The 5% of Simpflation

Yesterday was one of relaxation... for the most part.  Alexa played Vivaldi for me while I did a little cleaning, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and finished several loads of laundry.  At one point, Lily jumped off the sofa and gave herself a booboo paw.  I heard a little yelp, and then she came limping up to me to sit, holding her left front paw off the floor.  Booboo paws seem to happen here on a regular basis, with both dogs.  I did what I always do, petted her head, told her how terrible the booboo paw was and 45 minutes later (if that) everything was forgotten.  

I saw this interesting piece in The Guardian regarding skimpflation.  This happens when the price stays the same, or may even go up, for a product or service while the quality declines.  You see, one of the golden rules of economics is that companies need to increase revenue by 5% every year.  If there's not enough product for sale and they might not hit that 5%, they will reduce the quality of that product without reducing the customer's price since lower production costs will help them hit that 5%.  Thanks to the pandemic, payroll costs have gone up which is another hit on that 5%.  Again, they will do whatever needs to be done to hit that 5%.  However, these corporations are growing concerned because consumers are angry.  At some point, someone is going to have to take the hit.  We, the ones who are spending the bucks have to take control.  

One of my favorite environmental bands of the 80's was Midnight Oil.  They disbanded for a time while one of them went into Australian politics.  Well, they're back and I'm loving this new song.

And the House passed this infrastructure bill... and as might be expected, Republicans are calling this communism.  Dumb asses. They hate it. They will shriek about it being a waste of their tax dollars.  The truth is their greed keeps them from caring about America.  They are the party of 'me:' my money, my taxes, my guns, my rules, and my regulations.  Screw everybody else.