Wow, Titus Landegent recognized something I had missed.
Here's the story: Mayor Bloomberg has decided that the homeless need a better diet. So he is cutting off food donations, because the state cannot control them adequately.
Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters.
It’s the “no bagels for you” edict.
Okay, so that's funny, Mayor Bloomberg is the bagel nazi. But what's really going on here?
Before, the homeless were getting donated food of uncertain quality, and it was quite possibly high in fat and salt. The homeless were likely dependent on this food, because their BATNA was even worse, perhaps even starvation.
Hard to see how anyone was "exploiting" the homeless by donating food. But it is an interesting point: should we prevent donations to people who desperately need those donations? Isn't that pretty similar to telling the guy who wants to sell his kidney to get medicine for his daughter that he can't do it?
In other words, I can donate food to people, but only if they don't need it.
Mike, thanks for the interesting comments about my question. As I let your comments settle in my mind, I wonder too about the agreement between the donors and the homeless shelters. Through Bloomberg's very strange logic, that the state wants to protect the homeless. But where does this put the homeless shelters now? Will they need to ask for more funding? What happens with the now undonated excess food? Throwing it away for other homeless people to dig through?
ReplyDelete"Isn't that pretty similar to telling the guy who wants to sell his kidney to get medicine for his daughter that he can't do it?"
- I've chewed on this example of yours before, and it's a very good one too. I find it odd we give people money for plasma and sperm, but not blood or kidneys.
"In other words, I can donate food to people, but only if they don't need it."
- I guess that's the world we live in. People getting things that they never really needed... like subsidies and bailouts!