House of Eratosthenes

I care about Palin-bashers. They’re a threat, although not to her. They create bubbles of fantasy, and then start living in them, every time they open their mouths. Which is often.

Some background, although by now you probably don’t need it. The former Governor of Alaska criticized the latest round of pump-priming plans from the federal government.

All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher.

This is a controversial theory and we’re split squarely down the middle on it. The ivy-league snobs, movers-and-shakers who make money and power off of pump priming schemes, and smarmy Palin-bashers are on one side; Sarah Palin, the ghost of Milton Friedman, humanoids who eat food and pay for it, anyone with a decent long-term memory, reality, history, logic and common sense are on the other. This abstract concept we keep referring to as an “economy” is a means by which some of us generate wealth that did not exist before. It is also a communications network. Tampering with supply of commodities, like money, interferes with the communication. So does tampering with demand. It works best, over the long term, when it is left alone. That’s because over the long term, it services our needs not by delivering goods and services but by facilitating the communication about the supply of and demand for those goods and services.

Artificial interference creates bubbles. It inflates prices for a term, and when the term is up the bubbles collapse so that people on both sides of the transaction enjoy an ample opportunity to get the shaft. This has been proven out, time after time, commodity after commodity. Oil and oil products. Rental property. Agricultural goods. Housing. Health care services. Just name it, when we start screwing with it people get screwed.

My point is, though, that: Palin said something so the Palin-bashers see an opportunity to renew their sense of identity…which means to bash. Oh fine, she represents exactly nobody, so go ahead and bash her — she obviously doesn’t care so why should I.

The problem is the thinking process. Palin’s argument has something to do with rising food prices. And so the rejoinder has to have something to do with food prices not going up. Hello fantasy bubble, here we come.

Grocery prices haven’t risen all that significantly, in fact. The consumer price index’s measure of food and beverages for the first nine months of this year showed average annual inflation of less than 0.6%, the slowest pace on record. Even if you pick a single snapshot — say, September’s year-over-year increase in prices — that was just 1.4%, far better than the 6% annual increase for food prices recorded in September 2008.

Hey, all you food shoppers. Prices haven’t been going up. A Palin-basher found some statistics that say they haven’t. Aren’t you glad to hear that?

Don’t worry, the lady needs no help defending herself.

Ever since 2008, people seem inordinately interested in my reading habits. Among various newspapers, magazines, and local Alaskan papers, I read the Wall Street Journal.

So, imagine my dismay when I read an article by Sudeep Reddy in today’s Wall Street Journal criticizing the fact that I mentioned inflation in my comments about QE2 in a speech this morning before a trade-association. Here’s what I said: “everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher.”

Mr. Reddy takes aim at this. He writes: “Grocery prices haven’t risen all that significantly, in fact.” Really? That’s odd, because just last Thursday, November 4, I read an article in Mr. Reddy’s own Wall Street Journal titled “Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices: Packagers and Supermarkets Pressured to Pass Along Rising Costs, Even as Consumers Pinch Pennies.”

The article noted that “an inflationary tide is beginning to ripple through America’s supermarkets and restaurants…Prices of staples including milk, beef, coffee, cocoa and sugar have risen sharply in recent months.”

Now I realize I’m just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like me can read the newspaper. I’m surprised a prestigious reporter for the Wall Street Journal doesn’t.

Zing! That, like they say, is gonna leave a mark.

But that isn’t the end of it. There never is an end to it as far as the loyal Palin-basher is concerned. Sudeep Reddy tweeted, proving he was right and Palin was wrong, by…finding someone who agreed with him. So no, food prices have not been going up after all.

It’s changed from who-ya-gonna-believe, Sudeep-Reddy-or-your-lyin’-eyes…to…who-ya-believe-Sudeep-Reddy-and-Ryan-Chittum-or-your-lyin’-eyes.

Unbelievable.

I was going to ignore the whole thing. Everyone else is already writing about it after all, and I think deep down, most people understand that there is a deep and troubling psychosis involved with the widespread, popular Palin-bashing. I’ve long maintained that Palin-bashing is older than Palin herself, that she is a symptom and not a cause. That when she is excoriated and snarked-at and sniped-at the way she is, people are really confessing their own weaknesses.

When they devolve into saying “Palin is wrong because prices are not going up” — there really isn’t anything else that needs to be said, is there?

But I was intrigued by this paragraph from the last link up there, the Reddy-tweet-story:

The food inflation article that Palin cites acknowledges there has been no inflation yet. It’s just a risk, given soaring commodity prices.

So Palin is saying prices have already been going up over the last year, the tweet-article says no, it’s just a risk that this will happen, it hasn’t happened yet.

They really are trying to tell you what your food shopping experience is. Just amazing.

Perhaps that is why…I say “perhaps” because I’m really not sure…I decided to click open the link and read it for my self. The Wasilla dimbulb can read it, and she isn’t even supposed to be able to read, right? Seems like the least I could do.

And lo…

An inflationary tide is beginning to ripple through America’s supermarkets and restaurants, threatening to end the tamest year of food pricing in nearly two decades.

Prices of staples including milk, beef, coffee, cocoa and sugar have risen sharply in recent months. [emphasis mine]

Not much point reading any further past that. But we should anyway. Right above the body of the article is a notation that there are corrections below. Go to the correction, and we find…

BJ’s Restaurants has been steadily raising prices this year so that by early next year they will be 2.5% higher. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that BJ’s planned to increase prices early next year by about 2.5%.

In the body of the article…

Stater Bros. has seen the prices it pays for cereal rise 5% in recent months. The chain has passed about half the increase on to consumers while making up for the rest by trimming other expenses, such as what it spends on cell phones and delivery truck tires.
:
Domino’s Pizza Inc. is letting consumers decide whether they’re willing to pay more. The company is offering two medium, two-topping pizzas for $5.99 each but has recently offered the option of converting one of them to a premium pizza, with more toppings, for an extra $2—a price increase, in effect.
:
Food prices are rising faster than overall inflation. The consumer price index for all items minus food and energy rose 0.8% over the year to September, the lowest 12-month increase since March 1961, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The food index rose 1.4%, however. The U.S. Agricultural Department is predicting overall food inflation of about 2% to 3% next year.

To be fair to Messrs. Reddy and Chittum, the emphasis of the article is on what food prices are about to do; so their craven and obvious hair-splitting is not entirely without merit. But the evidence it brings is best characterized as a hodgepodge, a jumbled salad mix of past & future price hikes.

Which means Palin’s counter-point was valid.

Which means Palin’s original point was valid.

Which means it was a waste of time and energy to “correct” her. It was unnecessary, pointless, had nothing to do with informing anybody about anything. Worst of all, it was inaccurate, ignorant and just plain dumb.

Palin bashers may be competent in their own everyday lives, but only until that name pops up. Then they can’t think straight anymore. No, I don’t think they should be trusted with figuring out who our nation’s president should be.

These people shouldn’t be allowed to even pick out their own shoes. Their hatred warps their sense of reality. Palin says food prices are going up, and suddenly they imagine food prices have been holding steady when they haven’t. Palin says it’s a sunny day outside and they start packing umbrellas just because…or Palin says it’s raining, and they leave the umbrella at home. If somebody worshipped Palin, to the point they did exactly the same thing in reverse — Palin says such-and-such a thing is so, so it must be, and no research is necessary on the matter — I’d say those people’s opinions should be taken with a large grain of salt, too.

Palin-bashers are sick. In a way. It is a national epidemic. Something should be done to get them the help that they need.

Just leave my tax dollars out of it, if you please. I need all the nickels I can get hold of to buy my food, even if Reddy says that is not the case.

I have a leftist-liberal sister-in-law. Just so you know, she lives in Obama’s old district and talked about him before inauguration with a dreamy look in her eyes. Now I genuinely like her-she’s a sweet girl- but I don’t suffer blind faith or stupidly. At all. So I politely went through a laundry list of items that Obama would do or not do, completely at odds with his campaign promises. Surprisingly (or not), I turned out to be correct in almost every instance. I could snark about being older and wiser, but the reality is that I simply observe and remember, and my memory goes back a long way.

So what does she think now? That Obama hasn’t done much right, but “it’s only a matter of time.”

How does this relate to PDS? Because it’s no different from BDS. When Bush the younger came up in conversation, I stated that I thought he was pretty rotten on domestic issues, but even though I disagreed with a lot of his agenda, he was still a pretty smart guy. From the horrified expression on my sister-in-law’s face, you’d have thought that I had just remarked that I liked to torture kittens to the point of death right before slowly biting off pieces of their dying screaming carcasses. In response, I mentioned that Bush had a Harvard MBA, which doesn’t typically come in a box of Cracker Jacks, and that he flew jets, a task which sub-grade intellects weren’t capable of. Her horror persisted and I reiterated my comment, to which she replied “Of course you’re right about pilots because my uncle was one, but Bush is still stupid.” At this point I decided to change the subject because, well, what was the point?

My biggest problem with PDS sufferers is their inability to perceive reality. It would be like me repeating the old gravity experiment with a bowling ball and a tennis ball proving that heavier objects don’t fall faster, but having people pretend that the results were wrong. Otherwise, they’d have to admit that THEY were wrong. In their mind, the score is this:

Them: 1,000,000, Objective Reality: 0
- Physics Geek | 11/09/2010 @ 12:09
[…] Whales Raccoon Disables Car Not Worried About Unequal Wealth “Emotionally Distraught” I Don’t Care About “Quantitative Easing” and I Don’t Care About Food Costs&#… “Framed” Eight Little Thoughts I’m Having After the Elections Morgan Owns […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/11/2010 @ 08:01
[…] I say again (since it was ignored last time I said it): This posting is not an example of what I’m talking about because it is a re-inspection of something else that has already been inspected elsewhere. My observation concerns writers who introduce their readers to the topics they wish to discuss. If you want to see how I do this so you can weigh an accusation of hypocrisy in your own mind, you can check out how I do it over here. […]
- “I Will List Palin’s Priorities For You, So You Don’t Have to Read Them” | Washington Rebel | 11/13/2010 @ 19:39

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I Don’t Care About “Quantitative Easing” and I Don’t Care About Food Costs…Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

I Don’t Care About “Quantitative Easing” and I Don’t Care About Food Costs…
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010