6-24-2023 11:50pm

The Value of Money

Beth Callahan Editor

Springboro's Guy Pasvogel, published author, shares his thoughts

SPRINGBORO, OH -- Is it just me or am I finding a trend that those green pieces of paper in my wallet are not going as far as they used to? Every time I go to the grocery store I see the price of my favorite items going up. There are two ways that I see this happening. First, there is the obvious way that the stores raise the same quantity of goods in price. Then, there is the not so obvious way in that companies are packaging lesser quantities of goods and charging the same price.

For example, yesterday I went to a drive-thru fast food restaurant to buy a Frosty ice cream treat. I will not mention the name but you can figure it out.

I noticed that my medium Frosty had risen in price from $2.29 to $2.79 since I last purchased one. Ok, I get it. The cost of goods went up so they had to charge more.

However, when I received my Frosty, I noticed that my medium Frosty was in the same container that the small Frosty was packaged in a while back.

When I questioned the window server, she said,“You should see how SMALL the small size is today.”

The cost of the" newer smaller" small size had risen only 30 cents. That was a double whammy!

Needless to say, I was “frosted.”

I wonder who dreamed up this ingenious way of screwing the public two ways instead of one. That person in the marketing department probably got a hefty raise for dreaming up this idea. Dave Thomas would be rolling in his grave if he knew. Just saying…

So, how did we get from there to here in such a short time?

The answer is simple and is taught in every Economics class. It is called inflation. When the government needs more money (wars, illegal immigrants pet projects, raising THEIR salary), they raise the debt ceiling and print more green bills. Then, the value of those green bills becomes less, and you need more of them to buy the same amount of goods… or you shrink the quantity.

Wouldn’t it be great if when we needed more money we could go to our basement, print more of what we need and head to the store?

Last time I checked, that will get you 20 years in Leavenworth prison.

Four years ago, I bought a 2018 used Chevy Cruze for $12,600 and it now has 63,000 miles on it. Today, the market value for my vehicle is upwards of $`14,000. If I buy a new car today, it will cost me upwards of $48,000 (the average cost of a new car).

I think I will keep my Cruze till the wheels fall off.

My other car in the garage is a 1999 Cadillac DeVille. It is in perfect shape with 114,000 miles on it. If you compare the thickness of the metal in my classic Caddy to my Cruze, it is like night and day. You could literally breathe on my Cruze hood and a dent will show. Again, the pay more… get less philosophy.

When will all this insanity stop? Well, for starters, in my opinion, our government should hold the debt ceiling and not print more money. Then they should find ways to cut costs of needless programs on the books. We should not be financing foreign wars (Ukraine) and we should secure our borders from illegal immigrants who are sapping our money supply.

Yes, the solution sounds pretty simple. However, don’t hold your breath. Until we start holding our elected officials accountable for the mess that they alone have created, we will have more of the same. If those individuals do not perform in a more fiscally responsible manner… vote the weasels out!

Otherwise, do nothing and buy a bigger wallet. You will need it!