But there's no inflation...

Old_Joe

March 18, 2020:
DOLE Mixed Tropical Fruit in Light Syrup and Passion Fruit Juice, 15.25 Ounce Can (Pack of 12)
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
$16.56

June 24, 2020:
DOLE Mixed Tropical Fruit in Light Syrup and Passion Fruit Juice, 15.25 Ounce Can (Pack of 12)
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
$16.56

Was thinking about reordering...

Jan 3, 2021:
DOLE Mixed Tropical Fruit in Light Syrup and Passion Fruit Juice, 15.25 Ounce Can (Pack of 12)
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
$30.99​

Obviously Amazon has jacked up their price outrageously, yes?
Well, maybe not-

Jan 3, 2021:
DOLE Mixed Tropical Fruit in Light Syrup and Passion Fruit Juice, 15.25 Ounce Can (Pack of 12)
Walmart
$47.87

msf

Dole, Mixed Tropical Fruit Syrp Passn Fr, 15.25 Oz - slightly different name, same size, same ingredients, same nutritional content, same product of Thailand. (Label says "in light syrup and passion fruit juice".)
Amazon Pantry: $1.21 per can, unit 1 (= $14.52/dozen).

This product comes with various different labels with slightly different names. Just look at the first two images shown for for the same Amazon 12 pack to see two different examples. Possibly anything advertised with your label of choice commands a premium now. Or maybe they're just messing with your head.

Old_Joe

Thanks for that, @msf. Will remember to check that source in the future.

Since last March we have really done no shopping at all personally, but rather relied on Instacart for delivery. We had never used a food delivery service before the current situation.

That has been an interesting experience. A size difference in a product that we have been buying for years might not have been obvious if we were personally shopping, but is very striking as we unpack items from a bag. Breads and various baked goods have been seemingly getting smaller with each delivery. Granted, our food shopping may not be reflective of the average American "shopping basket" used to "measure" inflation, but there is absolutely no way that food inflation in the stuff that we buy is not really rampant.

While price changes may not be immediately or glaringly obvious, the packaging sizes really have an immediate impact.

davidrmoran

roger about packaging

as for pineapple, my wife added it to her yearly cheap-red-wine wassail for the first time, along w the cider and spices and orange and all else, and it made an enormous improvement at least as to sweetness, and yeah, probably pricier than a year ago, instacart or no

Old_Joe

I sure hope that you folks were wassailing with maximal social distancing. Re pineapple as a fresh fruit, we've been obtaining fresh pineapple from Costco via Instacart for a couple of months now. Excellent quality.

davidrmoran

well, we're married, old-married, and thus we wassail alone mostly

(esp this week, since Massachusetts has real increases in positive tests)

davidrmoran

everything costco is excellent, almost; wish I had put a hundred thou into the stock long ago, $10k to $5M since 1982, criminy, and yes there are better, but still

AZRph

I think the Wal-Mart price is higher due to the fact that their web listing is just a conduit for a third party vendor where Wal-Mart does not source and does not control the price. Perhaps a minority of the cost escalation for all involved are due to shipping cost increases, both permanent and seasonal, imposed by their vendors.

bee

Here's one way track inflation of a billion products...tropical fruit included:
thebillionpricesproject.com/

The author compares CPI to the MIT Project (article is bit dated):
inflation-cpi-vs-bpp.html

BenWP

I think @Old_Joe is onto something. Forget the F’n stock market and get into passion fruit juice futures! Today is looking very much like a day when stocks are on sale or still hung over from @davidmoran’s wassail bowl. Happy New Trading Year to all.

davidrmoran

juice futures! the bitcoin of 2021!

Old_Joe

bee

Pretty good reminder of what we have forgotten:

inflation-truthers

BenWP

@bee: Please don't remind me of the 70's. LOL.

LewisBraham

@Old_Joe and everyone

Allow me to introduce you to: https://camelcamelcamel.com/

You plug in the Amazon link for the product you want to buy and you can see how its price has changed over time and when it has gone on sale. So in this case:

https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00GFROON6

Old_Joe

That's really cool, Lewis. Thanks a lot for that one!

OJ

Crash

bee said:

Pretty good reminder of what we have forgotten:

inflation-truthers

That video is Exhibit A in what Consumerism is, and why it's a bad way to live. Completely uncritical and accepting of the status quo. Don't think about what you're buying. Just buy it. Don't ask whether this purchase is a good idea, just buy it--- because everyone else is. Hoover Institution: conservative. Thus, he found a way to show how the middle class and the poor HAVE gotten richer over the years... That's a crazy statement that does not compute. Of course, he sounds very matter of fact and reasonable in his presentation. I'm the radical Lefty, ya. So move on, and don't listen to a word I might have to say.
Sorry, bee. I'm sure you offered us that video in a very different vein.

carew388

Here's what Russ Roberts misses. First you didn't need a college education to work at a well-paying job in 1973: for example UAW members at GM, Ford and Chrysler, or the multitude of union jobs at the auto suppliers. Second, college tuition has risen at 2.5 times the rate of inflation since the late 1970's:(tuition only) 1973 TOSU(their name!) $720 per year, 2019 $11,804. Monsieur Roberts employer Stanford University :1973 $3,135, 2019 $53,529. So unaffordable college tuition negates some of these "improvements" Roberts crows about !

msf

He lost me at the first minute, where he says that twice the product (a television 2x the size of a CRT screen) at 16% less ($500 vs. $600) amounts to a 32% (2 x 16%) reduction in cost.

Of course the reduction in cost is more than half, merely because you're getting twice the product. (You're paying 5/6 for twice the product, or 5/12 for the same amount of product, for a 58⅓% reduction in cost.)

Added note: a screen with twice the linear measurement offers 4x the viewing area (or at least it would if it still had the same 4:3 aspect ratio.)

Then he says that you couldn't buy a car with airbags in 1973. Wrong. GM sold production cars with its "Air Cushion Restraint System" to retail consumers in 1973. And that 1973 Honda Civic? 40 MPG (highway). Of course that was with no catalytic converter and leaded gasoline.

Never let bad arithmetic, misleading data and false "facts" get in the way of a good story.

Old_Joe

Our soon-to-be ex-president would certainly agree with that.

JonGaltIII

@lewisbraham and @old_joe if you are going to mention Camel Camel (nice app) then you definitely have to mention/use Honey. The honey App / Chrome add on has saved me a ton. It's free. Now you never need to search for another Promo Code again. Cheers.