Hidden Price Increases!

Are you ready for the “Incredible Shrinking Candy Bar”?

As inflation runs hot and destroys the purchasing power of the currency, product manufacturers and markets find inventive ways to conceal price increases.  The most common means of hiding price increases is by reducing the size of the packages you are used to buying.  For example, you might be used to buying a five-pound package of sugar for one price, when suddenly it becomes a four-pound package for the same price.  

They hope you do not notice.  Cereal manufacturers will package their products in boxes that seen from the front are the same dimension as always.  But the box is narrower and holds less/

So, get ready for the incredible shrinking candy bar.

There are other ways of hiding prices increases.  Materials may get cheaper.  Furniture that was once made of solid wood begins to be manufactured in particle board.  If installation of a purchase was free, now it becomes an extra charge.  Did you used to get a two-year warranty?  It may be only a year next time.

A recent Washington Post story cited a typical example of “shrinkflation” packaging: “Walmart’s Great Value paper towels, for example, went from 168 2-ply sheets per roll to 120. The price, at $14.97, remained the same for a dozen rolls despite the nearly 30 percent drop in the product.”

Here’s another: “Tillamook County Creamery Association, a farmer-owned cooperative in Oregon, reduced its family-size containers of ice cream from 56 ounces to 48 ounces earlier this year, bringing it on par with its competitors. The price, though, remained the same at about $6.”

The practices are partly an effort to fool their customers, and partly a necessary means of staying profitable.  It is too bad companies feel they must go to such lengths but rising prices across the economy are not their fault. 

They know that consumers do not understand that rising prices reflect the currency being debauched by the monetary authorities.  So as prices continue to rise, consumers may even stage protests against ranchers and farmers and grocery stores, while the real culprits in Washington escape like a thief in the night.

You cannot stop the destruction of the currency.  It is a fait accompli.  The $28 trillion national debt is a result of money that has already been spent.  The new money has already been printed; the number of dollars has increased by 33 in the last 17 months.

You can, however, protect your wealth with precious metals.  Gold and silver quietly rose about 8 percent in May, signaling inflation’s comeback.

No matter how it is “packaged” – in bars or coins of various sizes and from differing issuers, an ounce of gold is an ounce of gold.  

Speak with a Republic Monetary Exchange professional today.  Let them help you create a portfolio of gold and silver that will protect you from inflation.