COVID-19: from the restaurant scene March 2020

originally posted by robert ames:
I keep coming back to something Eric said about how we need to change to become an economy that is based on humanism and less on financial power. That really resonates with me, but it certainly isn't American style capitalism.
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so what are you thinking? scandanavia?
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I'm not sure that Scandanavian style social democracy is possible given the US culture and scale. It would have to start with the Warren platform, universal healthcare, wealth taxation, improved infrastructure, etc.

Failing that, I've been advocating for years that these "states rights" Republicans might actually be a gift in disguise. Weaken the federal government and strengthen the states much less Fed tax and much higher state and local taxes. I'd much rather build locally and fuck the dipshits in Iowa or wherethefuckever. If NC didn't break the right way, I'd have to move, but so be it. We'd be better off more like the EU than we are now. My tolerance for stupid, be it militia, rednecks, racists, anti-vaxxers, etc is at an all time low.
 
originally posted by Tristan Welles:
Nathan,

Sorry for your continued plight.

What led you to conclude:

"Most people already viewed Rue Cler as an expensive, special occasion restaurant which is crazy."

I followed your menu, from time to time, and would have thought it a weekly option, if I were in the metro area.
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Yeah, that's always been our thought and we did have a good set of regulars who come once a week (sometimes more) but that's just not generally the case. But I don't know exactly as I haven't looked at the data we have on returning customers, though not all would be logged in our system.
 
originally posted by VLM:
I've been advocating for years that these "states rights" Republicans might actually be a gift in disguise ...My tolerance for stupid, be it militia, rednecks, racists, anti-vaxxers, etc is at an all time low.
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Maybe. But I fear the consequences of giving these subgroups any sort of platform to entrench their power/influence.
 
Why is Scandinavia always brought out in these discussions? Much of Scandinavia has had decades of neoliberal governments that have weakened the welfare states so much that we can't really use that term for our countries. That it's not as bad as the US still doesn't mean we have social-democracy. We have a slightly less extreme version of neoliberalism. I'm all ready for an anarcho-communist revolution. We have to get rid of capitalism itself if we want to have any chance of surviving the climate catastrophe - which will be far worse than covid will come to be.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
At $39 prix fixe, Rue Cler would certainly be considered a moderately priced restaurant in DC and would have had no problem attracting a wine geek crowd. I don't know how that price compares in Research Triangle. And I doubt that the usual Outback crowd, who order steak and a beer, come out paying the same amount. But I never ate at Outback, so I couldn't say.
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They aren't the same, but the point holds that people don't necessarily think of an "Outback" style resto as expensive, but they do Rue Cler.

Outback
Grilled chicken breast is $18.
Grilled Salmon is $19.
Fucking rotgut crap wine ? but I'm guessing at least $10
14oz USDA shitgrade Ribeye $27

Rue Cler
Coq au Vin is $18.
Glass of Dupueble Beaujolis $10
l'Escalope de Saumon is $19.
Glass of Pepiere Muscadet $9.
12oz Angus NY Strip $32

Hopefully you are spared the indignity of ever eating at an Outback, I wish I could say the same, but in some of the more remote locales I've visited, there was no choice.
 
originally posted by Tristan Welles:

I followed your menu, from time to time, and would have thought it a weekly option, if I were in the metro area.
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Not sure where you live Tristan, but in my experience the culture of going out to restaurants is more common in the big cities than in places like the Research Triangle. Which is not to say that people don't like having these restaurants, but I suspect they go less often than their demographic counterparts in large cities.

Also note that salaries are lower here than in Nyc/SF/Chicago/LA. So I wouldn't call it 'expensive' but it does look more expensive than it might in Nyc/SF/Chicago/LA. That said, living costs are also lower here, so not sure how that factors into the equation of the potential customer pool and how likely they are to patronize with what regularity.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by VLM:
I've been advocating for years that these "states rights" Republicans might actually be a gift in disguise ...My tolerance for stupid, be it militia, rednecks, racists, anti-vaxxers, etc is at an all time low.
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Maybe. But I fear the consequences of giving these subgroups any sort of platform to entrench their power/influence.
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Yeah, my thinking on this isn't exactly nuanced right now. It's more like, "well those fuckwits got guns, I'm better get an Styre for every cheap ass AR-15 they've got."

Hopefully, the changing demo will root a lot of this out, but I thought that last time.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Why is Scandinavia always brought out in these discussions? Much of Scandinavia has had decades of neoliberal governments that have weakened the welfare states so much that we can't really use that term for our countries. That it's not as bad as the US still doesn't mean we have social-democracy. We have a slightly less extreme version of neoliberalism. I'm all ready for an anarcho-communist revolution. We have to get rid of capitalism itself if we want to have any chance of surviving the climate catastrophe - which will be far worse than covid will come to be.
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We should probably say "Idealized Scandanavian Country" as I really don't know the real facts, just the gist. Mark E. moved there to get out this fucktard country, so there must be something going on there.

Not sure what this is: anarcho-communist
 
Not sure what this is: anarcho-communist
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Think Kropotkin rather than Marxist-Leninism. Establish communism without a state since states always cause a ruling class which creates power hierarchies. And in hierarchies elites aren't ever willing to let go of their power. Essentially M-L attempts at communism have created states like the Soviet Union that aren't communist but rather state capitalist. And as we all know, state capitalism is just an intermediary step between capitalism and capitalism.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:. Establish communism without a state since states always cause a ruling class which creates power hierarchies. .
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At the risk of going even further off topic, what’s wrong with power hierarchies?
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by VLM:
We'd be better off more like the EU than we are now.
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Say wha?
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I assume he meant more local power. You can criticize the Eurocrats for lack of democratic representation, but overall the EU is a much weaker ‘federal government’ than what we have in the US.
 
At the risk of going even further off topic, what’s wrong with power hierarchies?
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Anarchists generally want to get rid of unnecessary hierarchies. So obviously there can be hierarchies that are ok e.g. experts in some scientific field will have more knowledge in their field than those who just read a wiki article on it.

But specifically when it comes to states, the problem is that it creates a ruling elite that then has a vested interest to keep the status quo rather than shift to communism.

Or do you think there are inherent good things about hierarchies?
 
This has gone off the deep end. Scandinavia looks bstter to us, as does most of Western Europe, because they are better than we are and because they have moved much farther toward what used to be called a social democratic state, not because they are an anarchist utopia. And, while, like Nathan, I often make jokes about wishing that states like Texas would go ahead and secede, the perils of insufficiently centralized economic institutions seems to be to have been amply demonstrated by the European responses, or lacks of it, to the financial crisis of 08-09. I guess one could argue that Greece would have been better off if it would have seceded, devalued its currency, defaulted and started from scratch. But I doubt Europe as a whole would have.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
At the risk of going even further off topic, what’s wrong with power hierarchies?
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Anarchists generally want to get rid of unnecessary hierarchies. So obviously there can be hierarchies that are ok e.g. experts in some scientific field will have more knowledge in their field than those who just read a wiki article...
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There is a lot of work being done by that word ‘unnecessary’ and it’s not clear to me how we could determine which fields deserve to have experts and which fields don’t.

The concepts of accountability and circulation of elites are what are supposed to keep the hierarchies from being abused. But of course it’s an ongoing process to tweak institutions and laws. Nothing is perfect. (And I would guess that anarchy is quite far from perfect)
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by VLM:
We'd be better off more like the EU than we are now.
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Say wha?
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I assume he meant more local power. You can criticize the Eurocrats for lack of democratic representation, but overall the EU is a much weaker ‘federal government’ than what we have in the US.
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I trust you have read about the Articles of Confederation? Monkey is simply wrong on this one.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

I trust you have read about the Articles of Confederation? Monkey is simply wrong on this one.
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Is there a particular area you’re thinking of in which the EU has more power than the US federal govt? Monetary union is clearly weaker and a big reason for ongoing Euro ‘crises’. The EU tax base is weaker. The ECJ and ECHR are weaker than the US Supreme Court. European nations have their own immigration and citizenship policies which is not the case for US states. Much easier to Brexit than for a US state to secede....
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
The concepts of accountability and circulation of elites are what are supposed to keep the hierarchies from being abused.
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Pareto? Gimme a hit of whatever you're smoking.
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I never said these concepts are being perfectly applied in non-anarchic societies. But if we accept that hierarchies have a role in society, these are some important mechanisms for preventing tyranny and we should work towards improving them.
 
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