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A few years ago Carl’s Jr. restaurants launched a product they called the six dollar burger. The claim to fame for this one was that many sit down restaurants were charging six bucks for a burger and at Carl’s you could get a burger of equal value for considerably less than six dollars.
Way back 3-4 decades ago a new chain of motels appeared on the scene, competing with the likes of Travelodge and Best Western motels. It was called Motel 6 and – you guessed it – you could get an overnight room for six dollars. It was a Spartan room, but adequate for a 1 night stay and moving on.
Today it is tough to find a burger for six dollars in any sit down restaurant. It is not uncommon to face a price of $10 to $12 for a burger with a small side, like a little cole slaw. And while the Motel 6 chain still exists, the price has risen and risen with the times.
With the inflation that seems to be upon us, even though the official word from Washington is that inflation is only slight, can the launching of the $20 burger and Motel 100 be far off? In a society where gasoline has dipped to less than $4 a gallon in some places and we now view that as a bargain, I suspect the day will come when we see the $20 burger and a Motel 100 as a bargain too.
If only wages would keep up.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the U. S. Department of Labor has both the statistics for the price increases with and without food and energy. Not surprising, the index without shows .2 percent for the month of April. The chart for the 12 months prior to April 2011 shows fuel has risen dramatically in the 30% and more percentile range.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Wages are not keeping up!
Maybe if you run out of a “cut and paste” material for this blog you may tray something real and progressive rather than bitching about the expensive junk food.
Something revolutionary.
Ya “revolutionary” Nelson likes that word OBNO.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2076783,00.html
OBNO.
We passed a second 99 cents only store in Lake Forest yesterday which relates to your post. That second store in Lake Forest recently opened due to high consumer demand. When owner David Gold spoke at our MORR/CURE conference on redevelopment abuse a few years ago I asked him how he planned to retain the name as prices do go up. It is a challenge. Part of the answer is found in package size.
There is more than one way to solve this problem. How many of us would purchase one pound cans of coffee that actually contained 16 ounces. Over time the package has continued to shrink to 13 ounces.
How about ice cream? I remember buying half gallons only to see the container shrink to 1.75 quarts.
Exile – I checked out that site. By any chance is your last name Weiner?
Larry – Yup, consumers bearing increased costs in various ways. Heard an add for a 99 cent store on the radio yesterday (you know, that device you still find in most cars) and the price was stated as ninety nine and ninety nine tenths, or 99.99 cents – another example of creeping consumer prices.. Of course, Motel 6 kept the name as their prices rose, so guess 99 cent stores could do the same for the sake of nostalgia, not to mention to avoid the cost of new signage.
For some reason I am craving a good burger ——
Sorry, it’s the first image I thought of using for your story.
Carl’s Junior really is the best fast-food place for hamburgers I think; they’ve got a reall cool variety. Even if they were founded by a right-wing Catholic zealot, and even if their TV ads are borderline obscene (a “frisson” right there)
FMO.
Thinking of burgers I had a few “sliders” at Chili’s yesterday. No, not the kind we bought 55 years ago from White Castle but about the same size and 10 times the cost.
“By any chance is your last name Weiner?”……. Hmmmmmm
Have you seen me on the picture?
Your have probably seen free people in the nature as God created them.
In the free USA they would be all charged with felony and arrested for life under the 3 strikes. So do not think you moron mongoloids that you are living in some sophisticated civilized country.
FYI, the price of any commodity does not rises!
In relationship to Gold or Silver the prices of other commodities are virtually constant!
What is changing is your purchasing power. If $1 dropped in last 20 years to $0.1 than you have to pay $10 for what use to cost $1.
This phenomenon is directly proportional to a level of Leftist-Unionized-Socialistic policies.
However, I believe that you are too stupid from eating all these hamburgers, suffering from the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (“BSE”), to figure out the economy.
In France McDonald Burger cost $35+, but they have 14 monthly paycheck per year and 2 month vacation.
I will let you know when the USA living standard reaches that of the old communist Czechoslovakia. There the hamburger was available only for rich communists apparatchiks like Nelson and HOA Gilbert, and only if you had western currency.
Enjoy your socialistic tendencies.
Stanley. When we were in Sluknov and Prague we ate steak, not hamburgers.