I do wonder this.
I buy most of my groceries from Costco and Aldi. I’m sure it saves me a lot of $$ but I’ve not done any price comparisons recently.
Consumers need a union. Badly.
ETA: I have noticed that prices seem higher the few times I’ve been at the “normal” grocery store. I think some stores hold prices down more than others so I reward the stores that work harder in my interest. Except Walmart. Fuck Walmart.
Addiction. People are psychologically addicted to fast foods. This is like asking poor people why they don’t quit smoking to save money.
Speaking as someone who worked fourteen hour days in the video game industry for fucking peanuts… explain when I was supposed to cook dinner. And I live in a high CoL area - don’t assume I had a stay at home partner or private chef or any of that bullshit. Most weekends I’d sleep straight through to catch up on sleep I had lost during the week.
Fast food isn’t cheap, so you weren’t doing any favors to yourself if you were actually making peanuts (tip: if you were eating Fast food regularly, you were better off financially than you thought). It takes like 120 seconds out of the day to prepare enough rice to last a person a whole day. Throw on some washed veggies to steam at the same time. There are definitely better options out there.
if you were eating Fast food regularly, you were better off financially than you thought
Wow, so being able to afford a McDouble or a McChicken on the regular means I’m well off? Despite the fact that it is absolutely more expensive to buy ingredients for dinner??
If we’re saying you’re buying $20+ meals every time you eat, then yeah, you are better off - but most of the time, people eat fast food because it is absolutely cheaper and easier to do than it is to buy ingredients to make meals with. If all you have is $5 to your name because you can barely afford rent and expenses, are you gonna go buy a head of lettuce and a potato for the whole $5, or are you gonna go to McDonalds and be able to eat 5 meals for $1 per meal?
Never said well off, but not as poor as you think. I think McDonald’s prices vary regionally but even in my LCoL area, you can’t buy a “meal” for less than $8.
If all you have is $5 to your name because you can barely afford rent and expenses, are you gonna go buy a head of lettuce and a potato for the whole $5
If you’re smart, yes.
or are you gonna go to McDonalds and be able to eat 5 meals for $1 per meal?
This hasn’t been the case for years. The only items for $1 that McDonald’s sells now are sodas.. You can’t even get one proper meal from McD’s for that whole $5.
I live in a VHCOL area, and I can tell you both the McChicken and the McDouble are around $3 where I live. Also, please tell me what kind of satisfying meal you can make with a lettuce and a potato that you can stretch for more than 5 meals, because I’d very much like to hear your idea of a meal based on those two ingredients alone. Hell, tell me any satisfying meal you can make for $5 that can stretch for 5 meals - and don’t just go “bUy ThE fIvE dOlLaR cHiCkEn”, because that requires a membership for either Sam’s Club or Costco, both of which are expensive to afford when you’re earning peanuts.
McDonald’s does sell sodas for $1, but there are actual food items that are on their $3/$2/$1 menu.
Potato and lettuce were your idea, not mine. I said rice, which is perfectly satisfying fried or steamed and with maybe some steamed veggies to people who aren’t, you know, addicted to greasy, colorful, highly-caloric, processed “foods.” None of what you just linked is a meal to well-adjusted people.
What five meals are you getting from McDonald’s at one dollar each?
Just to clarify, have you ever worked a 58 hour week with an additional ten hours commuting? I think you’re underestimating the mental fatigue involved with that much work and how difficult it can be to find energy to buy groceries and keep a kitchen stocked after that.
This isn’t the pity Olympics. I can tell you that I was self-employed while a full-time student, making random 200+ mile trips for work all hours of the day, “working” probably 80+ hours a week and sleeping every chance I got, but I don’t think you’d believe or care. A 20lb bag of rice is like $15 at most. If you’re actually poor and actually have no time, then you can’t afford to do anything but prepare your own food.
I’m glad you had the fortitude after working 80 hours to drive hundreds of miles and cook yourself a meal - personally, I didn’t and I don’t think most people would have.
Also if you’ve spent hours slaving away in front of a stove working fast food, the idea of spending a few hours more slaving in front of your own stove to make dinner isn’t particularly tempting.
It doesn’t matter, because boycotts are generally futile since they at best only address skin level symptoms (at worst, and almost always - you’re just giving your money to a different scummy capitalist), they can’t cure the cancer, which is precisely why they’re touted as a wonderful solution (by capitalists trying to ensure the public don’t take any meaningful action against them).
George Monbiot is a fantastic writer.
I partly agree but I do think you have cause and effect (or disease and symptom if you will) swapped around. You‘re saying people don‘t do boycotts because they are futile. I would say it‘s the other way around and to answer OPs question, I think it largely comes down to commodity and mindlessness. But either way I think you are definitely right to suggest there must be systemic change and that all of this co2 compensation bullshit is just corporations guilt-tripping us into thinking we can consume our way out of this mess. However, the problem is that both approaches, the personal boycotts and the systemic change share a common factor, which is the requirement of mass action. If people aren‘t mindful enough to stop buying a particular kind of yoghurt, how are you ever going to get them to vote, much less stage a revolution? I think we need to get out of our passivity and boycotting things is a step in the right direction to establish a feel for personal agency.
If people aren‘t mindful enough to stop buying a particular kind of yoghurt, how are you ever going to get them to vote, much less stage a revolution? I think we need to get out of our passivity
How about people who aren’t mindful enough of those who can’t stop buying one brand or another, but especially of the reasons why??? (like - they only have one local store that only carries the one brand, or they carry two brand made by the same parent company, or they have three brands, two by the same company and the third by another one with just-as-bad practices. Or they’re too poor to buy the more “ethical” brand, or they simply don’t have the time in their day to even be aware of a boycott over exploitative practices, because they themselves are being exploited at 3 different jobs just to survive) I guarantee that a lack of that kind of mindfulness hurts the working class significantly more than the kind you’re angry about.
If you want people to stop being “passive” - you destroy the system designed to keep them that way (not actually passive at all, they’re probably more active than you’ll ever be, just deliberately kept undereducated and too busy trying to survive), insisting on them continuing to play by the rules said system has made available to them (precisely because they have no real impact) only serves those in power to maintain the status quo.
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That article needs to be its own post
(US Perspective) It’s hard to boycott food when like 10 companies own everything. Even store brands are just re-packaged “name” brands.
Edit: Obligatory: Fuck Nestle. I’m already boycotting the whole left side of that chart.
Fuck Nestle indeed. I’ve been boycotting their shit since they started hawking water bottled in communities without reliable access to clean water.
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all of them do
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Yeah, these are all prepared foods in the picture. Maybe people don’t know but you can just like… make your own food.
Lots of things are just flour with other ingredients baked in an oven. Soda is just sugar and fizzy water. If you’ve never had homemade potato chips, you haven’t lived.
This weekend, find a recipe for a basic ingredient that you like (ketchup, mayo, bread, etc.) and buy the ingredients for it. Then make it. You’ll be surprised how easy and tasty it is. Mayo is like eggs and oil. Why pay $5 for a crappy version of it?
Not trying to gotcha you or nothing, but it’s funny, that image being hosted on amazon aws.
Haha. I was going to upload it to my own instance, but AWS-hosted media typically don’t block hotlinking. Saves me some bandwidth egress costs and storage xD
That’s not even just a US perspective. That definitely applies to North America in general and Europe. There are supposedly anti-monopoly laws but huh, would you look at that… it’s almost like they’re ineffective.
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It’s a bold statement to say the government polices anything other than the underprivileged.
Donxc forget the other issues on supermarket chain. Which are also an oligopoly.
One of the reason why european farmer are getting angry is that they are pushed to sell at low prices by supermarket purchasing departments and see the price of their products multiplied by 10 when sold to the consumer.
Not consuming highly processed food from Nestle is doable. Not buying anything at the supermarket gets complicated unless you have money and time (and I wouldn’t be surprised that many neighbourhood and organic shop still buy food through the large supermarket purchasing chain)
It’s so effective, but you just can’t expect to get everyone on board sadly. Unfortunately it seems that there will always be those that value the convenience of Amazon, for example, over pushing for real change. Look at Bud Light, I hated the reasoning behind the boycott but it showed just how powerful collective action can be against corporations.
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I would think that there were very few people doing that overall. I’ll have to find the articles again but they suffered a massive drop in sales, it’s possible though that those sales figures have since recovered but I don’t have that info on hand.
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Because boycotting food means you starve.
People are just not price sensitive to most things. It’s also seen as bad to be thrifty, most people think of you as being cheap or stingy. Everything is about appearances now, people are more worried about what other people think than their own interests.
Companies have also figured out that they can make more profit by raising prices and shipping less product. They have to pay less in overhead and wages and get the same amount of money.
It’s a tough pill to swallow
But 150 years ago, folks were being given swaths of land, not knowing dick about that land, just for like… Fighting in wars.
Now, they let veterans starve and kill themselves.
Just saw a sad gif of a long line at the Costco rotisserie chicken stand.
People won’t say enough is enough until they’re hungry.
We’re close.
The most lucrative positions are experiencing enormous layoffs.
2025-2030 is going to be WWIII and the greatest class war.of all time.
I just hope shit turns out okay for 2030 and beyond. Global warming ain’t making that likely.
Sorry for doomer. But we either have a Renaissance era and burn or have an enslavement era and burn. I’m not loving the odds.
I am not a historian, but I get a sense that perhaps the intellectuals at least seemed to think that democracy (in the USA specifically, but also perhaps everywhere?) were just waiting to see how this grand “experiment” turns out. So there has practically always (since 1776 when the fire of democracy was re-ignited in the world after its long hiatus) been this expectation that we might someday fail, and each time something highly challenging comes around they likely re-visited that thought that perhaps it would be soon?
The difference is that this time, it’s for real. Even if there were solves already in-place for both globalization and automation, how would climate change be dealt with? I am not saying that it’s a 100% certainty - nothing ever truly is, until it has already happened - but I am agreeing with you that there seems less room for hope than ever before, that our way of life will survive intact.
I predict, for instance, that people will start demanding that their employers offer them housing. They might even start demanding longer-term contracts. In essence, they WANT slavery, as opposed to what is coming: anarchy & lawlessness. What good is “freedom” when you have no home, no job, no food, and can’t do what you want anyway? This whole “government = bad” idea will cause many people to take refuge in the only other thing that offers even a glimpse of a good(-ish) life: enslavement to corporations. In return they will house, feed, and clothe you - if only barely - and you will in turn commit your very soul to looking after their needs rather than your own, including devoting every waking moment of… oh my, we are already there! (except without the “taking care of you part”)
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Tbf, I was accepting that there is a situation in front of us that needs to be dealt with, i.e. accepting that there WILL be a crisis - any question on that front seems in the past. But I never said who I thought will win:-) Honestly I don’t know the latter, though in either case yes I do think that a lot of people will give up rather than fight.
The REALLY odd part about all of this, imho, is that the type of person who previously fought on the side of freedom, now is mislead to be acting on behalf of the oppressors. Those who grabbed their muskets and fought to the DEATH against the external British overlords, are now the ones voting for increased corporate power, and increased non-aggression or even thoughts of aid towards the expansionist Russia, which will only be friendly in return for a few decades until it decides that it wants us as well. Yes, this side has “guns”, but what good are even fully automatic machine-gun rifles when pitted against TRULY modern weapons like weaponized viruses, nukes deployable from fucking orbit, and perhaps most dangerous of all, the ability to control all flow of all money, which puts a strangle-hold on all supply lines such that failure to comply means starvation.
In short, you are correct that I do not put much stock in the mere words that people are throwing around, no matter how “tough” or “inspiring” they sound. Instead I am looking at the trajectory of actions, such as USA Republican obstructionism, UK Brexit, Russian expansionism, and the like. And to me, it seems like fascism is winning. People BLED and DIED to fight against it as recently as WWII - but that was then, while now they would be turning over in their graves to find that their children’s generation (Boomers) are just handing the world meekly over to it within their/our home countries. McCarthism is back, book burning is back, and everything old it seems we are trying over again, like it was for the first time. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.
The REALLY odd part about all of this, imho, is that the type of person who previously fought on the side of freedom, now is mislead to be acting on behalf of the oppressors.
I think there’s some American mythology causing you to see things this way. In short, the American revolution was fueled by Washington recruiting a lot of drunks and fuck ups, and after they won the war they wanted Washington to be king. Similar to Scotland and the movie Braveheart, the mythology has gotten so popular that people start to think the majority or even all of the fighting force was ideologically aligned to some idea of freedom and inalienable rights or something. It wasn’t.
Tbf, they did not desire taxation without representation, and a local king would have met the goal for them to feel “represented”. At least more so than the remote one in England, who had to spend tons of money on far-away matters such as dealing with France, Spain, Portugal, etc. A local King would instead spend money on local matters, such as dealing with the indigenous peoples present in the Americas. Still taxation, but they would benefit from it more.
Democracy hadn’t been a thing since ancient Greece, after which it languished under Turkish rule for several hundreds of years, and I wonder how much most uneducated people at the time knew even about that. Though some French philosophers such as Voltaire, and the English Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I had to look him up: he was Genevan:-) were popular reading at the time, among the elites, and possibly they shared some of that as stories at the local pubs or whatnot. So anyway, it makes total sense to me that they wanted him to be a King: that was all that they really knew about, at the time, to meet their goal?
But now I am saying that the situation is reversed: the ones pushing for the RADICAL changes, especially using VIOLENT means to overthrow the government, are not trying to throw off the shackles in order to return America to a more pristine state of “democracy” - the so-called “conservative” Republicans want to overthrow democracy, and instill Trump as their emperor. That’s moving backwards, towards fascism and away from democracy (VERY unlike the case with Washington, where they intended a more sideways move, not fully knowing that more was even possible).
Likewise, the UK wanted to exist within the scope of the EU but also not at the same time so… bye-bye I guess. Now they are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED that they are “out”. Even they seem to think now they have moved backwards, and many report wishing that they could undo what was done. They can do as they please yes, but they seemed not to realize that others have that same privilege as well. Especially the ones living in other countries, now shocked to find that they may be expected to pay taxes in those sovereign nations - what did they THINK was going to happen!?
Americans I presume would eventually be the same - not enjoying life under Trump’s boot heels, but like Brexit, the ability to return would have been lost. The ones pushing for that WANT the democracy gone, and for it to be replaced with a more useful (to them) fascism, bc with globalization and automation, they do not have need of a large educated workforce, such as doctors and scientists, and they seem to be wanting to “streamline” the population, much as companies are currently streamlining their direct employees. An example is Trump’s COVID policy of “just let them
eat cakedie”. Fewer resources taken up by worthless people - like Oxygen consumption and smaller populations being less susceptible to pandemics - leave more for the rich to have whatever they want.I think you’ve (perhaps inadvertantly) hit the nail on the head by drawing a comparison to revolutionary groups. Even plagued by the encroaching mythology and rhetoric it’s easy to see why the same group of revolutionary boosters are today’s reactionary retrogrades:
In revolutionary times, monied interests and industry desired to evade England’s taxes, and today those same groups seek to continue perpetually evading the taxes of America’s government.
In other words, the rich fucks think they’ll be able to fair better under Trump as dictator than they would facing the occasional failed attempt at tax reform by Democrats.
The gravy seals are partially led by the nose by the exact same group of affluent pig fuckers as the minutemen and, in other cases, they aren’t being led as they simply are the same rich group.
Among the other elements present at the January 6th insurrection were sizable numbers of the American landlord class, some even chartering private flights to attend and participate.
That’s what I was saying yes: a tool is just a tool, the intent lies in the hand of those who would wield it. Though in this case, the BLAME lies in both those who hollow themselves out to be willing to become such a tool, and those who would use them: case in point those who showed up on January 6 to “defend the Constitution” - how many now have the good sense to be horrified at what they were involved in? Regardless, it is up to those who are cognizant to do something about it, or else just sit back and watch it all happen.
But one thing I want to make clear: this is not just the one-dimensional Rich vs. the Poors. This is some Rich folk who don’t really give a damn either way - b/c they’ve bought both sides - vs. some different set of Rich folk who do, and the latter making use of the Tools at their disposal to get their way. Among the former are probably people like Bill Gates who literally cannot spend enough in his entire lifetime to ever get rid of even a fraction of it, plus Warren Buffet who literally advocates for politicians to raise taxes (it’s not like they ever will ofc, no matter what he says:-D). Then in the second category I would expect to find people like Jeff Bezos who tracks his workers time in the bathrooms, making them choose between washing their hands vs. getting back to work on time so as not to get fired, regardless if they are pregnant or whatever; and ofc Elon Musk.
I am saying that the TRULY, generationally wealthy, likely don’t even give a damn, and some seem to even want their taxes RAISED - obviously not so much as to lower their standard of living, but if it helps avoid revolts then they would be okay with that - while the “wannabe” Rich are the ones who seem to want their taxes kept low.
And yes, there are some Poors who truly do side with the Rich, I guess b/c they either hate themselves or think they are displaced millionaires, but either way they have bought into the pyramid/hierarchical thinking concept that the Rich are the ones who deserve their wealth.
So to bring this back to my original point several comments back: if I sound defeatist it is b/c originally the goals of the Rich and the Poor just happened to align in the Revolutionary War, and too in WWI, WWII, etc., whereas now, for perhaps the first time in a truly completionist way, they no longer align. What I mean by the latter point is that, for example having a ready-made source of young soldiers to fight wars for you, it used to be to the benefit of the Rich to keep the Poor vaguely happy. Whereas now, with automation bringing robots rather than humans to the battlefield (and everywhere else as well), they seem ready to throw off the shackles of needing to keep the Poor in any state whatsoever. So let them
eat cakedie already, it makes little difference to them anymore.
Your dystopia doesn’t account for automation. Corporations don’t even want your labour.
A social crisis seems inevitable on our current trajectory.
Then for WHO are the corporations creating products for? There isn’t a growing pool of rich people. It’s shrinking.
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Well I did say that people would demand it… which as you correctly point out, is by no means a guarantee that corporations would want to accept.
It’s an interesting perspective. Wherein I see people deliberately destroying property of the “automated” on a scale of property damage the world has never seen.
Like it won’t be kings heads rolling. It’ll be their drones burning.
I mean sure, that too but… what would it accomplish really? There is an arms race, but look at Bill Gate’s house… exactly (first, where is it, second, which one(s), third, they are on like entire HUGE islands, fourth they can move the whole thing at a moment’s notice, fifth there are other defensive options too, etc. etc. etc.), plus there will always be the “collaborators” who will say “but no, they are the JOB creators” as if that justifies doing, or not doing, anything at all.
Anyway, tech has reached the point that we can put it inside of our very bodies, to hide & power it, plus with CRISPR the tech flat-out becomes our bodies. At least, if you are talking about the stuff available to
billionairestrillionaires, whereas to us “normies” all we get are cellphones to mollify & pacify us, yay (and even that privilege comes at the cost of also tracking us, plus can be taken away if we do not cooperate fully or fast enough).Anyway, tech is neither Good nor Evil, it simply is - and automation isn’t the problem, though it could be part of the solution, e.g. if it were to solve climate change for us?
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It makes sense. It might also be the house of like his butler who delivers him food occasionally, while he himself lives in a plane flying around the earth that never sets down… or something. I am mostly joking here ofc:-).
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I don’t think what you or I would do is anywhere close to an accurate measure as to what to expect from one of the richest people on the planet… But if I were swimming in money, then yeah - I’d for sure share it with others. That must be the reason why I am not a trillionaire:-).
Can you take that last part, put it to a cool font, add some vaporwave and a filter, and make it the stylings of an Cyberpunk 80s movie?
With a bit of rewording, it would be rad for a pixel indie game or something. It goes hard.
And its uncomfortable so I want it in a more palatable form lol
Best I can offer is this:
I believe it is a self-portrait of Donald Trump’s clone from 2040?
USA was never a democracy, though. It’s a republic, and recent decades have shown it to become more and more the banana variant.
Wikipedia:
The United States is a federal republic of 50 states
I dunno, it is a plutocracy now, but why wasn’t it a democracy when it started?
Democracy has it’s own inherent issues, for one the majority has complete authority over any minority group. At its worst democracy is a mob that doesnt care about any minorities issues. As in if you cant get your issue/cause agreed to by more than half of the population, it’s never going to happen. Democracy isnt inherently good,
We live in an apartment. I can’t grow my own food. What do you expect us to eat? Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually avoid buying products that support one of these greedy brands? It’s almost everything on the shelf.
When ‘let them eat kellogs’ becomes more of a reality
You see, were old poor. Were used to it. You need new poor to really get things going
I tried boycotting food but then I got hungry.
I started foraging and buying from farmers markets…
You must smell amazing
In reality foraging is a great way to supplement your diet of farmers market produce on top of having an edible garden.
There is also the fact that my farmers market also includes a local soap maker…
If your local farmers market doesn’t have a soap maker go try your local craft market.
What does soap have to do with the sweet smell of berries and fruit?
Oh, my apologies I was on the defensive and took your comment sarcastically.
I assumed earthy forests and mushrooms and was now want to forage :)
When will politicians start muttering about price controls?
In my view, the issue is that most people are not willing to change their own patterns in the slightest.
It’s always somebody else’s responsibility to give things exactly how they want. Personal responsibility and decisions have no play.
“Fuck Nestle. Oh yeah but I needed water, what was I supposed to do, die? I had no choice but to purchase water in plastic, there was no other store around and I don’t know how to plan for my needs in advance. There is simply no way to anticipate that I could have needed water and fill a reusable bottle before I leave the house.”
“The price of fast food is insane. It does not occur to me that I don’t need to purchase this, and I have no inherent right to get it at a cheap price. It has also never occurred to me to go to the grocery store. Oh wait, yes it actually did occur to me, but I really don’t want to cook, I want somebody else to make the food for me and for it to be cheap.”
Personally, I’m done with Sony, I’m done with Nestle, I’m done with Walmart, I’m done with fast food, I’m done with Netflix. I’m done with all the places that behave unethically, and it would not be fair of me to complain about them while also patronizing them. I don’t think you’ll find this attitude in general population.
I hate Walmart too and we definitely gave up fast food. But my only other choice for groceries is Reasors and they are fucking us on prices. So where do I shop for my groceries?
This guy wouldn’t know the meaning of the phrase “food desert” if it hit him at 60 mph while he was in a crosswalk.
I agree saw his reply to another comment who raised a similar point and he thinks we are just not looking hard enough. Dude clueless. Must be nice to live somewhere that has 1000 choices.
It’s also because “the free market will fix it” is neoliberal bullshit that is pushed precisely because it doesn’t work. It’s just a way of blaming consumers for the horrifically immoral actions of corporations and they’ve suckered you right in.
Regulations could immediately stop Nestle using child slaves, no boycotts required.
The biggest shrinkflation culprit is food. People need food. Recent trends do, in fact, show that American consumers have been switching to cheaper brands and reducing consumption of some items, but boycotting is unrealistic. People need to eat and a handful of massive corporations own most brands.
What, haven’t you all spent three months to grow one head of lettuce? Just skip breakfast for breakfast and eat cereal for dinner!
This is extra funny to me because I do grow leafy greens.
