Opinion
Economy hinders basic living
March 12, 2008
The economy is stupid. And I’m going to bitch about it until someone fixes it-someone who understands its crappy nature better than I.
I mean, nothing is like it used to be. I’m getting this feeling more and more, every time I bring my empty wallet to Econofoods to buy more crap for my stomach. Prices are going up - Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies, which used to be cookie-sized and tasty, now resemble over-floury biscuits the size of dinner mints. And they still sell for $3.49! I hope those jackasses at Nabisco are proud of their mad marketing skillz.
And regular old potato chips-that is, cheap potatoes sliced and salted-are also priced at $3.49. I think this price increase is outrageous, especially compared to the non-existent increases to most of our wages.
And think about the poor people-how are they supposed to feed themselves if even salty snacks are pushing the $4 mark?
Don’t even try eating healthy in 2008-not with organic food prices at the level they are. Customers are getting screwed left and right, paying several dollars more for a product that should be priced with the mainstream in mind.
Other stuff sucks now too-I bought generic-brand toilet paper - on sale - for almost $7. I’m wiping my ass with this? I might as well just drag my cheeks across the carpet. That might not thrill the roomies, though.
Gas is going to hit $4,000 a barrel this week, probably. Stupid oil. At least I don’t have a car - and this is the greatest time not to own one. The glorious American heyday of walking (and carpeter-assing) has arrived, people.
They also managed to screw up candy, the simplest, cheapest product to manufacture for our country’s little ones-and it all sucks now. Some punk-ass 12-year-old just sold me some Sweet Tart brand sour rope things at the movie theater here in town. And he sold it to me with the undeniable guarantee of a 12-year-old: “Yeah, these are good.” Well I tried ‘em and I’m telling you-I don’t think so, little man. First of all, these “delicious sour ropes” look like Slim Jim beef sticks dipped in liquid vinyl. These disgusting little edible Naugahyde fingers are also injected with pasty blue foam that looks like fluoride treatment gelatin. On top of that, the very middle of these sticks is a solid core of Nerds candy. I mean, that all sounds really tasty and everything, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for fluoride-treatment-sticks. Long story short, the texture of this candy was horrifying-on the scale of candies, this is the holocaust in stick form.
So you economics and business students-get on your horses, start studying, and save my future wallet! We need you to Band-Aid our economy enough so I don’t have to complain about $4 potato chips ever again.
Joe Hager is a student at UW-River Falls.