hile I’m not taking any position on redistribution of wealth, that child hunger exists in the US is an abomination.  We’re robbing the future, or at least stunting their potential, thereby ensuring yet another generation on welfare.  What is often lacking in political discussions is how comfortable we are to create such narrow bands of comfort.  Europe has a wide landing range, or perhaps better explained as a lower threshhold for opportunistic risk and thus lower payoffs for wealth.  The US is a land of great opportunity but also of great failure.  

thepoliticalpartygirl:

Child Hunger, As Seen At Wal-Mart

“And you need not go further than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it’s real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m., customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items, baby formula, milk, bread, eggs, and continue to shop and mill about the store until midnight, when … government electronic benefits cards get activated and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.

“And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they’ve been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours — come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason.”

- Bill Simon, head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations 

(via NPR’s Planet Money Blog)

(via think4yourself)