EBT Glitch - A speculation.

26  2013-10-15 by ronintetsuro

Had a thought last night.

What if the EBT glitch where people had temporarily unlimited funds was a way to monitor resource consumption in the market? What if it was a test to see what kind of items are the first off the shelves in the event that money is no longer a concern?

It just seems to me like there's a pointed stress test of our social systems going on right now, and this alleged EBT glitch seems to follow the pattern. And food speculation is quickly becoming a new economic bubble, we all know how much Wall St. loves it's bubbles.

EDIT: Holy shit, any confirmation on this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yYFEM30Mwzc

36 comments

8  [deleted] 2013-10-15

[deleted]

2  kyr 2013-10-15

I do find it interesting the outage hit densely populated areas like California Ohio, NJ and Texas. It also hit some of the poorest states, Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana

So the system went down in the areas where you would expect the heaviest load on the system. Exactly what you would expect from a technical outage.

5  [deleted] 2013-10-15

[deleted]

7  binjinpurj 2013-10-15

because the people who use EBT are not a representative sample of the population

Could you explain what you mean by this, exactly?

5  dsprox 2013-10-15

No, he can't and he's not going to because he's a brand spanking new obvious shill account that's just being busted out now.

Couldn't you detected as you read his super scripted closed ended post that uses psychological ploys to trick the reader into agreeing with it?

It reeks of being scripted. Ockam's Razor, pff, get the fuck out of here.

2  lastresort09 2013-10-15

He just deleted his comment right now. No surprise there.

2  bacon_i_will_work_4 2013-10-15

Ya i agree with u. And not this troll Rand Paul Rox..

If SHTF, poor crazy ppl will go bananas and this is exactly the demo graphic that was sampled here.

Wanker

1  5arge 2013-10-15

That's what I call "the zombies". My wife thinks I am preparing for the walking dead to arrive, but in reality I am preparing for the lower classes of our society to lose what little they have and come looking to take what I have worked for my whole life.

Everyone knows how to stop a zombie... shoot 'em in the head.

1  moparornocar 2013-10-15

They mean that people who use EBT do not make up the average group of citizens, and that for this study to be unbiased you would also need citizens who do not use EBT, to see how they would react in a no money anything goes type situation.

4  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

Would it be safe to argue that Wal Mart was harder hit than other stores by the EBT glitch?

Also, why are we assuming that a 'fair' test was required, or even desired?

4  ShortBusDoorGunner 2013-10-15

From what I read, Walmart shot itself in the foot. Unable to determine an EBT card's limit, they had two choices:

  • Deny all purchases.
  • Ignore any limits and sort it out later.

As they went with #2, the results were entirely predictable.

2  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

Not that I'm doubting you (this is very interesting information) but do you have a source on that?

2  renob151 2013-10-15

Why here, let me Google that for you;

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/behindthestorefront/2013/10/14/wal-mart-stores-in-louisiana-picked-clean-during-ebt-card-outage/

Third paragraph

7  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

While many retailers promptly halted use of EBT cards since the outage meant they couldn’t see cardholders’ spending limits, Wal-Mart let cardholders go ahead and buy food and other necessities at the two Louisiana stores and others across the country.

And that's kind of my point.

Wal Mart is the retailer most notorious for shitting on the little guy.... yet they allowed unpaid for purchases to go out the door on a whim? I don't buy it, I'm sorry. Something else is at play here.

0  ShortBusDoorGunner 2013-10-15

I'm guessing Walmart was worried that these lovely human beings would riot if they weren't allowed to get their free food.

So really Walmart was damned no matter which choice they made.

1  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

That's pretty racist, even for Walmart.

2  ShortBusDoorGunner 2013-10-15

Here's the story I read.

The tasty bit:

Lynd explained the cards weren't showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway.

1  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

We need to know who that spokesman is.

1  Detached09 2013-10-15

I'm pretty sure I saw her name on a CNN report today.

Her justification was something along the lines of "We chose to let these people get the food they needed to feed their families and children" or something similar.

Basically, a giant positive PR spin for Wal-Mart. Like "Look, we let these people have food, even though we're gonna lose money on it."

1  moparornocar 2013-10-15

I'm really not too sure which stores got hit hardest, I know there was the one Walmart where the carts were left out.

I think me and the other person were just going off the usual basis for a study, not knowing the details of this supposed one.

3  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

Sure. That's understandable. However, I'm simply stating that the types of people who would be able to make something like this happen don't necessarily find themselves subjected to scientific rigor.

3  moparornocar 2013-10-15

Very true, it's really hard to tell if this was a legitimate glitch.

7  [deleted] 2013-10-15

[deleted]

2  dsprox 2013-10-15

Wow this has been one of the most profoundly intelligent posts I have ever seen in this sub.

Of course it's easy to jump to the conclusion of malfeasance when your view of the system has already become so engrossed with a vision of corruption, hypocrisy, greed, lies, and outright evil.

Equally the same for people who view it as good to instantly believe it to be the organic technical glitch.

This is where rationality and critical thinking must come in to play though, as those are the tools that allow you to determine which scenario is more likely to have played out.

I personally would pin it on indirect malfeasance as I believe it WAS done as an experiment to see how the lowest rungs of the social-economic scale would react to a situation wherein their food purchasing power is either shut down or unlimited.

It IS a test because their sample IS the poor people on EBT. Those results could then lead to their ability to speculate what people on the next level might do, as after all, we're all humans with the same base needs of food and water, so given the situation wherein we're confronted with the possible loss of those necessities, it's fair to say we'd all act within a similar predictability range.

This Ockam's Razor shit is a half assed psychological intellectual ploy to trick less intelligent people into believing them by seeming to be more intelligent.

It's just a ploy though to convince you that this EBT experiment was anything but.

0  Maxwyfe 2013-10-15

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

5  [deleted] 2013-10-15

[deleted]

3  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

Especially in this economy.

1  space_walrus 2013-10-15

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

2  dsprox 2013-10-15

It IS a test because their sample IS the poor people on EBT. Those results could then lead to their ability to speculate what people on the next level might do, as after all, we're all humans with the same base needs of food and water, so given the situation wherein we're confronted with the possible loss of those necessities, it's fair to say we'd all act within a similar predictability range.

This Ockam's Razor shit is a half assed psychological intellectual ploy to trick less intelligent people into believing you by seeming to be more intelligent.

It's just a ploy though to convince you that this EBT experiment was anything but.

Don't listen to this shill telling you it can't be a test, what a load of garbage. The poor people are a representative sample of the middle class because we're barely above them and all have the same need for food and water. As I've previously stated that situation leads us all to act in similar predictable manners, so you can easily test this by doing it to poor people.

3  ButtAllTheThings 2013-10-15

Ebt glich continues with overpayments in michigan. Source: my girlfriends ebt payment was double this morning.

5  gtownbingo99 2013-10-15

So if EBT makes that mistake do you have to give the money back at some point?

2  ButtAllTheThings 2013-10-15

Yes

2  [deleted] 2013-10-15

military here, trust me if the GOV overpays you they will take it back no mater the time frame or amount. i have had many friends to get to much pay while deployed and two tears after they get home boom there checks are garnished with out warning.

2  Big_Girl_Luver 2013-10-15

Wow! what a really fucked up government you have.....

So the US government will forgive billions upon billions of dollars in debt owed to it by other countries and multinational corporations but when it comes to a couple hundred million in food subsidies to their own poor and unfortunate citizens they just make them pay it all back?

WOW!

1  [deleted] 2013-10-15

its called being a kiss ass to the banks, they buy your way into the seat so you can help your friends out and then your help them out. fuck the people.

1  fozzymandias 2013-10-15

That's all governments, homie, literally all of them. Don't single out the US just because we're the biggest and baddest.

It would be nice, wouldn't it, if we could decide, as a nation, to use our own money supply to improve the lives of the neediest human beings rather than those who already have the most? That's the premise of David Graeber's book Debt.

2  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

Interesting! If you find any local news stories about it, can you post them here? I'd appreciate it.

3  Frogtarius 2013-10-15

This was a test run.

1  danxmason 2013-10-15

Bingo.

1  Detached09 2013-10-15

Does no one know how to spell Occam's Razor correctly, or is the misspelling some sort of "in" thing I missed?

7  ronintetsuro 2013-10-15

While many retailers promptly halted use of EBT cards since the outage meant they couldn’t see cardholders’ spending limits, Wal-Mart let cardholders go ahead and buy food and other necessities at the two Louisiana stores and others across the country.

And that's kind of my point.

Wal Mart is the retailer most notorious for shitting on the little guy.... yet they allowed unpaid for purchases to go out the door on a whim? I don't buy it, I'm sorry. Something else is at play here.

2  lastresort09 2013-10-15

He just deleted his comment right now. No surprise there.

2  Big_Girl_Luver 2013-10-15

Wow! what a really fucked up government you have.....

So the US government will forgive billions upon billions of dollars in debt owed to it by other countries and multinational corporations but when it comes to a couple hundred million in food subsidies to their own poor and unfortunate citizens they just make them pay it all back?

WOW!

1  Detached09 2013-10-15

I'm pretty sure I saw her name on a CNN report today.

Her justification was something along the lines of "We chose to let these people get the food they needed to feed their families and children" or something similar.

Basically, a giant positive PR spin for Wal-Mart. Like "Look, we let these people have food, even though we're gonna lose money on it."