DUmmies blame evil profit making corporations for higher food prices.

[thundley4]

When will consumers wake up to the shrinking food package + inflation scam?

I do much of the grocery shopping in the household, and it hasn't been a mystery that food packaging has been on the downsizing path for some time now. But today, several items had me trying to stifle my language, with ridiculous boutique prices and visibly smaller sizes. Coupling dramatic price hikes and less content (now right-sized for your convenience!), the food industry has let it be known they fully intend to enjoy the same obscene profits that their brethren in other areas of modern capitalist society do. They are trying their best to camouflage their efforts, but seasoned shoppers can tell instantly by weight or package feel that the standard jar of peanut butter or box of cereal doesn't measure up, literally.

I guess they figure nobody stopped driving with $4.00 gas, so why shouldn't they get some of the gravy as well? How far is it they think the simultaneous micro-sizing of portions and macro-sizing of prices can go before the buying public says enough? You can't stop eating, but you can make many choices about what, where and how to go about getting the basics of your diet. You can buy bulk or generic foods, join a co-op, take part in a community garden and or raise your own, and purchase from local farmers markets (though these are often not the cheapest route, either).

Something's got to give, it's only a matter of when.

Not the fault of the Obamaconomy.

RagAss (12,386 posts)
3. What are we supposed to do, storm the Bastille ?

Anyone who food shops knows this is getting worse by the month but people have to eat.

Just vote against Obama.

Freddie (508 posts)
59. I only buy store brand

Except ketchup (must be Heinz) and cat food. Since the pet food scare of a few years ago was largely store brands, we stick to Fancy Feast and Purina One.
I pack lunches for both of us and deli meat is outrageous. Lately I'll make an extra meatloaf for sandwiches or a batch of egg salad, eggs are still cheap.

jsr (353 posts)
4. It's "new improved"

 
Nabisco's Fresh Stacks package of saltines, top, contains about 15 percent fewer crackers than the old package.

 This package is also somewhat lighter in weight and reduces shipping costs.
Skippy peanut butter jars now have an inward "dimple" on the bottom to reduce the amount they hold.

Plastic jars are being made thinner to use less materials , reduce costs and garbage.  The dimpled bottom of the jar adds strength .

nobodyspecial (1,302 posts)
7. Stop buying prepackaged, processed foods

I do the bins at the local food co-op. It's a great deal on grains, nuts, beans, cereals, etc.

Why buy from corporations when you can get bug infested food for more money?

banned from Kos (3,380 posts)
11. Go to the liberal-run warehouse bulk package company Costco for food

Smaller food packages do not mean inflation is here.

It means buyers are gullible or desperate.

No inflation?  I didn't know that ostriches knew about the internet.

Zalatix (7,219 posts)
39. It's the result of rising food shortages.

And after this drought, it's really going to get worse.

If there aren't store shelves picked clean of scantily stocked food in America, there most certainly will be in other nations.

Our solutions, in addition to the OP's 2nd paragraph sentence 4, are as follows:
Window Farms, on a personal level - http://www.windowfarms.org/whatisawindowfarm

Windowfarm is a vertical, hydroponic growing system that allows for year-round growing in almost any window. It lets plants use natural window light, the climate control of your living space, and organic "liquid soil."

In the hydroponic system, nutrient-spiked water is pumped up from a reservoir at the base of the system and trickles down from bottle to bottle, bathing the roots along the way. Water and nutrients that are not absorbed collect in the reservoir and will be pumped through again at the next interval.

The 2012 Obama Drought?

KurtNYC (10,794 posts)
56. I don't think it is greed. The food business is in crisis right now.

Wal-Mart is selling food at a loss and they are crushing regional grocery chains. The margin unprepared food is very slim and many stores sell milk and other items below cost.

The stores are not immune to $4+ gas -- it raises their costs also. The drought and global warming are making food more scarce and what there is has to be shipped farther. Milk, butter, eggs, beef, pork, chicken are all going up due to the corn and soy crop. Going to get much worse from here.

The DUmmie made sense right up to the "glowbull warming" crap.

Still, no one really wants to blame the Obamaconomy for inflationary food prices.

Just a thought, but maybe this is all part of 'Chelle's plan to make people lose weight.  If they can't afford groceries, they can't eat and gain weight, right?

[JohnnyReb]

...and Obama's "energy cost will necessarily have to skyrocket" hasn't got a damn thing to do with the rising prices...THE GREAT OZ HAS SPOKEN.

On the bright side...less food, less poop, less polution. DUmmie think to the MAX.

[franksolich]

Freddie (508 posts)

59. I only buy store brand

Except ketchup (must be Heinz) and cat food. Since the pet food scare of a few years ago was largely store brands, we stick to Fancy Feast and Purina One.

I pack lunches for both of us and deli meat is outrageous. Lately I'll make an extra meatloaf for sandwiches or a batch of egg salad, eggs are still cheap.

My pal Freddie'd better be a little more careful in judging brands there.

Purina's what I feed the cats here, nothing else.

I won't go near Fancy Feast because of the "pet food scare of a few years ago."

Perhaps my pal Freddie'd better check that out.

[franksolich]

I pack lunches for both of us and deli meat is outrageous. Lately I'll make an extra meatloaf for sandwiches or a batch of egg salad, eggs are still cheap.

Now, question.

I'm not putting it down if decent and civilized people do it, because decent and civilized people are careful how they do it.  I'm putting it down only if primitives do it.

I dunno why the following is; maybe it's because of the sensitive Nebraska Sandhills nostrils, used to nothing but the cleanest, freshest of air flowing into them.

It's easy to get nauseous sitting close to a person in a break-room chowing down on a packed lunch.

Even as a kid in grade school, I noticed the phenomenon.

The ripe combination of odors is never pleasant, no matter what it is.

Best to just eat lunch prepared on site, in the break-room or a restaurant.

When I was in college, I had a boss who used to bring a wife-made packed lunch to work, in one of those old-fashioned metal lunch-boxes shaped sort of like a barn.  The box itself was about as old as I was, and had by then "absorbed" the odor of at least two decades of home-packed meals in its metal and rust.

When he came to work every morning, he put his lunch-box on his desk, and then headed to the men's room, because his wife, who weighed 400 pounds, didn't like him stinking up the bathroom at home (he stunk up the one at work pretty good; no one could use it again until about noon). 

While he was in there doing his ablutions, I would open up his lunch-box to inspect the contents.  It wasn't ever a pretty sight.  He knew I did it--I was actually caught about a dozen times in two years--and sometimes there'd be a wrapped cookie or something, my name on the wrapper.  But three times, he hid an unsnapped mouse-trap in it.

Ah, good times, good times, the good times of youth.

But most of all I remember the stench; I always had to hold my breath when opening the box.

Primitives who pack lunch think they're being frugal, but they're being rude besides.  The time and trouble of making them, and the odoriferous discomfort it causes other people, cancels out the money they save. 

Better, cleaner, cheaper (in the end), quicker, just to buy food prepared on site. 

[Chris_]

Deli meat is expensive.  I guess they never heard of peanut butter and jelly.

[JohnnyReb]

Deli meat is expensive.   I guess they never heard of peanut butter and jelly.

Who cares when the government is paying for it.

[Chris_]

Best to just eat lunch prepared on site, in the break-room or a restaurant.

I did that for a while until food prices started going up and I realized I was spending $200 a month just on lunch... that didn't include the other food I bought for dinner, drinks, and snacks. 

[RobJohnson]

The environment wackos have caused stuff like this:

Skippy peanut butter jars now have an inward "dimple" on the bottom to reduce the amount they hold.

Just like plastic water bottles that crush easily because they are so thin.

[franksolich]

I did that for a while until food prices started going up and I realized I was spending $200 a month just on lunch... that didn't include the other food I bought for dinner, drinks, and snacks.

Well now, remember, I'm not putting down decent and civilized people who do this, because decent and civilized people are considerate, solicitous for the comfort of others.

Primitives however don't care.

I worked in two large governmental office buildings, of course dominated by Democrats, liberals, and primitives.

As bad as opening that long-ago boss's lunch box was, it was multiplied many times over whenever someone opened the door of the refrigerator in the break-room on the third floor of the Nebraska State Office Building, or in the break-room in a corner of the Immigration & Naturalization building.

Vomit City, even if one were just passing by in the hallway.

[sybilll]

FFS, we are burning our drought-ravaged corn to put into our fuel.  The Bernanke has flooded the market with hundreds of billions in quantitative easing fresh off the printing press, which intentionally sparks inflation.  I may be a numbers wonk so I grasp this a bit better than some of you, but I seriously question how some of you dress yourselves (those of you that actually work) in the mornings. 

[Chris_]

I wonder how the DOE is going to handle the drought.  The gummint mandated that X amount of fuel be ethanol or biofuel.

Sorry, not going to happen.

[thundley4]

I wonder how the DOE is going to handle the drought.  The gummint mandated that X amount of fuel be ethanol or biofuel.

Sorry, not going to happen.

It will happen, higher food prices be damned.

[RobJohnson]

Wal-Mart is selling food at a loss and they are crushing regional grocery chains. The margin unprepared food is very slim and many stores sell milk and other items below cost.

Milk prices are regulated by the USDA. Nice try DUmmie.....


http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib-agricultural-information-bulletin/aib761.aspx

[NHSparky]

Careful, DUmmies--if you get what you demand (lower food costs) then food producers will not be able to make a profit.  If they can't make a profit, they go out of business.

If they go out of business, you starve.

So tell me where the downside is again?

[Karin]

They go on and on, culminating in these two typical DUmmie posts:

Response to global1 (Reply #71)
Tue Sep 4, 2012, 12:39 PM
nanabugg (1,717 posts)
91. Here is why no attention to this: 1% too rich to even see it; middleclass has enough money to

not really care about the poor...they will gripe but do nothing; poor too powerless to make any noise about this and too firghtened to complain for fear their food stamps will be cut off.

Response to IDemo (Original post)
Mon Sep 3, 2012, 04:48 PM
roamer65 (6,333 posts)
76. It all leads back to a lack of population control.

We simply need to stop producing babies. The carrying capacity of this planet is finite and we are exceeding it.

More people equals more demand for limited or dwindling resources.

 

No you idiots, it's not corporate greed, believe me.  Please.  Do you have any freaking idea how much it costs to get your precious food onto that shelf so your grubby mitts can snatch it off and pay for it on the rest of our backs?  Fuel costs are a huge factor, and many food companies are seriously struggling. 

[jukin]

THANK YOU OBAMA!!!!

1. Deficit spending 1.5 trillion dollars every year in office causes inflation.

2. Taking energy and food out of the CPI to screw everyone but particularly seniors.

3. Burning FOOD for energy.

This is not just a man made disaster, this disaster is being made by one man, Wile B. Obama, Economic Super Genius.