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I exactly agree. But the reality of our free market laissez-faire policies mixed with increasingly effective, data driven marketing, results in a portion of the

I exactly agree. But the reality of our free market laissez-faire policies mixed with increasingly effective, data driven marketing, results in a portion of the population who we are essentially leaving hung out to dry. They do not have your intellect and understanding of expenses as well as the prior knowledge to avoid and deal with addictive food additives and sophisticated merchandizing techniques. Just to name a few of the issues at play here. Its a shame that you cannot understand and have some sympathy for them. When are the smart people of this country going to start taking some responsibility for the rest of the US?

cscurmudgeon 12y ago
> When are the smart people of this country going to start taking some responsibility for the rest of the US? When the country starts listening to them.
- fred_durst 12y ago
  I should have stated that a bit better. I meant that many of these situations involving people making poor financial choices have to do with very smart people using their intelligence and hard work to influence them into those choices. So in effect, the country is listening to them and that is what is causing them to do things like take out payday loans and buy drive through meals when they can't afford it.
cpwright 12y ago
People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. When you exclude the drugged out parents that other posters have mentioned, and focus on the parents in this story who are generally trying to take care of their kids; I expect they are making mostly rational decisions about how they value their time and resources [e.g., it is worth the extra money to save time and go to a grocery store, because they won't actually be starving]. This goes back to changing the definition of what you're trying to fight from "hunger" to "food insecurity". If these people were truly "hungry" vs. "food insecure", I expect they would make markedly different choices to ensure their children weren't actually hungry. The children, also being maybe not rational actors, but not stupid; would also make different choices. If the boy were starving he probably wouldn't have skipped the free breakfast to hold out for chicken nuggets, tater tots, and hot dogs.
- mercer 12y ago
  > People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. Could you provide some more thoughts on this (or supporting research)? I'm truly curious, because to me it seems so... alien to be able to hold such a view in light of reality, and I'd like to assume you've thought this through. What I mean is, my experience (and knowledge) overwhelmingly support the idea that humans are largely not rational actors, and in fact the degree to which one is a 'rational' actor is mostly a result of an upbringing that emphasizes this. I do pretty well in life, and I consider myself far from rational. But to get where I am, I see it as essential that I had wonderful parents, a safe environment to experiment and explore in, the ability to conform to common norms (hell, to even be aware of them), the ability to keep my impulses from controlling me too much, and the friends I found largely through college who can help me when I make my less rational choices or when I am in my less rational 'moods'. I also had parents who were raised with a good sense of health and the time to think and read about this. I guess fundamentally I don't see why you would separate 'drugged up' parents from the rest of them, when in reality there's a continuum of 'fucked up' along which lives are lived and in which lives are created. Parents who were not raised to eat well or exercise are likely to not raise their children to eat well or exercise. To use an extreme example that I think applies to varying to degrees to all of us: if humans were rational beings, we wouldn't have children of alcoholics become alcoholics and subject their own kids to the suffering they themselves suffered through! Either that, or those children-of-alcoholics are just assholes. And I find that hard to believe.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. You do know that what you just said is "People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly <definition of homo economicus>", right? In any case, research in the social sciences (economics, sure, but also psychology and a number of other related fields) has established quite clearly that people are not rational actors and that, in particular, even with all of the information presented to rationally analyze and unambiguously determine their best interest, in simple, clear-cut cases -- a much easier situation than most people find themselves in in their day to day lives -- they very often fail to correctly determine that interest, and even when they intellectually determine it fail to act on it, contrary to the rational actor model. Rational choice theory may often be a useful baseline to start from when explaining human behavior, but people, in general, are clearly not rational actors.

cscurmudgeon 12y ago

> When are the smart people of this country going to start taking some responsibility for the rest of the US? When the country starts listening to them.

fred_durst 12y ago
I should have stated that a bit better. I meant that many of these situations involving people making poor financial choices have to do with very smart people using their intelligence and hard work to influence them into those choices. So in effect, the country is listening to them and that is what is causing them to do things like take out payday loans and buy drive through meals when they can't afford it.

cpwright 12y ago

People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. When you exclude the drugged out parents that other posters have mentioned, and focus on the parents in this story who are generally trying to take care of their kids; I expect they are making mostly rational decisions about how they value their time and resources [e.g., it is worth the extra money to save time and go to a grocery store, because they won't actually be starving]. This goes back to changing the definition of what you're trying to fight from "hunger" to "food insecurity". If these people were truly "hungry" vs. "food insecure", I expect they would make markedly different choices to ensure their children weren't actually hungry. The children, also being maybe not rational actors, but not stupid; would also make different choices. If the boy were starving he probably wouldn't have skipped the free breakfast to hold out for chicken nuggets, tater tots, and hot dogs.

mercer 12y ago
> People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. Could you provide some more thoughts on this (or supporting research)? I'm truly curious, because to me it seems so... alien to be able to hold such a view in light of reality, and I'd like to assume you've thought this through. What I mean is, my experience (and knowledge) overwhelmingly support the idea that humans are largely not rational actors, and in fact the degree to which one is a 'rational' actor is mostly a result of an upbringing that emphasizes this. I do pretty well in life, and I consider myself far from rational. But to get where I am, I see it as essential that I had wonderful parents, a safe environment to experiment and explore in, the ability to conform to common norms (hell, to even be aware of them), the ability to keep my impulses from controlling me too much, and the friends I found largely through college who can help me when I make my less rational choices or when I am in my less rational 'moods'. I also had parents who were raised with a good sense of health and the time to think and read about this. I guess fundamentally I don't see why you would separate 'drugged up' parents from the rest of them, when in reality there's a continuum of 'fucked up' along which lives are lived and in which lives are created. Parents who were not raised to eat well or exercise are likely to not raise their children to eat well or exercise. To use an extreme example that I think applies to varying to degrees to all of us: if humans were rational beings, we wouldn't have children of alcoholics become alcoholics and subject their own kids to the suffering they themselves suffered through! Either that, or those children-of-alcoholics are just assholes. And I find that hard to believe.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly rational actors who know what their own best interest is. You do know that what you just said is "People may not be homo economicus, but in general I believe them to be mostly <definition of homo economicus>", right? In any case, research in the social sciences (economics, sure, but also psychology and a number of other related fields) has established quite clearly that people are not rational actors and that, in particular, even with all of the information presented to rationally analyze and unambiguously determine their best interest, in simple, clear-cut cases -- a much easier situation than most people find themselves in in their day to day lives -- they very often fail to correctly determine that interest, and even when they intellectually determine it fail to act on it, contrary to the rational actor model. Rational choice theory may often be a useful baseline to start from when explaining human behavior, but people, in general, are clearly not rational actors.