Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,
We are all keenly aware of price inflation. We notice those rising prices every time we go into a store. But the inflation boogeyman is hitting you even harder than you realize.
Not only are you paying more for pretty much everything you buy, you’re getting less.
Literally.
It’s called shrinkflation.
Rising prices don’t just hit consumers. In fact, they impact producers first. As the cost of materials, labor and equipment goes up, companies feel the pinch. Eventually, they pass those costs on to their customers.
But raising prices is bad for business, so sometimes, companies find other ways to cut costs. They shrink packages or simply put less stuff in the same size box. While the price stays the same, you get less product.
Shrinkflation doesn’t show up in the CPI and consumers often don’t even notice, but the effect is the same as rising prices. You ultimately end up with less stuff. It is ninja inflation.
“Downsizing is really a sneaky price increase,” former Massachusetts assistant attorney general Greg Dworsky told NPR during an interview.
“Consumers tend to be price-conscious. But they’re not net-weight conscious. They can tell instantly if they’re used to paying $2.99 for a carton of orange juice and that goes up to $3.19. But if the orange juice container goes from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, they’re probably not going to notice.”
MousePrint.org chronicles shrinkflation. Here are some recent examples.
- Double rolls of Bounty paper towels have shrunk from 98 select-a-size sheets to just 90. Triple rolls were downsized from 147 select-a-size sheets per roll to 135.
- The standard 92-ounce bottle of Gain detergent is now 88 ounces.
- A family-size bags of Double Stuf Oreos now have four fewer cookies in each bag. (Did the family shrink?)
- The 19.4-ounce bottle was downsized to 18 ounces.
- A package of Sara Lee blueberry bagels was reduced from five to four bagels as the package weight dropped by 3.3 ounces.
- Green Giant frozen broccoli and cheese sauce packages were reduced from 10.0 oz. to 8.0 oz. with no change in the advertised number of servings per package.
- Ice cream companies have generally dropped the standard 56-ounce container to 48 ounces.
- A tube of Crest Detoxify toothpaste dropped from 4.1 ounces to 3.7 ounces.
- Kettle potato chips switched from 8.5-oz. bags to 7.5-oz. bags.
- A package of Ortega taco shells dropped from 5.8 ounces to 4.9 ounces.
We also see shrinkflation in services. Remember full-service gas stations? Now, we pump our own gas, bag our own groceries and manage our own investment portfolios.
Misplaced Blame
Consumers often don’t notice shrinkflation, but when they do, they get angry, and they usually direct their anger at the “greedy” corporations who are charging them the same amount of money for less product. But there is another culprit who generally slinks around unnoticed.
The Federal Reserve.
Price inflation is a symptom of monetary inflation. As the central bank creates money out of thin air and injects it into the economy, prices generally rise. Economist Murray Rothbard noted that since governments have deemed “paper tickets” and computer digits money, “then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this ‘inflation’ of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.”
Companies are merely responding to their own cost problem when they shrink package sizes. If they didn’t, they would have to raise the price. And that would make you mad too!
When it’s all said and done, you end up paying more and getting less.
Ron Paul summed it up this way.
Congress should also restore a sound monetary policy by auditing, then ending, the Fed, as well as by repealing both legal tender laws and capital gains taxes on precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Ending the era of the welfare-warfare state and fiat currency can lead to a transition to a new era of liberty, peace, prosperity — and full bags of Doritos.”
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Barilla Pasta. Old sale price .99 cents a pound. New sale price 2 for $2.50. 12 ounces.
“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14403.Ambrose_Bierce
Since 1913 we’ve all been born into slavery.
May 25th, 1787
DV?
“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.”
― Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2095916-no-treason-the-constitution-of-no-authority
.
From a review:
On May 25th, 1787, a group of 55 men gathered for a closed meeting in Philadelphia. Officially, it was being convened to discuss alterations to the then constitution of the United States of the Articles of Confederation. Some state legislatures had authorized their representatives to attend the meeting only on this basis, explicitly prohibiting them from considering a new constitution. To make certain that the general public did not find out about the nature of this conspiracy, the convention members swore an oath not to discuss any proceedings with the public…for the rest of their lives. The only first-hand accounts of the proceedings were published several years later after the death of the last survivor, James Madison, in 1836. The press was forbidden to attend. The meetings were held on the second floor of the building, so that would-be eavesdroppers could not hear anything. The new constitution would become the law of the land whenever nine state conventions ratified it. This was in explicit violation of the Articles, which required a unanimous vote for amendments. Thus did a group of men launch a coup-d’etat. This coup established a new national covenant in 1788, a covenant stripped of the Articles’ invocation of God, “The Great Governor of the World,” with only the old country’s name transferred for public relations’ the United States of America. Today, we would call this a trademark violation. But it worked. In this new book from NiceneCouncil.com Conspiracy in The Broken Covenant of the U.S. Constitution Dr. Gary North, in nearly five hundred pages with thousands of footnotes rehearses the story of the deeply theological origins and implications of that coup against the God of the Bible and His people, the Church of the Lord Jesus!
.
Murray’s view of politics was shockingly blunt: the state was nothing but a criminal gang writ large. Much as I agreed with him in general, and fascinating though I found his arguments, I resisted this conclusion. I still wanted to believe in constitutional government.
Murray would have none of this. He insisted that the Philadelphia convention at which the Constitution had been drafted was nothing but a “coup d’etat,” centralizing power and destroying the far more tolerable arrangements of the Articles of Confederation. This was a direct denial of everything I’d been taught. I’d never heard anyone suggest that the Articles had been preferable to the Constitution! But Murray didn’t care what anyone thought — or what everyone thought. (He’d been too radical for Ayn Rand.)
http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml
Unfortunately, there is also some shrinkflation in Russia. For example most chocolate bars are now 90 grams (instead of 100 before).
But as the price is 62 RUB (about 69¢), it is nothing too bad.
Russian chocolate bars….garbage…and how did they suspend so many air bubbles in it?
I would guess a Russian chocolate bar is 50% air.
And the air makes up 50% of the weight too? {/facepalm}
I like the regular “Alyonka” chocolate, as it has pretty high cacao content (25%).
I never said anything about the weight. [facepalm back at ya]
But during my one foray into “Russian” chocolate, all I could think was the air bubbles were the only way a rusky could make and sell a chocolate bar that would appear on par with the size of an American chocolate bar.
So you’re saying rusky uses air to get to the same size as an American chocolate bar?
Then the rusky bar must be lighter, basic physics says.
I however gave a non-ambiguous weight of 90 grams, above.
sell a chocolate bar that would appear on par with the size of an American chocolate bar.
Grammaticality: appears/looks/seems the same.
Obviously, if the Russian bar has air a similar sized non-aerated choco bar would be physically heavier.
You consider 25% high cacao? I don’t really consider anything under 55% to even be chocolate. My 2 cents.
I consider it pretty high, and higher than regular Hershey’s milk chocolate.
The “standard” ice cream container was 1/2 gallon or 64 oz, not 56.
Bacon formerly sold by the lb is now 12 oz typically.
In the 70’s , Laura Scudders chips could be had in a 1 lb bag (actually 2 1/2 lb bags packaged together. And don’t get me started on 3 lb cans of coffee.
It must’ve been at least a quarter-century ago by now, but remember when coffee cans started being 13.5 oz., with the logical absurdity printed on them, which said, “Makes same as 1 lb.”? Straight outa the “1984” chocolate ration being “raised”. Now, some cans or bags are down to like 11 oz.
The only shrink I’m worried about is when I swim in cold water.
Yep … although at 76 years old, that’s not quite the issue it once was.
Shrinkflation has been going on for more than a decade. Ice cream went from 1/2 gallon containers to 3 pint containers at least a dozen years ago. Frozen vegetables were in 16 oz bags that served 4 and now are 12 oz bags, but still listed as 4 servings. Pasta was sold in 1 # boxes that are now 12 oz. Initially, prices remained the same for the reduced volume, but over the years, prices increased to the point that many of these products have doubled in price on a per weight unit measurement in less than 10 years.
On the positive side, shrinkflation could help shrink the waistlines of the fat f*cks of America.
Smaller portions , less chips in the bag yet people don’t seem to be getting smaller. I have no idea how some peoples’ asses are twice the width of a car seat. I’ve heard bad thyroid gland and that is probably true for some people. I try not to notice because I do have empathy for those broad asses and glad I’m not like that , just an ass is all.
HFCS…….it cannot be burned for energy like regular sugar.
Ze bugs will still be a full kilogram package for your weekly allotment, serf, so why worry? Shut up and bon appetit.
No thanks, waiting for the Soylent Green.
Erzatz ketchup fixes everything.
Auntie- Nothing will fix that vile lab grown fake meat. Not ketchup, hot sauce, blow torch……nothing.
How many Lumpen shall have fabulous fake-meat barbeques and be lovin’ it?
(Auntie’s skin crawled and threw up a little in the mouth, BL)
There are plenty of crickets generally speaking especially at night at those grocery/retailer parking lots under the lights. The store may be empty but the crickets are in abundance for the time being anyway.
Did the family shrink? With the Jabicide, quite likely yes.
Shades of…
Hershey’s — the chocolate candy maker — has been using this idea for decades … nothing new except for the ‘news’ of it.
It’s disgusting the difference in a Snickers bar in 1962 and that of today.
Makes fat Americans healthier of they eat less
Leslie Knope: Ms. Pinewood, recently, many of the local restaurants have changed their “small-size” option to a whopping 64-ounces.
Kathryn Pinewood: That’s correct, and it’s great for the consumer. More bang for the buck. Are we putting bargains on trial here?
Ann: How could any sane person call that “small”?
Kathryn Pinewood: Well, if the customer truly wants a smaller size, there is an option.
Ann: Oh, do you mean the “li’I swallow”? Does anybody buy that?
Kathryn Pinewood: Some girls buy them for their dollhouses, but they’re not very popular. I mean, for only a nickel more, you get 64 ounces.
Leslie Knope: Well, uh, Paunch Burger just recently came out with a new 128-ounce option. Most people call it a gallon, but they call it the “regular.” Then, there is a horrifying 512-ounce version that the call “child size.” How is this a “child-size soda”?
Kathryn Pinewood: Well, it’s roughly the size of a two-year-old child, if the child were liquefied. It’s a real bargain at $1.59.
Leslie Knope: I’m sorry, Ms. Pinewood, but why would anybody need this much soda?
Kathryn Pinewood: It’s not my place to speak for the consumer, but everyone should buy it.
[And some people claim there is no good TV]
shrinkage!