Jerry Summers
As momentum builds for the 2024 congressional and presidential political marathons the competing factions may differ as to the current status of the various municipalities and Hamilton County on the subject of “Inflation.”
Understanding the rosy picture painted by graduates of Eastern schools of economics, grants of free money in low-interest loans from various local non-profits and the state and federal governments, influx of money from high tax states, etc. are beyond my limited public education of why income is up, costs are exploding skyward and the net result is that I don’t feel comfortable in the economic euphoria.
In 1932 two enterprising young men in Chattanooga, Tennessee (R.D.) and (G.S.) thought about how they could provide a five cent (.05) hamburger to the public during the Great Depression era.
The history of the small piece of meat, aroma of cooked onions, and mustard on a freshly steamed bun grew into a food favorite locally as well as throughout the Southern part of the United States.
With a gentleman's territorial agreement with the alleged first fast-food restaurant founded in Wichita, Kansas in 1921 (White Castle), both companies prospered and expanded into corporate giants catering to low cost food needs and budgets of victims of the Great Depression.
In an effort to try and understand the present opposing “bloom or doom” mentality in our community, it was decided to support an expensive undercover fact-finding crusade to accurately determine inflationary conditions in the former “Dynamo of Dixie.”
On the scenic route down East 23rd Street the investigating team spied a sign outside a Krystal, locale advertising the sale of “10 Krystals for $9.99.” In light of the lapse of time since 1932, increased labor costs and taxes, such an increase in the price of the small sandwiches didn’t seem too far out of line.
However, a few weeks later, a return trip down the thoroughfare then showed an abrupt increase in the same quantity of mouth-watering Krystals to $12.67 for 10 gourmet delights.
Although not having a Master of Business Administration degree from any prestigious university, the calculation of the interest rate of inflation in said price hike appears to be substantially above the progressive level of inflation for our “booming economy.”
(Having decided that a hometown burger was a more accurate economic inflation barometer than Janet Yellen of the Federal Reserve and the other economic geniuses, we immediately placed a to-go order for 100 of the family favorites to be put in our home freezer before the next price increase as an inflation fighting move!)
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You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com