How Much You Got, BOY?

 Anyone remember this?

It's a scene from Vacation. A comedy movie. A spoof. A satire. Make believe.

Well in keeping with my latest theme of how real life is now imitating make believe, does anybody feel like this with other commodities nowadays? Like buying a car or a house or going to the grocery store? 

If you remember from one of my latest posts the mention of Adam Smith who considered himself to be an ethical economic philosopher you may have thought then what you're probably thinking now: "Can the two mix? Have they ever?" Well I am pretty sure they have. I think I've even known a few honest businessmen in my day. But mixing ethics and business is pretty much extinct now. How are prices set? Ever wonder that? I truly believe that folks used to calculate what it cost to produce their product, add a reasonable (and BOY has THAT word changed!) profit for their efforts and boom - there's the price. I have to make up a word here cuz I don't know what they'd call this in economics but I'll call that description "subsistence pricing." Enough to pay production costs and still earn a reasonable profit. Regardless of what the difference in meaning "reasonable" might have between two people, let's imagine subsistence pricing was actually practiced in Reality Land. How different things would be!

First thing that I can think of is Covid 19. When the supply chain issues started happening, real or imagined, then quite rightly prices would need to go up if subsistence pricing were being followed because costs would increase and absorb the "reasonable" profit. That's fine and dandy but now that the pandemic is under control and supply chains are no longer problematic, prices would go DOWN. When was the last time the price of A NY THI NG went down? Subsistence pricing is a thing of a bygone era when a person still could utter the words "ethics" and "economics" close together and not be scoffed at.

Today we have the exact thing the above video represents. When a company is deciding on a price they ask "How much you got, boy?" Well it's worded in more polite language like "what the market will bear," "fair market value," or "competitive pricing," but it's identical to the robbery of Clark W. Griswold who, after the robbery, you will remember, he has to ask how much babysitting money Audrey has so they can fill the Family Truckster with gas. Anybody asking their daughters to borrow babysitting money after buying.... EGGS for instance?

What the actual FRIG is going on there? And I say "there" because here are some American eggs:

And I have seen them MORE expensive. Why has this happened in the States while Canadian eggs seem to be unchanged in price?

Is it Covid 20? Well if you remember what I said about opportunistic consters in a previous post - yes it is. Well technically it's bird flu but to call a con a con it could just as accurately be called Covid 20. And I have little doubt that after this comes to the attention of Canadian egg farmers and Canadian egg price fixers there will be a sudden jump here too cuz we too have the bird flu in Canada. It didn't stop at the border. So guess who's stocking up on eggs today?!?!

Would either country's egg producers and sellers lose a significant amount of money if they just kept their prices on the level they were before the bird flu struck? They might lose some of the ridiculously over ballooned profits that have already been attached to the eggs we eat here in Reality Land but they wouldn't lose enough to go out of business. So the 10 extra dollars? That just plain greed. And there was a time not so long ago that such greed was considered criminal and even punished. 

Let's reference the educational video at the start of this post once again. "What would the egg barons' sheriff think of their business practices?" Well what would the sheriff's equivalency be in the U S of A? One would be the "Watchdogs" or inspectors general. This office was created in 1976 to provide a check on government abuse following the Watergate scandal. They are supposed to work independently of the White House and that too was put into law in 2022 in response to (you probably guessed it) Trump's arbitrary firings of watchdogs during his first term to replace them with loyal subjects who he could work with, i.e. flunkeys who obey his commands. 

So guess what Trump did in his, what, 2nd, 3rd day in office? He dismissed a pile of inspectors general ignoring even the 30 day's notice they are supposed to receive. He's also supposed to provide each with a "substantial rationale" for their firing but welcome to the new America and King Trumpty Dumpty who will hopefully have a great fall off of his wall and shatter like the 13-dollar egg he is. Or at least has become known as...

Did you know that originally Humpty Dumpty was a cannon? It was none other than Lewis Carroll who anthropomorphized old Humpty into an egg in Alice's adventured through the looking glass. And through the absinthe glass and laudanum glass... I won't wax too literary on your asses here.

So now if I were to buy a dozen eggs in the States for 15 bucks and ask the retailer or egg farmer what the inspector general thought of his business practices, chances are pretty good that he could produce some ID from his wallet indicating his position as Trump-appointed inspector general of poultry or whatever and say, "All of it, boy!" I guess I'm stretching the metaphor a bit but you can see what I'm driving at can't you?

And if I were an American I'd wave goodbye now to 4 or 5-dollar eggs because when the bird flu outbreak is over do you suppose these criminally appointed inspectors general will be lowering the prices back down to their original levels? No, I'm sure they will invent some losses incurred during the bird flu outbreak that will take years and years of outrageously high poultry profits to recover from. Get ready for chicken to become more expensive than steak. Or more likely get ready for more mad cow disease. It's well known that farmers have destroyed crops to increase prices. When you ponder whether this was done to make a reasonable or UNreasonable profit the idea of perpetuating livestock disease becomes less far fetched doesn't it? The phrase in the article "corporate-focused system" is the culprit.

Finally, I don't mean to flog a dead horse but I'm sure we all recall the issue upon which Trump has even admitted he got elected, don't we? Well just in case:

Making America GREAT!