Item: Walmart shelves stripped bare as limits temporarily dropped on EBT cards.
For us poor Canadians--EBT cards replaced food stamps as a means of providing food aid to the poor. It is like a gift card that gets charged up with a fixed amount automatically every week (or month). On the weekend a glitch in the system prevented retailers from reading the amounts left on the cards, and the majority of retailers refused to accept them. Some Walmart stores decided to honour the cards anyway, and a frenzy ensued.
It reminds me of an old joke told by the Russians.
A man who lived in Belomorsk had a rich American uncle, who died and left him a fortune. The State Apparatus dropped by to visit him in order to convince him he should donate his new wealth to the State. At length, the man agreed, but pressed for one concession--he would give the State his fortune if for one day all goods in all the stores in Belomorsk would be given away at no charge.
The local political bureau was reluctant to agree, but as the fortune was so vast and the stores so poorly stocked, they agreed. The announcement was made, and the next day immense crowds stormed the markets. People came from all the surrounding villages and even distant cities. The crowds surged through the stores, and within seconds the shelves were stripped bare. Fierce battles broke out everywhere over the scarce goods--it looked like Walmart during Black Friday. By noon the hospitals were filled to overflowing--and by evening, so were the morgues.
When at last the riot ended, the police descended on the man's house, demanding to know why he wanted such a terrible thing to occur. His answer: "Please, comrades--I only wanted to see what true Communism would be like!"
KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather
For us poor Canadians--EBT cards replaced food stamps as a means of providing food aid to the poor. It is like a gift card that gets charged up with a fixed amount automatically every week (or month). On the weekend a glitch in the system prevented retailers from reading the amounts left on the cards, and the majority of retailers refused to accept them. Some Walmart stores decided to honour the cards anyway, and a frenzy ensued.
It reminds me of an old joke told by the Russians.
A man who lived in Belomorsk had a rich American uncle, who died and left him a fortune. The State Apparatus dropped by to visit him in order to convince him he should donate his new wealth to the State. At length, the man agreed, but pressed for one concession--he would give the State his fortune if for one day all goods in all the stores in Belomorsk would be given away at no charge.
The local political bureau was reluctant to agree, but as the fortune was so vast and the stores so poorly stocked, they agreed. The announcement was made, and the next day immense crowds stormed the markets. People came from all the surrounding villages and even distant cities. The crowds surged through the stores, and within seconds the shelves were stripped bare. Fierce battles broke out everywhere over the scarce goods--it looked like Walmart during Black Friday. By noon the hospitals were filled to overflowing--and by evening, so were the morgues.
When at last the riot ended, the police descended on the man's house, demanding to know why he wanted such a terrible thing to occur. His answer: "Please, comrades--I only wanted to see what true Communism would be like!"
KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather
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