How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac? • Hacker News Board

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#41

Post by biohacker42 » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 2:43 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #40

antonovka wrote: post #3

The extremely small amount of time I have to work to earn a big mac seems grossly disproportionate to the labor involved in sourcing, manufacturing, and serving a Big Mac. Am I really generating N sandwiches worth of value every few minutes? Or am I (systemically) skimming value off the top of what's produced by individuals who are being paid disproportionately to the value they produce?

The reason this seems counterintuitive is not that there's some dark matter of people who are somehow not subject to market forces, but simply that we're surprised by how much more cheaply things can be made by mass production. If a Big Mac were made by an individual farm family that raised the cattle and grew the wheat and the other ingredients, and then prepared it for you in quantity 1 in their kitchen, it would c…

Right, but there's also the government skimming from all kinds of productive business activities, to subside farming in the US. Thus making, corn, beef, etc, much cheaper then they would be without this market interference.

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#42

Post by thetrumanshow » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 4:04 PM UTC

clistctrl wrote: post #16

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[M]ost of the wealth being created today is unearned, a "free lunch" that should, by rights, accrue to society as a whole. "A fundamental implication of modern research on economic growth is that past advances contribute far more to today's economy than current activities." http://raisethehammer.org/article/818

Its nice, I had a delicious lunch today and an even more delicious dinner and all it took was just a few lines of code. I think i wrote maybe 100. Those 100 lines accomplished a lot though. So thanks for the sushi jquery, and I enjoyed the sandwich .NET.

Thanks God. The potential energy you've locked up in matter is totally useful! Without a potential difference, I wouldn't be enjoying this Big Mac. Thanks again!

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#43

Post by BearOfNH » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 5:44 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #22

mrtron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As awesome as it is for us, it is incredibly shitty for the folks working in sweatshops in asia. I am pro capitalism, but the current system does have pretty deep social costs. [a second caveat being I can suggest no superior practical alternative]

it is incredibly shitty for the folks working in sweatshops in asia. No, poverty is incredibly shitty for the folks working in sweatshops in Asia. Nike didn't invent poverty. It got there a long time before Nike -- or America, or the nation of China for that matter. Poverty is the natural state of the human condition. For most of human civilization, we've had societies where almost everyone was desperately poor and t…

The newfangled innovation brought about by capitalism isn't poor people: its rich people.

This is an excellent aphorism. I wish I'd been the first to put it that way!

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#44

Post by pg » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 6:02 PM UTC

biohacker42 wrote: post #41

pg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason this seems counterintuitive is not that there's some dark matter of people who are somehow not subject to market forces, but simply that we're surprised by how much more cheaply things can be made by mass production. If a Big Mac were made by an individual farm family that raised the cattle and grew the wheat and the other ingredients, and then prepared it for you in quantity 1 in their kitchen, it would c…

Right, but there's also the government skimming from all kinds of productive business activities, to subside farming in the US. Thus making, corn, beef, etc, much cheaper then they would be without this market interference.

True, but almost certainly less than 5x so, which is rounding error by comparison.

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#45

Post by shard » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 7:26 PM UTC

cia_plant wrote: post #36

patio11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More calories, more variety, more cheap GMO tomatoes in their store-bought sauces and ketchup (European aristocrats thought tomatoes were poisonous -- hah, hah, funny right? Funny like scurvy, a constant scourge of all social classes back then), cleaner drinking water (!), less food-borne pathogens, less periodic bouts of famine, less dependence on seasonal variation in available food sources, hot and cold food avail…

Your points about health are reasonable, but I don't think the modern diet really has more variety than the Medieval aristocrat's did. The kinds of meals eaten by the upper classes back then would still be considered extremely luxurious today.

Just consider variety in terms of ethnic foods. No Medieval aristocrat had easy access to Indian/Chinese/Thai/Japanese/Korean/Mexican/Greek/Ethiopian/French/Italian/Brazilian/Cajun/Cuban/Vietnamese/Taiwanese food, all of which are available within a half hour drive from my house.

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#46

Post by ojbyrne » Sat, Aug 22, 2009, 12:48 AM UTC

9oliYQjP wrote: post #35

ojbyrne wrote: post #15

I'm guessing this is before taxes (since it works out to about $15/hour in Toronto, which seems right without deductions). It would be interesting to see the tax burden taken into account.

It says in the description the wages were net wages. Toronto proper (forget the big box store suburbs) is a great place to find cheap food. You can find tastier, healthier food at a cheaper cost than fast food, which is why I find our fast food prices tend to be lower than a comparable American city. They're forced to compete for the low cost takeout food market. Why buy a Big Mac when you can get Vietnamese submarin…

Yeah, looking at my Canadian paychecks vs. American paychecks, it's basically a wash (you didn't mention the nightmare known as FICA). There are a couple of other things to consider - In Canada your healthcare is paid for by your taxes, but in the US sales tax is generally lower (and on some things like liquor and cigarettes, significantly lower).

Re: How long do you have to work to earn a Big Mac?

#47

Post by cpach » Sat, Aug 22, 2009, 8:24 AM UTC

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #32

cia_plant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense do poor Americans eat better than European aristocrats from a few centuries ago?

in the sense that they aren't malnourished, like a huge percentage of the population used to be, causing widespread disease.

Diseases are still spreading, albeit of different kinds. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Epidemiology_... https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Diabetes_mell...