Author’s Note: The memorial service for Jane Reddig is scheduled for 11:00AM this morning at Kirk in the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Visit the Kirk’s website at the “worship from home” tab to join the Livestream coverage.

– Vic

TANSTAAFL

(This colorful chart is lifted from the Powerline blog. We do not know the source of the data, though the Bureau of Labor Statistics is cited in adjacent verbiage).

Robert Heinlein’s prophetic science fiction epics were part of growing up for some of us around the table. His influence transcended the SF genre with things like “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” That was shortened in his book “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” down to the acronym TANSTAAFL. And then into the world of economics.

We hate to beat this to death and swear we will go back to mildly amusing commentary, but the partisan aspects of all the noise is getting lost in the disparity in messaging. The gulf between streams is now so vast now that we don’t seem to be talking about the same things.

“What is the best way we can stay stable and good for the most people?” can cause immediate and passioned disagreement. Tech and enhanced personal communications is part of it, but there also the misdirection. The President got some inflation statistics wrong early in the week, and didn’t get called out on the matter. So any number these days that we see has already been in front of a focus group for messaging. But the prices above are just a snapshot of a single discrete product regularly consumed by millions of people.

The Big Mac was part of a successful commercial empire. Tasty food served hot and fast and fairly cheap. Transportation networking made them centers of activity all their own. They were the first-go jobs for generations of teens.

Now, a Big Mac is running well over five bucks, which is double what a whole meal used to cost. We know, we know, we here are tired of hearing and reading all the numbers. But there still are some plain consequences to the blather that goes along with them. The argument we have heard flow downward, from a “well, everything costs a little more because it has to be sustainable” perspective. The other one is “corporate greed.”

We are normally opposed to other people’s greed, particularly if they are bigger than we are. But increasing costs force a choice, you know? Raise prices to accommodate dramatic increases? Lower profits for some uncompensated (and unspecified) public good?

Except what is happening is not. Here are the some of the pressures on the Big Mac.

Minimum wage. That is a direct shot at the hourly workers flipping patties and ringing things up. Is that good for them? Maybe for those who keep jobs. But not so much for those who gt laid off, or customers cued up to order from a touch-screen or backed up in a drive through attempting to utilize an ordering app.

That is just the simple economic side of thing, with similar pressures on all interacting supply and labor sectors. There are other social ones. Reduced service due to increased costs passes a little inconvenience and cost to all customers. Dietary restrictions required by a growing market segment requires segregated cooking surfaces for some products. There is inclusivity at war with the ability to make a profit while equally satisfying the majority of the market.

Bill Heinlein said it eloquently. No lunch is free, and if it was offered, someone else paid for it. With this unsustainable sustainability kill all sorts of products? And make all our lives a little crappier? That seems to be the Purtanical thought.

As to Big Macs, Could it kill the chain? That is a possibility. If the cows could read our textually transmitted politics, they might attempt to press “1,” for English.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.visocotra.com