September 6, 2025
Publix's latest back-to-back price rises have raised 12 ounces of Community coffee to $13.60 from $11, 12 ounces of Greenfield uncured bacon to $9.19 from $7.99. Seattle's Best coffee held its price by reducing its offering from 12 ounces to 10. Just to fix a sandwich lunch at home today costs as much as to eat a gourmet evening meal at Claridges in London in 1963.
Today the nightly price of a room at Claridges is $2,258. On November 19 the price drops to $1,874. Today traditional afternoon tea at Claridges is priced from 95 British pounds ($128 dollars) and up per person. In 1963 the price of a full course evening meal at Claridges for two couples (4 people), with chocolate mousse and vintage port totaled 20 British pounds which was $56. So, in 1963 four persons could enjoy a full course meal at one of the finest restaurants in the world for half the price one person pays for an afternoon tea today.
I can't imagine the price of the 1963 dinner meal for four that I participated in today. Looking at the restaurants bar prices, one fluffy margarita royal cost 2 British pounds more than our gourmet dinner for four.
The cheapest dinner menu today for four is 360 British pounds. Compared to the 20 pounds of my day, it is devoid of exotic offerings. No chocolate mousse. No vintage port. Today even Claridges offers a Signature Burger at 32 British pounds. A hamburger on Claridges's dinner menu was an impossibility in 1963-64.
If you go to the a la cart menu, you can get a selection of oysters, tuna curdo, scallop ceviche, Cornish crab and a whole lobster for 185 British pounds, which is $250. If we add a starter of a half dozen raw oysters on the half shell at 32 British pounds and an iceberg lettuce and avocado salad at 22 pounds, and some miso glazed carrots at 8 pounds, we have a dinner for one priced at 247 British pounds or $336. For four people the bill today would be $1,344 compared to $56 in 1963, and the present day dinner doesn't reach the level on the one I had in 1963, which came to 5 British pounds per person. There is no vintage port and no chocolate mousse.
I turned to Claridges' current wine menu. There is no vintage port on the menu. There is no Veuve Clicquot champagne on the menu and no Dom Perignon. A bottle of Krug, Grande Cure is 450 pounds or $605. Apparently, not even oil sheiks and narcotics barons can afford vintage port.
I have used restaurant prices as an example of inflation, about which more I will write in a moment. It is not the British who sustain these prices. It is Arab oil barons and Afghan drug cartels, and perhaps CIA and MI6 agents on expense accounts hoping to infiltrate these organizations. The example shows not only a decline the quality of an evening meal that even Claridges can offer, but its inaccessibility to any but the rich. In 1963-64 when I enjoyed Claridges I was a graduate student on scholarship with wife at Oxford University. Imagine that today.
I used to write more about economics and inflation. But I found that economics was not a popular subject with my audience. As best as I could figure, the reason is that most thought economics was too difficult to understand. Moreover, they thought they knew enough. For Republicans the problem was the government spent too much and burdened the economy with too much debt. For Democrats the problem was that the rich had too much money, saved too much of it, and left the economy with insufficient consumer demand to maintain full employment. For one party the solution was to cut government; for the other party the solution was to increase it.
My economic lesson for today is that having lived for decades with economists' explanations of inflation, there is one that they have overlooked. Inflation is caused by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the media declaring its presence. Once inflation is declared, everyone has cover to raise his prices. This is our present cause of inflation. It is a way of boosting profits. Inflation is declared, using for example, Trump's might be tariffs, and Community Coffee jumps from $11 to $13.60, bacon from $8 to $10. Organic eggs never came down from the virus that resulted in the slaughter, for some reason, only of egg laying chickens. Organic eggs are approaching one dollar per egg. I can remember when a dozen eggs cost 69 cents.
In past writings I have pointed out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures inflation in a manner than minimizes it. The same for unemployment. The numbers have little, if any, reliability. Yet markets are moved by the announcement of fake numbers.
This is endemic. What controls stock prices more than speculation about the Fed's next move on interest rates? If the Fed is expected to lower interest rates, up goes stock prices. If the Fed is expected to raise interest rates, down go stock prices. Equity prices are determined by the amount of money chasing them, not by the soundness of the company's position and earnings record.
How is it that despite what we constantly hear about the growth in knowledge and education, increasingly unreality is taking the place of reality?
Recently I read a scary article that children who spend their time in video games have difficulty in transitioning from virtual reality into real reality, which is perhaps a development that our masters intend.