every time.

Re:Fail-safe

[girlintraining]

One of the news articles mentioned that merchants were supposed to record transactions manually and allow purchases up to $50

Due to the government shutdown, I cannot provide primary source data such as would be normally available from the USDA, etc. In lieu of that, the links provided represent the best non-authoritative sources available at this time.

The average household size is 2.48. Source.
The average person spends about $70 a week on food Source
76% of people on food stamps are disabled, elderly, or children. Source
Around 44 million Americans are on food stamps now*

* [Couldn't find credible source; Estimated from multiple sources]

This would mean that the average weekly trip to the grocery store, for an average household, would be $173.60. If your number is correct, then the government has opted to allow vendors to 28% of a family's food to be processed. Also according to the article, this outage may last up to three days.

Now here's the thing; A lot of those families live 'paycheck to paycheck'. Even if it is welfare; They don't have a fully stocked pantry. If they don't buy food today, a lot of them don't eat. And most people go shopping on the weekend. Your quoted $50 means the average family runs out of food in just under two days. I was unable to find any citation to back your assertion that they were allowing purchases as long as they were under $50 as well, so I have my doubts as to its validity. Anecdotally, two of my friends who have food stamps in the midwestern area reported being unable to purchase any food or remove any amount of cash benefits from their accounts.

So either the situation is 'rather bad' -- 1 in 8 Americans will be going hungry for at least one day this week on average. Or it's 'very bad', in that 1 in 8 Americans will be going hungry for three days. And possibly longer -- many of those people use public transportation or arranged rides to get to the grocery store every week. Especially the elderly and disabled. These rides are picked out weeks ahead of time. For them, they could be looking at not eating for a week or more.

So I return to my original point: Why is it that credit card companies, who offer a convenience, do this, but our government, which provides something that in a very literal sense is life or death to some people, does not? There is no answer to that question that I come away with that makes this look like anything other than criminal neglect of a vulnerable population.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working? Credit card systems are, at every level, designed to cope with a failure by simply authorizing the purchase. Only a very small number of transactions would have been failed anyway for insufficient funds, etc., and these are reconciled when that part of the system is restored to service... meaning there's very little loss to the provider for this.

For that matter, if they've decided to design the system in this fashion, where were the redundancies? If a routine backup can result in failure on this scale, then it begs the question of where and how the backup of the actual systems, not just the data, got overlooked.

Because people that hold those credit cards by and large _pay their bills_. People that hold EBT cards have them because they do _not_ pay their bills. So we should just say "ok I trust you!" and authorize anything the deadbeats want?

Re:Fail-safe

[Hartree]

That's the system they went to in New Mexico when I was working for a card processor there. When the system first started, there was no default approval.

That was bad. Try telling someone "Sorry. Your kids are going to go hungry tonight."

So, they allowed store level approvals up to a certain amount when the system was down. It got abused some, but was a much better option than a blanket denial.

This was in the late 1990s, and would have varied from state to state, obviously. I would expect most states would have a similar system.

Re:Fail-safe

[__aaltlg1547]

Credit cards are taken as a promise to pay. If you have the card, either you are good for it or the credit company is the one who has to come after you for payment.

Debit cards don't work that way. If they can't verify the funds in your account, they don't get paid.

Re:Fail-safe

[sumdumass]

I need to challenge your premise a bit.

Living paycheck to paycheck should have no bearing on how stocked a pantry is when the pantry is being stocked by welfare benefits cards. It is literally like me saying here is $174.00, buy food with it and only food and you waiting until your paycheck comes in to purchase the bare minimum and save the rest for your next paycheck.

Furthermore, and I understand this is anecdotal, but it is representative of most of the people I know getting food stamps via EBT cards, most of these people have friends and families that will float money to them for food purchases and then make their purchases from the EBT cards. This is nothing new, it is illegal, but it is also something that probably would be completely overlooked due to a situation like this. Normally, the EBT holder would go to the store and purchase the food for the other person then receive a cash reimbursement from that person. So it isn't like there was absolutely no option if someone was completely out of food. This doesn't even begin to mention friends and family that would just say "come on over for dinner and we will send some left overs home with you" or something of the sort.

I don't lack empathy for these people, I'm just challenging the sense of dire emergency you are presenting. I know it is frightening for people who receive the benefits. I was just talking with a girl about it being a problem with Xerox and not the government shutdown so the benefits should be restored soon. But she was frantically surfing her Iphone5 trying to find out more information for it. I told her to go to the local TV news site, they just did a story on it before I left the house. She saw the story and was relieved some but still nervous because of the shutdown. It sure was an inconvenience, it likely left a lot of people anxious, but it was not a dire emergency or anything like you present.

Re:Fail-safe

[dwhitaker]

Thank you for bringing numbers into this. My $50 number is from one of several articles like this: Source.

My thought was that allowing up to $50 is certainly not enough for a typically grocery trip, but that if the outage was of a short duration (measured in hours rather than days), that it might be sufficient. It's at least a system in place today rather than one that would ostensibly need to clear numerous political hurdles.

I think some of the other threads have covered that EBT is run more like debit than credit, so that the fundamentals of the system are different. Furthermore, if it were set up to behave more like credit cards with automatically approving purchases in the event of an outage, someone will be liable for the difference (the retailers? the states?), and each has large negatives associated with it.

EBT is also a political lightning rod, so any changes that may improve the system from one perspective may be viewed as unconscionable from another. However the numbers shake out, a vulnerable population was hurt, but preventing it again in the future may not be as simple as one would hope.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

You are spot-on in your response; the parent is not familiar with the procedures at all. I am familiar enough (having worked in retail)

Re:Fail-safe

[Slugster]

One of the news articles mentioned that merchants were supposed to record transactions manually and allow purchases up to $50. ...

The one I work for didn't. But then, they couldn't. There is no mode programmed into the (computerized) cash register system in the stores to allow such a thing (at least at the chain I work at).

Also, the lack of such a capability may be no accident. With no way to verify that a card was still good or had money on it, well, -the people might, um, forget how much they're really supposed to get? And get a lot more. Especially expensive stuff....

I am not in a position where I would make that decision--but I would presume that without a guarantee that the govt would cover 100% of all charges during such an outage, there's no way stores are going to take EBT cards they can't instantly verify. A lot of these same people already can't write checks, because the store's check-cashing system won't accept checks from them.

Re:Fail-safe

[captainlavender]

Exactly my reaction. The more power the participant has, the more competence they apparently merit. If your company caters to high-end and rich customers who might leave if you screw it all up, you'll work hard to prevent mistakes. This is a perfect example of the opposite -- nobody can complain and nobody can leave the program, so who cares if we mess up and someone's kids don't get to eat for two days? I mean it's just poor people, right?

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense but that $70/week number includes those that eat steak and lobster every night. $50 can buy a huge amount of food if you aren't going for high ticket items. I've fed my family of 4 on as little as $15 for the day, cereal and milk for breakfast $2, mac and cheese for lunch (this is assuming package meals) $3, and $10 for homemade lasagna (that's assuming nothing is on sale). Also leaving leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day for a couple of people.
    Yeah if you want Ribeye, you are going to blow through $50 fairly quickly.

Re:Fail-safe

[dbIII]

Unfortunately we are getting to learn a lot more about you from each of your posts while you appear to be taking very little notice of what is going on around you. It's clear that you have others that will immediately shelter you and that you cannot comprehend that others will be in a situation where this will not happen.
So while it may be entertaining at times to hear from an overprotected puppy it's best to keep in mind that it's a large world out there and that such blinkered views are of little worth. There's a phrase you were never taught "there but for the grace of God go I". Teaching that to children is part of what keeps them from being selfish little sociopaths.

Re:Fail-safe

[mjwx]

People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday,

Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working? Credit card systems are, at every level, designed to cope with a failure by simply authorizing the purchase. Only a very small number of transactions would have been failed anyway for insufficient funds, etc., and these are reconciled when that part of the system is restored to service... meaning there's very little loss to the provider for this.

You dont know much about how EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) systems work.

Yes, some EFTPOS terminals can store card details when the network is down and reconcile the transactions later. Some cant. However if the transaction fails it's the merchant who's left holding the bag.

The EFTPOS system is designed to make sure that the merchant shoulders as much of the cost as possible. This is not a good system for a food stamp program.

When I set up stores with EFTPOS, I always set up a redundant network connection with an automatic failover. The cost of this was in excess of A$50 per month, per store but the losses from declined transactions were worse.

Re:Fail-safe

[udachny]

So the government is stealing money from some people to subsidise some others and when this transfer of stolen money is not done in the precise convenient fashion the mob gets all riled up.

I am going to enjoy seeing how this systems collapses and finally the productive people will no longer be the slaves of the mob. Of-course there will be riots and probably blood, but the system requires a reset and apparently things have gone far enough that the reset cannot be expected to be well mannered.

Re:Fail-safe

[Bite The Pillow]

30% for 3 of 7 days sounds good to me. If you want to go on numbers alone that is fair. You forgot to bring in the cost of a trip to the store, so I'll leave you that opening.
Why can visa and MasterCard float this?, you asked?

Because they get money on idiots paying interest, while the government does not. That's pretty fucking obvious. Gov does not get to balance unpaid debt by bilking retards. It gets to soak everyone it deems can pay, retard or not.

And, legislators wrote the rules, rather than legislators. Any more dumb questions?

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Now here's the thing; A lot of those families live 'paycheck to paycheck'. Even if it is welfare; They don't have a fully stocked pantry. If they don't buy food today, a lot of them don't eat.

So either the situation is 'rather bad' -- 1 in 8 Americans will be going hungry for at least one day this week on average. Or it's 'very bad', in that 1 in 8 Americans will be going hungry for three days. And possibly longer -- many of those people use public transportation or arranged rides to get to the grocery store every week. Especially the elderly and disabled. These rides are picked out weeks ahead of time. For them, they could be looking at not eating for a week or more.

A person can easily live 3 days without food. Most people also, either own a dog or a cat as a pet, or live next door to someone who owns a dog or a cat for a pet. Most people also live within walking distance of a store that sells potato chips and accepts EBT. Most people also have friends, neighbors, and family, or a church nearby, and a phone to call someone.

If a person dies of starvation, because the EBT system was down for a handful of hours, it's their fault for being too stupid to get off their Oprah watching ass to get some food.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You read that correctly. If you are truly starving, go ahead and kill and eat the neighbors pets.

If the situation is truly dire, as in, WW3 has broken out, and the supply chain is cut off, go ahead and kill and eat the neighbors as well, lest you both starve to death from inaction.

Or just keep thinking its okay for people to be helpless dumb sick animals, that you need to steal money to feed, as if they were your pets.

EBT down for 6 hours ? Walk to the nearest garbage can if you just can't stand the hunger pangs for 6 whole hours.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States

In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported higher numbers once more, counting 35.7% of American adults as obese, and 17% of American children.[9]

35.7% of adults are obese. A huge percentage of the non-obese certainly have 6 hours of energy stores in their bodies.

An even better strategy, is to keep a case of Top Ramen around, exactly for these occasions, when the Mega-Lo-Mart and Free Bus Service and Free Food Money Card let you down.

What a sad pathetic excuse for biological creatures we have all become ... Nietzsche's sick animals living on Orwells animal farm. {facepalm}

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

76% of people on food stamps are disabled, elderly, or children.

I wish it were easy to tell if a person was really disabled. An NPR article says that the number of people on disability has been increasing fast recently.

For example, "In Hale County, Alabama, nearly 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability."

And a graph shows that in 2011, in West Virginia, 9% of the population age 18-64 was on worker's disability.

And "One mother told me her teenage son wanted to work, but she didn't want him to get a job because if he did, the family would lose its disability check."

I don't know how to solve fraudulent disability claims. If someone says they are in pain, how can anyone, including a doctor, say, "No, you're not in pain. You're just faking it."?

Re:Fail-safe

[Gavagai80]

$70 a week? I spend $40 a week on food and I'm not really trying to economize much. If you pick your foods carefully buy in bulk and don't splurge on whatever looks tasty, you could easily eat on $20 a week.

Re:Fail-safe

[cdrudge]

I'd challenge you to eat properly on $20 a week. Sure you can eat a $.12 package of ramen noodles each meal, but that's not going to sustain you forever.

Look up the "SNAP Challenge" where various groups challenge people to live off of $4.50 a day, the maximum SNAP pays per person. That's well under your $20. Almost everyone that has taken part in the challenge found it very difficult to provide a nutritionally balanced meal with variety, and that's just a single week.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not literally "life or death". No one is going to starve if they don't eat for a few days...

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like not everything failed to a deny. At least 2 stores failed to unlimited EBT funds. Apparently everyone on EBT in these towns has facebook, instagram, & cell phones so that resulted in a raid on the Wal-Mart.

http://www.wafb.com/story/23679489/walmart-shelves-in-springhill-mansfield-cleared-in-ebt-glitch

So, what is better? Deny all transactions or allow all transactions? Obviously people on welfare here cannot handle themselves appropriately. People that abused this should go to jail for this but I'm sure nothing will happen.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Challenge accepted. I eat for less than that anyway. I prepare all my own food and never eat out, around $100/mo give or take. My diet is mostly whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, beans, brown rice, frozen vegetables, fruits, leafy greens, oatmeal, nuts, seeds, almond milk, olive oil and similar. The odd egg or three (maybe once or twice a month) and potato. More rarely I eat seafood, steak, or similar (maybe once every 6 to 8 weeks).

$135 a month would actually be a significant increase, I could blow away this challenge.

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, hock the iPhone5 and eat another day. This is why lots of the working class get upset with the benefits the USA gives out. My wife wants an iPhone5, but we decided it wasn't in our budget to upgrade her yet, it has only been 3 years. At my job, another one of our engineers (IT) supports a large quasi-government public housing group, I'm 2nd on that account. We do all the server support at the main building, 70+ employees. Every once in a while, it is requested we actually go on-site to the housing units to assist one of their tenants (more of a volunteer/pro-bono deal). It is amazing to go in there and see 3 big screen TVs, all larger than the single one I have at my house, the latest gaming system (I have a PS2, lol), Cable TV and Internet (I have starter cable now, but went without it for 3/4 of my life), and the list goes on (not to mention the liquor bottles and beer cans in plain view). It drives me nuts that I'm working my a$$ off (routinely working 60-80hr weeks), saving up so my wife and I can afford to have our first kid (we'd like to be able to cover medical expenses and not be paycheck to paycheck while raising the kid, and still afford to fund retirement, etc). Meanwhile, every two weeks I see a HUGE chunk of my paycheck just disappear, and I know it is only a small portion of that missing money, but knowing that it is going to help pay for the lodging/cable/tvs/iphones/booze of people not willing to apply themselves to getting an education (the school system is good there), work a job, or at least make good decisions with their money to help them get out of there. I wouldn't have a big problem honestly with giving them my tax dollars if they were using it for something constructive. If it is just going to booze, TVs, media, etc, I'd rather spend it myself!

Sorry for the rant, I just have to let it out sometimes. It sounds like I'm a heartless bast@rd sometimes so I have to be careful who I vent to, but I'm really not. I'm just tired of working hard and not getting very far, while I see others who get by on backs of the working. You could say the same about the rich I guess, but at least they had to do something at some point to get the money (or their family). And they do pay way more in taxes ("fair share" imo has nothing to do with income or wealth, but either by equal responsibility and/or use). Even if that something is just making good decisions on how to invest money (or even if it just means going to a good college and graduating with a decent GPA), they obviously have done it better than me, or the poor guy in section 8. I mean at least that person tried/tries to make something of themselves. I can't say the same for the others I've encountered at my job while helping the tenants.

Re:Fail-safe

[volmtech]

The S in SNAP stands for supplemental, define that as you wish.

Re:Fail-safe

[operagost]

You just multiplied the weekly cost of food for one person by the household size? Your very next stat points out that most people on food stamps are elderly, children or disabled-- and we know that those groups all eat less than healthy adults. In addition, buying for a household is more economical because you can buy in bulk.

Re:Fail-safe

[sumdumass]

You should stop reading whst you want to think into everything i post. If you took what i say at face value, you would find yourself not needing to troll me all the time.

My point still stands, while the interuption caused anxiety, it was nowhere near as dire as the gp attemped to make it out to be.

Re:Fail-safe

[rhodium_mir]

I am going to enjoy seeing how this systems collapses and finally the productive people will no longer be the slaves of the mob.

Meanwhile the rest of us are enjoying watching the price of gold collapse, not in some hypothetical future, but RIGHT NOW.

Gold Price Performance USD
Today -7.40 -0.58%
30 Days -41.20 -3.13%
6 Months -84.00 -6.17%
1 Year -459.40 -26.46%

Re:Fail-safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Credit card transactions get much more attention by the payment processing company than EBT. This is clearly a case of the government contract goes to the lowest bidder.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[amiga3D]

The local Walmart was lacking in any backup method. They had at least 50 buggies packed full of food sitting around the registers and a lot of pissed off customers. Glad they got it back up, I don't look forward to that riot.

Isn't this how Chernobyl happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some idiot said, "Hey, let's test the backup system on a production server."

Re:Isn't this how Chernobyl happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then Xerox copied him.

At least Xerox

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Xerox does backups, and tests them. Sure beats not testing and risking catastrophe.

Very lucky - *this* time

[Anonymous Coward]

This situation could have resulted in violence (or worse) if this wasn't rectified quickly.

Re:Very lucky - *this* time

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring it on...

Re:Very lucky - *this* time

[PolygamousRanchKid]

This situation could have resulted in violence (or worse) if this wasn't rectified quickly.

Food riots? The government Soylent Green People Scoopers will clean them up really fast. Which will increase the Soylent Green supply, so that it can be given away free to food stamp card holders.

Store Clerk: Sorry, our food stamp card system is down again, but you can have some Soylent Green for free, so you won't need to go hungry . . .

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[plover]

Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.

Those lead to fraud loopholes, and not just EBT. Someone can claim, "oh, my card doesn't work because the system is down, just fill out the paperwork for me, please." Thats more problematic when nothing distinguishes a "DECLINE-card has no funds" from a "DECLINE-system is broken" to the cashier.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Rick Zeman]

Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too. It's unfortunate that the system was down, but it seems they got it back up in a reasonably quick time frame. Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.

Exactly. Imagine a more catastrophic meltdown down the road and all of the Nancy Naysayers saying, "WhyoWhy didn't anyone test it?"

Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me remind you all of Senator Obama's words from 2006 regarding the raising of the debt ceiling. He voted against raising the debt ceiling at that time.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally."

Source

How true are those words? I only wish President Obama still believed what he did as Senator.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Ksevio]

However, when Obama was a senator, the administration had turned a budget surplus into a budget deficit. That was the result of reckless spending on tax cuts and wars.

That contrasts with the current administration which was given a large deficit to start with (made worse by declining tax revenues due to the recession) that has cut government spending.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, "It is ok when we do it".

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[tepples]

Here's how I see it: "It's OK when we borrow less per year than the previous administration borrowed in its final year and continue to borrow less each year."

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

However, when Obama was a senator, the administration had turned a budget surplus into a budget deficit.

Pray tell how the executive branch did that when it's Congress that holds the purse strings?

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[aardvarkjoe]

Let me remind you all of Senator Obama's words from 2006 regarding the raising of the debt ceiling. He voted against raising the debt ceiling at that time.

The debt ceiling really isn't related to the government shutdown. The media (and certain politicians) are trying to conflate the two -- and it seems that they're succeeding, because most people don't seem to realize that there's a difference.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[clarkkent09]

|Congress controls the spending. Btw, "Bush's wars" propaganda is getting boring. Democrats overwhelmingly supported them (unanimously in case of Afghanistan) and it was Clinton admin that set the stage for Iraq war with regime change policy (Iraq Liberation Act 1998). You can argue whether it was right or wrong but you can't blame just one side for it - they all had the same intelligence. Same applies with the current administration. Would they really cut the spending if Republicans weren't fighting for it all along.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

I only wish President Obama still believed what he did as Senator.

Not me - I'm glad he came to his senses. There are two ways to deal with a high deficit. You can stop promising other people money, or you can start reneging on the promises you already made.

The debt ceiling vote is about keeping promises already made, and it's beyond stupid that a vote is even required. You made those promises. Keep them, or create a new government that will.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Ksevio]

Democrats may have supported the wars at the time, but there's little doubt that we would have avoided them had a Democrat been president. Apart from that, there certainly wouldn't have been the tax cuts.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Ksevio]

Despite being different branches, the Republican legislature and Republican executive members are in fact the same party.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[dbIII]

Face it - your country is fucked unless you get enough help from outside to climb out of the 2008 hole and be self supporting. That's what it's about. Politics doesn't have anything to do with it apart from utter fools that want to make things worse so they can get all the adult supervision between them and running the country blamed and taken out of the way. The ceiling games are one of the ways those utter fools are trying to make things worse, and the adult supervision in the party that contains that bunch of fools is getting outnumbered.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

>The debt ceiling vote is about keeping promises already made, and it's beyond stupid that a vote is even required. You made those promises. Keep them,
>or create a new government that will.

This works only so long as our money and credit last. If it doesn't, then what? Take a look at the current state of affairs in Greece for a glimpse of the future. At the current rate the U.S. is racking up debt, how far away could a similar fate be for us? The only difference will be is the EU won't be able to bail us out. Who can bail out the U.S.?

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

By making proposals to Congress which Congress accepted, in particular those of their own party.

Responsibility, there's enough to go around.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't play dishonest games with statistics. Bush's last deficit was an outlier, mainly from the funding of TARP (and need we not forget which party was running the house in the last 2 years of Bush). Obama has outspent Bush $2:$1 even while spinning down the wars, and most importantly, Democrats haven't allowed a budget to be passed since 2009 (before the iPad was released). Why? Because Obama's first big move was to fund the $787B stimulus. Now a lot of it got block granted to states to prop them up from having to lay off Union State Employees-- but the rest went into agency budgets (part of the baseline). Now if you simply pass CRs, you continue that portion of the stimulus-- year after year. And as Obama likes to vote "Present"-- he doesn't have to sign a budget-- just "clean CRs"-- while we rack up close to $7 Trillion of additional debt in just 5 years.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... Since President Obama has reduced the country's deficit by $4.3 TRILLION , I can forgive him for not having clairvoyance.

But if you want to join all the people blaming President Obama for everything that goes wrong, go right ahead. Personally, I find it rather entertaining.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

It was also the Cliton administration, that set the stage, for the financial meltdown, the communist er progressives er liberals er government aid dependents er adults with child like minds all claim was Bush's fault.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[Anonymous Coward]

The debt ceiling is related to the government shutdown.

The debt ceiling and the Democrats insaitiable urge for expanding and growing government is being used as leverage to perhaps reduce the amount of money the government steals from people in order to expand itself.

The only conspiracy here, is the federal governments modus operandi, to issue debt as a means to fund expansion of itself, which results in the systemic devaluation of the dollar, an increase in food and gas prices, growing numbers of people who arent productive and are dependent on entitlements, and amounts to a tax on everything denominated in dollars ... ie, they pick the peoples pockets and squander the wealth of the nation.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[JimCanuck]

Like Libya was avoided? Give us a break.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[SleazyRidr]

I like how Libya is always brought up. In Iraq, we put troops on the ground, who 10 years later haven't really made much of a dent in the politics of the region, with thousands of Americans dead. In Libya, we provided support to the insurgents who were already doing the dirty work. Ac couple of months for regime change, and they're back to being a normal country, no Americans dead.

I keep trying to find a reason to support the Republican party. I used to think that they were the better party for economic management, but they have historically increased deficits. Then I thought that maybe the social policies were what people liked, but they continue to force the same old crap from the 50s that has been repeatedly shown to not work. I thought maybe they were the better choice during wartime, but the Iraq/Libya actions have shown me that the Democrats are better there too. Are there any reasons left?

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

This works only so long as our money and credit last. If it doesn't, then what?

As bad as you think things are, is it worth destroying the credibility of the US when it says "I will pay you for your services"? D you want to turn America into a deadbeat state? Or is the solution not to renege on your promises, but to elect people who do not make them in the first place?

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[JimCanuck]

Who said anything about supporting the Republican Party.

But you have to call both the pot and kettle black.

Re:Senator Obama on raising the debt ceiling

[SleazyRidr]

Most people who talk shit about the Libya action support the Republicans. I apologize for assuming you were one of those despicable people.

Routine...

[leuk_he]

Routine means that is done more often, not that is is done correct or even approved....

It's Free Swipe Yo EBT

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII

In other news:

[Hartree]

"[A politician] underscored that the entry of the US into WW2 was not related to the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Channeling Ron Ziegler from 1973:

[Hartree]

That statement is no longer operative.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Food stamps? Why does your country need food stamps?
Is this a war-ravaged african country we're talking about?
Some neoliberal-ravaged western country perhaps?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Food stamps? Why does your country need food stamps? Is this a war-ravaged african country we're talking about? Some neoliberal-ravaged western country perhaps?

I've worked with and talked with emigres to the U.S. And they really were surprised that America's roads are not paved with gold. Really. There's a lot of need in this country, and food stamps can make the difference whether or not families get to eat decently or not. Lots of debate about food stamps here. Lots of well off people never come into contact with the poorer folks (see some comments here), and they hold elitist opinions. Food stamps get abused by some, I'd rather that happen than some kid here needlessly starves.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Food stamps? Why does your country need food stamps?
  Is this a war-ravaged african country we're talking about?

Yes, and getting more so all the time. See "Detroit", "Chicongo", "St. Louis", "Washington DC", etc...

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Okian Warrior]

... much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too.

So what you're saying is: if you make a 1 million dollar mistake, your response should be "Phew! At least I didn't lose 5 million!".

An outside observer might suggest that losing the $1 million is bad on its face. Mitigating the outrage by making false comparisons is the sort of thing politicians do, as a dodge for responsibility.

Should we be sanguine about these sorts of problems because they're not the worst possible scenario? Is that an acceptable excuse?

This can get scary:

[Hartree]

In the late 1990s, the company I worked for was one of many processing EBT card transactions for grocery stores in New Mexico when they first switched to it from paper food stamps. The bank that was the approving authority for them (the next higher link up the chain from us) had a system problem and had been down for about 45 minutes.

I got a call from a very stressed sounding manager at a store in a bad neighborhood of Albuquerque and explained that the outage was statewide, and I'd already called the next highest level.

His response: "You don't understand! These people carry guns."

I really didn't have a good answer for that one, but certainly sympathized.

They later changed the rules so that when the statewide system was down, they could approve it at the store and then take out any overuse from later payments. That got abused, but it made some store managers a lot less nervous.

Re:This can get scary:

[ibsteve2u]

I got a call from a very stressed sounding manager at a store in a bad neighborhood of Albuquerque and explained that the outage was statewide, and I'd already called the next highest level.

His response: "You don't understand! These people carry guns."

Republicans, eh? Since the incident preceded the formation of the Tea Party?

Re:This can get scary:

[Hartree]

Obvious trolling is obvious.

Regardless of who it is, try telling someone "Sorry, but your kids are going to go hungry tonight." The response won't always be a fun one.

Re:This can get scary:

[ibsteve2u]

Funny, to me...the reader is supposed to assume something from "bad neighborhood", "these people", and "carry guns"...so I did.

Re:This can get scary:

[sumdumass]

Actually, he probably meant gang members and thugs which would likely be more apt to vote democrats then republicans or tea party members.

However, I'm not sure why you jumped to political affiliations. It is not like only republicans or only tea party members own guns or carry guns. To think so it sort of silly.

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, obviously it was a bunch of niggers. Calling them "people" is a bit deceptive.

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he probably meant gang members and thugs which would likely be more apt to vote democrats then republicans or tea party members.

What makes you think gang members and thugs would vote against other gang members and thugs? Is it because they wear red?

Re:This can get scary:

[ibsteve2u]

Equally funny...although I'm not sure why you jumped in to explain what I'm supposed to assume. Have you heard a Whoooosssshhhhh! lately?

Re:This can get scary:

[Hartree]

"Well, obviously it was a bunch of niggers. Calling them "people" is a bit deceptive."

Sure wasn't obvious to me, troll. Albuquerque has a very low percentage of blacks.

Yes, the neighborhood was mostly Hispanic. Big deal. So are a lot of the good neighborhoods in Albuquerque, too.

Re:This can get scary:

[Hartree]

Well, you assumed wrong.

Albuquerque has only a small percentage black population and much of it is associated with the air base.

Yes, it was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, but Hispanic neighborhoods in Albuquerque range from the poorest barrios to some of the richest in town.

Your stereotypes don't quite fit there. The divide is more between Hispanics who came recently (mostly Mexican) and those who have been there for 300 years. All us Anglos are late comers compared to both them and the Native Americans.

Re:This can get scary:

[ibsteve2u]

Well, you assumed wrong.

Albuquerque has only a small percentage black population and much of it is associated with the air base.

Yes, it was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, but Hispanic neighborhoods in Albuquerque range from the poorest barrios to some of the richest in town.

Your stereotypes don't quite fit there. The divide is more between Hispanics who came recently (mostly Mexican) and those who have been there for 300 years. All us Anglos are late comers compared to both them and the Native Americans.

Ahhhhh...so I was supposed to assume "bad neighborhood", "these people", and "carry guns" referred to non-Anglo/non-Caucasian, non-native American Hispanics of recent Mexican origin?

My bad...see how simple it becomes if you clearly convey your definition of "bad neighborhood" by ethnicity and country of origination when you don't want to use more telling and appropriate data like crime statistics? E.g., this whole discussion on what people are supposed to infer from "bad neighborhood" could have been avoided had you used the term "high-crime neighborhood" instead...

And - and - you wouldn't have been forced to reveal either that you indeed were equating "bad neighborhood" to specific ethnicities and nations of origin (Hispanic Mexicans) or that you expect other people - to include me - to infer "black population" from "bad neighborhood".

lollll...nonetheless, I still reserve my right to mis-infer. And understand that I do not rule out the possibility that you have nary a bigoted bone in your body...but you have revealed that you do recognize that people of a certain character will choose to infer specific ethnicities are responsible for specific behaviors - so you should try to be specific else you'll find yourself quoted (that dreaded "Share" link makes it easy) somewhere on the web as "proof" that specific biases are justified.

No doubt, for example, your "Hispanics who came recently" will be interpreted by some as "illegal immigrants"...which I will assume (as dangerous as that is) is not what you meant.

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

Suburb of Atlanta here.

The local Kroger had the sign up that EBT was down Saturday. My shopping experience was much more pleasant that day.

I have for years marveled at the numerous Tahoes and Escalades that pull into the Handicapped parking spaces(This seems to be some weird ass status symbol here, rarely do I see an actual handicapped person, just people in nice cars).

They come in and load up a whole cart or two of frozen and other junk food and then load their expensive cars at the front of the parking lot and spin off.

Re:This can get scary:

[philip.paradis]

Was that the Disco Kroger, the one that used to be a disco with a tiger beneath a plexiglass floor?

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

> he probably meant gang members and thugs which would likely be more apt to vote

I'm imagining the Crips and Bloods organizing to vote Democrat...

Can you help me imagine 50,000+ nationwide members of opposing gangs peacefully lining up to vote? Because I'm just unable to picture that bullshit.

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll troll with the truth: How about telling them to get the fuck out of the urban areas because you obviously can't afford it. That, and the fact you shouldn't ever depend on the government. That's the first mistake. Live by the sword, die by the sword. I hope this painful lesson resonates more disdain for government assistance!!!

Re:This can get scary:

[Anonymous Coward]

A pair of niggers robbed my friend's neighbor's house this weekend. At gun point. We need to exterminate these fucks.

Re:This can get scary:

[Hartree]

Oh, the trollish AC's are coming out of the woodwork. They just love using "nigger" when hiding behind anonymity.

Here's a clue. The store manager was Hispanic, and the neighborhood was Hispanic. Not that it makes that much difference in Albuquerque. Large parts of the city, both good parts and bad are Hispanic.

If that wasn't enough, I can take you to all white rural areas (The Ridge in Clay County Illinois, for example) that the main industry is cooking meth, and the census takers only go into with police escort.

Re:This can get scary:

[Hartree]

Anyone can take anyone else's words out of context. If you try to run everything through some syntactic analysis so there's absolutely no way for it to be misinterpreted, you end up not being able to say anything.

Some of the Hispanics who came recently are illegal immigrants. Most of them are here quite legally. Again, large deal.

"You don't understand! These people carry guns." was a direct quote from a store manager who himself was one of the "new" Hispanics. I hardly think he was making a racial statement.

And, the difference between saying bad neighborhood and high crime neighborhood is nil.

Are you seriously saying it would change interpretations? Even yours? Forgive me while I snicker.

Anyone who wants to misinterpret it isn't going to be put off by that little change. A bigot will assume either bad or high crime refers to those he doesn't like. (I must note that you made a similar assumption about what I meant by "bad" that I suspect you also would have made about "high crime". You would have just thought it a different code word. You wanted to see stereotyping of a group, and by gum you weren't going to be disappointed, even if it wasn't really there.)

Re:This can get scary:

[sumdumass]

You shouldn't have any trouble imagining that at all. Most gang members come from poor neighborhoods that sees a lot of unrmployment and government assistance. Those are typically not republican strongholds.

Also, they wouldn't have to peacably line up for anything. The polling locations would most likely not mingle turfs similar to how clinics and other services for the poor are set up.

Do you know what folks do.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.

It does? Where? Since when?? The closest my US Constitution comes is "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Do you know what happens when people get desperate? They stick knives and guns in your face.

Yeah, sure they may get caught, but in the meantime, you're dead. Got your own gun? Doesn't work when they stab or shoot you in the back.

Get it? These social pograms are to prevent folks from doing some very desperate things.

But that's just practicality. Let's talk about just being a human being.

We can act like a human being or we can act like animals where it's the survival of the "fittest"; which means in this culture, making money.

But when you are someone who grew up not learning the skills - material or social - to get a job, it is very difficult if not impossible. And I can tell you from experience, nobody clues you in about any defects one may have - you hear nothing or "you are not a good fit". No one ever points out what one's difficiences are. Many of these folks grew up in broken homes, were abused, live in the shittiest areas and have no ability to move.

And the job market being so tight as it is, it is completely unrealistic to "just go out and get a job". We have college graduates - folks with degrees in nursing, engineering and CS let alone "worthless" degrees having a horrible time.

You people take your lives and your opportunities for granted. You grew up where you had the opportunities or at least the knowledge how to get those opotunites. I grew up in a working class family that didn't go to college. I was the first to go to college because I was fortunate enough that my parents were able to afford to live in a middle class town and I could go to a school with college prep classes. I was able to have friends that had college educated parents and knew the "system" - like there are folks to help you get into college and better your life. Many of these poor folks don't even realize sugh things exist - really.

And when you live a life of no hope, you may even give up. he thought of "why should I even try when the rules are against me."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cue the folks who grew up in a log cabin and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. That's great that you knew how to do that. That - knowing how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps - is a skill in itself.

I myself am getting helpless too. I see the billionaires just rigging the game more and more. I don't beleive the American myth that one can work hard, take a chance, and make it big. In reality it is know someone in the right spot. I tried a couple of businesses and they failed. I'm tapped out at 50 and i'm scared about my future - it looks like SS and dog food in my retirement. Well dog food - SS is going to be confiscated by the student loan people. I stupidly went back to school for retraining. Yeah, no one hires 40+ year olds for entry level positions.

I mean really, when Mitt Romney was running, he said all he did was "examine reports" and made no decisions; like closing down factories or anything that cost people jobs. he made over $200 million by just examing reports - a $50K a year "analyst job". I could do that! But I don't have a well connected daddy to get me a cushy job that let's me make millions doing what a low level peon does.

Just count your blessings and stop judging other's lives and their characters because you are where you had opportunites that many others don't have.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thessalonians 6-9 Our orders—backed up by the Master, Jesus—are to refuse to have anything to do with those among you who are lazy and refuse to work the way we taught you. Don’t permit them to freeload on the rest. We showed you how to pull your weight when we were with you, so get on with it. We didn’t sit around on our hands expecting others to take care of us. In fact, we worked our fingers to the bone, up half the night moonlighting so you wouldn’t be burdened with taking care of us. And it wasn’t because we didn’t have a right to your support; we did. We simply wanted to provide an example of diligence, hoping it would prove contagious.

10-13 Don’t you remember the rule we had when we lived with you? “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” And now we’re getting reports that a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings are taking advantage of you. This must not be tolerated. We command them to get to work immediately—no excuses, no arguments—and earn their own keep. Friends, don’t slack off in doing your duty.

14-15 If anyone refuses to obey our clear command written in this letter, don’t let him get by with it. Point out such a person and refuse to subsidize his freeloading. Maybe then he’ll think twice. But don’t treat him as an enemy. Sit him down and talk about the problem as someone who cares.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the desperation isn't caused by ignoring illegal immigration, or proposed amnesty?
And having the one part time job you were able to get being cut down to 28 hours a week because of a helthcare bill?
Or inflation, costs of food and gas for your car, shooting up because of massive printing of money?
To boot, if you complain too much the well funded NSA might be listening in and determine you are a terrorist?
And if you go online and express your frustration you are met with tons of liberals saying you are racist because you don't want a black man as president.
Then your grandfather who fought in WW2 is banned from the memorial in DC, and he tells you that is because you voted for people that don't agree with him.

No, I don't think its a lack of social program causing distress. I think it is government causing most of it, and you are proposing more of it.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[sjames]

Sorry to interrupt the pseudo-religious smug fest, but that clearly refers to people who refuse to work as they were taught. It does not refer to those who nobody has taught or who are willing but cannot find work.

Where is the teaching people how to do needed work? Where is the work to be done as people have been taught? I see no command to get to work as there is no work offered. Where are the people sitting down and talking to them as someone who cares?

Jesus said many other things about the proper way to treat the poor (who had no means to work) and the sick and crippled (who have no ability to work).

I say pseudo-religious since devout study would have left you with a genuine sense of the meaning and a compassion that would lead you naturally to the questions I ask.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[djupedal]

Again with the DUD smelling 'dog food' we're-all-gonna-starve poverty chant - really? Odds are you should worry more about becoming dog food if things are as bad as you pretend.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should take your own advice and stop judging Mitt Romney's life. Hypocrite.

Re:Do you know what folks do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the government defines illegal immigration, without the government, it would not be illegal.

The government didn't force the employer to drop your houses, they chose that because they're more interested in their profits.

I haven't seen the NSA declare anybody a terrorist for those reasons, the people who are criticized for racism are the ones who actively suggest that Obama is not a real American, and no, nobody's grandfather is personally banned from any memorials, the memorial isn't open because they can't operate it without funding and don't want to get sued for not being able to maintain it.

But yeah, I suppose you want to believe that you're personally persecuted.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[dwhitaker]

Risk exists, and appropriate management of it is how the world moves forward. I'm not privy to the inner-workings of Xerox, and it is entirely possible that they were not following best practices and that a substantial portion of this is due to operator error. However, even routine tests have risk associated with them. My point is that immediately blaming Xerox is not a good reaction: making and testing backups is an effort to mitigate risks (with much worse outcomes). If minor problems arise from time to time in the course of protecting against a larger future risk, that should be accepted. How the short-term and long-term risks offset each other is a discussion for the 17 states, the USDA, and Xerox.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Generator transfer switch test?

[Jayfar]

With various reports referring to it as a power outage and others as a test of backup systems, I'd guess this was a generator load test where something went wrong with the transfer switch. We do those off-hours monthly at the data center where I work and, being the nervous sort, I'm grateful they usually coincide with one of my days off, although ours have gone smoothly.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Bite The Pillow]

Did you just pull random speculation out of your ass? If the system works, the card gets used. Most people on the registers are not going to know about any backup system. Want to use your card? swipe it first. Doesn't work? swipe it. I need to know what the problem is so I can ask my manager.

Manager comes over. What happens when you swipe it?

Now, if you're talking about friend of the cashier, that would raise lots of red flags to have piles of swipes work, followed by a single transaction by the friend. It would work once.

What happens after the data is reconciled for manual backups? If you exceed your limit or the card is not authorized for you, some accounting will find you.

Xerox asked retailers to revert to a manual system, meaning customers could spend up to $50 until the system was restored.

That sounds like a reasonable compromise, once everyone is aware the system actually is down.

Smith said that typically when the cards aren't working retailers can call a backup phone number to find out how much money customers have available in their account. But that information also was unavailable because of the outage, so customers weren't able to use their cards.

That addresses this for most cases, so you don't get fraud.

cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn't afford to pay for the food.

Sounds like they didn't just let people buy whatever they wanted, because the plan b was down. Now, why did you waste our time posting horseshit?

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[roc97007]

The local Walmart was lacking in any backup method. They had at least 50 buggies packed full of food sitting around the registers and a lot of pissed off customers. Glad they got it back up, I don't look forward to that riot.

Ye gods, the crowd could get ugly...

Too late.

Don't jiggle the jello

[EmperorOfCanada]

I actually feel for the Xerox people working on this. I know what it is like to have a system with intense and broad functionality and you are frozen in fear every time you make the slightest change. Testing ahead of time is great but can you be 100% certain that you have 100% test coverage? If you are then you are a fool.

If I had to point any fingers it would be that they should have a multi-layered deployment system where they deploy to the test center, a small random group, a larger group, and then nationally. It sounds like they might be halfway there with this outage only affecting 17 states. Ideally it would only be affecting a few counties in a couple of states.

Plus you want to keep the domain of your test area down to the point where you can fix crap manually.

Re:Don't jiggle the jello

[Anonymous Coward]

Any backup system should be checked at a full level every so often. What happens if connectivity is lost at the primary location? Do you have a secondary location to fail over to? Have you tested it?

The main issue I see here is that it was done mid-day. Large-scale backup checks should be done during a time of minimal system use unless the use case absolutely demands that it be done during primary operating times. Had this happened at, say, 2am, it probably would not have been as big a deal.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Dunbal]

Errare humanum est

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[DarkOx]

Should we be sanguine about these sorts of problems because they're not the worst possible scenario? Is that an acceptable excuse?

To some degree yes, mistakes happen, especially with large complex systems. We should count having avoided the worst cases scenario as a success and see what can be done to mitigate the failure mode that did occur in the future, and the answer to that question might very well be nothing or nothing less costly than the future number of anticipated similar failures.

Infrastructure

[tepples]

Government spending on the construction and maintenance of roads and other infrastructure creates positive externalities for businesses located near the infrastructure.

Go on the net and learn to start a business

[tepples]

Where is the teaching people how to do needed work?

On the Internet, if Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project is to be believed.

Where is the work to be done as people have been taught?

In your own business that you started. Do you think Jesus's adoptive father Joseph was the equivalent of a W-2 employee, or was it more likely that he owned his own shop?

Re:Go on the net and learn to start a business

[sjames]

I'm barely managing to keep myself employed that way ATM. It seems lot of people haven't even managed that much. OLPC is a nice start, but I don't see any children around here with one and I don't see a lot of employers willing to accept "I have a laptop and the internet" as a substitute for the relevant degree.

Even people with the relevant degrees are having trouble getting work these days.

Also notable, do you believe Jesus meant people should be left to starve? In particular, any children involved?

Joseph presumably had the tools of his trade. I also know that at that time, farmers were expected to leave the corners of his fields for the poor to harvest as they needed.

Re:Go on the net and learn to start a business

[tepples]

I don't see a lot of employers willing to accept "I have a laptop and the internet" as a substitute for the relevant degree.

Unless you're in a highly regulated field, thoroughly documented projects completed on your own time count for a lot.

Also notable, do you believe Jesus meant people should be left to starve? In particular, any children involved?

No. But I don't recall him saying that feeding the poor should be the responsibility of Caesar (the government) either. if everybody with a job gave 10 percent of adjusted gross income to a reputable charity, perhaps we wouldn't need Caesar to run our social programs.

Re:Go on the net and learn to start a business

[sjames]

Apparently though, that doesn't happen a lot. However, as I pointed out, farmers were at one time expected (by Caesar) to make part of their crops available for the poor.

The AC above was more than willing to use scripture (or I should say a flawed understanding of a selected bit of scripture) as an excuse to do nothing. The GOP has proven perfectly willing to be 'guided' by scripture when it suits them.

Re:Go on the net and learn to start a business

[CRCulver]

No. But I don't recall him saying that feeding the poor should be the responsibility of Caesar (the government) either

The undivided Church indeed believed that feeding the poor is the responsibility of Caesar. That is, under the Byzantine symphonia, Caesar gave a large portion of tax revenue to the Church so that it could run charitable enterprises. When it came to food at least, the Roman Empire managed to run a welfare state of the kind not seen again until the modern era. The idea that Christian charity is entirely the purview of private organizations choosing where to spend their money, and not a matter of public policy, is something that only arose in the West fairly recently as far as Christian doctrine goes.

Stay away from these stores for a while

[umdesch4]

A point to consider: How many hours was perishable food left in all these abandoned carts before being put back on the shelf? I'd steer clear of buying anything perishable from a store accepting EBTs for a while, at least.

Re:Stay away from these stores for a while

[dbIII]

In humid environments it's blatantly obvious if something has been refrozen. I suppose elsewhere it's lucky dip.

Fourteenth Amendment

[tepples]

Xicor was referring to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which does say "property".

EBT

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have to say that this might be good.
I was in Target last week, at the checkout, behind a woman who paid approx $330 with a benefit card. At least 90%, if not more, was processed or manufactured food, apparently 'acceptable' to the system. It beggars belief that so much money was spent on sugar

Re:EBT

[Anonymous Coward]

If they live longer they'd be on benefits for longer.

You can say they'll get diabetes then kidney failure or something expensive to treat, but in the USA that just means they are more likely to die early (and then "leave the system").

And who's to say if they have a healthy diet they wouldn't live much longer (on benefits) and still end up with something that's expensive to treat... People die eventually. And a fair number eventually get expensive diseases/disorders even if they have a healthy diet.

Re:EBT

[BrokenSoldier]

Most food in a grocery store is processed or manufactured. Most farmers type markets lack the ability or motivation to processes these types of payments. Where else would have have these people shop?

what does Xerox provide?

[belmolis]

The article is vague as to what Xerox provides. I gather they're not just the hardware vendor. Do they supply the software? Do they handle clearance, like a credit card company? What exactly is their role?

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[sjames]

When i test failover, I announce the test in advance so people can have a plan ready in case the failover doesn't. It sounds like this was un-announced and nobody had any sort of plan to deal with a failure.

Yes, it does

[rsilvergun]

you increase the top earner's rates on income over a certain amount. In the 50s and 60s we had the highest growth in real wages and middle class incomes the country (maybe even the species) has ever seen with a 90% top tax bracket. How? Because that 90% wasn't a flat "Give us 90% of your income" it was "90 % over 1 Million" or about $9 million in todays money. So if you made over $9 million dollars in a SINGLE YEAR then you paid 90% of that to the gov't. This kept wealth inequality in check and forced top earners to really work for that money over $9 million. If you wanted to be filthy, stinking rich you really had to work at it (people still did). Meanwhile gov't programs redistributed the wealth. Maybe not evenly, but it's better than phoney job creators hording it and holding up human progress by sitting on their fat rears with all the money in the world...

Re:Yes, it does

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you have never worked hard to earn lots of money. You obviously prefer to ride upon someone else hard. You should be ashamed instead of putting down people who work hard.

Re:Yes, it does

[dbraden]

I have never understood how anyone could morally justify confiscating 90% of someone else's income for income over a certain amount. I don't care if your intentions are altruistic or not, you simply don't have the right to make that choice for me. If you want to spend that money, go earn it yourself and spend it however you want, and I'll do the same.

Re:Yes, it does

[Nemyst]

Actually, yes, yes we do. You are benefiting from society's services (police, firemen, infrastructure, courts of law, whatever else) and hence are due a certain portion of your income as compensation for these services. The ratio asked differs by country but is irrelevant to the principle. If you don't want to pay the rate, move somewhere else. I'm sure you'll enjoy your money in a country with 0% tax rate and no law enforcement to speak of: there'll be plenty of people who will love getting in your house and stealing your shit or just killing you outright, and that's if you can even make money at all in the context of a society like that.

Re:Yes, it does

[NettiWelho]

So you'd rather have fire department, ambulances and police as a subscriber service? Fuck the poor, I'm not paying for public roads, lazy peasants should buy their own fucking helicopters and jets if they want to get around!

Re:Yes, it does

[thesupraman]

So, if I get you right you are claiming that taxes they take are all used for services that improve the lives of the people paying those taxes directly?

Wow, that must be an amazing utopia to live in, it sure as hell doesnt work like that around here..

Re:Yes, it does

[Third Position]

You might want to consider that in the 50s and 60s our government could get away with that because we really had no competition. Europe was still recovering from 2 world wars, India and China were mostly known for famines, and Made in Japan was a synonym for cheap junk. If you wanted to operate in a world-class industrial environment, the US was your only option. Try to tax someone at 90% today, and the smart money says they'll be moving themselves and their assents to a friendlier location, but fast.

Re:Yes, it does

[binarylarry]

Hear hear!

Re:Yes, it does

[fscking_coward_2001]

and eat cake, too.

Re:Yes, it does

[rsilvergun]

Race to the bottom then? You know, the European countries that are doing good are doing so by not allowing themselves to compete head on with slave labor in China...

Re:Yes, it does

[lgw]

police, firemen, infrastructure, courts of law, whatever else

These are mostly local services provided by local government for usually quite modest taxes. The legitimate business of the government, stuff like this, simply doesn't take much in the way of taxes to fund, and at the federal level is about 20% of spending.

Our federal government is a pension plan with a military. Infrastructure and science funding and so on is a small sideline business.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your money in a country with 0% tax rate and no law enforcemen

Do you honestly think that adds anything to the discussion? We have serious financial difficulties coming our way in the US, and partisan hyperbole won't help solve these problems.

Re:Yes, it does

[stenvar]

This kept wealth inequality in check

And that's a good thing because... ?

you increase the top earner's rates on income over a certain amount. In the 50s and 60s we had the highest growth in real wages and middle class incomes the country (maybe even the species) has ever seen with a 90% top tax bracket. How?

Ah, yes, if only such a simplistic correlation analysis could in fact establish causation.

Re:Yes, it does

[Third Position]

The only one in that position is Germany, which is prospering as an export economy by maintaining the Euro to keep it's exports cheap enough for it's neighbors to buy. Unfortunately, maintaining the Euro is imposing it's own costs.

Re:Yes, it does

[Bite The Pillow]

They normally don't sit on the money. Typically it goes into traditional investments, which are money drains. Some goes to venture capital, which benefits the economy. Some is a measure of worth based on their holdings of a company in which they hold majority share.

The last means they are determining how employee futures go. Which was a good thing until the short term profit scene hit.

So there are some fat cats sitting on money or making bad decisions, and many controlling or supporting business well. You know history but not economics, and would make a terrible millionaire. 75%, C-

Re:Yes, it does

[Sabriel]

In your "around here" that isn't a utopia, do they have a 90% top tax bracket?

Re:Yes, it does

[Sabriel]

On the other hand, since it's income tax, it's the same nation* wanting the 90% that issued and backed the currency that the income arrived in. And modern currencies are fiat anyway. So you _could_ consider income tax as a way of determining the "net real value" of your disposable income.

*(though not always - as I understand it, the United States insists that its citizens pay US income tax even if they're living in another nation and not receiving any money from US sources)

Re:Yes, it does

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously saying there's a causal relationship between working hard and earning lots of money?

Re:Yes, it does

[Redmancometh]

I know you don't want to hear this but:
Yes most of the time there is.

I hate that argument, like, a lot. Let's say 5 people make 10 million dollars a year. 4 of them are legacy ivy league grads who came from wealthy families and had it (fairly) easy. The other one grew up in the projects, built a small business out of his 1 bedroom apartment, and grew it into an empire.

Because it's easy for the first 4 the last one should get extorted out of his hard-earned money?

How can anyone ever think that a 90% tax on anything is okay? Personally I think any tax that exceeds 50% should be unlawful. They didn't do half of my work, why the hell should they get half my money? However the government getting more money from my work than I do? I don't even know what to say to that.

Re:Yes, it does

[Redmancometh]

"won't help solve these problems."

Who ever said that was the goal of a slashdot discussion? Do you realistically expect to solve a problem?

Re:Yes, it does

[Redmancometh]

Because those services use SUCH huge amounts of FEDERAL tax dollars. Of course how could we be so blind.

Go read a graph:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fivethirtyeight-gov1/16fivethirtyeight-gov1-blog480.jpg

Most of that money goes to entitlement programs, military contractors, and the NSA (if the $1 trillion budget is a real thing then they cost more than police, fire, etc)
You'll notice "infrastructure and services" is combined into one to encompass everything you said. So yeah, the spending breakdown is why I think more taxes are a bad idea. The vast majority goes to entitlment programs I don't support, military spending I don't support, and an agency that spies on me for a living.

Re:Yes, it does

[lgw]

It's the journey, not the destination. :) And I prefer a journey where I can cross bridges without fear of lurking trolls.

Re:Yes, it does

[Redmancometh]

But then you're just....crossing a bridge. Crossing a bridge is boring without the anticipation of confrontation imo.
Also the trolls make me laugh.

Re:Yes, it does

[Gen_Music]

There's something in common with both of them though, which is once the business is running, as long as you hire someone to do the day to day, running the business becomes quite easy.

In other words, once you build the profit extraction machine, the hard (or easy for the ivy grads) part is done. From then on you do a lot less work than many of those you employ do, and earn far more for it. That's the point where the taxing starts to make sense, although perhaps a little later should be the sensible option due to inflation.

Say $100m?

Re:Yes, it does

[Gen_Music]

Look, poor people take more than the give, and you should want that because you are a civilized human being and realize that there shouldn't be people starving on the street.

Rich people as a result need to give more than they take, and it needs to be proportional to both the ratio of poor to rich and the income difference.

There are many ways around it that people will exploit, so it's not feasible, but agreeing that there should be a higher tax band for the mega rich (50m+) is not entirely unreasonable if it was done in the right way, (maybe hold a yearly 'shortfall return' which allows the gov't to give some back if he has a particularly bad year).

Re:Yes, it does

[operagost]

So if you made over $9 million dollars in a SINGLE YEAR then you paid 90% of that to the gov't.

No they didn't. In fact, the scope of the tax deductions and loopholes available then ensured that people with that sort of income actually paid LESS than they did when the Reagan administration helped reform the tax code by eliminating a lot of this mess.

Maybe not evenly, but it's better than phoney job creators hording it and holding up human progress by sitting on their fat rears with all the money in the world...

It amazes me that on a site like Slashdot, with a bunch of intellectually-minded people, that we only seem to value physical labor with all this "sitting on their rears" talk.

Re:Yes, it does

[operagost]

Are you making the assumption that rich people aren't already charitable? They CREATE charitable organizations! Giving the money to the government just ensures that the money is donated to the "causes" that the current regime deems fit.

Re:Yes, it does

[operagost]

The fact that we have to establish an arbitrary limit tells me that this is an unworkable philosophy.

Re:Yes, it does

[dbraden]

That's just childish. I never said anything about subscribing to services or screwing the poor. If I make $2 million instead of $1 million, it doesn't cost twice as much to take me to the hospital, it doesn't cost twice as much for a cop to patrol my street.

Re:Yes, it does

[dbraden]

Ya, there certainly is a need for give and take, I agree with that. But, even with a flat tax rate, the mega-earner is already paying a lot more in. A $100,000 income at 20% would result in $20,000 in taxation, while $50,000,000 income would result in $10,000,000.

A confiscatory tax rate of 90% would also keep the earner of that money from doing good things with it themselves. If I had that kind of money, I would want to help others in ways that I decide, not just throw it into a federal pool and watch the bureaucrats throw it to their buddies and campaign supporters.

Re:Yes, it does

[Gen_Music]

Then we agree that the problem at the moment in the gov't that taxes the population. The problem is that even if you did tax at 90% it still would barely cover the state pension pool that's already been made.

Re:Yes, it does

[Gen_Music]

And of course all those completely, wastefully lavish things out there in the world that are literally pointless dick waving tools, like private islands and 6 deck yachts are for charitable causes right?

So what?

[rsilvergun]

I've known people on gov't assistance. It's a few hundred dollars a month and you have to be making about half the poverty line to get it. If you're sister is on gov't assistance for real then there's something wrong with her. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean there really is something wrong, and she needs the help. You don't get enough from the gov't to live, you get enough so that if your family is giving you a lot of help you can just barely eat.

Is this an astro turfer or something? I'd like to believe noone is this much of a jerk in real life...

Re:So what?

[MightyMartian]

Take a look at the people at your average Tea Party rally. There are plenty of people that bad.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

I've known people on gov't assistance. It's a few hundred dollars a month and you have to be making about half the poverty line to get it. If you're sister is on gov't assistance for real then there's something wrong with her. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean there really is something wrong, and she needs the help. You don't get enough from the gov't to live, you get enough so that if your family is giving you a lot of help you can just barely eat.

Is this an astro turfer or something? I'd like to believe noone is this much of a jerk in real life...

We've talked about this in various Slashdot threads. Yes, there is something supposedly wrong with her. My sister purports to have "agoraphobia". This means that she can't go shopping, can't hold down a job, can't drive. Open spaces purport to cause panic attacks. Moreover, she purports to have various medical conditions, including crippling arthritis and a heart condition, which prevent her from working. (This is not the only way she works the system -- more on that later.)

Yet, she has a recreational vehicle with which she takes camping trips, and a 4-wheeler with which she joyrides out in the desert in Nevada. But these are parked out of sight when her social worker visits her single-wide, at which time she uses a walker to get around. Oops, scratch that, she now has a motorized wheelchair acquired at government expense. When she's not under scrutiny, she doesn't need any of these things. (I know this from personal observation.) Yes, it's open fraud. But so far she has gotten away with it. (I pay my way, and she has stuff I could never afford... You know, just never mind.)

She owes money to basically everyone, has no intention to pay any of it back, and has developed coping skills to avoid same. Her house has been in default (or in and out of default; I don't follow it that closely) since at least the late nineties. She's been on the edge of repossession since at least the turn of the century, but somehow the house never quite gets repossessed.

Yes, I'm perfectly willing to stipulate that there is something wrong with her. What is wrong with her is that she has decided that there is no moral reason not to game the system. And by "the system" I mean several systems -- various types of government care, and the collective ineptitude of various companies in trying to get their money back from her. We haven't even talked about how she managed to acquire a foster child, and what a fiasco that's been.

A few years back she talked our elderly mother into putting her (my sister) on the lease for the family homestead, ("for tax purposes") and promptly took out a loan against her own mother's house. Not to pay off her charge cards, or anything practical, but to take a cruise and buy herself stuff. That started a legal battle that she eventually lost. After several complicated transactions and some expense the house is free of the debt and I'm the sole owner. (My mother still lives there, and I will call the local sheriff if her daughter ever shows up.) Since then, my sister calls me on random days at 3:00 AM to cuss me out. She knows that I'm on call and have to pick up the phone. Eventually she gets tired of me hanging up and I'm good for two or three more weeks. (I also have a drunken aunt that calls me in the middle of the night, but that's a different story.)

The point is, just because someone is on government assistance doesn't mean they deserve it. I'm sorry if that bursts everyone's bubble, but it's true. Sometimes, all it means is that they found a way in, and decided that getting a check from the government beats the hell out of actually working for a living.

...and I freely admit that my outlook is colored by my own experiences. But I have a hard time believing that my sister is unique.

...and if you think this type of fraud couldn't possibly happen, that there must be checks and balances in place to avoid this sort of

Re:So what?

[XcepticZP]

What is this Tea Party I keep you Americans talking about? From your post, I can see that you're implying that it is somehow majority composed of people that need government assistance. Yet, the first thing mentioned about this "party" on wikipedia is that is it is a "political movement that is primarily known for advocating a reduction in the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing U.S. government spending and taxes." Are you telling me that a group that advocates the reduction of taxes and spending is one that is also highly dependent on that spending staying high so that they can get their "welfare" check?

If you're right, then might I suggest you go update/edit that particular Wikipedia article? Seeing as you know something crucial about the Tea Party that the rest of the internet doesn't. Oh, and don't forget to add a dication/link for your edit.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

You are my new favorite person.

Re:So what?

[XcepticZP]

Typo: "Citation", not "dication". /facepalm.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine has an aunt who is just like this (right down to the 4 wheeler) although in his aunt's case it's child-support which she abuses most.

He keeps waiting for some kind of comeuppance to happen but it never seems to. It must get pretty tiring hearing her complain about the problems which she doesn't do anything about.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can report this type of fraud to your state. Most of the relevant federal URL's are unavailable and the following GAO site is only for federal contracts.
http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

Re:So what?

[jacksdl]

I have no doubt that your story is true. On the other hand, I have a cousin that was briefly on food stamps and other assistance when her husband left her and the two kids. She worked, and parented, and got a college degree (with the help of several programs). She recently retired after a successful career, one of her sons is a surgeon the other audits banks.

We need to find tools to separate the abusers from those who use the system to get back on their feet.

Re:So what?

[SleazyRidr]

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not...

Lots of Tea Party members are on Medicaid for their age, and many have served in the Military. They see the kind of benefits they get from the government as good, and the kind of benefits other people get as bad use of tax money.

Re:So what?

[SleazyRidr]

OK, your sister is a welfare cheat. Report her to the relevant authorities and be done with it. Some people actually need help, and scrapping the whole system because a few people are taking advantage of it will take a lot of people who are already close to the edge, and shove them the rest of the way.

Re:So what?

[pnutjam]

If you have in depth knowledge of fraud and have not reported it, you are part of the problem. I would love to see some sort of articles or anything to indicate some truth to your anecdote. I'm sure you're view is not slanted or in any way colored by emotion.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

You can report this type of fraud to your state. Most of the relevant federal URL's are unavailable and the following GAO site is only for federal contracts.
http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

You know, that's a good point. I've told myself that it's not my responsibility, and I'm reluctant to give her more ammunition in her feud with me. On the other hand, I'm a believer in not complaining about something unless you're willing to do something about it. So perhaps I should.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

> We need to find tools to separate the abusers from those who use the system to get back on their feet.

Thank you. Does everyone hear that? This is the real point. Not that the system needs to be scrapped, but that real, effective controls are needed. So that, if you're willing to work and need help, you can get it easily. But if you refuse to work, or try gaming the system, we may not let you starve but your existence will be painful.

A good friend of mine is a social worker, and her job is to help people (disabled, abused) who want to get off government assistance and get back to work, find some meaning in their lives. The woman is a saint. Often she has to battle the system she's supposed to be working for. She was in tears recently, because in an interview her client (who wanted to work) was being treated like an eight year old, not able to hold an opinion or speak for himself, by the other government representatives present. He was being impeded from getting off government assistance by the very people who are *supposed* to be trying to get him back on his feet. One could speculate on the reasons this would happen, but it needs to stop.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

OK, your sister is a welfare cheat. Report her to the relevant authorities and be done with it. Some people actually need help, and scrapping the whole system because a few people are taking advantage of it will take a lot of people who are already close to the edge, and shove them the rest of the way.

See an earlier response. I don't think I ever said "scrap the whole system", if I did, please point out where I said that and I'd be happy to apologize. What I'm saying in response to OP is that statistics are misleading -- that demonstrably at least some listed as "looking for work" or "needing help" aren't really. The system really needs a thorough cleaning up, and better processes in place. People who really need help, especially temporary help, should be able to get it without having to jump through flaming hoops. People who are trying to game the system should be shut down. If nothing else, eliminating some of the cheats would give the system more credibility.

Re:So what?

[ImprovOmega]

The major problem is that people who make a profession of gaming the system (like your sister apparently) will always bilk it in horrifically fraudulent ways no matter the restrictions and checks you put into place. The upshot though is that people like that are in the tiny minority. And the difficulty is finding the balance between tightening restrictions to reduce waste and fraud, while still not making it so complex that people that legitimately need it like the single mother working two part time jobs getting food stamps and some cash aid to make up the difference, can still manage to get the help that they need.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

If you have in depth knowledge of fraud and have not reported it, you are part of the problem. I would love to see some sort of articles or anything to indicate some truth to your anecdote. I'm sure you're view is not slanted or in any way colored by emotion.

Unfortunately there's no reference article to point to for an undiscovered welfare cheat, else I would included it. Yes, I am aware of the situation, and I have not reported it. I'm really not sure it'll do any good, and it will give her additional reasons to harass me. Think about anyone else you know of in this kind of situation -- how often are the family reluctant to report a crime, when they're not sure the authorities will take any meaningful action, and they *are* sure that the act of reporting will get back to the miscreant?

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

> The upshot though is that people like that are in the tiny minority

Are they? Really? Are there metrics in place to estimate the percentage of unreported government assistance fraud? (I don't use "welfare" because there are many types of government assistance, and to avoid the emotional baggage of "welfare cheat".)

I've not heard of such a statistic, but I read the paper, as I trust you do, and I observe that people who want something for nothing, be it embezzlement, tax fraud or robbing a liquor store. Why would such a person not run an entitlement scam? Because scams are hard? They can be, but there are plenty of examples of other complicated scams being perpetrated. Do people think "I'd rob this 7-11 to get my crack money, but cheating on government entitlements, that's messed up"? Is there some agreement amongst thieves that we may strip cars and sell the parts, but we'd never collect an unjustified government check, no sir, because we have our pride? How does that work?

It's possible that you're right, that people like that really are a tiny minority, and most of the government funds we're talking about here are justly distributed. But how would we know? Looking at human nature, as exemplified by reported crimes, it seems likely that a significant number of people might at least *try* to scam the system. For one thing, you're less likely to be shot in the act.

Re:So what?

[operagost]

I don't think many people lump veteran benefits in together with other entitlements like Medicare. I mean, you might have gotten shot at to earn that medical care and pension.

That being said, I don't see eliminating Medicare as a platform for any of the major groups like Tea Party Patriots.

Re:So what?

[david_thornley]

Last I looked (admittedly quite a few years ago), the average welfare stay was about three years. This means that your sister would balance out eight people who were only on for a year.

It's hard to estimate the number of "welfare queens", but they can't be more than a small minority of recipients.

FWIW, my anecdote is about somebody I knew who was really trying to get a decent job to support her kid, but was hit by serious medical conditions that were not well-handled. Given successful medical treatment for her injuries, she'd probably have been decently employed with a good salary by the time I lost track of her. She was on AFDC significantly more than three years, but I can't fault her.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

You've seen the walmart story in the news, right? Temporary outage on welfare charge cards, Walmart's decision to honor the cards even though the balance was not coming up correctly, essentially making the card limit free? The WWZ-type stampede to clear off the shelves while the limits were removed, and the sudden abandonment of laden carts as far as the eye could see after the system went back online again? Wasn't that widespread fraud? Isn't the only difference between that and unreported fraud that someone caught it on camera phone?

If people currently on government assistance would do that en masse, why wouldn't they participate in other scams? En masse?

Re:So what?

[david_thornley]

To draw any legitimate conclusions about welfare recipients from that, you'd have to establish that (a) this was typical of welfare clients, and (b) this wasn't typical of other people, particularly people under considerable financial stress. Poor people apparently suffer from willpower fatigue; they have to avoid so many temptations to overspend that they have less ability to resist temptations to get away with things.

To draw any legitimate conclusions about the amount of successful fraud, you'd have to establish that the people who got more stuff than they were allotted got away with it.

In short, you've got nothing more than a meaningless anecdote there, supplemented by prejudice and a bit of paranoia.

Re:So what?

[roc97007]

Except it was reported by the news and caught on video, and there were followups.

It isn't necessary to prove that people who are not on government assistance do or do not commit fraud in significant numbers; that's out of band for this discussion (but would make an interesting discussion in itself). Because, the whole of the question was, could one have a reasonable suspicion that there could be widespread fraud in the welfare system. (I don't think I actually made that claim, but it's an interesting question to ask.) I submit that of the people in that particular walmart who were on government assistance, an obviously high percentage jumped at the chance to commit fraud when they had the chance. Although this is not legal proof, it is an interesting indicator. Again, that people not on government assistance might have done the same thing (I wouldn't have) was not the question.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you report her?

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Backups don't always work - that's why you test them."

... and it's also why, when you do test them, you make sure to test them on the data affecting 17 different states!

Juggling numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet those numbers in the stamps were juggling around like hungry children running after US Aid truck delivering American wheat after teachings about contraceptives had been dropped from the curriculum.

The only thing

[meglon]

...this has to do with government is the fact that, once again, a PRIVATE COMPANY that the government has to use because of the fascist conservatives in this country have forced privatization every chance they get... has screwed some people over. That, and the obligatory rants by said conservatives about how bad the government is (even though, once again, this was the fault of A PRIVATE COMPANY).

Re:The only thing

[XcepticZP]

You do realize this system wouldn't even exist on such a grand scale if it wasn't for massive government funding? They literally pool money together from millions of individuals' taxes, and throw it at a problem. Like throwing pasta at a wall, hoping it'll stick.

Another thing you fail to realize while you were ranting about "A PRIVATE COMPANY", is that people that got screwed over by this system's failure now don't have a chance in hell to switch to a competitor. They're stuck with the system that "A PRIVATE COMPANY" built for "THE GOVERNMENT". And you know, government imposes many monopolies, of which this is one. If this system was truly built by "A PRIVATE COMPANY", then you'd be damned sure that the people would be turning to an alternative right now.

On a side note, using caps to make my point about your obvious trolling method is making me a little nauseous.

Re:The only thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because if the government ran the system it would work perfectly like the ACA sign up website right??? Most likely not only would it have gone down, but then nobody would be on hand to fix it until after the "Shutdown" was over.

New Term

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of this news story I learned a new term....Free Shit Army (FSA).

the health care system made so people where better

[Joe_Dragon]

the health care system made so people where better off not work then working even an part time job with no health care or an plan that did not cover anything while they end makeing to much pay so they got kicked off there government assistance plan.

It's not theirs

[rsilvergun]

Despite what your third grade communist fearin' teacher might have told you. After $9 million a _year_ you can't honestly say that the person in question is generating enough raw wealth to be 'worth' it. They're just able to obtain it through a combination manipulation of the political system, military power and indoctrination of the working class. The Koch brothers are a prime example. Their money comes from gov't contracts to run hospitals and gov't granted mineral rights. They add no value to either process. They're just good at manipulating the gov't and the populace to increase their wealth.

The super rich didn't 'earn' their wealth. They the gov't to obtain and maintain it. You can argue they shouldn't be allowed to do this, but you can't stop them from doing it. Their wealth makes them too powerful. To ignore that fact not only plays right into their hands, but it's pointless too. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Gov't is a tool. The rich are going to use it to their advantage. The only question is, are you?

Re:It's not theirs

[stenvar]

After $9 million a _year_ you can't honestly say that the person in question is generating enough raw wealth to be 'worth' it

They are "worth it" if someone is willing to pay them that.

They're just able to obtain it through a combination manipulation of the political system, military power and indoctrination of the working class

Or perhaps because they built a better search engine, or invented a new kind of anti-cancer drug, or did any of a large number of other things that benefit society to the tune of hundreds of millions or billions per year.

The super rich didn't 'earn' their wealth. They the gov't to obtain and maintain it. You can argue they shouldn't be allowed to do this, but you can't stop them from doing it.

There are super-rich who manipulate government into giving them vast amounts of money. And you know why they can do it? Because of people like you, people who want high taxes and strong regulations, the two primary mechanisms by which government engages in crony capitalism.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Gov't is a tool. The rich are going to use it to their advantage. The only question is, are you?

The real question is: why do people like you pretend to oppose this and then do everything in their power to support it?

Re:It's not theirs

[rsilvergun]

The people building search engines and inventing cancer drugs top out around $100,000 a year. A few big winners in the dot com bubble stand out, but by and large the habit of giving billions to people that make things has been gotten under control. Kinda like how Atari made it a point of not letting their game makers credit themselves (look up how Activision got it's start).

I'm sorry you had a falling out with your sister, but I don't think pulling her gov't assistance is the answer to her problems. People in her situation don't pull themselves up by their boot straps when that happens. They implode, and usually end up without a home. I'm glad your sister has held onto her house, and I hope she continues to.

I didn't say I support the super rich using the tool of gov't, rather I recognize that it's inevitable. The rich will use their wealth and power to build institutions that protect that wealth and power. We usually call those institutions 'Government'. They're going to do this whether I want them to or not. The only question is can I wrest those institutions from them. Kinda like how the house of commons gradually became more powerful than the house of lords...

Re:It's not theirs

[Anonymous Coward]

People in her situation don't pull themselves up by their boot straps when that happens. They implode, and usually end up without a home.

I was homeless for a period of time once, after losing everything.

I investigated government subsidized housing, as was told the only thing they could do, was put me on a 2 year waiting list. 2 years, if you're homeless, to wait, for help from the government for housing, because the "sign up and take everything you can" social class, has all their kids signing up for it early, and are in line ahead of you. Its first-come-first-serve, not according to need, yet everytime they want to raise taxes on me, after not helping me when I needed it, they claim someone else needs it.

I did in fact, pull myself up, and worked my way out of being homeless, without government assistance, because there was none available for me, when I actually needed it. Now that I no longer need it, I'm sure I probably qualify for any number of programs.

The federal government sucks at nearly everything it does, because their is simply no real oversight to speak of, and no repercussions for anything it does. This is not saying that 'federal government employees suck at their job,' as I have high regard for people at the individual level, but the system itself and their job and all the constraints that go with it, is what sucks. It sucks the life right out of the hard working private sector people who fund it.

Re:It's not theirs

[stenvar]

The people building search engines and inventing cancer drugs top out around $100,000 a year.

Obviously, you're unfamiliar with Silicon Valley bonuses and salaries even among technical staff, let alone among founders.

I didn't say I support the super rich using the tool of gov't, rather I recognize that it's inevitable.

No, you don't say it, and you even fool yourself into believing that you don't want it, but in reality, you and people like you are primarily responsible for "the super rich" and a bunch of others being able to enrich themselves at the cost of everybody else, and you want to make it even worse than it already is.

The only question is can I wrest those institutions from them.

You cannot. Government is always controlled by people who want to use it to enrich themselves. The more taxes you give it and the more power you give it to regulate, the more that power will be abused by the well-connected to enrich themselves. That's why raising taxes on the rich is like throwing gasoline on a fire. Why do you think that giving another trillion to the US government will result in anything other than that trillion being sent to more defense contractors and bailouts?

The way to keep people from misusing government to enrich themselves is to limit government to the absolutely minimally necessary functions, and to keep it as local as possible.

I'm sorry you had a falling out with your sister

WTF? Pay attention who you are responding to.

Re:It's not theirs

[pnutjam]

So, you noticed the need is too great for the supply. From this input you take away that the whole system should be scrapped? Not fixed, not funded better?

Truly a man of compassion.

Re:It's not theirs

[rsilvergun]

Are the people of N Korea 'responsible' for Kim Jun Un? No, but they're powerless to do anything about it. The only thing that can stand up to concentrated wealth is a black plague that wipes it out or a strong central gov't. There's a reason we had a 'Dark Ages'

You once again state that I want the super rich to be able to abuse the gov't, ignoring my point that no matter what you or I want their going to, so same to you, my comment stands.

I'd love to live in a magic world of fairy dust and pixy farts where something as powerful as a central gov't doesn't get abused. Instead, I'd rather work around the inevitable abuse. It's kinda like floods. In 4,000 years we might have weather control. We don't have it today, so I'll build levies instead of just prayin' to god to make the water stop.

You seem to have grasped my point about gov't being controlled by people to enrich themselves while being completely oblivious to my point that _you_can_do_that_too? There's enough gov't to go around. Just like there's enough food, shelter and health care to go around. People like you perpetuating the lie that there isn't is what's wrong with the world...

Re:It's not theirs

[stenvar]

You once again state that I want the super rich to be able to abuse the gov't,

No, I do not state that. You clearly do not "want" the super rich to do that. I am saying that the policies you advocate enable such abuse, contrary to what you actually want.

I'd love to live in a magic world of fairy dust and pixy farts where something as powerful as a central gov't doesn't get abused. Instead, I'd rather work around the inevitable abuse.

We agree that government will get abused (it's called "rent seeking"). But the proposals you make for "working around the inevitable abuse" actually make the problem worse rather than better. Imposing 90% income taxes on "the rich" will not hurt the rich or diminish their power, but it will add large amounts of money to the coffers of government that rent seekers of all stripes then can enrich themselves further with.

Oh you, Mainframes!

[Anonymous Coward]

"'Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,'"
 
See also: "One does not simply RESTART a mainframe.

The word assume makes an...

[Hartree]

"Have you heard a Whoooosssshhhhh! lately?"

Yes, and it sure applied to you missing the point big time because you "assumed".

They piss on that declaration

[dbIII]

Don't waste your breath. The tea party fools cheering for the ultra rich would have been the ones cheering for the British aristocrats back then. It's quite ironic that they label themselves as the rebels of the time, but look at what they say and it's all about taking the rights away from the people and giving them back to the aristocrats.

Re:They piss on that declaration

[amiga3D]

The tea party isn't cheering for the ultra rich. They're bitching about getting taxed to death. T-Taxed E-Enough A-Allready TEA party. Get it. Fucking idiot. We want an end to the incessant tax and spend cycle. Where in hell do you see any mention of taking away rights from people. Unless you're talking about their right to take all my money. Moron.

Nobody paid those rates, dumbass

[acoustix]

Yes, the top rate was 90%. BUT NOBODY PAID 90%!!! There were all sorts of write offs, loop holes, etc and people paid close to what we paid today.

Social Programs: A Stolen Promise

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people I've seen on food stamps could quit eating for 2 months and still be fat.

80% of the taxes collected for helping people goes to the social(ist) workers and anything related to the administration of those programs. Most of the rest of the money goes to private organisations in the community operated by "connected" families to administor. They use it for themselves to help the economicically disenfranchised to quit their sinful ways and direct them to a church for guidance and care; something anyone could do for themselves for free.

In other words, the money is really used to finance a staff of directory personnel, their friends, and their relatives; over paid parasites living off the taxpayer who think they can do a better job of helping people with my money than I could.

Blame their copies

[J'raxis]

Maybe they can blame their buggy copiers. Didn't this used to be a quality company?

Whereas PRESIDENT Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

tried to drag us into conflicts in Libya, Egypt, and a completely bone-headed Syrian intervention that would have had us in a face-off with Putin over something Putin is every bit as committed to (Syria and his naval base there) as Obama is to "Obamacare"...... and all while DOUBLING the nation's debt.

Oh, and by the way, there never was a Clinton-era budget surplus; Politicians in both parties (Democrats AND "establishment" Republicans) love to pretend they have been fiscally responsible by simply leaving things "off the books". The so-Called Clinton surplus numbers were only projections and only valid if you pretended some of the biggest items on the books (Social Security and Medicare) had no future obligation (and therefore no need to actually save/invest the money coming into the programs, freeing that money up for current spending). Corporate executives who do their accounting this way (not including wall st bankers with Washington lobbyists) go to jail.

Bush inherited a mess too... a recession, the popping of the first internet bubble ("pets.com" anyone???) and years of no American response to terrorism accompanied by legal blocks preventing intel agencies sharing data with eachother.

EVERY president inherits things and some inherit very bad messes; Reagan inherited a crippled military, double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, gas lines (people lined-up around the block to buy gas and only allowed to buy every-other day depending on your license plate#) double-digit unemployment...AND a Democrat congress that used the debt ceiling and the budgets to TRY to block his every action. Obama is LYING when he says the current situation has never been faced by a previous president - I remember it quite well. By the time Reagan ran for re-election he had every one of the economic indicators turned around and things were so good his campaign theme was "morning in America". Obama stepped into a much better situation than Reagan inherited by EVERY measure but the "mainstream"/Democrat press runs interference for him and he has become dependent upon their support; he's had FIVE YEARS and we actually have fewer full-time workers now than we did when he was sworn in. Oh, and Obama was no innocent bystander to the 2008 meltdown, he was a senator in the Democrat-run senate at the time which (working in concert with the Democrat-run House) wrote the laws and budgets in 2007 and 2008 after they pronounced Bush's proposals "dead on arrival"

It does not matter what you inherit..... what matters is what you make of it.

Re:Whereas PRESIDENT Obama...

[D2n]

Oh, and by the way, there never was a Clinton-era budget surplus; Politicians in both parties (Democrats AND "establishment" Republicans) love to pretend they have been fiscally responsible by simply leaving things "off the books". The so-Called Clinton surplus numbers were only projections and only valid if you pretended some of the biggest items on the books (Social Security and Medicare) had no future obligation (and therefore no need to actually save/invest the money coming into the programs, freeing that money up for current spending). Corporate executives who do their accounting this way (not including wall st bankers with Washington lobbyists) go to jail.

Do you have a source for this information? : This source seems to say otherwise. To take the important parts from the linked article:

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

and the part that you seem to be hinting at:

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

That would be a good start

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush's last deficit was $458.6 Billion. President Obama immediately drove this up to $1.4 Trillion (his 2009 "stimulus" ended up costing almost $1T in addition to the "regular" deficit) and then after 2009 the democrats stopped passing budgets (preferring to run the govt on "continuing resolutions" that locked-in the new high levels as the baseline while avoiding any embarrassing votes on budgets with massive deficits). Now with "sequestration" in effect the deficits are falling to about half of Obama's worst (but still FAR higher than Bush's worst) and Obama has the audacity to brag that he has halved the deficit! Blatant dishonest propaganda which he would be publicly challenged on if we had any journalists not connected to the Obama administration.

The situation is NOT improving as long as we are still deficit spending (we continue to go deeper into debt, just at a reduced rate) with each passing year we are heaping more and more debt onto our kids and grandkids and this will become a 1930's-style nightmare if interest rates go up to any degree (which they are bound to do given that they are currently at artificially-depressed rates AND the fed is printing money like a counterfeiter) Even with insanely low rates we are spending much more money every year in interest payments on the debt than we spend on NASA - just imagine all the cool things we could do with existing tax revenue if we were not already so deeply in debt and having to pay the lenders!

Big Business make a lot on poverty

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox used to make printers, scanners copiers, etc (you know, all that old-fashioned real physical product stuff?) but now as a "service provider" they can mooch off the taxpayers by getting in on the "poor starving children" bandwagon (KA-ching! with each purchase on an EBT card) All of the incentives are there to grow the welfare state: more EBT card users = move voters supporting it, more crony capitalist corporate campaign contributions and lobbying to keep the ball rolling, more political power for the politicians running the gravy train, etc. The only person who loses here is the taxpayer... and he's outnumbered. Washington: meet ancient Rome... It boggles the mind that any young American who plans to still be here in 20 years is not absolutely frightened by the numbers; the US now owes approx $17 Trillion and has promised to pay-out another $100 Trillion in promised future benefits ..... more money than exists on Earth and SOMEBODY will have to pay it.

That which cannot be sustained, will not be sustained

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[Anonymous Coward]

cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn't afford to pay for the food.

Thats the store employees job. Customers don't have to put stuff back if they can't pay for it. Just leave it for the employees to put back on the shelf.

So what percentage is acceptable?

[dutchwhizzman]

You say you think 90% top bracket is unacceptable to you. So what percentage would seem fair to you? 50%? 60%? How do you propose state and federal income is generated if you lower that percentage? It's okay to say you think something is unfair, but you have to come up with an alternative that does seem fair to you if you want to solve things.

Re:So what percentage is acceptable?

[Redmancometh]

Something less than 50. Total. Taking into account sales tax statistically accrued by members of that bracket.

Re:So what percentage is acceptable?

[dbraden]

I won't pretend I know what would be the ideal top rate, but it feels like 33% would be pushing the max I would be comfortable with. I would also argue that it's not the government's mission to maximize revenue. Maybe the feds should settle for a 15% income rate (state and local consuming the rest), and get by on what they get.

What cuts would you make to entitlement?

[tepples]

The situation is NOT improving as long as we are still deficit spending

Say you wanted to reduce deficit spending to $0.00 by December 31. Most of the difference would have to come from entitlement cuts. How do you plan to fix Social Security and Medicare?

Nice straw man

[rsilvergun]

past $9 million a year then no. You're not 'working hard to earn more' any more then. You're riding on someone else's hard (that sounds dirty). Do you seriously think the Chinese billionaire that owns Foxconn 'earned' that? Or to go more extreme how about the southern cotton plantation owners in the 1800s? Yeah, I'm being inflammatory, but the point is still valid.

Re:This is exactly why testing backups is necessar

[ImprovOmega]

Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too.

That's also why you don't do a test restore into your production environment. Testing backups 101.

Walmart Emptied Out

[BetaDays]

Check this out 2 Walmarts got pretty cleaned out when they let people use their ebts as if there was no limit on them. Watch the video it's amazing.

http://www.ksla.com/story/23679489/walmart-shelves-in-springhill-mansfield-cleared-in-ebt-glitch

Why Slashdot Now Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Several years ago the majority of comments would have been about Xerox's inability to test software without causing mass hunger. Now every single comments devolve a rediculous policy debate written by a bunch of wannabe wonks who are obviously watching too much television.

No, not exactly

[rsilvergun]

the last one should recognize that he had a _lot_ of help along the way (which he did) and be willing to pay it forward.

In the real world kids from the projects don't make it big. In the real world they're crushed by daily life and their lack of education. Look up the unemployment rate and average income of project kids (especially the ones that speak Ebonics, which sadly makes them more or less unemployable outside of manual labor and fast food). It's not a fun read.