The Price Of Bread

JHUS 2025.001 price of bread featured

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The “price of bread” is a tried and true hook on which to hang any given complaint from any given ideological perspective to shock the consumer, draw attention, and stoke feelings of anger and frustration. The “bread” in question is a metaphor for any consumer good. The arguments in question tend to take the general form of “I can’t believe how terrible the economy is today. Why, when I was young I used to get two packs of name-brand cigarettes and two 16-ounce glass bottles of Mountain Dew for $2!”

The “price of bread” argument fails not only in that it’s usually highly subjective and prone to strong influence of personal bias e.g. artificially glorifying “the past” as having been “better,” but it’s also completely meaningless by itself. Numbers increase, particularly in capitalized systems wherein the currency is based on an intangible asset like “the full faith and credit” of the issuing nation, as is the case with all such nations including the United States. By itself this increase means nothing that can be said to meaningfully reflect on the average quality of life.

Worse than that for those seeking progress, it often inadvertently draws attention to weaknesses in argumentation and flaws in a given logical calculus attempting to rationalize or validate progressive social policy. In doing so, the net effect tends to be empowering counter-arguments rather than advancing the ostensible agenda at hand.

In today’s example we’re going to look at a tweet by someone calling themselves “Fred Krueger” (not likely to be a real name, but it’s possible). Mr. Kreuger, who is entirely unknown to me, claims to hold a PhD from Stanford, and says he’s a “bitcoin maxi,” whatever that is, in his twitter profile. I’ve included a link to the original tweet below, but given conditions at Twitter I thought it best to also include a screenshot.

Original URL: https://x.com/dotkrueger/status/1873320780739510285
Tweet by "Fred Krueger" (@dotkrueger) reading:  "The median family income in the US has gone from 10K in 1971 to 55K today, a gain of 5.5x 

however,

The median cost of a car has gone from 4K to 48K, an increase of 12x.

The median cost of a house has gone from 25K to 357K, an increase of 14x.

The median cost of an ivy league college has gone from 3K a year to 87K, an increase of 29x.

The average cost of healthcare per person has gone from $400 to $15,000, and increase of 37x.

Basically, the average person in the US is worse off today than in 1971. So much for "progress""
Dated Dec 29, 2024
Screenshot of original tweet posted at https://x.com/dotkrueger/status/1873320780739510285

The tweet reads as follows: “The median family income in the US has gone from 10K in 1971 to 55K today, a gain of 5.5x however, The median cost of a car has gone from 4K to 48K, an increase of 12x. The median cost of a house has gone from 25K to 357K, an increase of 14x. The median cost of an ivy league college has gone from 3K a year to 87K, an increase of 29x. The average cost of healthcare per person has gone from $400 to $15,000, and increase of 37x. Basically, the average person in the US is worse off today than in 1971. So much for “progress.””

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