You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

My grocery bills have given me the blues. Part of it is having four kids between the ages of eight and fourteen, any three of which are in a growth spurt at any given time. But the other part is prices at the grocery store and with the rampant printing of money and upcoming Obama-government mandated growing schedules for farmers it's only beginning.

Two examples.


Less than ten years ago I bought myself one of these cheap-o Indonesian-made guitars. $80. The tone isn't perfect nor does the neck melt into your hand but I'm not all that great of a guitarist and I needed an electric to knock around upon. This fit the bill.

Two years ago my son wanted nothing more than a guitar for his birthday. Well, a guitar or a $5000 gadget. I went shopping and found that this particular model was now $100.

Now I see that it's raised up another $20 to $120 American dollars.

2000 to 2007. 25% price increase in six+ years. 2007 to 2009. 20% increase in two years. Graph that out and you'll fill your drawers. That is if you're in the market for a beginner guitar.

Example Two:

Can o' corn at Aldis. Notice that this is not an actual Aldi's can of corn. Photographs of such a rare beast are not released to the internets. I'm using Aldi's here 'cause I'm frugal (or cheap) and it's easy to compare historical prices because they have ONE type of canned corn. Apples to apples.

Ten or twelve years ago this tasty product was twenty-five cents. A mere quarter. It was that was for years and years. Then about four years ago it went up to 33 cents, you know, about the time ethanol came into fashion.

Farmer Bob: "Hey everybody, let's turn our food supply into fuel, not because it's more efficient or creates more energy than we put in but because it makes us feel good. I could plant corn for humans and get $10 a bushel or I could plant feed corn for cows and get $10 a bushel or I could plant corn to turn into gas and get a Bush-Government subsidized $20 a bushel. I'm no dummy. Oh, and since I'm not planting corn for humans the guys who are now want $12 a bushel and since I'm NOT planting green beans those have gone up from 30 cents a can to 40 cents. Less product, same demand, higher prices."

Thanks for the monologue, Farmer Bob.

The bad news is that a can -o- corn is now 49 cents. That's a 100% increase in less than ten years. I won't go into how your favorite milk products (cheese, ice cream, and everybody's favorite lo-fat yogurt) went from $1.69 per bag (this is cheese I'm talking about) to $3.69 in the same few years. Ice cream at least only went from 99 cents to $1.69 in less than ten years. Inflation? It's already here.

Just in case you're wondering, we tried messing with food prices before with FDR and it failed miserably. Back then we had a supreme court with a slight understanding of the U.S. Constitution so they rightly struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as unconstitutinal. I doubt our current court will have the moral compass or the spine.