Inflation has hit our pocketbooks hard, especially with near 10 per cent increases in food prices two years in a row.
Those price increases have really hurt low income earners and young families who can no longer afford what they used to buy.
Inflation has required a juggling of wants and needs for most people.
The other day Yours Truly was examining the grocery bill. The price for bananas caught my attention.
This tropical fruit, still about the cheapest on grocery shelves, was priced at $6.89 a kilo — that translates into $1.42 a pound for us older folks who still think in the pre-Pierre Trudeau measurement scales. My two bananas cost 84 cents – equal to buying a bunch not too many years ago.
Bananas have increased in price since attention has been focused on fair trade prices for produce like bananas and a range of similar commodities.
A strange thought came to mind. Is part of the inflation we experience a natural payback for living too high on the hog?
Some of our major retailers were caught a couple years ago when they demanded suppliers cut their prices and profits to give the stores and consumers better prices.
With all their buying power, the retail chains could force suppliers into these types of corners.
The shoe is on the other foot now. If the retailers won’t pay the price, the supplier just cuts them off. No sense losing money to satisfy the big corporations.
Cycles of inflation come and go like seasons. They arrive when the economy gets overheated or when certain events change the economic structure.
War always causes inflation as money is diverted to buy guns, ammo and to pay more soldiers.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created inflation. The loss of grains supplies during the war increased food and feed grain prices.
Just as important for us northern folks is the long and extensive drought in the vegetable and fruit growing Southeastern United States. Vegetable and fruit crops have been decimated.
Floods in that region this spring suggest another year of tight supplies.
A quick end to inflation can only be achieved by a recession.
Profits grow from inflation for many companies but the working stiffs haven’t seen enough, or any, of the benefits.
Look for increasing labour outages as workers fight for a better share of the pie
As painful to the pocketbook as it is, inflation does have a rosy side for those benefiting from the cursed process.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
