• @protist@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    16 months ago

    To be clear, if you’re at all concerned about maintaining a food budget, even if it’s $500/week the billionaire class is still your enemy.

    • DreamButt
      link
      fedilink
      English
      16 months ago

      To be clear, the billionaire class is your enemy

        • @iAvicenna@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          with 100mils you can buy two luxurious houses and still have enough money to spend a million each year which is more money than most people make in their entire life, so yea kind of on the border.

        • @boonhet@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          Any billionaire can lose 90% of their wealth and have above 100 million left.

          Many can lose 99% and have above 100 million left.

          Some can lose 99% and still be billionaires.

          The 100 millionaire will still have a million or more left after losing 99%, but that’s not “live like hogs in the fat house forever” money at least. It’s just “I don’t have to worry if I lose my job” money.

          A hundredbillionaire can lose 99% of their money and not make any perceptible changes in their lifestyle.

          I propose the following:

          Gap individual wealth at 50000x the national median annual income. Max wealth anyone in the US could have is, at present, under 2 billion. Other countries will vary, but generally it’s plenty enough to motivate people to innovate, but nobody gets to be Bezos or Musk wealthy. Yachts should count towards this wealth gap, at a depreciation rate of 5% a year off the build cost. Primary residence doesn’t count unless it’s also used for generating income. You get to have one car, regardless of price, that doesn’t get counted towards it, and the other ones count at market value. So you can have your classic car that appreciates in price, and a daily driver - without having to worry about the classic car’s effect on your wealth limit.

          Side effect is that now suddenly rich people near the gap will be a lot more interested in paying better wages to the working class. Why? Because then they’d get to keep more of their money. And to raise the median efficiently, you need to be raising wages for the poorest among us first and foremost.

          • @greencactus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            06 months ago

            Holy cow, they can lose 90% of their wealth and still be above 100 mil. The math checks out, but my gosh, how rich are they?!

            • @boonhet@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              06 months ago

              It’s ridiculous.

              Numbers are funny, anyway. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth is closer to yours and mine than it is to Elon Musk (Forbes list currently placing them at ~100 bill and ~250 bill respectively). But that’s only in absolute terms. In reality, Jensen’s got like 8 or 9 orders of magnitude more wealth than I do depending on how far into the month we are, and on the same order of magnitude as Musk.

              Either one losing 99% of their wealth would still be above a billion.

          • Melody Fwygon
            link
            fedilink
            English
            0
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            In general; I think even 2 billion is too much. Nobody needs that much money.

            At best; I think no one should be able to have more than about 500 Million. You get one house, and one car for each adult family member if you’re married with non-adult kids. Adult kids don’t add uncounted vehicles; they have their own limit. Anything that is seaworthy or airworthy counts as about as much “Wealth” as you initially spent on it minus a reasonable depreciation rate yearly as determined by the market, so no buying a thing and having it lose 30% of it’s value the moment you drive it off the lot after buying it.

            Additionally; to block too many shenanigans; wealth added by any property that is bought sticks; 3 years at minimum. This prevents people from storing too much excess in property and shell-gaming it. A company you own or have stake in cannot lend (in a long term) or gift you property in excess of 1% to 10% the wealth limit. (Depending on what the thing is). Companies may also not hold property or money in lieu of an individual personally; everything the company owns must have a global company function; and not personally benefit one or more people only. (Basically no executive-only or owner-only Jets; everyone from the tiniest manager on up should have access to it if there’s a business reason for it)

            • @boonhet@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              06 months ago

              Oh I agree that even 2 billion is too much, but my reasoning is that proponents of capitalism often make the claim that capitalism drives innovation (you try to fill some market niche in order to get rich) so if they are right, then 2 billion should be enough that this still works.

              I had yachts depreciating to zero in my example because it’s estimated that you have to spend about 10% of its’ purchase price annually anyway, so anyone keeping a 20 year old yacht around is going to be spending a lot of money on it that will fuel other parts of the economy.

          • @ifItWasUpToMe@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            06 months ago

            It’s just a class that is absolutely exploring people. You can’t become a billionaire without it. You can absolutely become an honest millionaire so it wouldn’t make sense to use that.

            • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
              link
              fedilink
              16 months ago

              Yeah like there are folks who are worth 10ish million who just bought a house 50ish years ago that gained a lot of value and had dual incomes that saved all their money for retirement.

              100 million folks are on THIN ice, but there is probably an author or inventor out there who made something really nice and everyone they worked with was also well taken care of. Most of them are probably garbage, but not all of them have to be. Some famous actors also were well known for making sure everyone got paid what they deserved on set and were very generous.

              I just don’t see getting to a billion without someone being taken advantage of on the way though.

          • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            06 months ago

            Lack of understanding of class. Billionaires are just the obscene top of the top of the bourgeoisie and they do excercise disproportional power in the ruling class, but the class war isn’t only about them, it’s about the system which makes their power possible. For example China also have billionaires, but they aren’t even 1/100 of a problem there.

      • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        06 months ago

        Hey, there might be some politicians on here who can always call up their good friends whenever they need something!

      • ObjectivityIncarnate
        link
        fedilink
        06 months ago

        Which of course is a stupid comparison indicative of economic ignorance, because wealth does not grow linearly for anyone who doesn’t stuff their money under a mattress.

      • bufalo1973
        link
        fedilink
        06 months ago

        Represented as a volume is also great. If I’m not wrong, his wealth in 500€ bills is a 165 m (180 yards) cube. One million is 3 l (a little less than 0.8 gallons).

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      If the goal of giving budgeting advice is to make people stop demanding better treatment from their employers, it is incredibly malicious.

      Unions recommending/setting up carpooling and potlucks while on strike so the money they pay lasts = good

      Employers telling you that minimum wage is enough if you just have four room mates and eat nothing but rice and beans = Malicious

      • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        06 months ago

        I think people are tired of money saving advice because so much of it is corporate victim blaming, “You do get paid enough! You just are too lazy to work enough hours (We only offer 35 btw), have 3 room mates (Which would be illegal because of zoning laws), and cook your own meals (while also working 60 hours a week)!”

          • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
            link
            fedilink
            06 months ago

            Oh yeah totally understand, which is why I actually love sharing real versions of this content and sharing videos of people that actually do a good job, or dropping comments on if I successfully make something cheap and if it turned out good. Some people love to share “cheap meal plans” that are like 900 calories a day and annoy the crap out of me. Because clearly they didn’t try living off of it for any length of time, so I try to add a little voice of reason where I can.

            But I understand why a lot of people are just DONE with seeing money saving advice, since so much of it is appeasement not empowerment, if that makes sense.

            “Oh you want a raise? How about instead, learn to cook cheaper.”

            But me and a lot of the good hearted cheap cooks are more of a “Oh you want a raise? Yeah you probably need one, if food costs are killing you here’s some tasty recipes we found that might help save some money in short term while you work on long term problems.”

  • @Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    06 months ago

    Mmm, delicious advice duck … is telling me to eat the rich?
    Welp, who am I to question it’s wisdom, must be the right thing to do.

  • edric
    link
    fedilink
    06 months ago

    Hell, even if you can easily afford way more than that, you are still closer to the person who can only afford $2 of food a day than a billionaire.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      Ain’t that the truth! I’m a lay off and a medical emergency from needing to do this diet.

      Billionaires are either an apocalypse or a revolution away from needing to do this.

      One of these is much more likely to happen tomorrow than the other.

  • @WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    06 months ago

    Just thinking; maybe if people stop trying to get rid of political target and instead started target billionaires, then maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better place for everyone.

    Just thinking.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      I guess that’s the main problem with billionaires, is we didn’t pick any of them, and once they’re a super billionaire we can’t really do much about them.

      Oh don’t buy their products? They’re invested in everything, most food brands are just different names for the same factories. Oracle billionaire? WTF are you going to do to protest Oracle? Politicians we, are supposed to, pick. Billionaires become billionaires generally by being the worst, then there isn’t anything we can do about it.

      So we need to get the politicians on our side to keep the billionaires in check… or violent revolution. I’m a pacifist so I like the first one more, but if the majority is up for the second one, I’m not gonna say ya’ll are wrong.

      • Billionaires are a problem, but not the problem. Weath Inequality inherent in the economic system is the real enemy. Billionaires are only a symptom and a lightning rod.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      I feel like since they are mostly water weight, the math doesn’t always look great. But let’s go through it!

      For example: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Russet-Potatoes-10-lb-Bag-Whole/10449951?classType=REGULAR&from=/search

      10 pounds of food for $3 sounds great, but in a pound there is only 300 calories about, depending on type/peel/etc. So 3,000 calories for 3 dollars. At $1 per 1000 calories it isn’t bad.

      But let’s compare to this 5 pound bag of flour for 2.38, at 3 cents an ounce:

      https://www.walmart.com/search?q=flour

      A pound of flour has 1,600 calories. So this bag of flour that is cheaper than the potatoes, has 8000 calories for 2.50. But you’ll need to put in some elbow grease to make it edible. Doing a sourdough is probably the cheapest way to do it since all you need is flour, water, salt, and the starter you made using flour, but it is more time intensive. So about 3,200 calories for a dollar.

      Rice comes in with a very similar amount of calories, but just a little more expensive at 4 cents an ounce:

      https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Long-Grain-Enriched-Rice-5-lbs/10315395?classType=REGULAR&athbdg=L1600&from=/search

      Rice is a bit easier to turn edible though, so the extra dollar might be worth it for a 5 pound bag. 2,400 calories per dollar spent.

      Then oatmeal comes in as our most expensive at 7 cents an ounce.

      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KV4H51G?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

      At once again 1600ish calories for a pound of dry oatmeal, it is 1.12 per pound. So it is creeping up closer to the price of potatoes TBH, and if you were super on a budget the oatmeal would be the first to go. But I suppose potatoes aren’t “that” much worse than oatmeal. But my thought was oatmeal is good breakfast option so wanted to include it, and the top bit is mostly setup for bottom.

      Knowing this stuff is helpful to our daily lives because rich people hate us.

      • @qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        0
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        I think you need to include energy cost in the preparation stage. Bread requires a hot oven, which is a real amount of electricity — it’s close to $0.40/kWh where I live. From this link it says that a bread maker uses only .36kWh, but an electric oven would be more like 1.6kWh. So bakita single loaf of bread, you end up with a not insubstantial fraction of the total cost going to heating the oven.

        Of course, many bulk foods require heat, so it gets a little sticky this way. Oats/oatmeal probably wins out here, as you can just soak them overnight.

        • @desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          energy costs could probably be significantly reduced if the cooking was done on an industrial scale, so that most of the head goes into the food

        • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          Good point! Rice makers are super efficient, so rice made with that might be the winner. But honestly the cheap carbs you can stand and make edible cheaply are probably just what you gotta go with.

      • I'll be on ShareMySims@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        06 months ago

        I’m sure all of this is correct, but you’re forgetting one thing: potatoes are the only one of these you can grow enough of to eat at home, as long as you have space for a bucket or sack or two of soil, and which basically require zero processing aside from applying heat to consume.

        I agree with you that we shouldn’t actually need to know or use any of this information, and as a poor disabled person I also know that growing your own food isn’t always an option for everyone, but if it is an option, I think it at the very least puts potatoes back in the running.

        • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          You absolutely got me there! I mentioned making your own sour dough, but didn’t factor in growing potatoes.

  • What about eating people’s cats and allegedly ducks as well? Did you know thousands of pets are euthanized each year? That’s all just wasted food.

    • @Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      This man asking the real questions. As a non-conservative, I try to eat cats and dogs three times a week, and keep lagumes and oats to the other days.

      I never touch animal protein, as the fascists plant tracking devices in these creatures! Birds are also a concern, as they aren’t real and are really government survailance devices!

    • volvoxvsmarla
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      That’s why I never trust immigrant veterinarians. They are always very quick to jump to suggesting that I should put down my dog. I swear the more Asian they look the more likely they suggest euthanasia. Even if the condition my dog is in is very likely treatable. At this point I am very convinced that all the corpses do not go to cremation at all.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      The “red necks” who do road kill specials are just fighting against ground beef being $5/pound (which is somehow after all the subsidies they get in the US)!

      I feel like some red neck making fun of is straight up just making fun of folks who found a way to make do and be happy. Like owning your own land with a little pre fab you learned to maintain yourself, and eating lots of hunted game? Good stuff.

        • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          This is ML memes. If you came in here expecting us not to be over the top about “seize the means of production” and “eat the rich” then you gotta pay more attention.

          Sometimes I wonder if I’m far enough to the left to participate in ML.

  • Maple Engineer
    link
    fedilink
    0
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Ducks are delicious and eat the way you describe. If I eat ducks I’m eating those things once removed and enjoying it, too.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      Hey man if you have a legal place to hunt, go wild!

      Buying anything but the cheapest of meats these days is eye watering.

    • @howrar@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      More variety in your diet is likely to always be superior to less. That goes for both kids and adults. The trouble with younger kids is that deficiencies can impact their development and have more severe long term consequences, and they’re also less capable of seeking out foods to fill that gap.

      • @Spacehooks@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        06 months ago

        My mom basically starved so we could eat. I remember her giving me her food regularly. I Still only ate once a day even with her sacrifices. I expect I will be doing the same at this rate so I wanna do more for them if I cam.

        • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          06 months ago

          If the option is you all not eating enough, and eating primarily cheap bulk foods, do pick the cheap bulk foods. With cheap seasonings and making your own tortillas, breads, and gravies, you can have a large variety using the same 20ish cheap base ingredients.

          • @Spacehooks@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            06 months ago

            We are tortillas and rice all the time. Some days evey meal. Sure she upgraded it with veggies or added eggs but it’s like I was born of rice, molded by it, I didn’t know what a salad was until I was a man.

            • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
              link
              fedilink
              06 months ago

              Haha makes sense! I forgot I posted it, but as an experiment I actually did this just to see how hard it is.

              https://lemmy.world/post/17890870

              But I mean the main things you need are calories, vitamins, and complete proteins. Flour is the cheapest calorie you can get in the US, so cooking your own biscuits, tortillas, sour dough, and gravy will always be the most calories for your buck.

              Soy is a complete protein by itself, but rice and beans together are as well. Rice and beans is also a king of calories per price, so there is a reason I put it on there, and a reason you are alive it sounds like it!

              The last thing is vitamins from veggies/fruit. In my post I used small amounts of dried fruit in oatmeal, peas in gravy, then tomato sauce. So getting a mix cheap frozen/canned/dried fruit then having a bit of that each day will help. As will making gravies/sauces with different veggies/stir fries.

              I was able to do it under $2, and I might try it again with all different meals to try and make sure I can practice what I preach. I make one off cheap meals a lot, but don’t always do a full day.

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      I have no idea. There is a decent variety of foods that are 1000 calories for a dollar, and maybe combining all of them together is enough variety. But I’m not a doctor.

  • @ummthatguy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    06 months ago

    Just posted this a bit ago:

    “Sean Aloysius O’Brien… They fished his body out of the Allegheny river a week before the strike ended. Thirty two bullets he had in him. Or was it thirty four?” -Miles O’brien

    • @ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      06 months ago

      You’re not wrong! But I felt like some people wouldn’t think of split peas, and wanted to call out more than just “beans”