To be clear, if you’re at all concerned about maintaining a food budget, even if it’s $500/week the billionaire class is still your enemy.
Any billionaire can lose 90% of their wealth and have above 100 million left.
Many can lose 99% and have above 100 million left.
Some can lose 99% and still be billionaires.
The 100 millionaire will still have a million or more left after losing 99%, but that’s not “live like hogs in the fat house forever” money at least. It’s just “I don’t have to worry if I lose my job” money.
A hundredbillionaire can lose 99% of their money and not make any perceptible changes in their lifestyle.
I propose the following:
Gap individual wealth at 50000x the national median annual income. Max wealth anyone in the US could have is, at present, under 2 billion. Other countries will vary, but generally it’s plenty enough to motivate people to innovate, but nobody gets to be Bezos or Musk wealthy. Yachts should count towards this wealth gap, at a depreciation rate of 5% a year off the build cost. Primary residence doesn’t count unless it’s also used for generating income. You get to have one car, regardless of price, that doesn’t get counted towards it, and the other ones count at market value. So you can have your classic car that appreciates in price, and a daily driver - without having to worry about the classic car’s effect on your wealth limit.
Side effect is that now suddenly rich people near the gap will be a lot more interested in paying better wages to the working class. Why? Because then they’d get to keep more of their money. And to raise the median efficiently, you need to be raising wages for the poorest among us first and foremost.
To be positively translucent, even someone with $1,000,000 in the bank has 1000x less than the poorest billionaire. For other disturbing facts, see https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/.
Hell, even if you can easily afford way more than that, you are still closer to the person who can only afford $2 of food a day than a billionaire.
Ok but for real tho. The average American severely underestimates how far you can get on rice, beans, lentils and chickpeas.
Serious question, if I live off just that, I end up feeling like absolute garbage. That’s even with supplementing it with greens like spinach and some other veggies and vitamin supplements. What am I missing?
Like, macro-wise, I can replace meat and other things, but it doesn’t seem to hit the same?
Would you care to elaborate on what you feel like when you try living on plants? What do you tend to eat? How long does it take before you start feeling like shit?
Judging by your last comment about it “not hitting the same” my initial thought is that the issue might not even be nutritional, possibly more psychological/subjective.
I end up feeling like absolute garbage.
Maybe, not cooking it well enough? Try changing your recipes, perhaps? Maybe more variety in spices?
Gram, pulses and dried beans (rehydrated before eating) with rice, tend to make my favourite recipes
and even though I use milk products, I feel pretty good even if it is lemonade with black-salt instead.
Oh, it tastes fine, I’m saying like…energy-wise and sugar-crash-wise I feel bad. Just wondering if I’m missing something.
Every plant is trying to kill you. It doesn’t want to be eaten. It especially doesn’t want you to eat its seeds. We can detoxify most of the ones that people eat, but it costs
Eating the same plants over again can make you sick
You may not be as good at detoxifying those plants as the people who do well eating them
I know I’m a lot healthier with no plants in my diet than I have been with lots of plants
Feel free to ask me questions on how to eat on a budget so you can keep your strength up while organizing against those that wish nothing more for you to work until the day you die and own nothing of consequence!
Man where were you 8 years ago when I ate zero protein because I didn’t know it could be cheap. Couldn’t afford animal products and was conditioned to believe those were the only viable source of protein.
Btw I’d like to add textured vegetable protein to the list! It’s one of my go-tos nowadays.
Soy flour turned into little chunks to give feeling of chunks in things you’re used to having meat chunks in while being high in protein. So like burritos, stews, pasta sauce, stuff like that.
I had to look it up myself.
Textured or texturized vegetable protein (TVP), also known as textured soy protein (TSP), soy meat, or soya chunks, is a defatted soy flour product, a by-product of extracting soybean oil. It is often used as a meat analogue or meat extender. It is quick to cook, with a protein content comparable to some meats.
I grew up a similar way! My mom always referred to protein as meat. Needed to add chicken or beef or pork to be the “protein” to make a dinner complete.
Never mind it being cheese or bean based, meaning it had tons of protein.
I would have to do the math on TVP on if it’s a better source of protein per buck than like split peas. But glad it’s working out for you!
I like your mission, but I hate your methods. Think more about what you’re suggesting.
What about eating people’s cats and allegedly ducks as well? Did you know thousands of pets are euthanized each year? That’s all just wasted food.
The “red necks” who do road kill specials are just fighting against ground beef being $5/pound (which is somehow after all the subsidies they get in the US)!
I feel like some red neck making fun of is straight up just making fun of folks who found a way to make do and be happy. Like owning your own land with a little pre fab you learned to maintain yourself, and eating lots of hunted game? Good stuff.
This man asking the real questions. As a non-conservative, I try to eat cats and dogs three times a week, and keep lagumes and oats to the other days.
I never touch animal protein, as the fascists plant tracking devices in these creatures! Birds are also a concern, as they aren’t real and are really government survailance devices!
