181–190 of 224 posts
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I don’t remember the last time I died from eating loose fresh fruit and veg.
These things do in fact happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis...
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I like the boot story as much as the next guy, but is this actually true in the real world? By which I mean something like this: In what categories of products do rich people actually spend less than poor people? Are there any? It's certainly true that top-end clothing lasts longer than cheap stuff. But the people who buy it like nice things, and variety. Maybe car repairs? But probably a trick of counting the new-ca…
it's all an information game of continuously and strategically evaluating every purchase! i buy almonds at the indian grocery for $5/lb in 3lb qty rather than $7. i drive a used toyota camry even though it's boring as hell but low $/mile. heck part of the value of desktop pcs is their modularity... there's also a subreddit called buyitonce iir.
You're thinking of /r/BuyItForLife.
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Compare prices between a Dollar General in a poor neighborhood and a walmart. One of those is going to be 30% higher (even more on some things). Supermarkets have a net profit of 1-2%. If walmart could charge 30% more for the same thing, they'd build in poor neighborhoods every time. They don't because the risk is too high when a store a couple minutes away offers lower overhead, lower prices and lower risk. Walmart…
You're making a lot of different claims here. You may be right about insurance etc, although the rent will be lower too... but I think there are much simpler explanations for why some things are more expensive in the shops in poorer neighbourhoods. Staff are a big expense anywhere, and if they spend their time on $10 purchases instead of $100 purchases, then the margins have to be higher. That's basically why Costco…
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An oatmeal recipe that I also consume for years: oatmeal, chocolate pillows (less than 5g sugar in total; that means around 10 of them (with the brand I use at least)), nuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, and some milk - not a lot of milk, though. To me, it tastes perfectly and has high content of fiber, protein and carbs, keeps you full for quite some time. Generally healthy and cheap.
What is a "pillow"? Do you have a recipe?
I think it contains a small amount of chocolate, enough for the taste. It's very similar to a cereal, just more "puffy" like a pillow.
No recipe - I buy it ready-made and use very small quantities of it (cause it has a lot of sugar otherwise)
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These are all true, but they are weaker examples than the boots, where the rich guy bought a higher quality version of something which both needed, and still saved money.
A cheap used car will get you where you want to go, but will cost more in maintenance and fuel to get that job done. It will need to be replaced more frequently than the car purchased by someone who will buy new or who will purchase a 'new-ish' used car, and when the time comes for replacement the rich guy will probably have some residual value in the car while the cheap car is probably being replaced because it is n…
What I'm disputing is that this is anything like the pattern, and that this is useful for thinking about poverty. People with more money spend more money on their cars, their clothes, their kitchens. They aren't staying rich by their ability to save 5% on their (larger) electricity bills by paying on time.
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Here in rural Iowa, Dollar General also has claimed the niche of "less stuff, but also nearby". You can either drive 5 minutes into town and go to the Dollar General for most of your basic needs, or you can drive a half hour to the nearest city with a Walmart / Target / etc. I really quite like stopping by to grab a quick thing or two. Around here, there tends to be a local grocery chain in the same vicinity, so gene…
> You can either drive 5 minutes into town and go to the Dollar General for most of your basic needs, or you can drive a half hour to the nearest city with a Walmart / Target / etc. I'm intrigued by these time estimates. Living in a suburb of Santa Cruz (just south of the Bay Area), the choices are similar. Completely inadequate corner store (much worse than DG) locally, or drive to a location with real stores. That…
Well, that made me laugh a bit, and it helped me frame why someone in a rural area would go to a Dollar General versus a Walmart.
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I like the boot story as much as the next guy, but is this actually true in the real world? By which I mean something like this: In what categories of products do rich people actually spend less than poor people? Are there any? It's certainly true that top-end clothing lasts longer than cheap stuff. But the people who buy it like nice things, and variety. Maybe car repairs? But probably a trick of counting the new-ca…
it's all an information game of continuously and strategically evaluating every purchase! i buy almonds at the indian grocery for $5/lb in 3lb qty rather than $7. i drive a used toyota camry even though it's boring as hell but low $/mile. heck part of the value of desktop pcs is their modularity... there's also a subreddit called buyitonce iir.
More seriously I've also saved money by having a prepaid phone plan which was a lot more expensive per minute. And by buying super-cheap ice skates which I'm sure would have worn out after 10 times... and throwing them out when I moved soon after. In other words, sometimes the simple calculation by which a more durable item is cheaper, leaves out important things.
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I think you’ve taken the right-wing bait a little too to heart here. In the US, most young people, most women, and most ethnic minorities are Democratic-Learning, and I’m speculating those are also the groups most affected by poverty.
Articles like this (and this approach is extremely common) push ideological propaganda instead of actual understanding about what is dessicating the middle and lower classes. The term “white flight” is a nonsense, ideological term only used by a very fringe group. Real economists and analysts talk about globalization, inflation, trade, shift from manufacturing to service economy etc. the things that are most harming…
