I go to Italy at least twice a year for extended periods. Every time I return to the US I get sticker shock when shopping for dinner. It happened again recently, so I know it’s not a fluke. At least now I know why it’s happening.
Here’s an example. I can get nearly a quarter pound of Mortadella in Tuscany for a Euro or so. I pay much more than that for crappy “bologna” in the states.
Heck, a small box of crackers in a US supermarket now costs over $4. For flour, water, salt and a box.
Yes, it’s true. Food prices have soared in the US.
But there’s no inflation I hear you say! Hardly any at all! Well, none to speak of.
So how come food prices have skyrocketed without inflation? All without a corresponding rise in salaries, or even an increase in the dole?
It turns out that the current US government, having as its best interest the profits of big business over the well-being of its citizens and small business owners, has decided to use a whole lotta “statistical flimflam” to cook the books, just like their keepers, the titans of industry. The result is faked low inflation numbers, so the feds don’t have to increase the Social Security payout or pay higher interest on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, which has some foreign government investors fuming. This way wages are kept low and government can ease money supply until it practically gives greenbacks away.
You see, as Guido Veloce points out in Lower Standard of Living by Design:
Bureau of Labor Statistics (makes) inflation smaller than it really is by using “Hedonic quality adjustments” to measure changes in the value of the product over time. So, a car today might cost three times what a typical car cost in the ’60s, but it’s safer, more fuel efficient, and it generally goes where you steer it—so it has more value than a ’60s car. In the end, the government argues, a car today doesn’t really cost three times as much because its value is more.
Maybe—if you like to crash cars or drive them around race tracks. But the big problem is, the every-growing government has tried to apply the same “logic” to food, arguing that if you can’t afford the lamb that’s currently going for around $10 a pound, you can always eat chicken or pork. If you can’t eat them, you can eat dirt and creepy-crawling things from the front yard. So food prices never actually rise, you just end up eating crap you never thought you’d have to eat. (Some day Andrew Zimmern will seem like a regular Joe without a job, all on account of slimy crawling things becoming the food of choice amongst folks who didn’t have a choice.)
So real inflation eats into our paychecks and what little savings we have (and why should we have any savings, since there’s little reason to put your money in a corrupt bank with today’s fake low interest rates? Shouldn’t they want our money?)
So there’s yet another reason to go to Italy. Sure, the government is corrupt and the bureaucracy is out of this world slow, but you eat (and drink) well for less. I do get drinkable bottles of wine in the Lunigiana for a Euro. I get sausage for the equivalent of a couple bucks a pound. A worker’s lunch in a restaurant with wine, coffee and three courses runs me 9-12 Euros. Train transportation is cheap. But buy a house, hotels are expensive.
And impeach the fools before you’ll eat dirt, will ya?