Gyeonggido, Korea cuts school lunches

[Cornfed]

These budget cuts seem a shame. It seemed a good thing that kids could get healthy traditional Korean food that their mothers often didn't have time to make. What with cuts to good stuff like this, money going to pointless stuff like hiring unemployed dirtbags as "security guards", discipline going all to hell as a result of restricting corporal punishment and hiring mainly wimpy female teachers etc. it seems my former place of employment is really going down the plug hole:
http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/new ... |newslist1

[zboy1]

S. Korea is heavily going the Westernization and feminist-hell route--as told to me by my Korean American acquaintance that I know (and met on HappierAbroad), living in Korea.

But, in this case, I don't see what the problem is here: if the government is in deficit--you have to cut social programs, unlike what is happening with the bankrupt States in the U.S. like California and Detroit, and what is happening under the Bush and Obummer administrations--and their spending like 'drunken sailors' on entitlement programs, social welfare programs, war profiteers and corporate giveaways....

[Cornfed]

But, in this case, I don't see what the problem is here: if the government is in deficit--you have to cut social programs, unlike what is happening with the bankrupt States in the U.S. like California and Detroit, and what is happening under the Bush and Obummer administrations--and their spending like 'drunken sailors' on entitlement programs, social welfare programs, war profiteers and corporate giveaways....

Ye-es, but it does not really seem like a special program in the Korean context. It seemed to me that having lunch as the main meal of the day on the school/employer was the accepted cultural norm. In the case of Korean food this makes sense because it would take all day to cook a varied Korean meal, and most (often working) women wouldn't have time. Presumably traditional cooking in Korean villages was a group effort. Even if the world economy weren't collapsing I imagine Korea would have to revert to third world status at some point as there is really no reason for them to be rich now, but this is one of the last programs you would want to cut IMO

[gsjackson]

what is happening under the Bush and Obummer administrations--and their spending like 'drunken sailors' on entitlement programs, social welfare programs, war profiteers and corporate giveaways....

What we're really spending like drunken sailors on is TBTF banks, which take the cash from the Fed in exchange for their crappy paper, put it into "reserves," where it is laundered and used to buy up assets in the real economy (rather than being loaned into that economy). You play right into the hands of the banksters when you buy into the "money is tight so we have to cut government services" narrative. Money is tight because the FIRE sector has used its control of the political process to confiscate it all -- at the expense of both the real economy and governments.

[Jester]

what is happening under the Bush and Obummer administrations--and their spending like 'drunken sailors' on entitlement programs, social welfare programs, war profiteers and corporate giveaways....

What we're really spending like drunken sailors on is TBTF banks, which take the cash from the Fed in exchange for their crappy paper, put it into "reserves," where it is laundered and used to buy up assets in the real economy (rather than being loaned into that economy). You play right into the hands of the banksters when you buy into the "money is tight so we have to cut government services" narrative. Money is tight because the FIRE sector has used its control of the political process to confiscate it all -- at the expense of both the real economy and governments.

Good analysis.

I had to look this up;

A FIRE economy is any economy based primarily on the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sectors.