Dead Produce and the Zombie Economy

Do you remember how much better food tasted (at restaurants and at your grocery store) when we were younger?

I'm thinking about restaurants in particular, even fast food chains like Chipotle. It felt like I was eating real food. I started noticing this regularly after the 2020-2022 global COVID-19 pandemic. Lots of my favorite grocery stores and businesses closed, but for the ones that stayed open, many of them didn't taste the same anymore. Significant inflation (money printer go brr) led many restaurants to either a) decrease portion sizes b) decrease quality of ingredients, or c) increase prices. Many of the restaurants who did the latter went out of business. From the supply chain side, huge agribusiness companies (Tyson, Cargill, Nestlé) bought up much of the competition, which was dismal for food quality. These companies value producing shelf-stable, cheap goods with high profit margins. Inflation drove up the costs of even these foods, so even the cheap garbage costs more than it used to.

What's worse, is that even if these companies were interested in providing produce/goods that were nutrient-dense, they couldn't do it using traditional agricultural models. There literally aren't enough micronutrients in the soil. And it's not just plants and soils, the upshot of depleted soils is a depleted food system. Everything we consume has to eat what grows.

And honestly? I'm just drained. The money is worth less and less each year. Most people my age don't even dream of owning a home. The U.S. national debt has increased 700% in the last twelve years. Many of my peers can't afford to eat red meat (polluted as the food supply is.) Rent is going up. There's war in the Middle East, again. And the federal government is raiding Home Depots. The future is so grim for Gen Z that we've embraced an ironic, doomer attitude that everything-is-fucked-so-let's-just-laugh-at-it. Even though that's a grim way to look at the world, there's a very serious problem looming.

When the thing that people use to measure value (money) itself loses value — everything loses value. Business becomes a race to the bottom in which everyone involved attempts to squeeze every last dollar out of the dollars they have. This manifests in poor quality ingredients, cheap clothes, aggressive marketing techniques in an attempt to entice you to spend the money that you have. If you don't spend it now, it will be worth less to them, later. We live in a culture of immediacy, where everything is extremely important, all the time. It's no wonder that burnout is becoming commonplace. This rotting, zombie economy turns everyone's insecurities and desires into a chronic adrenal fatigue. An unending need to acquire the latest product or technology.

It is probably worth considering why, despite the rapidly increasing cost of all consumer goods, the cost of entertainment goes down year over year.

I'm no sage. I spent my early twenties chasing prestige, money, and the hottest girls that would go out with me. I got most of those things. Even so, everything that is full must be empty again.

Money is spent. What isn't is devalued.

A final tangent.

Earlier this year, I took a job at a very successful political fundraising firm. Millions and millions of dollars flowed out of that office, but I had a very hard time believing that any politicians that we helped elect would have any positive effect on Californians' lives, despite personally liking many of them. After all, can you name the politician or political party that's put California "back on the right track?" Before you answer, take a look at rent trends, cost of living, crime, and overall happiness of the average Californian over the past twenty, forty, even sixty years. Wages have stagnated since the 1970s, while the cost of living has only increased. The list goes on.

For an interesting rabbit hole, CLICK HERE.

Naturally, I quit that job and for the first time in my life asked myself, "what the hell do I want to do with my life? So far prestige has only gotten me burnt out and blackpilled, and all the "ambitious" people I've met have lives that I don't want to imitate.

I'll leave you with this: (1) I want to create a better world for my kids, even though I haven't discovered any silver bullets for that, (2) I want to opt-out of the death-machine as much as possible, but I've still gotta eat, and (3) I've got a whole lot of reading to do.

Speaking of which, I just cancelled my Amazon subscription and ordered my next stack of books from my local bookstore. It's certainly not toppling any global cabals, but it feels like a start.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting for you to read in the coming weeks. Until then, stay as safe and sane as you can. Hug your mom.

also on substack ↗