Eat for $1.50 per Day – Layoffs, Coronavirus Quarantine, Food Shortages

I hope I'm not reading this as a refutation capitalism as exploitation-based economics. I could carry on about that, but will pick up something:

> I've never purchased shampoo or paid for a hair cut - I am female [me: this choice of quote has nothing to say about gender, please read on]

In the Soviet Union, there was a growing demand for consumer goods. Government fought to reach a balance on whether it was time to undertake those goals, and how much of it should be handled by the secondary market.

After WWII, the United States switched to a highly commercial culture of consumer debt financing, a general consumerist focus. This put the communist nations, themselves developing rapidly, under even more strain to give citizens what they saw the West was enjoying. This may have been premature, and some might argue lead to an untimely end for the USSR.

What's interesting about your story is you we're living in a world of few consumer goods, like in the era before and during Khrushchev.

So where capitalism used the newly developing marketing gimmicks to both sell consumer goods at home, and undermine the priorities of People's government abroad--you, at least, are in a place where those superfluous goods are not a sign of victory over People's governments, but actually wasteful and unattainable. At least if one wants to move out of their car one day.

I'm sure none of this is lost on you as a writer of... what was it... Biden speeches? [Fake edit: the apocalypse!]

If we are rejecting the consumerism that served some role in bringing down the USSR, perhaps it's not a wishful thought that class consciousness growing. Maybe we're fatigued, ready to accept a world without the gimmicks parading themselves as innovation and surviving for years a household names off investor money and debt like a Potemkin village.

This is a good practice, living off less, but it's a blow to Western economic theories that have bought their way into textbooks. But what's to come down the pipeline isn't just the growth of China, but also Africa and partnering nations that we're used to exploiting (look at the grooming of India as a place of new manufacture). We'll soon see less opportunities to exploit, higher prices and, well, Socialism or barbarism.

Ok, but I've gotten out of my state and met with lots of people on assistance, and that is rampant in the US in a way that's almost unheard of in other countries I've worked in. I've seen people coast off the system, but they still generally live somewhat minimalist lives. Having new flat screens and game consoles, cases of Mountain Dew and a pantry full of nothing but prepackaged junk food when you can't make rent? I know how that sounds like a judgmental stereotype, but that seems like a uniquely American epidemic to me.

I don't, but have a few herbs growing I kicked off 2 months ago indoors on the window ledge. Oh and some spring onions, brought a bunch months ago, used for crispy aromatic duck, popped the ends into water and regrown a few times, reminds me I need to pot that now.

Also planted out some sunflowers in the area I'd grown indoors, brighten up the neighbourhood and birds love them. Also some wildflowers I'll be starting soon, ninja out and about in a months time or so as well as some vegetables I don't have space to grow in my flat, but hey, planning ahead and may work out well for the greater good and good spirits are just as important than your 5 a day.

King Arthur is absurdly expensive. I'd say Gold Medal is a much better benchmark and it's usually about half the price.

Be nice to be able to click thru and see the scale of those studies as many have very few studies and without knowing the size and scale of data, I'm still open minded and SMD variations from what I have read, vary upon a greater scale.

Though handy site and will only become more handy with more data sets, but being able to click-thru to and see those studies would go a long way as not all studies are equal in quality and credibility in much the same way that people would believe data comming from `John Hopkins University` about viral data over say data comming out of `Really Greatest University in the entire World`.

I'd add, don't drink and operate any form of transport, lost cousin decades ago to a drunk cyclist. Me, I don't drive, walk and public transport, so these days, walk if needs demand. Though probably handful of times I've even drunk even close to any limit. But very mindful that not everybody is as thoughtful of others, though easier to identify them as they are the ones with 4x4's full of toilet roll :).