split_by_nine said:

its not a question of is this a "respectable" wage. we should be asking "is this a livable wage?"

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Fiery said:

Ahab McBathsalts said:

There will be inflation in agricultural commodities. Buy potash and fertilizer.

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That makes sense I was sort of thinking similar.


As well as like Grocery stores. Maybe the Kroger

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split_by_nine said:

The Blind Ass said:

So, someone tell me, What is the actual average cost of living a respectable life? (In 2021 USA - yearly - and within reason). 

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the average rent for usa is ~$800.

$8/hr x 40 hr workweek = $320 gross, $640 biweekly before deductions
$1280 minus 10% in taxes leaves $1152

$1152 monthly income - $800 rent = $350
lets assume that $800 rent includes all utilities.


  $350
  -$50 phone bill
  -$50 car insurance
  -$50 gasoline for car
-$100 groceries
 
  = $100 left over each month

these values are very low and not realistic. most people have debt to pay also each month.
 


this is just an example.

its not a question of is this a "respectable" wage. we should be asking "is this a livable wage?"

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lowbrow said:

It’s a bad Idea.

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You're a bad idea.
You holier than thou motherfucker. I do find pearls in your posts every once in a while, but your bible verse bullshit is just too much. You are adept at rustling feathers for sure.

Lynnch said:

Be honest. The reason we have a minimum wage law is because (most) employers pay as little as they can get away with- it has nothing to do with what the labor is actually worth.

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Ahab McBathsalts said:

How can you know if you never tried it?


Money won't buy happiness, but it will distract you for a couple of hour or days. You can do some crazy shit with some money.


Check out this condo.



It isn't happiness in itself, but fuck it helps a little bit.

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Ahab McBathsalts said:

Fiery said:

Ahab McBathsalts said:

There will be inflation in agricultural commodities. Buy potash and fertilizer.

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That makes sense I was sort of thinking similar.


As well as like Grocery stores. Maybe the Kroger

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Na. They just have increase in costs and raise prices. It all nets out to the same. Grocery stores don't make any more. Farmers though get higher prices for crops, fuel costs the same, seed costs the same, labour doesn't make up that much of a cost in grains. Farmers will get more money to increase fertilizer.  Crops that are labour intensive like grapes, berries, apples and others will go up significantly, but that all gets passed on to the consumer.


I think that's a big point that lots of people are missing. If minimum wages goes up, companies just raise prices. It sucks for restaurants and grocery stores, but they know this game pretty well. It's not like it's the first time they ever had wage inflation in the last 50 years. It's pretty fucking regular.

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Psion said:

Ahab McBathsalts said:

Fiery said:

Ahab McBathsalts said:

There will be inflation in agricultural commodities. Buy potash and fertilizer.

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That makes sense I was sort of thinking similar.


As well as like Grocery stores. Maybe the Kroger

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Na. They just have increase in costs and raise prices. It all nets out to the same. Grocery stores don't make any more. Farmers though get higher prices for crops, fuel costs the same, seed costs the same, labour doesn't make up that much of a cost in grains. Farmers will get more money to increase fertilizer.  Crops that are labour intensive like grapes, berries, apples and others will go up significantly, but that all gets passed on to the consumer.


I think that's a big point that lots of people are missing. If minimum wages goes up, companies just raise prices. It sucks for restaurants and grocery stores, but they know this game pretty well. It's not like it's the first time they ever had wage inflation in the last 50 years. It's pretty fucking regular.

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oh, prices will go up to cover labor costs, even though it shouldn't be - maybe they should stop paying their CEOs a few hundred to thousands of times more than their lowest paid workers when their CEOs do jack shit of worth for that amount - CEOs around the world in comparison generally make a few dozen times to a a hundredish times their lowest paid worker in general. but the thing is, when your paying your lowest paid employees, that is not your only expense in a business. you're also having to take into account paying the bills, leases, purchasing goods/raw materials, replacing machinery, maintenance, paying employees whose pay is high enough that it wont be affected by the pay increase (though it may be affected indirectly - some of the lower paid ones you may have to give a pay bump as well so they don't feel left out, but because they are higher paid, it might not need to be as high. plus, there's less of them, so less of them to give a raise to.)

in other words, even if you doubled the pay of all your lowest paid employees, it's NOT going to lead to a 5$ burger turning into a 10$ burger if the business passed on the costs to consumers, because labor costs of your lowest paid workers do not make up 100% of the cost of a business. not even. it might turn into 5.50$ burger, maybe even a 6$ burger...but this is a "whatever" change that most people could live with, because suddenly the economy would be BOOMING. and you know what?

businesses wouldn't be bitching very much either because the amount of customers would skyrocket. suddenly all those poor millennials wouldn't be so poor anymore, and would have spending money and the desire to spend. this is why the argument for "there shouldn't be living wage jobs at mcdonalds, only teenagers should work there!" is absolutely backassward. you WANT that teenager to have extra spending money. that teenager having extra spending money is a godsend to the economy. they go on to spend spend spend, support businesses, maybe save up for college or other higher education with that extra money, or invest, and go on with a strong start to life - instead of a shitty start, a shitty car that breaks down, and broken dreams, stuck on government support and misery. besides, for all you know, that teenager might be all that's supporting a dysfunctional family with that job. it's...happened. all too often.

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Psion said:

if i had to guess, i would assume good investments would be:

psychedelics: they're legalized in Oregon now (well, it will probably take a couple years, but still) so companies that work on psychedelic therapy i'd imagine would do a great business there. there's a lot of demand for mental wellness, alternative addiction treatments, PTSD, and the like, and psychedelics are a much more "natural", "permanent" solution than SSRIs and the like that appeal to many. plus, there's a lot of promising results from them. provided it's done right and there aren't too many setbacks (some weird PR disaster or something that sets research back), i would see this making a huge boom as the next big thing in depression treatment/actual cure when combined with a trained therapist to guide someone. that said, psychedelics aren't for everyone, since they ARE powerful drugs, (some people need to keep their head firmly attached to their shoulders and focused on the lessons the world around them is teaching them) but they are amazingly safe for how potent they are.

green technology: this is the future. there's no point denying it. solar, wind, hydro, energy storage (because you're going to need to store said renewable energy), hell, even fusion technology seems to actually be making progress this time thanks to advances in AI. nuclear is still suffering from NIMBY status, unfortunately, so we might want to wait on that. the future is green - go for it.

lab grown meat - yeah, people are going to turn their noses up at this for now - but it's cheap (not yet, but economy of scale will let it be), and not everyone's going to. cell cultured meat, no animals harmed, less methane emissions, greener on the planet, cheaper, potential for exotic meats like lion or whale without actually needing to hunt said animals.(whether this would be a good or bad thing is debatable - however, if i'm right, it likely would flood the market with cheap "lion" meat, for instance, causing it to be absolutely worthless for poachers to hunt actual lions for meat, protecting them from poaching. that said, i doubt lions are hunted for the meat, but this was just an example. insert endangered species of choice here. :P )

water filtration technology, especially companies that come up with a effective new way of purifying water from seawater with little energy, quickly - water is a precious resource, and it's getting harder to get clean water these days. any company that comes up with ways of recycling old water to make it like new, or desalinating sea water cheaply to potable drinking water on a large scale, is likely going to do well. i'd imagine this would be a longer term project though - stuff like this takes a while to build.

automation - things like automated farmer robots are a thing these days. wal-mart has robot floor cleaners. there's robot secretaries in japan. robots are coming for our jobs in all sorts of places. keep a look out  for companies that deal with automation, especially ones that serve big corporations. or companies that service said automated machines. or make the parts for said machines.

those are a few things i can think of that are going to likely take off in the upcoming years, if my guess is right.

oh, and self-driving cars, of course. tesla is a good bet, obviously. not sure if it's overvalued or not atm, but i doubt it's going to absolutely tank as a company anytime soon. :P

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Great post Man! If I were allowed to leave ratings I'd give you a solid 5.


Hey, why don't you make a thread with this post so that more shroomerites can see this info- and also maybe add their own two cents ! Sort of like " Good stocks to invest in based on current world situation" or something like that.

Those are all really good ideas. Honestly I hardly have anything to invest, but I do have a little bit.

I am already into the company Numinus Wellness a Canadian company that has a license to produce and administer mushrooms, mdma and others for therapeutic use- the stocks are cheap too, like $1- could be big.

I have a little bit of solar but the automation thing is a great idea, same with lab grown or "fake" meat.

And that's really cool to think about being able to try whale, or like anything really.
( sorry a weird and dark thought just popped into my head- what if some wacko's start making human meat and eating that!? Yikes, lol. sorry ) I'd like to try wooly mammoth for sure.


Anyways, - thanks for the post. !

bodhisatta said:

For what it's worth all of the hispanic workers make a dollar go so much further than anyone else. They're buying cars on 11/hr salaries. Everyone else buys phones, alcohol, and starbucks.

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