“Recent headlines about increasing inflation have been alarming, but inflation itself is not abnormal if it’s not out of control,” Bakkum said.
— from the Washington Post, “Inflation: How to spend less — or even make more money — as prices rise”, October 2021.
The pandemic economy is now delivering another unwelcome gift into our lives.
Inflation.
Consumer prices are rising, and if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you might be anxious about the price of food, gas, and other items.
And more anxious yet, if you don’t have a paycheck.
But every cloud has a silver lining, even though silver costs more than last year. Inflation hit its largest annual increase in 30 years in October, with consumer prices up 6.2 percent compared with a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Because of these uncontrolled (and uncontrollable?) price changes, all of the dollar stores in America have now become dollar-and-six-cents store. Meaning that we now, finally, have somewhere to spend all the useless pennies that have been collecting in the ashtray.
And that’s only one of the many benefits we will see from inflation.
For the typical consumer (and I’m not talking, here, about myself… or about you, dear reader… because you and I are definitely not ‘typical’)… but for the normal consumer, the most noticeable, and beneficial, change will be the slow demise of ‘Shopping’. As inflation progresses, everything will gradually pass into the dark realm of unaffordability, at which point we will realize that we didn’t need even half of stuff we thought we couldn’t live without.
Instead of wasting time shopping on Amazon, we will start hanging out with our friends, complaining about how terrible life has become due to inflation. Then, one of our friends will say something like, “Wow, I used to waste all my time online, shopping, but now I’m hanging out with all of you… complaining… sort of like when we were in high school.”
At this point, we will realize — with mild astonishment — that we haven’t actually matured since we were teenagers. We merely barricaded ourselves within a mighty fortress of consumer goods that made us feel like adults, because we’d seen other people who looked like adults wearing or using those particular consumer goods.
Once we stop buying stuff — food, gas, and other items — we will discover that we no longer need jobs.
(Millions of Americans already discovered that they didn’t need jobs, during the pandemic — even before the inflation kicked in.)
Meat. We will stop buying meat. Chickens and pigs and cows will thank us.
Especially, we won’t be buying gas. Our cars and trucks will gather dust. Without the need to shop, and without the need to show up for a job, we will be able to stay at home and give our pets the attention they deserve.
This will solve the fossil-fuels-climate issue.
And since everyone will now be walking instead of driving, unemployment offices will pop up at convenient locations, right in our own neighborhoods. (Occupying the empty storefronts.) These offices will allow dogs, because we will all be walking our deserving dogs.
Our dogs will be happier.
Our friends will be happier, if not yet mature.
Our planet will be happier.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.