Folks, I realize that I’m not the brightest crayon in the box but something just ain’t addin’ up – even if I use the super whamodyne “JethroCalc” calculator that I was given when I graduated from Jethro Bodine’s School of Cipherin’.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest Consumer Price Index numbers on Friday.  In the midst of all the mumbo jumbo, it says that food prices have risen 3.2 percent over the last 12 months. I really would like that ‘splained to me because I think the numbers are much, much higher.  Packaging is smaller. Portions are smaller. Ingredients are reduced.  All of this and prices either remain the same or increase.

Let’s look at a fictional package of cookies to see if I’m looking at things correctly (and to see if I need to go back for a refresher course at Bodine’s).  A couple of years ago, the consumer would expect to see, say, five rows of six cookies each.  Let’s say that the package of delectable delights were $3.00.  The manufacturer starts to see increases in all their costs and must make adjustments. What are their choices?

They could raise their prices but the perception by the consumer may be negative and they don’t want to experience that. So, the first thing they could do is reduce the number of cookies in the package.  In order for the packaging to look and feel right, though, they can’t reduce the count by just one cookie. What can they do?  They’ll reduce the count by an entire row, thus eliminating six cookies from the package. They can keep their $3 price point but they’ve just reduced their contents by 20% and maintained the appearance of keeping prices the same. 

In my way of cipherin’, that would equate to a 20% inflation rate, wouldn’t it?  Just wonderin’.

I recently went into a convenience store for a package of cheese crackers and a bottle of water.  I opened the crackers and bit into the first cracker.  I kid you not: there was just barely enough cheese between the crackers to hold the two crackers together.  The entire package was that way and the price of the crackers were the same as they were when I bought them with quite a bit more cheese.  If cheese amounted to (and I’m just guessing here) around 33% of the costs of that package and they eliminated 95% of the cheese, wouldn’t that mean that my effective price just went up almost 31%?

I dunno. Maybe I just need to change the batteries in my JethroCalc.