No, I was simplifying the two proof systems in crypto, not saying it’s the cause of long-term trends.

If you’re in the area i am, the place I’m talking about is on the 163 line.

PoW = Get a GPU, crunch some numbers, make some money.

PoS = The Rich Get Richer. The Poor Get Screwed.

So this is how they move off fiat? I’m sure they’re on a Proof of Stake L1/L2, rather than a Proof of Work.

You’re right. My markup % was off. I’m glad I have a computer calculating it at work.

People who slip by a day and just keep a mess tend to have support networks. If they’re employed, they’re not likely to get thrown in a mental health section in NY. Plus, again, this is New York, not Texas or Florida. Consider the context here. There’s a lot of homeless people in the City who refuse care and get washed through the system. They aren’t getting held in jail, but they’re racking up fines, putting them further behind and worse off. Mandatory care is needed for some people. And we can’t write laws to cover the corner cases without risking overreach.

I agree. But I think I sort of mentioned, what I found was that through serendipity, it works out to the packages being pretty accurate to 8 .25lb burgers, aside from the onion, mustard, ketchup, and pickles.

I would make a family meal out of that - in fact, I think I might this weekend. You’re right, time isn’t free. But I’m not going to pay more than double the retail COGS for a sandwich that’s produced on commercial scale and not cooked by hand. If that’s what they need to do in order to keep the lights on, then they need to cut overhead or negotiate more effectively to reduce COGS. But we all know that these are not ‘keep the lights on’ prices. They could cut the price and still make a profit.

If it was a locally owned small business where I believed that my support would be valued, or where they were reinvesting into the local community, I think I’d accept it. Heck, I do accept it. One of my local places serves a $13 burger. I buy it, because I know where they get their beef, and their veggies, and the staff and owners are in my area. Everything but the tax comes back into my local economy. That’s not how McD’s works.

Goodwill should lose that too.

How about we lower it to $16,000?

Yup, and that’s just a burger. Mind you, I live in spitting distance of NYC, so I do admittedly have a cost that’s inflated due to high taxes and high minimum wage. But all my other costs were based on my local supermarket that’s within walking distance of the McD’s I used for price reference. If I’d used the Walmart that’s in the same lot, it’d be even more extreme.

Thank goodness. Ever since we got rid of the asylums, things have been going downhill, and I’m glad to see that someone’s getting sense back.

I mean, I’m an American. I have a pro-American sentiment when it comes to food and drink.

I also happen to have an anti-overpriced-crap sentiment when it comes to the things I eat and drink.

In my area, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is $10.50. Now, I may not compare exact apples-to-apples here, but let’s go for it.

From my local supermarket, I can get 20 1/4lb. patties for $25 - that’s the premade patties, not from the butcher section. That means not only can I decide how well-done I like my burger, I can season it as I choose. And I have confidence in my local supermarket that when they put on the side of the box “Ingredients:80% Lean, 20% Fat Ground Beef”, they mean it. That makes each patty $1.25.

Now, if I want to buy the exact same ground beef, but not formed in patties, that’s $3.25/lb (usually in 2-3 lb. packs, but I can ask the butcher and get a custom size) - so now we’re down to $0.81 for the patty.

The rolls, I can get store brand. 8 for $1.50. That’s $0.19 cents a roll. That means that if I buy my own ground beef, I’ve now spent exactly $1 on a quarter pound burger. So let’s talk toppings.

The cheese first - one slice of American on theirs; I would go a different way, but stick to them. Springing for a little extra, $3.59 a pack for Borden Melts cheese, 16 slices. $0.22 per slice. Our burger is now at $1.22 COGS, and I have the makings for 7 more in buns and probably that in beef, plus I could make each burger with 2 slices of cheese, so each burger is $1.44 so far.

Onions, I can get for $1.50/lb (or less!), and each onion is less than that. But I definitely have enough to do a burger and meal plan - let’s say an ounce, about $0.10. Mustard, I’m not going to factor in the cost, because it’s so little as to be a joke. Buying a jar of good mustard can last you a year or more. Ketchup I’ll say the same for. It can last a long time and the amount per burger is negligible. So let’s be generous and say $0.10 each. Pickles can be more expensive if you get good ones, but store brand we’re talking $0.16 per ounce (with brine), and you’re not putting on a full ounce of pickle. So in toppings, we’re adding ~$0.50 value.

Total cost of the burger is around $2.00 at retail, not at scale; about $3 if you want premade patties. Sure, there are costs to be amortized like rent and tax and cooking - and the biggest cost, labor. But each individual burger shouldn’t be socked with an 80+% markup from COGS, and taste worse than the home-made version.

Why should I buy from McDonald’s ever again?

If it was guaranteed to be annihilation, I think I could accept it. The problem is, it’s not a guarantee. People might live, and they might not even get radiation poisoning. That leaves them alive in a wasteland. That’s the issue. Death is preferable to a life of suffering.

It wasn’t even a full Leeroy Jenkins. He always went in for full, unrelenting DPS and would go until he was dead unless protected. This was barely poking the (Pooh) bear, and then running like hell the moment it doesn’t look great. The full Leeroy would be a full embargo backed by the Coast Guard.

So basically we’re admitting that we lost the trade war, and the whole world is going to belong to China. Isn’t that swell.

Why is everyone insisting on specifically calling it fascism instead of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, or dictatorship? Because really, it’s using a specific term for something just as easily defined by the general term.

I mean, I have a Thinkpad and an HP Elitebook. So… what’s the problem?

I wish I could say that this upset me at all.

Time to remove de minimus.

If the site allows me to filter the results to only include items that have no import fees (i.e. are made domestically from domestic raw material), then I support allowing us to see it. And if that turns Amazon into a barren wasteland, good - demand better of local businesses, or start your own small business.