Did They Think We Wouldn't Notice?

Quick! Without looking, how many ounces in a can of tuna fish? (Answer at the end of the post.)

And how about these?

And still the same price! LOL. Of course the “gourmet” is going to cost more per ounce, although I don’t notice that much difference in flavor.

Here’s the answer to the tuna can question.

And here’s a “vintage” can.

I realize this isn’t “new” news, but I often wonder how far they’re willing to shrink things before folks simply stop buying. Or maybe they think we don’t notice. Or maybe they think we’re all rolling in dough and willing to pay whatever they want.

I do have bottom line prices for things I buy (or maybe it’s top line) and if the price is above that, I don’t get it. I’ve noticed in the grocery stores that the lowest priced choice of similar products is often where the shelf is empty. I’ve also noticed that stores carry less variety than they used to. And the last time I was in Walmart (not my favorite place to shop) I realized that they’d shortened the aisles of shelves; I assume because they have less on them. Yet the News always reports that our economy is doing well. If that’s really true, then I can’t help but wonder, “well” for whom?

They give a lot of reasons for rising prices, we’ve all heard them, but the real problem in the white elephant in the room, the thing no one will acknowledge and for which legislation would be impossible, i.e. the insatiable appetite for greater and greater profits. When top executives require top salaries, there are investors to pay dividends to, and “success” is measured by so-called economic growth, then prices, fees, and taxes can only go up while wages, jobs, product sizes, and quality go down. What is unfathomable, is that those playing this game seem to think that it can go on forever, that an economy can have eternal growth, eternal life.

The other day I was researching the Obamacare penalty, to find out what we’d have to pay this year. It will be the same as last year, but it will be “adjusted for inflation.” You know that adjustment won’t be in favor of the little people, those of us who can no longer afford health care and yet must still struggle to pay this penalty. (We didn’t give up air conditioning to save the earth!)

Guaranteeing profits for the health insurance business was a huge mistake; it only fed the white elephant. Yet politicians are too busy playing a childish game of King-of-the-Hill to notice what’s really going on. Or to care. Both parties are guilty, but it keeps the American people distracted and divided, so that most folks likely don’t even realize there is a white elephant, and politicians can continue playing their game and collecting tax dollars to play it. Marx got it wrong, religion isn’t the opiate of the masses, politics is.

I usually try to be encouraging in my blog posts, but the truth is that I have no hope for this country. We insist upon a glutinous, wasteful lifestyle, and while many recognize this, we think the answer is simply opining about it on talk shows or pointing the finger. Yet how many are willing to do whatever it takes to extract themselves from it?

For those who’ve been paying attention, this is not new news either. So I’ll just leave it at that and move on to my more typical homestead posting next time. Just maybe, by being encouraging I can motivate readers to make lifestyle changes that will serve as lifeboats on a sinking ship.