The reason your half-gallon of orange juice is 52 oz. is because the size of oranges has shrunk due to global warming.
Pay attention, people.
There is a somewhat parallel story, over the decades, of the shrinkage of a 2” x 4” piece of wood. It’s made MANY changes over the years, with seemingly logical rationales.
US oil production is now at its highest level ever.
Before you think this is good news it’s because the Biden administration has made a colossal blunder that will likely topple the petrodollar.
The government has actually increased oil leases quietly.
This in addition to emptying the strategic oil reserves.
The green energy stuff is all just graft.
“At first, it was just one brand, then two, then all of them. And while I haven’t made a careful study of it over the years, once they all standardized on the same slightly smaller size, it was time for someone to be first, and drop it again.”
Yep... Boiling the frog slowly. And the worst part is they are actually cutting their own throats with this practice. If their costs are rising it is because of the economy. And if they shrink instead of raising prices the public does not get hit enough to raise hell sooner and nip it in the bud to get the economy back on track which will help the distributor also. More so in the long run.
You can bet if a true 3 pound “can of coffee” costed $20 people would be raising hell more than they do now with a 1.5 pound “can of coffee” for $10. It would expose the true scope of the economy. If the people keep falling for this “shrinkflation” scam soon a “dozen” eggs will only be 10. an assumed “pound package” is already only 12 ounces. And now a “half gallon” isn’t even a half gallon.
This started under Barry the Muslim and it goes far and wide as to the products it affected.
Remember when you would go to the big box store and buy a gallon of paint? Uh yeah, that gallon of paint ain’t a gallon anymore.
“When cities mandate a doubling of the minimum wage, as so many now have, that vastly reduces the value of the dollar, and massively increases the cost of doing business for any business that employs entry level employees. We’ve forcibly increased the food producers’ costs, and the packaging producers’ costs, and the grocery stores’ costs. That has to be reflected in product pricing. It has to.”
While I agree with the author’s conclusion on this score, what he describes in this instance is not inflation rather, it’s businesses forced to raise their prices because of some stupid government regulation laid on them at the point of a gun. In this instance, the dollar’s value hasn’t been decreased rather, the businesses’ costs have increased artificially.
Inflation is the devaluation of the currency due to the injection of money unsupported by productive output into the economy. This can only be caused by the government in concert with the FED.