The worst peanut crop in three decades and we consumers have to suffer with the prospect of only a half-dozen types of peanut butters rather than the typical dozen or so. By the way, keep your eyes out for similar signs and see how often companies feel like they have to apologize for price increases. More on that in the future. For now, the next time the “market” dictates that you get a salary increase, I’d like to hear if you apologized to your employers.
I love it when I see article or news stories that refer to a concept of “shortage” or “surplus” completely devoid of any concept of prices. 😉
About 6 months ago I went to Sam’s Club and couldn’t find peanut butter. When I asked an employee where it was they said they were out of stock. I jokingly asked if there was a shortage, and they responded with a serious yes. I bet Wegmans posted the sign up there because they were getting so many questions from peanut butter loving customers.
Somewhere in the early seventies, before Nixon did wage and price controls, and years before Gerald Ford’s WIN buttons (Whip Inflation Now) you would see signs at lunch counters saying, “Due to the increase in the price of coffee, the price of a cup of coffee is [insert a 75% or 100% percent increase].” Before Arab Oil Embargo I, the Shah of Iran had taken out a two-page ad in the WSJ arguing for oil to be priced in gold, not dollars. I’d have to look further to place the abandonment of Bretton Woods in all of this.
Back then we were paying for the Vietnamese War and the War on Poverty with printed money and by then the markets along with the Shah had figured that one out.
Today, things are different. Printing $2,000,000,000,000 is a drop in the bucket, which is probably the reassuring message Tim Geithner has brought to the German finance minister. Don’t worry, we are going to inflate fast enough to keep the Euro at $1.20.