That chart is evil. First two ticks represent 5 years. Ticks 2-3 represent 2 years. The last two ticks represent 2 1/2-3 years!
Also, whatâs so magical about 2014 that it deserves to be the baseline? Iâd love to see this extended back to, oh, 2006 or so. Sometime before the Great Recession.
Finally, what about shrinkflation? I used to order from Panera on a regular basis, but during the pandemic, it seemed like their sandwiches shrank a little bit more between every order. At this point, I donât think itâs even worth ordering from them.
Ooooh, now plot the avg wage across this period. Y=min wage.
Itâs been maddening to watch people call price-gouging âinflationâ, honestly.
Thatâs not fucking inflation when someone in the supply chain made things more expensive and pocketed the difference as a wider profit margin; itâs the symptom of non-enforcement of antitrust laws.
I mean, most foodstuffs markets (in the supply chain between farm and grocer or farm -> restaurant) are controlled by very few people or corporations; when the farmers get less for their products but the grocer must pay more for them, thatâs not inflation. Itâs price-gouging, the symptom of the kinds of market failures that follow regulatory failures to prevent corporate mergers that would reduce competition in those markets.
When you look at food, fuel, housing, the enshittification of basically everything, the acquisition of yesterdayâs hot-fresh-streaming services and re-packaging them to be just as predatory as the cable was when you cut the cord and went to streaming- itâs all what we get when private equity owns a piece of everything and theyâre running it all to squeeze more out of everyone they can, and they also ensure regulators donât do a damned thing about it.
There was once a time when regulators had the will to block corporate mergers, and they had the will to tax windfall profits at 100%.
The real dystopia is that people are talking about fast food at all. Itâs garbage food. Realisticly itâs always been the worst and often most expensive choice.
Itâs garbage food.
Itâs quick, convenient, and explicitly designed to rub all the right parts of your palette. Besides, the worst part of the fast food menu is the soda and fries. The rest of the meal is marginal.
Realisticly itâs always been the worst and often most expensive choice.
Its consistently worse than home cooking. But not everyone has the luxury of a functional kitchen or a stocked fridge or the time to prepare the meal. And as to âmost expensiveâ⊠hardly. I remember getting Chipotle on campus, when a burrito was $8 and came in at around 1000 calories. Very hard to name another restaurant that offered that kind of value, speed, and convenience.
A lot of what fast food restaurants are banking on today is this over-reliance on their convenience making them an inelastic good. No more home economics classes, teaching young people how to cook. Lots of gig work means people are always on the road. Lots of people living alone. Lots of shitty apartments where major appliances simply donât work.
Youâre stuck, dude. Now give me $15 for a sandwich.