Time/Doritos Index drops 1.7%
I was in the grocery store last night, and I remembered that it's time to update the Time/Doritos Index, which I inaugurated here last year. And so I went to the junk food aisle and looked to see what the price was on a "party size" bag of Doritos. To my dismay, the price printed on the bag was $7.29. Can you imagine? $7.29 for a bag of chips! And it's not even the largest, "family" size. In the "party" bag, you get 180. We're now up over 4 cents a chip.
Anyway, this particular supermarket had the bag marked down a bit. So do all the big chains. Averaging out what they're charging at WalMart, Amazon, Kroger, and Target, the current average is $6.3525 per "party size" bag.
The minimum wage in Portland just went up to $15.95 an hour. Assuming a 10 percent tax rate, that works out to $14.355 an hour to take home. Comparing that after-tax hourly wage with the price of the "party size" bag, we see that it takes the worker 26 minutes and 33 seconds to make enough money for the goods.
No wonder Trump is ahead.
Sad though it may be, the index is actually slightly better than last year's 27 minutes and 1 second. The chips are in the cart 28 seconds quicker this year, a 1.7 percent decline. So live it up, minimum wagers!
The basic groceries I like to buy are getting more expensive every month. I have very little respect for the explanations coming from Washington.
ReplyDeleteYou might look to the oligopoly of a few massive food conglomerates that dominate the market for an explanation then.
DeleteOops, meant to leave a link. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation
DeleteBig-Ag is one of the most profitable businesses out there. But they are also under stress from the massive money printing.
DeleteYou might want to check out the Campbell's Tomato soup index over at the Political Calculations blog. The can size hasn't changed since production began, so no need to correct for shrinkflation. The data set goes back over 100 years.
ReplyDeleteNo need to remind folks that the Dow has doubled since Biden took office.
ReplyDeleteDow is driven by around 4-6 stocks and about as fake as a market as possible.
DeleteIf the Dow had actually doubled in Biden's term, it would need to be at 60,000+!
DeleteThe Dow currently is around 41,000. When Biden took office, it was around 31,000. That's a little more than a 32% increase, or about 8.5% annual compound growth in the 3.5 years Biden's been in office. Compare that with almost 6% average annual inflation over the same period. Inflation-adjusted returns have been poor during Biden's tenure.
DeletePeople forget about what inflation does to investment dollars
ReplyDeleteAnd inflation is created by adding dollars to the system- so each existing dollar is worth less. Today dollars are all just digital entries on a computer, but they have been creating them by the Trillions to keep the economy afloat. There is no way to stop inflation now because those dollars are already out there.
DeleteThe Federal Reserve has control of our money supply (not constitutional), and have managed to destroy the dollar to almost worthless. Whenever anybody tries to do anything about it, they end up in a casket.
ReplyDeleteFritos FTW
ReplyDeleteYou think Biden can change the price of Doritos? This is not inflation nor money printing, it is corporate greed. The prices went up during Covid and they have chosen to keep them high. You can research it yourself if you go beyond FOX.
ReplyDeletePerhaps my best return on investment in the past few years is 'forever' postage stamps. I bought 400 of them a few years back and have enjoyed an incredible increase in the value of my stamp inventory. Of course the overall profit in actual dollars is small, but if feels good to use a 50 cent stamp when postage is much higher now. Small victories.
ReplyDeleteStamps just went up again over the weekend, I think.
DeleteAh, that’s not inflation. That is pure corporate greed. Man, you geezers want to blame everything on Biden…
ReplyDeleteEasy target
Delete