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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

Americans buy a ludicrous amount of stuff they only think they need. American consumerism is unrivaled in the world.

In the US the poor are the ones who suffer from obesity. From having too many calories available cheaply. Let that sink in. The US is so much further from "needs not being met" than anyone understands.

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In the US half of consumer spending is done by only the top 10%

[1]: https://hive.blog/economy/@davideownzall/in-the-us-the-top-1...

There is a lot of poverty in the US.

The US has one of the largest agricultural sectors in the world, it should be no surprise that food is not in short supply. But we don't live in an era where people live in homes built from local gathered sticks and rocks and just need food to survive, our modern lives depend on far more than just food. Poor people are fat because we made extremely calorie dense foods the cheapest foods, poor people often shop by calorie per dollar, not because they have extra cash to throw around.

Try living on the US median wage only and let me know how much ludicrous amount of stuff you can afford.

<< Try living on the US median wage only and let me know how much ludicrous amount of stuff you can afford.

The question is not what you can afford. The question is what you can get. And whatever else you want to say about US system, it made the ability to show that you have $desired_item257 relatively easy to obtain even at low income level. It is genuinely not impossible to own status luxury items with aggressive financing.

It's more expensive to buy and prepare fresh food than shelf stable ultra processed foods and requires more time. Poor people have access to 'poor' calories. I would wager that children would also inherit the eating habits of poor parents.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20720258/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14684391/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4254327/

right, but so far the consumerism has been the only thing doing bread and circuses away from the real problems of housing and whatnot.

it's interesting that many things like televisions and phones went from being multiples of rent or mortgage payments, to the reverse, so now cutting back on consumer spending to afford necessities wouldn't do a whole lot.

I'm not worried about the consumer aspect at all. It will be painful and maybe pull the wool off all the trumpets eyes, reveling his idiocy. But people are not going to be starving. Maybe starving for new clothes and iPhones like they get all the time.

I do worry though about embedded costs up the supply chain the depend on Chinese made things. The parts of parts that go into machines that are made domestically. I think that has potential to be the real knife in the back. Most things need all the pieces to work, and even though the machine is 90% made in USA, the last 10% that is a Chinese export is going to cause pain in all sorts o unexpected places.

> In the US the poor are the ones who suffer from obesity.

Are there any developed countries where "can get enough calories" is a real question?

This is flat out advocating "the Maduro diet" as a good thing.

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