My wife and I used to go out to breakfast at least once a week. For 15 years, each time was about $20 plus tip. I retired in 2015, and we went to breakfast twice a week. It had gone up a bit since 2005, to about $30. Now, a meal for two at any of our local spots is $50. The service is lousy and the food sucks. So we just don’t go. We didn’t cut back— we just stopped going altogether.
We experienced the same thing. The last time we went to breakfast it was about $45 w/tip which is more than when we go for lunch somewhere occasionally and that includes a beer apiece. We have always tipped well but 20% on a $40 plus breakfast made us decide to not go. In the equation I think is Democrats pushing wages pushed up the last 4 years and that is in the price. These employees no longer work for less than minimum wage and hustle for tips.
Probably a bit healthier too boot. Especially if it was a chain you were going to for breakfast. The chains fast food places are not generally providing healthy fare...unless it's a plain, totally non-GMO, salad perhaps.
The jobs numbers have been the biggest game in town for the last four years. Peter Nayland Kust does a good job reporting the outrageous lies told by labor regarding jobs over at the All Facts Matter substack. It’s disgusting what lies they have told especially this year.
It's insulting the numbers they put out expecting the awake citizen consumer to believe them.
And with the jobs numbers, they've been putting them out and then consistently revise them downward the following month. Are you kidding me??? This type of conduct in the private sector can put one in jail!
In 2009 the Obama administration conjured up a statistic even more phony than "job creation" statistics that all politicians had used before. As a metric to rate the success of the new administration's "stimulus" (another fictional concept) American Recovery Act passed in early 2009. "Jobs Saved or Created":
A meaningless measurement that had never been used before 2009 in any government unemployment statistical measure. Deceit. As if counting a job "saved" is even possible. Meant to convey an authoritative finding of economists asserting there was a return on the investment of $800 billion of taxpayers money. When there was none, or it was nominal, and a net negative return.
Taxpayer money did make corporate and Democratic party constituencies like labor unions and environment profiteers very happy, some jobs were created for them, maybe even saved. But not for the rest of America. But by 2010 even the Associated Press called the measurement bullshite:
The slightest tug at the veil of deceit to look inside revealed the "jobs saved or created" metric to be false, unprovable. Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Don't forget that we are taxed on inflation. If you invest in any stock, for example, and cash it out, you pay taxes on the entire "gain," even though much of it is inflation.
CPI is Democrat Milton Friedman's scam. Inflation is credit expansion. First class postage is an even better way than McDonald's prices to track long term inflation.
Applies to real estate prices, too. Ongoing for several decades. I started noticing that around the time that Neil Bush and Silverado was in the news. The collapse of the Savings & Loan industry. Which were the primary lenders for housing before they collapsed. A change by Congress on valuation of real estate assets they held wreaked havoc in their books. The previous valuation rules that the Neil Bush's exploited were a house of cards, the rules change crashed them down. What resulted was banks holding illiquid property, real estate prices collapsed as the market functioned to clear excess supply to generate demand. Foreclosure sales below what had been the previous market. Which impacted every single affiliated industry that was commission based, like realtors and lenders, title services, etc. And...local governments, property values they tax a mill-percentage of. They had spent every mill-levy penny on providing more and more constituent services, payoffs, the pot of gold from housing bubbles doled out like candy by politicians buying votes to get reelected. Forced them into difficult budget cuts. No politician likes taking away what they had given, not a good reelection strategy.
So they made reforms to the real estate system to make sure they never would have to make difficult budget cuts again. To ensure housing prices would only go one direction - up. No more housing market corrections could be allowed. The free market hurt the ambitions of politicians.
Enter inventory and pricing listing services. Like Metrolist. Became the largest of breed. Nearly every realtor pays to subscribe to it for quick and convenient access to available property and comps data. A funny thing began to happen with Metrolist. Inventories would consistently be understated. Less housing inventory is less supply, that supply-demand equation was erroneous, based on false information, prices went up accordingly with more demand and less (stated) inventory. Some state auditors began to notice the pattern. Metrolist had a series of "corrections" to inventory they'd fess up to. Blaming flawed math formulas in their software, data entry errors, all sorts of excuses for the corrections. That consistently resulted in understated inventory. Never overstated - that would result in lower home prices, no more gluts like had happened after the S&L collapse.
The Bush 45 administration policy was to push for full home ownership. It goosed demand with relaxed loan standards, a loose money policy was embraced. Lending to anyone with a pulse, even many without one. Creditworthiness not an issue, especially in minority neighborhoods. D's jumped on board with concerns about bank "red lines" they said kept minorities from enjoying home ownership. Criteria for loans went away. WaMu, Countrywide and other lenders shoveled loans out the door, encouraged fraud in applications, taught borrowers how to fudge, no background checks were run. Towards the end of the Bush 45 administration the tab was coming due. Loans were going bad, the portfolios of bundled loans that had been rated AAA turned out out to be full of junk loans where borrowers were in default.
The banking bailout, "too big to fail" and Obama's "pen" came to the rescue. Foreclosures were halted. Borrowers who had overpaid in bidding wars for overpriced homes (Metrolist understated inventory), overborrowed were allowed to stay in their homes. Had the housing market been allowed to correct, like free markets would do, the same glut that hurt housing prices during the S&L collapse would've driven home prices down. Hurting local government budgets that relied on property tax revenues. Government and banks had learned their lesson. This time they made sure banks would hold on to the inventory. Stopping foreclosures and renegotiating loans to allow occupants to stay in their homes - that they fraudulently got home loans for, with bank and government wink and nod - kept the market from reaching oversupply. Home prices remained elevated. A one-way market was effectively created. Any correction was minimized, risk was eliminated from the market. Free markets must have risk to function properly. Guaranteed profit, no risk is a controlled market, not free.
The services that many rely upon to keep markets honest weren't honest brokers of information. By design. The Metrolist's that understated inventory, the S&P's and Moody's that overrated real estate portfolio ratings, all have worked to keep housing prices high, without free market correction. Too many industries and government itself benefited from permanently high prices. Price corrections deemed too painful. Realtor and lender commissions that are price based. Government revenues necessary to dole out political favors and constituent services are housing price dependent.
Those "with" benefit. Those "without" lose. It's why more and more young people live at home today, unable to afford a new home. Had home prices been subjected to a free market there would've been many corrections these past several decades. Instead any corrections are small and short-lived. Prices go up, up, up. Only. There's not the same level of upward mobility in housing. More and more homeowners are stuck.
Add in things like the feds raising rates and that deepens the housing crisis. Few people can afford to take out new loans at higher interest rates than they have in their current homes. So they stay put. And those lower priced, entry level homes remain in the same hands. The dynamic nature of the real estate market becomes stagnated. Those without remain permanent renters or live in basements of their parents, will take on roommates. And of course the Blackrock's and Vanguard's move in, buying up inventory to avoid a glut, keep housing prices high...and grow their percentage of ownership of homes. A key component of the "you will own nothing and be happy" as a renter 2030 goal.
It's the same damn thing as the McDonald's example you describe. Inflation benefits the "have's." The middle class shrinks. And our nation becomes like much of the rest of the world. Small upper class, small middle class, large lower class. Dependent on government handouts and charity. Rewarding the politicians who give them things...that were really taken away from them in the first place. What they receive is what they once had, minus the government's, the politician's and their biggest donor's take.
Bingo on "too big to fail." I want to go to the casino, and play "give back" if I lose, or keep it if I win. Condoned and financed by the government (including quantitative easing.... i.e. "just print some more). That scam has even exceeded Obamacare in magnitude.
You have shown in plan language something an old journalist said years ago:
"All governments lie" Journalist I.F. Stone.
Stone was subjected to much criticism in life for his efforts.
In 2016, the film ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone was released; a documentary on independent journalism in which the work and principles of I.F. Stone as an outcast journalist articulate the narrative.
Thanks, Dennis. That should be the most-important job of real journalists - to show the public that government's lie. When journalists support or defend all the lies, we get what we have today.
Bill, you are subverting the system. The trick is to work out where the money is going and see if you can get a share of it. Don't look back. Behave like someone who has a right to drink all the cream.
No, you are exactly right. The minimum wage is an obscenity. Workers must look to their unions for a remedy. They must form a community of agitators to recover a fair share of the proceeds of their work.
If workers have more to spend, there will be more jobs. This is a universal, undeniable common sense axiom and truth.
Agitate. Don't take no for an answer. As someone or other said, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
I went back and added this link to a story I wrote about "inflation work-arounds." These are the measures people must use/employ to deal with REAL INFLATION. I list about 40 examples. For example, cutting back on paid subscriptions or dropping out of a civic club or country club. Not using dry cleaning ... firing the maid, eating chicken instead of steak, etc.
While the article deals with family work-arounds, businesses have to use them too. I really like this article.
Does anyone actually think raising minimum wages will curb inflation?😅
It never has yet, plus the city, state, & federal govts get an automatic bite of the increase. More entry level jobs are erased everytime. OR minimum wage is nearly double the federal rate. Businesses are driven out left & right. About 60% of OR land is owned by state & federal govt. Land here is under such control. The areas open to development are fewer now, which drives up value of existing homes, & automatically raises the property taxes, & yet counties in particular, haven't been keeping up with infrastructure & want more $ now. It's a mess. Most young working people can't afford an apt on their own. What we need is less govt interference. Govt schools here are mostly a joke too, with Oregon ranking #2 in state spending $15,986 per capita as of 2020-23 report stats shared by Taxpayers Association of Oregon, & yet all we hear are cries for more $$$$. A whole lot of $ going everywhere but where it should. Under leftist control here + a sanctuary state since 1987. Well, human nature without God's input is running amok as usual. Sorry for such a long rant. I remember Jimmy Carter leaving office with the US reeling in high inflation....then Reagan coming in, a beloved character, but he signed the first amnesty for illegals living in the US in 1986, the same year he signed into law the indemnity for the pharma crackpots. I think we've been sold out repeatedly for decades. All the bureaucracies are corrupt beyond our wildest imaginations. Thugs in DC are not going to suddenly shape up! Time will tell the rest of the story. Happy New Year to all the decent people trying to make sense of where we are now. Still so many dying from numerous side effects of the bioweapon jabs. We really need God's help. Praying for America.
It's the same where I live Bill. Our government slaps a 15% goods and services tax on everything and as prices rise so does government revenue. The thing that really hacks me off is how much money is being wasted. I wouldn't mind as much if I was supporting top notch Healthcare, education and roading etc but the amounts of money that governments are spending on rubbish is astounding. " Disinformation" and scare mongering covid panels, funding for woke organisation's supporting bizarre minority causes, huge amounts to create government propaganda etc. It's worse in your neck of the woods with billions being funneled into foreign regime-change organisations and conflicts as well. Lots of this money can't even be tracked and no one is accountable for it.
Love the fact you highlighted "real" inflation against wages. Forget all the government BS regarding Consumer Price Indexes, the real point is this - to keep up in America today you need to be making double what you were making 10 years ago or you are falling behind. Simple as that. Great article Bill....
My wife and I used to go out to breakfast at least once a week. For 15 years, each time was about $20 plus tip. I retired in 2015, and we went to breakfast twice a week. It had gone up a bit since 2005, to about $30. Now, a meal for two at any of our local spots is $50. The service is lousy and the food sucks. So we just don’t go. We didn’t cut back— we just stopped going altogether.
You give a much more accurate picture of inflation than the government ever could!
We experienced the same thing. The last time we went to breakfast it was about $45 w/tip which is more than when we go for lunch somewhere occasionally and that includes a beer apiece. We have always tipped well but 20% on a $40 plus breakfast made us decide to not go. In the equation I think is Democrats pushing wages pushed up the last 4 years and that is in the price. These employees no longer work for less than minimum wage and hustle for tips.
Probably a bit healthier too boot. Especially if it was a chain you were going to for breakfast. The chains fast food places are not generally providing healthy fare...unless it's a plain, totally non-GMO, salad perhaps.
The jobs numbers have been the biggest game in town for the last four years. Peter Nayland Kust does a good job reporting the outrageous lies told by labor regarding jobs over at the All Facts Matter substack. It’s disgusting what lies they have told especially this year.
It's insulting the numbers they put out expecting the awake citizen consumer to believe them.
And with the jobs numbers, they've been putting them out and then consistently revise them downward the following month. Are you kidding me??? This type of conduct in the private sector can put one in jail!
Just like the government changed (numerous times) how they calculate CPI, they also changed how they calculate "unemployment."
4 percent unemployment is another sick joke ... that (almost) everyone buys.
In 2009 the Obama administration conjured up a statistic even more phony than "job creation" statistics that all politicians had used before. As a metric to rate the success of the new administration's "stimulus" (another fictional concept) American Recovery Act passed in early 2009. "Jobs Saved or Created":
https://web.archive.org/web/20100712225301/http://www.businessandmedia.org:80/articles/2009/20090512100953.aspx
https://web.archive.org/web/20100221014007/http://www.heritage.org:80/research/economy/bg2305.cfm
A meaningless measurement that had never been used before 2009 in any government unemployment statistical measure. Deceit. As if counting a job "saved" is even possible. Meant to convey an authoritative finding of economists asserting there was a return on the investment of $800 billion of taxpayers money. When there was none, or it was nominal, and a net negative return.
Taxpayer money did make corporate and Democratic party constituencies like labor unions and environment profiteers very happy, some jobs were created for them, maybe even saved. But not for the rest of America. But by 2010 even the Associated Press called the measurement bullshite:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100115104550/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_counting_jobs
The slightest tug at the veil of deceit to look inside revealed the "jobs saved or created" metric to be false, unprovable. Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Peter does an excellent job of making sense of the deceit.
Shadowstats crunches the numbers for us and that shows 10% a year is about right. 2 to 3% is a cruel government joke.
The Smother Brothers did a similar skit about Jimmy Carters inflation. It was a hoot. Inflation and taxation is the Marxist way.
I looked quick on YouTube, didn’t find that, but Father Guido Sarducci, inflation, and Ford
https://youtu.be/dNOCKPxQ9kI?si=bWGVtoLy6m031Di5
That’s it. I have the wrong President.
Don't forget that we are taxed on inflation. If you invest in any stock, for example, and cash it out, you pay taxes on the entire "gain," even though much of it is inflation.
CPI is Democrat Milton Friedman's scam. Inflation is credit expansion. First class postage is an even better way than McDonald's prices to track long term inflation.
73 cents! That's insane!
All I have to say is that a pound of bacon is $8-$9. I still eat eggs, but I don’t enjoy them.
Everything goes up but the salary, unless you are a member of Congress who votes for your own raise. DISGUSTING!
Applies to real estate prices, too. Ongoing for several decades. I started noticing that around the time that Neil Bush and Silverado was in the news. The collapse of the Savings & Loan industry. Which were the primary lenders for housing before they collapsed. A change by Congress on valuation of real estate assets they held wreaked havoc in their books. The previous valuation rules that the Neil Bush's exploited were a house of cards, the rules change crashed them down. What resulted was banks holding illiquid property, real estate prices collapsed as the market functioned to clear excess supply to generate demand. Foreclosure sales below what had been the previous market. Which impacted every single affiliated industry that was commission based, like realtors and lenders, title services, etc. And...local governments, property values they tax a mill-percentage of. They had spent every mill-levy penny on providing more and more constituent services, payoffs, the pot of gold from housing bubbles doled out like candy by politicians buying votes to get reelected. Forced them into difficult budget cuts. No politician likes taking away what they had given, not a good reelection strategy.
So they made reforms to the real estate system to make sure they never would have to make difficult budget cuts again. To ensure housing prices would only go one direction - up. No more housing market corrections could be allowed. The free market hurt the ambitions of politicians.
Enter inventory and pricing listing services. Like Metrolist. Became the largest of breed. Nearly every realtor pays to subscribe to it for quick and convenient access to available property and comps data. A funny thing began to happen with Metrolist. Inventories would consistently be understated. Less housing inventory is less supply, that supply-demand equation was erroneous, based on false information, prices went up accordingly with more demand and less (stated) inventory. Some state auditors began to notice the pattern. Metrolist had a series of "corrections" to inventory they'd fess up to. Blaming flawed math formulas in their software, data entry errors, all sorts of excuses for the corrections. That consistently resulted in understated inventory. Never overstated - that would result in lower home prices, no more gluts like had happened after the S&L collapse.
The Bush 45 administration policy was to push for full home ownership. It goosed demand with relaxed loan standards, a loose money policy was embraced. Lending to anyone with a pulse, even many without one. Creditworthiness not an issue, especially in minority neighborhoods. D's jumped on board with concerns about bank "red lines" they said kept minorities from enjoying home ownership. Criteria for loans went away. WaMu, Countrywide and other lenders shoveled loans out the door, encouraged fraud in applications, taught borrowers how to fudge, no background checks were run. Towards the end of the Bush 45 administration the tab was coming due. Loans were going bad, the portfolios of bundled loans that had been rated AAA turned out out to be full of junk loans where borrowers were in default.
The banking bailout, "too big to fail" and Obama's "pen" came to the rescue. Foreclosures were halted. Borrowers who had overpaid in bidding wars for overpriced homes (Metrolist understated inventory), overborrowed were allowed to stay in their homes. Had the housing market been allowed to correct, like free markets would do, the same glut that hurt housing prices during the S&L collapse would've driven home prices down. Hurting local government budgets that relied on property tax revenues. Government and banks had learned their lesson. This time they made sure banks would hold on to the inventory. Stopping foreclosures and renegotiating loans to allow occupants to stay in their homes - that they fraudulently got home loans for, with bank and government wink and nod - kept the market from reaching oversupply. Home prices remained elevated. A one-way market was effectively created. Any correction was minimized, risk was eliminated from the market. Free markets must have risk to function properly. Guaranteed profit, no risk is a controlled market, not free.
The services that many rely upon to keep markets honest weren't honest brokers of information. By design. The Metrolist's that understated inventory, the S&P's and Moody's that overrated real estate portfolio ratings, all have worked to keep housing prices high, without free market correction. Too many industries and government itself benefited from permanently high prices. Price corrections deemed too painful. Realtor and lender commissions that are price based. Government revenues necessary to dole out political favors and constituent services are housing price dependent.
Those "with" benefit. Those "without" lose. It's why more and more young people live at home today, unable to afford a new home. Had home prices been subjected to a free market there would've been many corrections these past several decades. Instead any corrections are small and short-lived. Prices go up, up, up. Only. There's not the same level of upward mobility in housing. More and more homeowners are stuck.
Add in things like the feds raising rates and that deepens the housing crisis. Few people can afford to take out new loans at higher interest rates than they have in their current homes. So they stay put. And those lower priced, entry level homes remain in the same hands. The dynamic nature of the real estate market becomes stagnated. Those without remain permanent renters or live in basements of their parents, will take on roommates. And of course the Blackrock's and Vanguard's move in, buying up inventory to avoid a glut, keep housing prices high...and grow their percentage of ownership of homes. A key component of the "you will own nothing and be happy" as a renter 2030 goal.
It's the same damn thing as the McDonald's example you describe. Inflation benefits the "have's." The middle class shrinks. And our nation becomes like much of the rest of the world. Small upper class, small middle class, large lower class. Dependent on government handouts and charity. Rewarding the politicians who give them things...that were really taken away from them in the first place. What they receive is what they once had, minus the government's, the politician's and their biggest donor's take.
Bingo on "too big to fail." I want to go to the casino, and play "give back" if I lose, or keep it if I win. Condoned and financed by the government (including quantitative easing.... i.e. "just print some more). That scam has even exceeded Obamacare in magnitude.
You have shown in plan language something an old journalist said years ago:
"All governments lie" Journalist I.F. Stone.
Stone was subjected to much criticism in life for his efforts.
In 2016, the film ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone was released; a documentary on independent journalism in which the work and principles of I.F. Stone as an outcast journalist articulate the narrative.
Thanks, Dennis. That should be the most-important job of real journalists - to show the public that government's lie. When journalists support or defend all the lies, we get what we have today.
Bill, you are subverting the system. The trick is to work out where the money is going and see if you can get a share of it. Don't look back. Behave like someone who has a right to drink all the cream.
No, you are exactly right. The minimum wage is an obscenity. Workers must look to their unions for a remedy. They must form a community of agitators to recover a fair share of the proceeds of their work.
If workers have more to spend, there will be more jobs. This is a universal, undeniable common sense axiom and truth.
Agitate. Don't take no for an answer. As someone or other said, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
I went back and added this link to a story I wrote about "inflation work-arounds." These are the measures people must use/employ to deal with REAL INFLATION. I list about 40 examples. For example, cutting back on paid subscriptions or dropping out of a civic club or country club. Not using dry cleaning ... firing the maid, eating chicken instead of steak, etc.
While the article deals with family work-arounds, businesses have to use them too. I really like this article.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/workarounds-galore?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Does anyone actually think raising minimum wages will curb inflation?😅
It never has yet, plus the city, state, & federal govts get an automatic bite of the increase. More entry level jobs are erased everytime. OR minimum wage is nearly double the federal rate. Businesses are driven out left & right. About 60% of OR land is owned by state & federal govt. Land here is under such control. The areas open to development are fewer now, which drives up value of existing homes, & automatically raises the property taxes, & yet counties in particular, haven't been keeping up with infrastructure & want more $ now. It's a mess. Most young working people can't afford an apt on their own. What we need is less govt interference. Govt schools here are mostly a joke too, with Oregon ranking #2 in state spending $15,986 per capita as of 2020-23 report stats shared by Taxpayers Association of Oregon, & yet all we hear are cries for more $$$$. A whole lot of $ going everywhere but where it should. Under leftist control here + a sanctuary state since 1987. Well, human nature without God's input is running amok as usual. Sorry for such a long rant. I remember Jimmy Carter leaving office with the US reeling in high inflation....then Reagan coming in, a beloved character, but he signed the first amnesty for illegals living in the US in 1986, the same year he signed into law the indemnity for the pharma crackpots. I think we've been sold out repeatedly for decades. All the bureaucracies are corrupt beyond our wildest imaginations. Thugs in DC are not going to suddenly shape up! Time will tell the rest of the story. Happy New Year to all the decent people trying to make sense of where we are now. Still so many dying from numerous side effects of the bioweapon jabs. We really need God's help. Praying for America.
Plastic soda bottles used to all be 20 oz. Sometime in the last ten years they changed the design so that it looks the same, but only holds 17 oz now
16.9 oz...... "No quarter."
It's the same where I live Bill. Our government slaps a 15% goods and services tax on everything and as prices rise so does government revenue. The thing that really hacks me off is how much money is being wasted. I wouldn't mind as much if I was supporting top notch Healthcare, education and roading etc but the amounts of money that governments are spending on rubbish is astounding. " Disinformation" and scare mongering covid panels, funding for woke organisation's supporting bizarre minority causes, huge amounts to create government propaganda etc. It's worse in your neck of the woods with billions being funneled into foreign regime-change organisations and conflicts as well. Lots of this money can't even be tracked and no one is accountable for it.
Love the fact you highlighted "real" inflation against wages. Forget all the government BS regarding Consumer Price Indexes, the real point is this - to keep up in America today you need to be making double what you were making 10 years ago or you are falling behind. Simple as that. Great article Bill....