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Sure sign economy is headed for trouble: Even cheap eats are hard to find
If you’re looking for a sure sign the U.S. economy is headed in the wrong direction, all you need to do is look at the skyrocketing price of “recession-proof” foods: pizza, hot dogs, bagels and beer.
Interesting, but the one thing I don't see mentioned in the article --- RENT drives up the cost of food as well. These storefronts have to pay rent. The housing crisis has driven up rents and property taxes, and that drives up the costs of goods as well.
Thanks to the Euro introduction and the speculation, here in Italy we have virtually our prices more than doubled since 2001 while wages remained low.
Once a "Pizza Margherita" (the simplest: tomato sauce + mozzarella cheese) was sold for 6,000 liras... A trip to the pizzeria, I remember, costed my 14000 liras and I was angry because was too much. An "eat as you can for fixed price" pizzeria was 25000 liras.
Now...Margherita: from 6 to 8 euros (12000 to 16000 liras), trip to pizzeria pizza + beer + coffee: 15 euros (30000 liras). The same restaurant "eat as you can": 25 euro (50000 liras).
What speculators did? They took price in liras and divide by 1000.
But also They took the wage and divided by 1936,25 (the official fixed ratio Euro <-> Italian Lira).
We are poorer now. We have an inflation that is at 5% and above (official statistic is 2,9% but our Government include LCD TV in the pricing... as if one eat LCD TV made in Taiwan every day for dinner....)
Just my 2 euro cent of ranting... slightly off topic but I wanted to vent off...
Diesel fuel is expensive right now, and that's how the food gets delivered. The extra cost gets passed to the consumer.
It's $3.80 today in my part of Maine. That means it costs the truck drivers almost a dollar a mile. It's getting to the point that people aren't going to be able to afford to eat things from across the country. Most of us will have to learn to eat closer to home and perhaps with basic ingredients to cook from scratch.
It isn't right that anyone should have to struggle to afford reasonable food in the US in 2008.
I can find a pizza place around $4 a slice at a basic chain for a plain pizza.
However, around here, there are lot of restaurants-and mostly priced ridiculously for the numerous tourists/snow birds (northern Phoenix/Scottsdale). Took my son to the fru-fru pizza shop around the corner, for pizza for 2 (2 "personal size" pizzas, where you get like 4 tiny slices out of each), 2 sodas, 1 small side of wings, 1 tiny side salad and 1 small side of garlic bread: a head-popping $60 freaking dollars including tax! FOR PIZZA! Next time I 'll at least justify the cost by going for steak or sushi instead of back to that pizza joint.
I don't drink beer or eat hot dogs. So not sure about those. But seems everything is getting more expensive.
I went shopping yesterday to Costco (for things cheaper to buy in bulk) and to the local Fry's (for the small quantity stuff and stuff it makes no sense to buy in bulk). Got enough food for about a week for 2. Granted my son is 20 and eats a lot but still. I spent (choke) $250!!!!!!! And the only splurges or household items were a $5 bottle of laundry detergent and some $6 brownie bites (lol!). OUCH!
I can still buy a large tray of pizza for $6.50 in my neighborhood. And its great pizza.....Old Forge style.
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