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, what's so magical about 2014 that it deserves to be the baseline? I'd 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 don't think it's even worth ordering from them.
It's been maddening to watch people call price-gouging "inflation", honestly.
That's not fucking inflation when someone in the supply chain made things more expensive and pocketed the difference as a wider profit margin; it's 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, that's not inflation. It's 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 yesterday's 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- it's all what we get when private equity owns a piece of everything and they're running it all to squeeze more out of everyone they can, and they also ensure regulators don't 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%.
Taco Bell is fucking ridiculous now. A single grilled cheese burrito on its own is over $10. The other burritos are 3 to 4 bucks as well. The entire point of Taco Bell is that it's supposed to be cheap garbage food you order at 1AM on a weekend after smoking a bowl, and that's no longer feasible. Now it's expensive garbage food. Nevermind that they also got rid of half the menu.
The quality at all of those places has gone down over that time too. I didn't even think that was possible
When I was in college, I could fill up on three bean burritos at Taco Bell for $1.81 out the door. Del Taco was cheaper at $1.50.
That was thirty years ago, but still. I don't know how to explain it, but it felt a whole lot easier to dig up that kind of pocket change back then than it does to dig up whatever it costs today.
Could under reporting of real inflation that consumers feel be a factor here?
I’m sure these companies are exploiting consumers, but I’ve also been suspicious of the reported inflation numbers. It feels a lot higher than that and actually it could be more in line with the companies in the graph.
Maybe it’s not the fast food prices that are high but the inflation number that is too low.
God this makes me so want to eat the rich!
My wife is charging me 140% more for dinner now, prices are getting insane!
Probably because all food prices has outpaced inflation. If you've done any grocery shopping in the past two years between shrinkflation and price increases many food items have doubled in price.
The right wing always assumes everything is a government conspiracy and the left wing assumes everything is a corporate conspiracy and neither group bothers to think about any other reason for things like this.
But before blaming the government for "printing money" (when the central banks have done the opposite by raising interest rates) or assuming every grocery store in the world got together to raise prices all at once, maybe we should consider other factors.
There could be food supply issues. Given this is a global phenomena, we should consider global food supply problems.
One thing that could cause global food supply is if there was a war in a part of the war that normally exports a large percentage of a staple food to the rest of the world. Where is wheat and grain normally produced? Is there a war happening there?
The fun thing about economics is the idea of substitutes. Bread is more expensive now? Just have more rice. Grain is too expensive for cattle feed? Mix in some more corn. If you're the only one doing these tricks to reduce your food costs, it works really well. But unfortunately everyone is substituting which results on food prices across the board going up.
Also Climate Change does have an effect on agriculture. Droughts and floods mean less food is produced. So places which were reliable fields for farming aren't so reliable anymore. So while the war in Ukraine will eventually be resolved which will put some downward pressure on food prices, climate change will continuously be putting an upward pressure on the price of food.
Damn food trucks took our jobs.
And they'll blame Biden.
I only trust Campbell tomato soup
Fun fact! This chart is just strait up wrong. McDonalds prices are up around 20% compared to wages that are up 28%.
