$18.00 for a Big Mac, fries, and drink. We know that one too many big Macs might kill you, now too many may also bankrupt you.
A Veblen good’s primary utility is for social signaling; it derives value from its price, instead of the other way around. It’s desirable because people with less money can’t have it.
How many purveyors of goods have Black people enriched in their thirst for Veblen goods? Do we even know that such behavior has been studied and dissected? Subliminals–do we even know why we pay hefty prices for consumer goods? Especially when cheaper options, sometimes identical and produced in the same factory, are available. {I know of a company that produces many of the products we buy in the drug store. The product containers are labeled differently and they are priced differently, but the product comes from the same vat. So the higher priced product is not worth more than the lower priced product, but the higher priced product has some psychological (higher price; better quality?) or historical advantage (my mother bought this) or people would not buy it.} Do we know why we wear clothes with prominent labels? We’re always in search for that which will elicit the ooh response from friends and strangers. And it never ends. By the time you own the product, the counterfeits are available and your unique product is accessible to the masses.
I wonder about the celebrities and others who say we should stop talking about race and then, I suppose, we would all be singing kumbaya together. I wonder what country they’ve created in their imagination when we are being slaughtered and demonized solely because of our race. What should we talk about? Especially when the ones who are the perpetrators aren’t listening to anything we say that doesn’t agree with their purported right to murder us at their whim? Or do they say that to keep the money flowing from the whites who hire them? You know…he or she is a good slickhead. Pass him or her a biscuit.
Lickspittle sounds like an old English word that Shakespeare might have used. A lickspittle is a person who behaves obsequiously to those in power. Sounds like a lot of Black Republicans.
Have you noticed that the packaging of a lot of items is getting smaller, yet the price of the item has increased? In the past, I’ve bought a packet of yellow rice which was much longer and much more flavorful. And the price, when on sale, is the same as the longer packet, but when not on sale is about fifty cents more. I’ve also noticed that the net weight of packaging that may appear to be the same size has decreased.
Did you know that many retailers are increasing the price of items and blaming inflation? Nothing but a money grab to increase profits. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/business/economy/inflation-companies-profits-higher-prices.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T00.ALFD.WXtDFewi30Ps&smid=url-share
Some years ago I saw a documentary about “pink slime”. It is a gross product that fast food restaurants were using in their hamburger meat. Seems like now it is in more processed meat products than ever. Why can’t we get it right with our food? Profit over health is one of this country’s mantras. Shouldn’t be that difficult to regulate the food producing sector so that we have food that is not adulterated with additives like pink slime and that is healthy.
In the early 2010s, bitcoin was predominantly bought and owned by affluent white men in tech and investment circles. But, by 2021, advocates were shilling the token as a pathway to generational wealth for Black Americans. Historically, Black Americans have struggled to build intergenerational wealth. Centuries of economic practices, from slavery to redlining, made it almost impossible to hold property, to own homes, or to build and transfer wealth from generation to generation. To this day, Black Americans still have the lowest rate of home ownership of any racial group in the United States. These rates have only declined since the financial crash, falling as low in 2019 as they were in the early 1960s, when race-based financial discrimination was still legal. Excerpt from:
https://aeon.co/essays/the-cruelty-of-crypto-in-its-promise-to-revive-the-american-dream?utm_source=Aeon
The hopeful Blacks referenced above were losing their investment even as they invested. The white investors were either scamming the new investors or disinvesting. When the hoi polloi eagerly invests, the market crashes so the one percent can swoop in and buy at a discount. The hoi polloi is left with the bitter taste of being used, yet again. Unfortunately, Black investors, whether in real estate or the financial market, are the ones who suffer the most and take the longest to recover…if they recover. I think there are stats being kept as to the percentage of Black investors and when that percentage reaches a certain point, the powers that control the market crash the market for the benefit of those white investors who got in first, got out first, and who were waiting to take advantage of the discounted market. (This is not a conspiracy theory. This is capitalism–there always has to be a “sucker” in order for greed capitalism to achieve its goal of ensuring the wealthy increase their wealth.)
Just saw a video clip of the Blackwater (military contractor, i.e., mercenary, gun-for-hire, armed thugs) founder saying that the United States should colonize all those countries whose people are immigrating to the West. This is evil speaking the evil that evil always speak. I’ve written about this before. The United States has been a prime mover behind the destabilization of countries in Central and South America, the Middle East, and Africa. But no court of international law (no court in the U.S. will because they are beneficiaries of this nefarious activity) is holding the United States accountable for the atrocities that it has committed and for what? Capitalistic greed. Because the corporations want raw materials and labor that it pays nothing or very little for so that it can sell the raw materials and products derived therefrom, etc. to the highest bidder and pocket the profits.
The United States has nothing to offer the countries it has raped and pillaged and destabilized, unless those countries want lessons in white supremacy, gun violence, and corporate greed. The United States needs to fix itself and live up to its own ideals before it has anything to say about the governance of another country.
The puffer fish (pictured) can be lethal if not properly prepared. The neurotoxin tetrodotoxin is present in all of its body.
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