The general decline in standards today

[LizzieMaine]

As long as people are dumb enough to keep shelling out their money, the Boys From Marketing will keep finding new trash to peddle to them. What's hilarious is that the black-turtleneck crowd lining up at Starbucks are the same people who'd sign petitions to keep McDonald's out of their neighborhood.

 

[Feraud]

Eh..don't get me started on the Starbucks crowd. These idiots are leading the way in consuming overpriced, over-sweetened garbage. The hogs swill the slop then rush to the gym and shop at Whole Foods for..."health reasons". Give me a break.

 

[vintageTink]

If everything you could afford to eat was laced with high-fructose corn syrup, you'd be fat too. Blame the corn lobby for that one.

Precisely. It's in EVERYTHING.

Yeah, bad food is cheap but good food is expensive.
Makes a lot of sense.
McDonalds isn't real food, it's modified in so many ways I can't even begin to count.
I think this kind of morphs into the decline in standards, because while food used to have additives in the golden era, I'm not sure it had
the ones we have now.
Potatoes were just potatoes, meat, eggs, chicken, all were just what they were advertised as.
I know in the 50's(?) chicken started getting additives to make them larger. I saw that on MST3K's viewing of "Chicken of Tomorrow."
Shown here [video=youtube;1G0stojwYjI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G0stojwYjI[/video]
When on a trip, I'll find a Cracker Barrel and get it to go, before I stop at a McDonalds.

One of my favorite shorts.
I've started to wonder if there's a shortage of cows or chickens or veggies with the price of good these days...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

One of my housemates is totally addicted to Dr Pepper and it makes me ill just watching him guzzle down two cans back to back. I can barely drink one Dr Pepper.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Eh..don't get me started on the Starbucks crowd. These idiots are leading the way in consuming overpriced, over-sweetened garbage. The hogs swill the slop then rush to the gym and shop at Whole Foods for..."health reasons". Give me a break.

Then I read somewhere that the busiest time of the year for the gyms is January because it's packed with people who resolved to lose weight in the new year but then the next month the place is practically deserted.

 

[Feraud]

Yep, health clubs are packed in the new year with people feeling guilty from what they've eaten over the last couple of weeks. What about the prior 50 weeks?!
I think all the HFCS is screwing with their memories.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, health clubs are packed in the new year with people feeling guilty from what they've eaten over the last couple of weeks. What about the prior 50 weeks?!
I think all the HFCS is screwing with their memories.

And yet many of these smug bourgeois gluttons are the same ones who'll cluck their tongues at the fat lady buying Twinkies as they stand there holding their armload of "energy bars" and HFCS-loaded yogurt.

 

[dh66]

Eh..don't get me started on the Starbucks crowd. These idiots are leading the way in consuming overpriced, over-sweetened garbage. The hogs swill the slop then rush to the gym and shop at Whole Foods for..."health reasons". Give me a break.

I'm always floored by the people who will turn their nose up at a freshly prepared egg mcmuffin but will not hesitate to spend twice as much for the starbucks pre-packaged version that gets popped in the microwave.
In defense of the 'bucks I will say, I drink my coffee straight black and theirs is head and shoulders above McD's.
Also my wife worked there years ago, and very few other companies offer decent, much less any, insurance and retirement benefits to part-time employees. I don't know if it is still policy, but late 90s-early 2000s S-bux would help cover the costs of adopting a child for employees who chose to do so, and as a parent of some adopted kids I can tell you - it ain't cheap!

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

 

[dh66]

One of my housemates is totally addicted to Dr Pepper and it makes me ill just watching him guzzle down two cans back to back. I can barely drink one Dr Pepper.

I cut out drinking sodas years ago, and without changing my diet in any other way I lost about 20 pounds within half a year.

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[Feraud]

And yet many of these smug bourgeois gluttons are the same ones who'll cluck their tongues at the fat lady buying Twinkies as they stand there holding their armload of "energy bars" and HFCS-loaded yogurt.

Don't forget the ever-present yoga mat..

In defense of the 'bucks I will say, I drink my coffee straight black and theirs is head and shoulders above McD's.
Also my wife worked there years ago, and very few other companies offer decent, much less any, insurance and retirement benefits to part-time employees. I don't know if it is still policy, but late 90s-early 2000s S-bux would help cover the costs of adopting a child for employees who chose to do so, and as a parent of some adopted kids I can tell you - it ain't cheap!

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

I've tried most of the fast food coffees and find the quality has dropped overall in the last few years. Starbucks currently tastes like a used ashtry, McDonald's seems to perpetually have a 24 hour old pot on hand and Dunkin' Donuts has no taste..

The best quick coffee seems to be from the guy in the street cart on our corner. It only costs around a buck.

I cannot knock too hard a company that offers decent benefits..

 

[LizzieMaine]

Until Starbucks recognizes the SWU worldwide, I'll knock it with the same club I use against Whole Foods.

As for coffee, blech. It all tastes like burnt pencils to me.

 

[HeyMoe]

Until Starbucks recognizes the SWU worldwide, I'll knock it with the same club I use against Whole Foods.

As for coffee, blech. It all tastes like burnt pencils to me.

I boycott any place that sells coffee grown in Vietnam as most of it is grown in the central highlands on land forceably taken from the Montagnard tribes ( I work with displaced Montagnard refugees here in the USA ) and have perpetuated the genocide against a proud people. That includes Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (factory is 20 min from my house).

 

[Edward]

Food culture has its part to blame for the obesity problem. Cultures push that insane Bigger is Better mentality with regards to food. Giant sandwiches, large portions, Super-Size that meal, and the illogical notion your average Joe sitting on his backside all day needs huge amounts of protein.
Taco Bell has been pushing for a fourth daily meal! The last thing the average American needs is a fourth meal..

Definitely a lot to that. We also have a significant problem with food wastage here in the UK: you can rarely buy one of anything, it's all two for one offers, pushing people to buy in bulk, and prices significantly more expensive per unit, especially on perishable foods, if you don't. And yet more and more of us live in single households.... Crazy.

 

[Stray Cat]

Until Starbucks recognizes the SWU worldwide, I'll knock it with the same club I use against Whole Foods.
As for coffee, blech. It all tastes like burnt pencils to me.

I boycott any place that sells coffee grown in Vietnam as most of it is grown in the central highlands on land forceably taken from the Montagnard tribes ( I work with displaced Montagnard refugees here in the USA ) and have perpetuated the genocide against a proud people. That includes Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (factory is 20 min from my house).

I am ever so pleased to live far away where we DO NOT have Starbucks. eace:
(but we just got an H&M ... one of those dreadful stores that own human-slave factories in order to make their fashion cheap)
....[size=-1]Did I went too far with this? Is this politics?[/size]

 

[HeyMoe]

....[size=-1]Did I went too far with this? Is this politics?[/size]

Who cares?

When we censor these types of posts we are ignoring a problem for the sake of political correctness.

 

[Captain Neon]

See- and that is different- you benefited directly from working everyday. Your company grew. It is much harder to work everyday without any reward. No promotions, pay cuts, and benefits reduced or taken away.

This is not about coming in 2 hours early and staying 2 hours late or volunteering for extra shifts. It's about taking advantage of people who are your employees. You can't push people to work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, and not give them better than a job with shrinking pay and benefits. It is neither ethical or smart.

Not only that, but once we got the certification they wanted and then the re-certification a year later, I was asked to tender my immediate resignation because my services were no longer necessary. 70 hour weeks for 2 1/2 years with no OT pay, bonus, or raises. I still fight the urge at times to call him up and curse at him. He crossed the street half a block ahead of me while I was looking for a new job and I actually had to put my foot on the brakes for fear that I would hit the accelerator instead.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I am ever so pleased to live far away where we DO NOT have Starbucks. eace:
(but we just got an H&M ... one of those dreadful stores that own human-slave factories in order to make their fashion cheap)
....[size=-1]Did I went too far with this? Is this politics?[/size]

I've never even heard of half these store chains. I just discovered that there are two H&Ms near me at South Coast Plaza Shopping Centre.

 

[Captain Neon]

I very recently worked for a boss that was a raging sot on the weekends. He likes to hire inexperienced attractive women, even denying that one of my colleagues came to work drunk. Only when she was unable to be located and was found at the local bar (swears that she wasn't drinking only getting cigarettes) when she was supposed to be working was she demoted from a salaried position to having to punch a time card. Other than now getting paid for any overtime, and having fewer responsibilities, no thing has really changed. Me? I use a method or procedure from my previous experience different from what my boss would have used, when nothing evidentiary to know different, I am accused of being stupid and having no initiative. I came to work on time every day, never touch alcohol, and stay until my work is done even checking in on the weekends.

One of the things I had to deal with as an employer, was to find people that had the talent and skills to do the work, and that would show up sober. In the long run, I was able to do that. I myself have always paid my employees a very attractive wage, treated them like family and have made sure they enjoy what they do. In my rewards for this, I have not had to worry about theft, misconduct, or problems with quality. If I have ever fired someone, I have always over paid them making sure they see that they have been over paid and discuss giving them a positive reference. I have kept this policy to make sure if I have had to let someone go, they do not have anything negative to say about anything. To date, I have only fired 2 people, since 1997. I tend to do a lot of investigation prior to hiring, and what to find out what a person is really like, aside from how well they can actually do the job required. I know that has helped me hire very good people.

I do understand some business owners are to tight to whistle in a hurricane, and have no clue about how to treat anyone decent.

 

[herringbonekid]

This is all symptomatic of the greater problem -- the "extremification" of culture.

outside America it's called 'Americanisation'.

 

[Captain Neon]

At the risk of getting in to politics, the Tea Party movement had very little about change and more about maintaining a certain majour political party's status quo. A long-time member of this majour political party with his maverick longshot "Tea Party" Presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 did more to bring to bring people to the voting booth and cast their ballot for this majour political party than the more obvious campaigning by said majour party. People that more than likely would have sat out the 2008 elections got excited about the "Tea Party" and were conned in to believing that they could actually bring about change by continuing to support this majour political party and its candidates. "It just takes time!" we've been told, and have been told since 1856.

Ah, there's the rub. To fight this, people need to organize. (Think American War of Independence. Think labor unions. Think Tea Party movement.) But once people organize and begin to succeed, they enter the realm of government. In fact, they get in bed with it. The agents of liberating change become guardians of myopic, corrupt entrenchment. Right or left, it always happens.