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At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

(www.nytimes.com)
624 points xbryanx | 9 comments | 11 Jul 25 11:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.716s | source | bottom
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jordanb ◴[11 Jul 25 14:59 UTC] No.44532900[source]▶
I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element.

Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job".

The people in leadership couldn't understand why someone would buy the opportunity to work long hours at a retail position and end up hopefully clearing a middle class salary at the end of the year. They assumed that there must be a real reason why people were signing up and the real reason was to put their hands in the till.

So they ended up assuming the postmasters were stealing, and the purpose of the accounting software was to detect the fraud so it could be prosecuted. When the accounting software started finding vast amounts of missing funds, they ignored questions about the software because it was working as intended. I bet if the opposite had happened, and it found very little fraud, they would have become suspicious of the software because their priors were that the postmasters were a bunch of thieves.

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njovin ◴[11 Jul 25 16:26 UTC] No.44534079[source]▶
So the PO creates a franchise program that they later decide isn't suitable for any sane, good-faith actor, and instead of revising the terms of the franchise program to make it so, they assume that the participants are criminals and prosecute them?
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lawlessone ◴[11 Jul 25 17:53 UTC] No.44535146[source]▶
The same way many think about welfare/unemployment/disability schemes.

Constant hoops to jump through to prove they're looking for work or still incapable.

Or in the case of illness to prove they're still sick. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59067101

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wagwang ◴[11 Jul 25 21:43 UTC] No.44537052[source]▶
Well yes, you're trying to take money from other people, of course you need to prove that you need it.
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jacksnipe ◴[11 Jul 25 21:59 UTC] No.44537186[source]▶
Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem “obvious” from first principles, but from a policy point of view, it makes little to no sense.

The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the big picture, and create programs that are destined to fail by not reaching many of the people they need to.

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1. stretchwithme ◴[11 Jul 25 22:08 UTC] No.44537259[source]▶
Citation needed for the right to other people's money.

Government running charity interferes with the normal feedback in society. And the need to ask politely, justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing behavior.

People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away.

Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.

I grew up on welfare. I've also seen how a lot of people on welfare actually live and how they spend their time. They don't spend it cleaning, I can tell you that.

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2. LocalH ◴[11 Jul 25 22:31 UTC] No.44537435[source]▶
Administration of means testing is often more expensive than doing away with the means testing.

How about UBI coupled with repealing the minimum wage?

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3. tenacious_tuna ◴[11 Jul 25 22:58 UTC] No.44537638[source]▶
I would rather we have a system that is too generous and gets taken advantage of than one that is too parsimonious where people die for want of food and shelter that we could provide for them.

We exist in a world where people can be unable to work or even advocate for themselves through no fault of their own. As we raise the bar for how people have to prove that they "need" help, there will be people who die because they don't have the capacity to prove that. In theory we have social workers (as a societal role) but in reality they're underfunded/don't have capacity for the same reasons.

This feels like the same moral argument behind the presumption of innocence in the American legal system: far better to let criminals walk free than to falsely imprison an innocent person. Why do we not apply the same logic to welfare?

I mean, I know why: we're worried the system would get taken advantage of and not serve the people it's "meant" to help.... but then, who does it help? How much effort is it worth making people spend to prove they need help when that effort comes with a blood cost?

I agree with GP that welfare systems make for better societies--see also, public healthcare. I have several friends who are alive because of welfare systems. I grew up with people whose family squandered the welfare they got, but I don't view that as sufficient reason to withhold welfare from anyone else; I just accept that's the cost of a system that helps people.

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4. standardUser ◴[12 Jul 25 00:15 UTC] No.44538114[source]▶
> Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.

Ok bro, while you're out there building morally pure systems the rest of us will do research and learn what actually works in the real world.

5. duk3luk3 ◴[12 Jul 25 00:38 UTC] No.44538256[source]▶
> a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us

No, that seems like mostly you. Most people are not motivated by fear.

6. justusthane ◴[12 Jul 25 01:52 UTC] No.44538633[source]▶
That’s my soapbox — I think that’s the only feasible hope for the future, taking into account increased efficiency, fewer jobs, and higher corporate profits. UBI funded by higher corporate taxes.

I just don’t see any realistic way to make it actually happen.

7. MBCook ◴[12 Jul 25 02:43 UTC] No.44538866[source]▶
Yep. Better to catch $1m in fraud by spending $20m than to spend $10m helping people with a possibility of $2m in fraud.

It makes no economic sense. It’s not more humane/helpful. But it’s what we ‘choose’ over and over.

8. dataflow ◴[12 Jul 25 05:58 UTC] No.44539688[source]▶
> Administration of means testing is often more expensive than doing away with the means testing. How about UBI coupled with repealing the minimum wage?

Er... why wouldn't UBI be more expensive?

I'm not even arguing against UBI here, I'm just trying to make sense of your claim, which seems quite dubious.

9. soraminazuki ◴[12 Jul 25 08:28 UTC] No.44540305[source]▶
Citation needed that your neoliberal views are anything other than bad faith voodoo economics. We have decades' worth of proof that it's toxic for society, both politically and economically. Your whole talking point is an excuse for the ultra rich to get even richer through mass exploitation, which ironically is the embodiment of entitlement that you're so opposed to.