Adjust this:
I often grab a small bag of roasted cashews from the machine on my floor in the office. They are 65 cents worth of salty protein goodness.
Today, however, the cashew slot was taken by Peanuts — cheaper, less tasty, common peanuts. Only the price was the same: 65 cents.
Adjust THAT for inflation . . .
Man, I knew Charles Schulz was a marketing whore, but Peanuts in vending machines is just ridiculous.
(Sorry, the inadvertent capitalization compounded with sleep deprevation positively begged for such a lame joke)
Well, inflation is a market force applied (in large part by the goverment) to everybody, whereas this very well could just be the vendor trying to up his profit margins. If they aren’t worth it to you, you shouldn’t buy the peanuts, and it will be sorted out by the people on the margins.
Like rationality, I think inflation is more complicated than you suggest. Granted, it makes for a better read… but it’s basically economist’s job to knock people over the head with the truth (or else to divine the future).
All this time it looked like the gov’t was trying to stop inflation.
Of course, its much more complex than the simple peanut/cashew duality I put forth.
It just reminded me of all the ridiculous hedonic adjustments I see all the time . . .
a powerful picture of how inflation works ! complimenti.