Depends what you mean by "Energy independent" We've produced more primary energy than we've consumed since 2019, and that hasn't changed since Biden took office.
Crude oil obviously took a dip in 2020 due to Covid and the Russia-Saudi price war happening in the same week, but it's now back to similar levels and is even approaching all time highs depending on how this year goes. Price is due to demand and oil companies obviously wanting to claw back profits from the missed years of Covid lockdowns

Is fast food the new idiot tax?



The book The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets really paints a depressing picture on this topic

Always has been. even during the era where the dollar menu existed and you could eat for like 4$ it was calorie for calorie a bad deal.

the argument ive most often heard is that poor people have to buy fast food because they dont have literally 45 mins to make a quality meal, and by todays prices that quality meal costs half of fast food even with grocery bills up. you can go to a mid range place like chipotle and spend 12$ easily.

poor people dont plan well, they buy in small quantities and spend too much money on junk no one needs. habitual soda drinkers might be the dumbest single demographic by IQ average. imagine spending a few hundred dollars per month on sugary caffeine. id include starbucks in that group.

Probably will fix itself. Im lazy, could totally grow my own garden, spices, do a little hunting curve the deer population. Fish in one of the 10,000 lakes. Cook at home, pack the lunch, cook from more base ingredients. Could eat less, cardiologist would love it.

Maybe it's okay if Mc Donald's replaced the order taker with AI so I don't have to repeat 5x, being the big Mac price down a lil .

This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Apr 11 2024 03:23pm

Basically lol. McDonalds even said in an earnings call in February that they were pricing out customers who make $45,000 or less which is by design. Create a life long habit of going to McDonalds then pull the rug once they can't stop. Same reason why college students get a $2-3k Macbook for studying and doing basic production work.

Hopefully this eventually forces many locations to close. There's many parts in the US where they're only 1 mile apart which take up space a local business or a recreational area can use. Less widespread obesity is also a plus

When you earn enough it doesn't make a big difference: help yourself.
Americans should slow down on red meat anyway. Try salad.

Groceries have skyrocketed in price. That goes for everything at the bottom of the spectrum to the top. Like I said in the op, even Ramen noodles cost more than a quarter now. Everyone here has seen their grocery bills blow up, so even if you choose to pinch pennies and live on potatoes, pasta, rice, beans and oats, you're still paying far more than you used to. And frankly the moment you add in fresh vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, etc, thats when you wind up paying nearly as much for home cooked meals as eating out. Even MN federal reserve president Neal Kashkari was blowing through $300+ on his grocery bill when interviewed as an example for inflation and he was buying Stouffers lasagnas.

These prices hit working people at the bottom of the spectrum the most. Those who don't have the time to homecook every meal, who use up their whole paycheck and don't have savings and investments to cushion them from inflation. Because inflation is just regressive taxation, we put money into the pockets of the past rich by taking it out of the pockets of present poors. I might have time to bake my own bread and brew my own beer while money rolls in, but I don't go to the balcony of my ivory tower and whip out my dick to the plebes and piss on them by saying "They can always downgrade from hungry man to banquet"

holy shit i fuckin lol'd

I'm in favour of fast food actually being taxed an additional 400% to drive it up significantly higher and tax and idiot dumb enough to consume it on a regular basis. Tax the absolute piss out of it like we do alcohol and tobacco in Canada who knows maybe federal tax on individuals can go down it it alleviates our health system a bit by stemming the rapid rise in obesity.

This post was edited by SBD on Apr 11 2024 05:19pm

IMHO, we shouldn't be sitting here complaining about rising food prices and monopolies. We should form a political party that addresses these issues. If we feel the pinch, then others do, too. This is an opening for us. It's an opportunity for us, we need to seize it and build an alternative way of organizing our societies. Offer people real solutions. Bitching on an internet forum doesn't solve anything.