Pain at the cash register

[Dave's Not Here Man]

According to an article, from a reliable source mind you, current inflation is measured at 5.6%. So for all the math dummies that means what cost you 100 bucks last year now costs you 105 and a half. So yesterday we rode out to the smallmart to just grab a few things to keep us from the drive thru for the weekend and hopefully well into next week. We've been ordering out a lot more than usual which is no bueno. Coincidentally, our total was 106 bucks. 


I say coincidentally but 5.6% seems mighty damn conservative to me considering we purchased no meat, no high dollar items like beer, for example, and only a couple of things that were heat/eat because I'm working on eating cleaner (fuck processed food and all that salt). Being a seasoned Walmartian, I guessed the total would be around 80-ish. So that's more like 25%, which I'll bet is a lot more realistic than the official number.


What say you?

[minx]

I don't know how the overall inflation rate is measured, but I truly believe that many larger businesses are taking advantage and raising prices on everything.

For example milk. The dairy industry is one of the most heavily subsidized industries out there, and there are no shortages in that area in the US. Yet milk prices have risen - why?
Certainly the farmers aren't getting anymore per gallon, and neither are the truckers from what I can tell. So where is all the extra expense suddenly coming from?

Buuut, there are strains on the supply chain for beef and fresh produce, and prices on those have gone up, so why not raise the price of milk and cheese too while we're at it?

It pisses me off, because Wallyworld and the like have all sorts of computers that track inventory to the individual grape. So they more than have the ability to price things fairly. But they know that all they have to do is beat the local business price by a few cents. And for most people, those few cents do matter and can make a huge difference.

We have an older gentleman who comes to the food pantry every two weeks. One of the things he always wants is milk - he and his wife drink a lot of it. One week we misordered and ran out of milk on the Saturday pantry. He looked so sad and disappointed. Said that they couldn't buy any because their SNAP benefits had run out for the month. Sad beyond belief. If we were allowed to, I would have given him money to buy some, but the volunteers are under strict orders not to give anyone cash or offer a ride somewhere (some of us will deliver their food box - one gentleman can't lift the box and his daughter is disabled - I always drop his box on his porch on my way home).

Pisses me off that people can't afford a basic like milk. With the wealth of food we produce and toss, there is NO reason any person in this country should go hungry (and yeah, I include those here illegally too -we throw away enough food in a week to feed everyone a decent meal).

[Dave's Not Here Man]

It's all been am epic contradiction for at least a couple of years. If you remember, in the years before the bubble bust houses were selling much in the way they are now sans the low and no-doc mortgages. Appraisals were through the roof, so followed sales, refi's (also handed out like halloween candy), and there were bidding wars between buyers with homes selling way over list many times. Big recession brought on by defaults on those loans, junk bonds, bundled mortgages, and ultimately unemployment/underemploymebt shot up to numbers also far from the official ones. Not saying it's exactly the same as now, it's just that it's close enough where we should be thinking about lessons learned. But aren't.

Then after pulling back from the edge of the cliff, we have Wile E Coyote come in and America first the fuck out of everything with the tariffs, the broken trade agreements, the inability to set any kind of lucid domestic economic policy to compensate for the overstocked farm products and backordered imports. Then COVID, shutdowns, the great resignation..... which has hit everything from the container ships waiting for weeks or more to get into port, to the walmart greeter.

[minx]

It totally feels like 2008 is about to repeat itself for sure. Makes me beyond nervous.

[bobathon]

I'm not that attentive but I haven't been so impressed.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

Dec 12, 2021 10:00:42 GMT -5 bobathon said:

I'm not that attentive but I haven't been so impressed.

www.npr.org/2021/12/18/1034784494/how-the-government-helps-investors-buy-mobile-home-parks-raise-rent-and-evict-pe

[k9krap]

I got my first taste of this pain. I just received notification of my next Amazon Pantry delivery, which ships monthly. Every single item I’m receiving in this shipment has risen in price by at least $1.50, if not more. This is stuff like deodorant, septic tank cleaner, and contact lens soaking solution.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

Our bill at Walmart the other day was 208 and change. The basket wasn't even half full and the only expensive meat we bought was a premade pack of 4 burgers (10 bucks) and a pound of deli ham (7 bucks). And gas is 3.89 here as of Thursday evening. I didn't go anywhere yesterday.

[minx]

I volunteer at one of the food pantries downtown. The food they pass out is from two different allotments.
1) Allotment 1- through the USDA - about 20lb of assorted dry goods - things like canned veggies, canned meats like tuna or chicken and pasta. You also get a cold pack.
--when I started back late 2020, the cold pack was two large meats (like a 3-4lb bag of chicken breast or a 4lb ham as examples), 1 gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, 2-3 pounds of cheese, and a pound of butter.
2) Allotment 2- this is all funded through donations from the church, but consists of packs of grocery store meats (all pulled and frozen before the sell-by date). Each person would get 2-3 packages.

In addition, there were always 2 shopping carts - one had things like cereal and granola bars, and the other had hygiene products, like tampons, shampoo and soap.

All of it comes from the food bank - they act as the warehouse, and the different area pantries come in to shop. The USDA foods are ordered based on how many people the pantry serves in an average week and delivered directly to the church, but before they arrive, once a week, volunteers from the church go on and get the random meats and dry goods like cereal - they can get stuff like a box of cereal for a dime from the food bank.


I tell you all of this as a precursor to the last two weeks.
Last week, we had no milk. We did have eggs, which has become a rarity over the past year, so we could at least say something that was happy to compensate for the loss of the milk. (I was amazed to find out that so many grown adults still drink full glasses of milk). We were low on meat, but everyone still got two USDA meats and one random pick.

This week -no milk or eggs (we discovered a carton of cheese after the first two people had picked up, so the next dozen lucked out and got cheese). We also discovered that the bushel of apples in the kitchen was for us - Woo-hoo! Everyone got apples too!
ONE package of meat. That was it.

So each client got their 20 pounds of canned/dried foods, one package of meat (we did have enough that we could offer either chicken or fish -3lb bag of either), a block of velveeta-like cheese, and 6 apples.
We were able to get cereal and granola bars this week, so we did have that (which we haven't for the past 3 weeks), and we had tampons and diapers.
I went into the room where the church stores all of the cold food and things like cereal, and every one of the three chest freezers was empty, along with the industrial fridge. First time I have ever seen that.
Food bank is having problems getting deliveries, and with shortages, the volume of meats grocery stores donated are down as well.

I left there feeling very depressed. I am beyond grateful that I have more than enough food, and that this shit is a minor inconvenience for me. But I've gotten to know a lot of the people who come in each Saturday, and for them and so many others, this is no laughing matter.

My bill at Giant yesterday was $100+, but in fairness I did have to get dog and cat shit, which added to the expense - almost the entire wet cat food aisle was bare. I don't give my animals wet food, but man it looked weird.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

I can only imagine the way it is in Russia and Ukraine.

[minx]

I can only imagine. Seeing the pictures of the people fleeing and waiting for trains is gut wrenching.

We really have it good here - I wish more people would realize that, but then again Fox isn't showing much on Ukraine that focuses on the human element, and republicans have a hard time imagining anything bad happening to THEM.