(1) By reducing the worker’s need to the barest and most miserable level of physical subsistence, and by reducing his activity to the most abstract mechanical movement; thus he says: Man has no other need either of activity or of enjoyment. For he declares that this life, too, is human life and existence.

(2) By counting the most meagre form of life (existence) as the standard, indeed, as the general standard – general because it is applicable to the mass of men. He turns the worker into an insensible being lacking all needs, just as he changes his activity into a pure abstraction from all activity. To him, therefore, every luxury of the worker seems to be reprehensible, and everything that goes beyond the most abstract need – be it in the realm of passive enjoyment, or a manifestation of activity – seems to him a luxury. Political economy, this science of wealth, is therefore simultaneously the science of renunciation, of want, of saving and it actually reaches the point where it spares man the need of either fresh air or physical exercise. This science of marvellous industry is simultaneously the science of asceticism, and its true ideal is the ascetic but extortionate miser and the ascetic but productive slave. Its moral ideal is the worker who takes part of his wages to the savings-bank, and it has even found ready-made a servile art which embodies this pet idea: it has been presented, bathed in sentimentality, on the stage. Thus political economy – despite its worldly and voluptuous appearance – is a true moral science, the most moral of all the sciences. Self-renunciation, the renunciation of life and of all human needs, is its principal thesis. The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do. It can eat and, drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past, political power – all this it can appropriate for you – it can buy all this: it is true endowment. Yet being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself; for everything else is after all its servant, and when I have the master I have the servant and do not need his servant. All passions and all activity must therefore be submerged in avarice. The worker may only have enough for him to want to live, and may only want to live in order to have that.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/needs.htm

My monthly budget:
Phone: $17
Bank account: $11
Energy drinks (for work): $25
Skincare/soaps: $20, maybe
Food: $125-150 (in combination with my family’s grocery budget)
VPN: $7 (to pirate everything, don’t have any subscription services)
Pokemon plushes: $300-500

Somebody help me budget. My plushes are lonely.

Women be starbucking and on they phone with the avocado no wonder they’re broke!

Friendly reminder that $5M in a low risk investment account yields like 5% annually which is a quarter million with no involvement from you and gets taxed at 15%. It’s not hard to make money when you already have it.

the knock-off of our beloved and revolutionary Lucky Charms is called Magic Treasures, clearly a nod to with it’s capitalist top hat and rabbits (Watership Down).

Enjoy the most important meal of the day with Great Value Magic Treasures Cereal. This scrumptious cereal pairs the wholesome crunch of frosted whole grain oat cereal and the light sweet taste of marshmallows. Serve with your favorite milk for a filling breakfast or enjoy by the handful as a sweet treat. Take this cereal to the next level by mixing with melted marshmallows for a decadent dessert or use it as a topping on your favorite sweet treat. As a good source of 12 vitamins and minerals and only 160 calories per serving, you can be happy knowing your family is enjoying a healthy and delicious meal. Start your day off with the delicious taste of Great Value Magic Treasures Cereal.

This has to be parody. It says he dropped from $5 million to $-200,000 in one year from those tiny differences.

But anyway, if you can get a rewards credit card, you should. It’s literally just a discount on every purchase as long as you pay it off completely every month. Points seem like BS though, just go for the ones with “x% cash rewards”.

how much fucking cereal did he buy for $5 million lmao

Elon Musk explaining why his Twitter purchase was fine:

The guac has ruined me

I’m less interested in how it went down (that’s easy), and much more interested in how it went up from next-to-nothing to over $2M in one year.

I thought it was because the commies pushed the king under a street car and now nothing in the world is holy or beautiful.

#6 I didn’t sell my kidneys (inspired by the other thread)

This person has clearly exposed themselves as an agent of the British imperialists, wheeling in point four under the guise of promoting “financial responsibility,” a Trojan horse hiding raging chauvinism, where Lucky CharmsTM, the patriotic banner of the oppressed Irish masses, is (despite the recent edition of magic gem marshmallows) set aside and replaced with the generic “Marshmallow Mateys” slop.

first of all, my local bisexual cofe spot makes better drinks. second, my corner taco truck makes better burittos. third, who buys cereal? and fourth, who pays for TV?

The right really is ping-ponging between “the only reason GenZ is struggling is cuz they buy Avocado-OnlyFans” and “actually the white working class is getting fucked over cuz all the bankers are secretly Marxists!”