Work Reform

I work returns in a Costco. In fact, I'm typing this on my phone in the little office we have in receiving.

Food either gets sold or gets pulled for various reasons. Pulled food goes first to the local food banks. What can't go to them goes to a farm, a local pet rescue group, and to a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation group.

Anything left over from all that goes into a bin to be turned into high grade compost, which gets sold for $5 for a 20lb bag.

It takes time and money to do this, and it gets done anyway because the will is there.

A lot of that "destroyed food" is animals who lived their entire lives in tiny, filthy cages just so that they could be killed and rot in a plastic bag.

There are 26 billion chickens, a billion pigs, a billion and a half cattle and bison, and another almost six billion sheep, goats, and ruminants living in human captivity, and they all get fed. We feed them more than the total human population of the Earth can possibly eat. We inflict actual atrocity on these billions of vulnerable individuals, because using their bodies to refine cheap, safe plant food into harmful, addictive animal products makes a sociopath more money than just selling the plants. Fucking stop it.

the peasant class exists to generate more money for the owner class, not the other way around.

always has been

I do a lot of big events at big convention hotels, and you would be shocked at how much amazing food they throw out. I know you think you know, but trust me you have no idea.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

The fact that at this time in history we have the world's first trillionaire and we padlock the dumpsters we throw food away into is a disgrace. The future will not look kindly on us that we let this stand

I recently went to the store to buy some pastries before closing—you can already know where I'm going with this. The pastry cupboard was empty so I went to check the lady who cleans them out. They were all in three big boxes stacked on top of each other, filled with soon to be thrown pastries. I took two and paid full price, knowing how ridiculous this is in contrast with the rest having been thrown in the trash 10 minutes later. I'd much rather go a day or two without food knowing that nothing gets wasted and no one goes hungry than what shameful consumerist nonsense we have now.

Yes, yes and of we made everyone who makes 250k/yr pay 3865$/mo for ubi income of 1800$/mo for everyone in the country it would work out. It would take like 5 years for a solid treasury/trust to accumulate. It would be able to happen though.

Supermarkets destroy food if it doesn't sell. We can always feed the world. We just don't.

Somehow, I dyslexic speed-reading misread that at first as:

Supremacists destroy food if it doesn't sell. We can always feed the world. We just don't.

They need the poors to fight their wars and work on their factory floors.

And to focus on perceived races, while keeping women and queers in their places.

(I'm working on the last line, too long)

It seems to me that affordability starts with housing, because it is usually a household's single largest monthly expense. And it seems to me the best way to make housing more affordable is to make it non-profit. That doesn't necessarily mean city owned or other public housing, nor does it mean tax payer funded or subsidized housing, but having apartment buildings owned by a non-profit organization that charges tenants only enough rent to cover the organization's expenses without any extra going to an owner as profit. And the thing is, non-profit housing isn't only theoretical. It exists right now, but it's relatively rare. The reason is for-profit landlords don't want it because they can't compete.

Let's say you have two identical apartment buildings, but one is owned by a non-profit housing cooperative and the other is owned by a private landlord. The non-profit housing cooperative is going to have the same ongoing expenses (property management, maintenance, etc) as the private landlord, because the apartments are identical, but rent will be lower at the non-profit housing because they charge only enough rent to cover expenses whereas the private landlord charges rent to cover expenses plus some for his own personal profit.

We have a couple of services where I'm at now, where as food approaches its best before date, it goes into the app where you can order it at a discount and then go pick it up in store. If it can be frozen, they'll also freeze it to prolong its shelf life, like if it's fresh sausages that aren't selling.

I once got a large box of like 50 frozen burgers (frozen by default, not fresh to frozen) for like 80% off because they'd reached the best before on the box. They weren't freezer burned or anything like that, they were perfect.

A lot of places would have just thrown that out.

In my country I used to work at one of the largest supermarket chains and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that we donated any food that didn't sell to our local food bank called "Nourished For Nil" which would then take the ingredients and cook some meals and then you could go get a box of food from them once a week for free, no questions asked.

It is not that easy. It is not a question of can we feed people but can we get the food to them. Produce that doesn't sell is not going to last shipping again.

Credit where credit is due.

I live in NYC and voted for him, but I honestly thought he'd be bogged down by an entrenched bureaucracy and not actually do much.

It was worth the price of admission just to see the Lesbian Fire Commissioner.

edit = The Fire Commissioner was an EMS Chief before getting promoted. Back in 1995 most of the front line EMS workers hated the idea of being pulled into the Fire Department. They liked being independent. It took a long time, but now the tail is wagging the dog.

I worked at Panera bread (not a grocery store at all) in college and we would donate the leftover baked goods at the end of every night to a food pantry thing. Also they would let us take some home too. It was pretty nice.

I think they are some kind of regional franchise though so it could have just been ours