cigs, energy drinks, breakfast burrito
Libs could watch homeless people get fed liquified gruel through a dirty pipe, and they'd still worry about whether it's been "earned."
Burritos and drinks are called 'sustenance' which lets people survive and work the day. If they're living to hand-to-mouth then they may only be able to afford to buy their food for the day on that very morning. And yes, cigs are a way people will try to cope with that kind of struggling existence.
i was gonna say you can make ur own coffee for less than cigs, but you can also roll ur own tobacco and $10 will get you enough tobacco to roll hundreds of stogies
ofc coffee is easier to use in moderation and is less likely to kill you
This shit really bothers me. I grew up in a big family, spent most of my childhood in a single wide, we all lived in a studio apartment for a while, and my parents worked like dogs. And they would splurge whatever they had on dumb shit for us.
I can remember a family member being critical when mom got us a snes, lmao. Sorry, but those few hundred bucks weren't getting us out of poverty. Shoutout to mom for probably putting that on a credit card that never got paid.
Sorry, but those few hundred bucks weren’t getting us out of poverty.
The idea of "economic rationality" itself is kinda sus but still, this thinking is totally rational and reasonable. I feel like I've heard smart people who study poverty say the same thing. What's the point of saving money here and there when you're poor in the US? Any bit that you save is either not going to make a real impact (like what are you gonna do when you're poor, save all that extra money in a 401k for retirement?) or it's gonna get taken away from you via fines, medical bills, etc. Might as well make life a little more bearable.
It's all because capitalist society wants you to feel bad for using any of "their" (the capitalists) money to sustain yourself - food stamps, medicaid, etc. That money your folks spent on an snes - well to them that's money they could have used instead of you "taking money from the taxpayers". It's not because they think you should save wisely out of a spirit of thriftyness as a virtue, but because they just think you're taking "their" money. And this thinking has been so effective in dividing the working class, I've even seen it in people who are still poor but not as poor as other people. It's so gross, death to America etc etc.
I know we have beef with Weber, but this is peak calvinist and protestant work ethic. Thriftiness and material efficiency are very tied to that kind of thinking.
The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt—your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.
:marx-hi:
Yeah, our family wasn't like this, but we had lean times occasionally. Shoutout to parents who spend their one night a month date money on useless crap just because it lights up their kids' faces.
I don't want to exaggerated our situation, I had a lovely childhood and we ate every night, but yeah. I would do the same thing my folks did. There's no light at the end of the tunnel, anyhow.
when mom got us a snes
they sneer at the ticket price, but are damned fools to ignore the marginal utility.
Oh you're barely able to afford rent? Just save 5 years wages each year for 3 years and buy your own house.
You'd have all the food you want after you skip a couple meals.
It's 2005 and Bill O'riley is red faced yelling about how someone on food stamps bought lobster tail from the super market
It’s like when people are talking about frivolous lawsuits and someone chimes in how they heard about this burglar who fell through a skylight and sued the homeowner, and won. Like that’s literally a story from a Jim Carrey movie (“Liar Liar”, I think).
That one was real, but it was a dude who settled with a school district because they painted over the skylights (literally making it a booby-trap) and the school district knew about it as an issue because it happened to another kid at the same district who wasn't trespassing.
To the capitalist, every luxury of the worker seems to be reprehensible, and everything that goes beyond the most abstract need – be it in the realm of passive enjoyment, or a manifestation of activity – seems to him a luxury.
I didn't think the whole food desert thing applies to water but holy shit it do. When I was in Kentucky for work and I noticed at all the gas stations the biggest water you could buy was the small Dasani bottles. Meanwhile theyd have the big 2 liter bottles of soda for the same price
What really got me was an obese woman drinking straight from a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi that was almost finished and all I could think was that she probably bought it that same morning. Shit was a major culture shock and really made me feel :desolate:
Wait until real food starts getting restricted and bugs are all we get.
also the vital necessities of life are being over charged to them
The same folks angry at this guy for buying a pack of cigs will lose their damned minds if RJ Reynolds stock dips by 6% at year's end.
And don't even think of asking these assholes how much it costs to make a coat.
And yet you are living paycheck-to-paycheck, when you could be investing that ten dollars in a mutual fund generating 6% APY which compounds to more than $57 over a 30 year term. Curious.
