Everyone knows that peanuts aren’t really nuts but legumes, and that’s fine. Fussy people refuse them in the nuts mixes, but I’m not that scrupulous. Mixed nuts with peanuts have always been my favorite. But if you think about it, there’s no strict standard concerning the ratio of real nuts to peanuts. We’ve always just trusted the producers not to take advantage of our trust. Some peanuts are fine, but let’s not get carried away.
Inflation in the past two years seems to have broken the deal. Every manufacturer is struggling to find sneaky ways to make the accounting work. That means giving you less without letting you know. It’s affecting the whole of everything these days and making everyone suspicious and crabby.
For example, this past week I paid an extra $3 as a “convenience fee” on movie tickets. What in the heck is that? Once in the theater, it became clear how this place actually makes money: exorbitant prices on food and drink items ordered from one’s chair, in a dark theater where you can’t see the high prices and, in the moment, you feel a sense of luxury and want a burger and beer. The bill comes and yikes!
Back to the can of mixed nuts. The latest one I bought—a brand I’ve long trusted—seemed more like a can of peanuts with some almonds, cashews, and walnuts tossed in for good looks. So it was barely mixed at all. It’s just a can of peanuts really.
Yes, it makes us angry. It’s caused everyone to buy with suspicion of getting ripped off. With every purchase, there seems to be something shady going on. The package is smaller. There are strange extra fees. Price increases are hidden in places you’re less inclined to look. The composition of the product itself is changed to add more of the less expensive stuff and less of the quality stuff.
This affects absolutely everything. It has disrupted our normal relations with merchants and cast a pall over commercial relationships in general. Every manager and every owner is scrambling to make ends meet and trying to figure out surreptitious ways of doing that without alerting the consumer. But eventually, we catch on. Then we get angry.
Restaurants are the best case right now. Customers are super price-focused, especially the regular clientele. As a result, no one really wants to change the menu. So you get ingredients taken off dishes and added only with extra charges. So a salad that used to include chicken or salmon does so now only with an extra charge of $6 or so. This goes for side dishes too, which used to be included but are now extras for which you have to pay.
About a year ago, restaurants discovered that the best way to hide price increases is in drinks. Beers went from $4 to $8 and cocktails went from $7 to $15. You'll also be upsold on various “artisanal” gibberish. I’m surprised that they aren’t charging for garnishes. And the pressure to drink is intense. I was recently at a tapas restaurant where fully three servers asked what kind of wine I wanted. I had to say no twice.
Don’t think you can hop over to a nice restaurant and just order cocktails. You end up with a $75 bill without even realizing it.
And don’t think you can outwit them. Many customers have learned how to share meals. But now restaurants are cracking down on that, pushing small plates to be consumed only by one person and pricing them in a way to encourage everyone to order.
It’s the same in the grocery store. Cheese prices are out of control and the quantities ever smaller. The cheese ball that used to be the size of a softball has now shrunk to golf ball size. The bag of chips might be large, but it contains far less. The package of hamburger buns is missing two. And so on it goes with everything.
It’s like the whole commercial marketplace has become a giant effort to scam people, which discredits the merchant class. A friend just stayed in a $95 hotel, but the final bill was $170. How is this possible? Parking fees, internet fees, convenience fees, towel fees, cleaning fees, and taxes. Next thing you know, you’re broke.
This is what inflation has done. It’s not the fault of free enterprise or capitalism. It’s the fault of government and the central bank. But they aren’t around to blame. As a result, the public is gradually turning on the commercial class, which seems craven, sneaky, and secretly voracious. Inflation turns a mutually beneficial and benevolent relationship into an underhanded act of plunder.
This has also soured everyone’s mood. Have you noticed? People just aren’t nice to each other anymore, not in a commercial space. Instead of smiles all around, you get flinty-eyed customers and merchants who don’t seem to be telling the truth. This has made everyone cynical in unnecessary ways. It’s discrediting the normal course of business.
In a genuine system of free enterprise, the money is sound and creates a common standard by which business is conducted. When inflation enters the picture, everyone—consumers and producers alike—is pillaged of purchasing power. The entire system of accounting is blown up so that yesterday’s profits become today’s losses. Instead of thriving, we all turn to surviving.
In this way, inflation truly is a criminal act against property rights, civility, fairness, decency, and honesty. It ropes the entire public into a system of robbery. No one likes to admit what they’re doing for fear of losing business, so instead we’re faced with shrinkflation, feeflation, and every conceivable strategy for transferring funds from one party to another.
This is what happens when a society is rendered poorer by force. It turns people against each other. Benevolence and trust become malice and suspicion. This eats away at the civic culture and personal morals. It also causes a dramatic downturn in the public mood, which is why even this Christmas didn’t seem particularly jolly. Inflation is much of the reason. It’s more evil than we know, like a cancer that gradually eats the heart of a good society. But let’s be clear: Inflation and free enterprise don’t mix. Not now, not ever. And be clear too on the source, it isn’t the merchants. They’re just trying to survive. It’s our ruling masters in Washington who are doing this to us.
