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

economist.com

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

#31

Post by patio11 »

cia_plant wrote: post #30
patio11 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

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 available on demand.

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

#32

Post by nazgulnarsil »

cia_plant wrote: post #30
patio11 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#34

Post by sho »

seregine wrote: post #9

Of course, you're comparing apples and oranges because the price of a Big Mac is determined by the local market for Big Macs. In some places, McDonalds is considered upscale food because it's American, because it's less common, etc. In some places, the quality of McDonalds is much higher (kosher burgers in Israel, I think).

"In some places, the quality of McDonalds is much higher"

Definitely. When I lived in Thailand I used to eat at McD's fairly regularly, just for that taste of something western. I was amazed at how good it tasted - fresh salad, high quality meat, just really well made like a burger from a good restaurant. Completely different from the effortless slop I'd get in Australia.

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

#35

Post by 9oliYQjP »

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 submarine sandwiches for a fraction of the price ($1.50), a chicken and beef swarma, a quarter of an extra large pizza (how big slices usually are), or countless other cheap ethnic take-out food? While I was living alone, it was cheaper for me to eat well (quality, taste, variety, health) by dining out than it was for me to shop for all the groceries and cook at home.

What's your opinion on the tax burden in a city like Toronto? When I was an employee I found it wasn't as bad as I was raised to believe it was, though I was only up into the second-highest tax bracket. As a naive comparison (as of 2008/2009), CDN$100K would result in $19891.48 in federal taxes. South of the border, US$100K would result in $21720 in federal taxes. At a provincial/state level, if we compare Ontario vs California, then that same $100K would result in $8458.61 in provincial taxes and $6693 (for a single person) in state taxes. Obviously this isn't a precise comparison because the U.S. has some deductions (notably regarding mortgages) that Canada does not. But the reverse is true too, and in any event, it's not like some order of magnitude difference that I thought would exist with all the complaining I used to hear on talk radio here :-)

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

#36

Post by cia_plant »

patio11 wrote: post #31
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?

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.

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

#38

Post by jasonkester »

For all of us who saw that title, did a quick calculation, then thought: "25 seconds", this should serve as another reminder of just how good we have it as computer programmers.

So yeah, you're making 10x the national average. That means you can take all but 1.2 months off every year to work on your startup and still earn as much as the guy stocking shelves in the grocery store.

It's the reason that bootstrapped software companies work at all: we have a huge (possibly unfair) advantage over everybody else when it comes to time/money balance.

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

#39

Post by pg »

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.

A middle class person today can if they choose have a much more varied diet than anyone could in medieval times. Even as recently as the 19th century it was an extraordinary luxury in northern Europe to have fresh fruit or vegetables in the winter, for example.

And of course medieval Europe did not have any of the species they later got from the Americas: no potatoes, peppers, corn, tomatoes. There was no coffee or tea or chocolate either. And no ocean fish unless you lived close to the sea.

If you were a rich person in medieval times you could basically have a much roast beef as you wanted. (That was apparently Charlemagne's undoing.)

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

#40

Post by pg »

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 cost a fortune.

Our surprise at this variation is equivalent to the surprise of someone who doesn't know anything about programming at the fact that a piece of code can be made 100x faster.

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