The $10 Hamburger.

I wrote recently about my first visit to McDonalds, way back in 1963.

I bought two cheeseburgers, two order of fries and a vanilla shake.  And got $0.22 cents back out of a dollar.

The burgers were $0.15 cents back then.  You could add cheese for 4 cents more.  So I asked Mr. Google what MickeyD's cheeseburger cost the day Mr. O'Biden took office.  It was $2.71.  What is it now?  It's $5.14.  Nearly double.  "Bidenomics" in action.  

So then I started looking at the other fast food emporiums to see how they compared.  After our BoyGuv's ("Hairgod!") implementation of $20.00 an hour for people who ask, "Would you like fries with that?," fast food is no longer the province of the poor.  It's now strictly for the upper class, given recent reports of $18.49 for a Happy Meal.  

So I just bought a "Smash" burger from Jack in the Box.  It cost me $9.00.  $NINE FRIGGIN' DOLLARS!!!  I'd read that it had bested all other fast food burgers in taste tests, so I decided to give it a try.  Especially since our money's not worth much anymore, so why not throw it away? *

(BTW, it was delicious, and I can recommend it without hesitation.)

Remember when we would stoop to pick up a penny off the sidewalk?  And then it was a nickel?  Then up to a quarter?  Now?  I doubt most of our entitled Gen-Z would stoop to pick up a $Five Dollar Bill.

And it just went down in value as I write this little posting.

I should have started by mentioning that among other things, I'm a graduate economist.  That means I understand all sorts of economic theory and banking regulations and why we have inflation (politicians, especially Democrats, spend way too much!).  And what I've witnessed is that every time we have an inflationary shock, like Carter in 1979, or Obama in 2008, or O'Biden in 2024, prices go up like a skyrocket!  And then, when inflation is corrected, prices... 

...NEVER, EVER GO DOWN TO WHERE THEY WERE BEFORE!

Got it?

When this particular inflationary spiral is over, say in a year or so, now that Mr. Trump will be in office, do you think that a hamburger's price will ever go back to where it was before?  

         NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It will remain right where it is.  Or maybe even go higher.  Especially if BoyGuv is still Guv.  There still may be an area of Taxifornia he's yet to ruin, but I'm sure he's trying his best to find it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, that they never, ever think things all the way through.  To where their idiotic policies will end up taking us.  And so far, it's cost more than 20,000 MinWage employees their jobs here, and there will be many more to come.  Especially after the fast food store owners start installing kiosks for all up-front activities.  Ordering, cashier, everything.  Including shuttering dining rooms.  They are singularly focused on removing employees out of fast food in every way they can.  There's even a new robotic burger flipper that makes 250 hamburgers an hour, error free, no sick days needed.  They're being installed as we speak.  You'll see only drive-thrus at most locations within a year or two.  

Just wait and see.

You'll also see a resurgence of "brown bagging" it.  People actually making their lunches and bringing them to work.  Fast Food ended that practice when it was affordable.  It's no longer affordable.

Do you think the price of Jack's burger will go down if the price of its employees stays high?  Ummmmm, NOOOOOOO!  It will stay right where it is.

Because everybody gets over but us poor customers.

*    I was stationed in Germany for a time while protecting America.  I got to hold a One Million DeutchMark bank note.  Their post-WW2 money.  After hyperinflation had beaten down the country.  It was the size of a bath towel, yet would not buy a loaf of bread.  That, my friends, is what inflation will do to the value of your money.  And that, my friends, has been what O'Biden and Company hath wrought.