21 ms·

The true costs of inflation in small-town Texas

164 points by fortran77 4y ago

rob_c 4y ago
thebooktocome 4y ago
That’s rough, but when a business is no longer economically viable it’s probably time to close up shop.
- gumby 4y ago
  What if the economic change is transient? There are only two regular restaurants in town. The impact is larger than just the owner.
  - kungfufrog 4y ago
    I actually found it a really sad article to read. I feel like living in a major city, earning software development $$$'s, it can be real easy to disconnect from the producer side of the economy. Increasingly large companies are creating an environment that's conducive to their profits and survival at the expense of smaller producers who care more about the process and quality of what they produce.
  - thebooktocome 4y ago
    These increased food and fuel costs are largely not transient. The town itself might very well not be viable anymore. I’ve seen this happen in my own neck of the woods. It’s sad, but the death of small towns like this is just a reality of the economic policy we’ve chosen to pursue here.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I'd be fairly surprised if we don't see gas under $3/gal sometime in the next decade. There's a reason several key economic indicators exclude food and energy (due to the much higher volatility of these categories).
      - thebooktocome 4y ago
        Let’s see, they opened in 2001. So their original business model assumed gas would be around 1.40/gal (1.90 inflation adjusted). When do you think gas will fall that low again?
        sokoloff 4y ago
        You can’t reasonably predict a specific future price-at-time of a volatile commodity (that’s the whole point of excluding its transient excursions). Dev 2008, Feb 2016, spring 2020 were all times with retracements back near the 2001 levels (adjusted for currency devaluation/inflation). I expect we’ll see them again in my lifetime, but you can’t reliably predict exactly when. (If you could, you could retire quite quickly via commodity speculation.)
    - tylermac1 4y ago
      this is just a reality of the economic policy we’ve chosen to pursue here. Now who is "we" in this scenario?
      - wins32767 4y ago
        American citizens collectively.
        spywaregorilla 4y ago
        But also the general development of the world
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Just the same thing as people say on HN for other things. Your business model is not my problem.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    So you're just locked into a slowly decaying town by social norms and guilt? Sounds like the well intentioned by arguably antagonistic group of adults in a coming of age young adult movie. The decline of rural towns has been a long term thing.
- rco8786 4y ago
  Obviously. The article is about the effect of that happening on the community.
- chiphammertime 4y ago
  I know it's unfair of me, but I'm imagining a default-dead early startup guy saying this while drinking the weird mushroom water, so thank you for that
  - thebooktocome 4y ago
    I probably give off that vibe. But nah, I’m just a jaded, cynical survivor of the Rust Belt imploding twenty years ago, causing similar destruction to our mom n’ pops. From which we also never really recovered. Anyway, more importantly, what weird mushroom water? Is it any good?
    - ev1 4y ago
      kombucha and it is very much an acquired taste IMO
      - richbell 4y ago
        I've never heard Kombucha referred to as mushroom water. I assumed they meant Chaga.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        How is fermented tea “mushroom water”?
        ev1 4y ago
        Old coworkers used to call the growth mushroom as slang for some reason, at least that was the first thing that came to mind. The other one is a ludicrously overpriced relatively recent beverage called mud water (caffeinated mushroom water?)
        Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        In Russian, it is called grib, aka mushroom
        4y ago
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  No you pivot! You have the shop, the loyalty, the community. What I imagine small towns need is convenience. If I can buy some groceries while at the BBQ house that is handy. Maybe sell phone chargers too and watnot. Change the menu so the items are affordable, large but the item cost is lower.
bee_rider 4y ago
> This year, Tyson Foods, the country’s largest meat processor, saw its first-quarter profits nearly double. Meanwhile, all over Texas, barbecue places have shut their doors: Two Sawers BBQ, in Floresville; 1836 BBQ, in New Braunfels; Brisket Bar-BQ, in Bellaire. Kinda curious what the long term plan is here for Tyson -- just sell directly to customers after all the restaurants have closed, I guess?
- tedunangst 4y ago
  Why not? Profit margins are up, but overall sales volume was also up 25%. If they can make more money by selling more product, why stop? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/tyson-foods-higher-meat-prices-nearly-doubles-profits-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/tyson-foods-higher-meat-pric...
  - gruez 4y ago
    Higher margins is exactly what we would expect in a supply constrained environment. Demand outstrips supply, so businesses can raise their prices without leaving unsold products. The natural temptation here is to enforce price controls or whatever, but they come with their own problems. If demand is outstripping supply, price controls would lead to empty shelves/rationing.
    - losteric 4y ago
      > Higher margins is exactly what we would expect in a supply constrained environment... The natural temptation here is to enforce price controls or whatever, but they come with their own problems. Or in markets with limited effective competition, no? In which case breaking up businesses is another option.
  - pottertheotter 4y ago
    Your statement is incorrect. Their sales volume was flat (up 0.3%), not 25%. The rest of the sales increase was price. Also, that's from Q1 (reported in February) so a bit old. Q2 (reported in May) saw a 16.1% increase in sales, with volumes down 1.5% and price up 17.6%.
InefficientRed 4y ago
> a box of a hundred and eighty eggs, which had cost around eight dollars when he opened the restaurant, in 2001, was nearly fifty. I don't think I've seen wholesale eggs even close to that high at any point. I think the only place I've seen unit prices that high is at a Whole Foods (which is organic, not wholesale, and has a "premium brand"/convenience markup). Are eggs just outrageously expensive in the Texas market at the moment?
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  At my Costco the 180 box is just under 40 with tax, and thats for the medium eggs. If you want large its $60 for the box. So this seems believable…
  - breput 4y ago
    Large vs. Medium eggs - also a chance for a shrinkflation serving without removing 50% of the serving.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    How are they that much? I pay $1.49 for 18 eggs at Kroger
    - throwaway1777 4y ago
      Those must be really low quality eggs? The Costco ones are not quite the bottom tier.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Eggs can be hyperlocal - we were as low as $.25 a dozen just a few years ago, now we hit about $2 a dozen. The eggs from further away are more - the latest price increases have made the "grown local by cage free hens" eggs competitive again.
      - frumper 4y ago
        Eggs at my Costco were $8-9 for 60 large a couple weeks ago.
RickJWagner 4y ago
rafaelero 4y ago
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  Yeah we need more articles about the minor inconveniences people have in the bay area. Fuck these fly over peasants.
  - rafaelero 4y ago
    - wernercd 4y ago
      #FirstWorldProblems can't find real problems? Make them up.
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      Even if you had a decent point to make, you seem to be intentionally heartless and incompetent in your rhetorical skills.
      - rafaelero 4y ago
        nostromo 4y ago
        > Do you feel for the coal workers that lost their job because the plant went offline? Yes, obviously yes.
        tomcam 4y ago
        > Do you feel for the coal workers that lost their job because the plant went offline? Uh, I sure do.
        noirbot 4y ago
        Odd that what you call a "luxury industry" is essentially something that poor people have been doing for over a century. I generally agree that trying to eat less meat, especially beef, is a fine idea, but farming, ranching, and BBQ are all industries that are about as far from luxury as you can get. A lot of these foods are based around cooking the cheapest and least edible meats that poor communities could afford to buy.
tootie 4y ago
Sounds like inflation _and_ climate change. But they only talk about inflation.
- mrits 4y ago
  Are you under the impression that droughts didn't happen in Texas until the 21st century? Can we stop calling all extreme weather climate change? It just gives talking points to the critics.
  - tootie 4y ago
    While a particular dry season isn't indicative of climate change, Texas is very much experiencing a decades-long drying that is definitely attributable to climate change. That water park may not be viable much longer. https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/megadrought-texas-american-west-driest-1200-years/ https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/megadrought-texas-american-...
    - oldjavacoder 4y ago
      Lived here for over 1.5 decades and do not see a "decades-long drying". Texas isn't perfect but water management is something it does right. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-last-drop/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-last-drop/ "Among the fifty states, Texas may rank near the bottom in many categories—including environmental protection (forty-fifth), quality of parks and recreation (forty-ninth), and availability of mental health care (forty-sixth)—but there is one area of public policy where it ranks indisputably first: water planning. No other state knows with such precision how much water it has and how much it will have in the future." "The drought of the 1890’s killed off much of its nascent cattle industry. In the fifties a seven-year drought (Texas’s worst statewide drought ever) destroyed much of the state’s agriculture and caused 244 of the state’s 254 counties to be declared federal disaster areas. This led the state legislature to create the Texas Water Development Board, which published its first water plan in 1961." For every time a climate change hand waver starts up, the answer is, yes climate change is real...it's how the Earth works. What we need is for people moving to the state do do what we did and get rid of the back yard, make a nice rock garden, stop watering those massive lawns.
pj_mukh 4y ago
Generally, this really sucks for the restaurant and the town but, "the price of food, particularly meat, has risen more than the over-all consumer-price index" Unpopular opinion: But maybe this is fine? In fact after inflation is under control, maybe real meat needs a heavy carbon tax to keep the prices high. We can rebuild the supply chain around fake meats as we slowly switch away. I know this all seems implausible, because the cow/meat lobby will have a field day with any congressman suggesting this, but one can dream.
- kart23 4y ago
  fake meats are overly processed, and probably more expensive too. real chicken has far more protein and is better digested than fake meat. from a nutrition standpoint, the real thing is much better.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    True, but so is less of it. “Western Diet” is a real malady at scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_pattern_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_pattern_diet
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      Red meat consumption has been declining in the US since the early 2000s and more people than ever are vegetarians. I think it's time to update the trope about the "Western" diet.
      - rafaelero 4y ago
        Vegetable consumption is still very low. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/vegetable-consumption-per-capita?tab=chart&country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/vegetable-consumption-per...
        amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        Can’t replace meat consumption with vegetable consumption. Not enough calories. If you are giving up meat, you are replacing it with grains and legumes.
nostromo 4y ago
I’ve seen some people showing actual price increases they’ve seen in their local communities. For a lot of folks it’s much higher than is being reported. Here’s one from a person in Seattle: https://preview.redd.it/max54wqv9kb91.png?width=1112&format=png&auto=webp&s=bde6b9317519c97c68900c41ad8e8bde475d3d27 https://preview.redd.it/max54wqv9kb91.png?width=1112&format=...
- noirbot 4y ago
  I'm always curious for some of these how much it's just a problem of round numbers. Something like the vet visit, I totally believe, but marking down the $1 increase in airport parking cost feels like it's less a percentage and more that they just added 1 to the number because making it cost 36 cents more would just be awkward. Not that that doesn't cause a problem for the people paying it, but pricing for relatively cheap items is a coarse instrument. If you're a business owner and you have no idea how long inflation will be this high, you maybe just err on the side of pricing in some future price increases now and raising prices more in one go vs. changing them every couple weeks. Most consumer goods aren't like gas where people just expect the price to go up and down constantly day to day.
- gruez 4y ago
  That seems massively susceptible to sampling bias. eg. are you really reporting all of your costs, or only the costs that you noticed going up? Meanwhile BLS provides regional CPI numbers[1], which puts "Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA" inflation at 10.1% between Jun 2021 and Jun 2022. https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/factsheet/consumer-price-index-data-tables.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/factsheet/consumer-price-in...
  - tyingq 4y ago
    The CPI is well thought out, though it's possible that their choices on weighting don't match your own spend. Some detail here: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2021.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2021.htm
    - 4y ago
compumike 4y ago
The article presses only a single hypothesis (food input costs going up), but I don't think the article addresses the other side of balancing the books: it may just be a substantial drop in customer traffic to restaurants, even before price changes. It does seem that publicly-traded restaurants are being impacted far more than meat suppliers: https://totalrealreturns.com/s/TSN,CMG,MCD,QSR,DRI,BLMN https://totalrealreturns.com/s/TSN,CMG,MCD,QSR,DRI,BLMN I think the "Total Real Drawdowns" chart is decently instructive. See the huge dip in March 2020, then the general hopeful recovery of June 2021. Compare the red line (Tyson Foods, from the article) versus all the restaurants. With the exception of McDonald's, the restaurants are fairing worse. Would have to dig into fundamentals to get a better sense of why.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  > The article presses only a single hypothesis (food input costs going up) It also talks about gas prices, which affect a cook who quit and a customer with a lawnmowing business.
- ponco 4y ago
  Half the article discusses other factors? 1. staff shortages 2. very elastic customers 3. climate change.
jimmygrapes 4y ago
>The New Yorker, talking about Texas restaurants that only cosmopolitan (proxy for "New Yorker") people visit. Sure, sure. Keep the context in mind.
- Sentino 4y ago
  That article did not mention cosmopolitan people at all.
  - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
    Well, there are cosmopolitan Rodriguezes
cardosof 4y ago
As others said: traffic goes down, restaurants close doors. Food prices may not be the culprit, people getting their meals from delivery and cooking at home may be the cause as well. Having that said, I do work in market research and gather purchase data and create inflation models for a living and to be honest things look really scary from the US to UK+EU and Latin America (which is used to high inflation though). Who knew all that free money from the last decade would do that!
- owlninja 4y ago
  The drought causing rivers to have such low flow this year doesn't help! River float trips are yearly staples for some Texans, but if the river isn't flowing - it's not worth the trip often.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Who knew all that free money from the last decade would do that! As if a war where one of the largest fossil fuel exporters, also exporting enormous amounts of foodstuffs, invaded the biggest exporter in some foodstuffs (grain, sunflower oil, etc.) and a pandemic with all the death, lowered economic activity and lockdowns have nothing to do with the current economic situation. Oil and gas prices are up, and they're a factor in pretty much every other product's price. Add in foodstuff shortages helping drive their prices even more. Some of the increases are profiteering, some are anticipation, some are cold hard math. "Free money" is only a part of it.
  - yobbo 4y ago
    "Deaths" from the pandemic have zero impact on inflation. Oil prices are high and have been climbing since a short-term bottom at the the start of the pandemic. Prices since february are not noteworthy. Fossil fuel production seems to have peaked in 2018 or 2019 last I saw some charts. Germany and Europe are shutting down coal and nuclear power plants, and this is having big and wide impact. Dependence on russian nat.gas, and thus the war (with gas prices), are just a few of the consequences. European energy price is raising the price of fertilizer, which is raising costs in agriculture, and so on. But, for all that stimulus money to not cause inflation, world energy production would have had to double or 1.5x or something. But that's impossible.
jason-phillips 4y ago
For context, I live in San Saba and Lampasas, TX. San Saba is located two hours northwest of Austin where the population density is three people per square mile. While there is truth to the story about inflation hitting rural, poorer areas the hardest, this gentleman's quotes are a but of a stretch. > Brisket went from one sixty-nine a pound to seven Brisket has not been $1.69 for years, unless this gentleman has some sort of sweetheart deal. Also, I show that HEB's market price for brisket today is between $3.05/lb and $5.14/lb. [0] > “In Texas, in all two hundred and fifty-four counties, you can go get barbecue—that’s what we could lose,” she said. It seems that this person is saying we could lose BBQ in all 254 counties in Texas? That's unmitigated hyperbole and balderdash. > “We’ve had a handful of customers that have been here from Day One, every morning. Drinking coffee, a lot of times ordering the same taco.” When the restaurant opened back up at 7 A.M. on Thursday, only two of the seven morning regulars showed up. “It brought a tear to my eyes,” Rodriguez said. “Like, man, am I losing it? I’ve put too much work in here. I’ve worked so hard to want people to come in here. And now I have it, and I’m having to shut the doors.” This is a great example of a writer trying to prove a point without stopping for a moment to make sure that they were being truthful in their accounting so as to avoid being disingenuous. This is a very teachable moment for this writer, and others. Absolutely, inflation hurts. For example, I know that small town governments who provide the critical infrastructure for their communities drive the equivalent of an F150 and the increase in gas prices strains city budgets, which may only be $1M per annum. Will they get by? Absolutely, because self-reliance is baked into their existence, the community rallies and supports its own, or they couldn't continue to live and survive in such remote environs. To address the author's original question, will the local county BBQ joins in Texas survive inflation? It will hurt, but of course they will survive. Texas BBQ will never go away. [0] https://www.heb.com/category/brisket/338579 https://www.heb.com/category/brisket/338579
- gnicholas 4y ago
  > It seems that this person is saying we could lose BBQ in all 254 counties in Texas? That's unmitigated hyperbole and balderdash. I interpreted this to mean that BBQ is available in all of the counties in TX, and that may no longer be true in the future, since some rural counties may lose their last BBQ joint.
UIUC_06 4y ago
The problem of inflation has been solved before. It is a monetary phenomenon, period. It was solved by Paul Volcker turning the screws, mercilessly, until it went away. I can understand the desire to treat it as brand-new, never been seen before. After all, maybe you weren't even around the last time this was a problem.
- rob_c 4y ago
  Yes, and we knew covid-19 was of the covid class of virus, people still treated it like it was an alien contageon asif it had never been documented and studied pre-2019 extremely well how this class of infection spreads and what the full risk profile looks like. The biggest problem here is the risk of "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" is cropping up in all forms of public, opinion driven politics and it's in all likelyhood not going to end well. I wish and hope that I'm wrong.
  - UIUC_06 4y ago
    The fool learns from experience. The wise person learns from other people's experience.
pengaru 4y ago
In 2021 this IKEA gateleg table [0] cost $199 [1]. In early 2022 it was $229 according to my records, but never in stock at any IKEAs near me. Presumably because of all the crazy supply chain/lumber problems, the IKEA shelves were largely empty. By the time it managed to get back in stock, the price was $259 [2]. Today it's $279 [0], a 40% increase over its 2021 price. I don't even know how low it was before 2020/pre-pandemic, as far back as archive.org goes it's $199. [0] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-9042... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210227021124/https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210227021124/https://www.ikea.... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220422144639/https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220422144639/https://www.ikea....
- rob_c 4y ago
  "don't worry you're just imagining it, the market will correct itself" We're now into the early 1920's stage of potentially a huge depression which will probably end (at best) in a cold war with China/Global-East. At worst more and more proxy conflicts as superpowers turn back to expansionism rather than fixing the fact that the bubble around an exponential growth based economy will eventually burst.
- ravedave5 4y ago
  Ha, I got that table, we had to stalk Ikea's store every day to catch it in stock and drive there immediately. This is a tangential anecdote for inflation though, it's supply and demand here. They have a limited number so they are going to charge as much as they can for the limited stock they have.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    > Ha, I got that table, we had to stalk Ikea's store every day to catch it in stock and drive there immediately. When was that? > This is a tangential anecdote for inflation though, it's supply and demand here. They have a limited number so they are going to charge as much as they can for the limited stock they have. It was consistently in-stock at the Covina, CA IKEA around when the price jumped to $259. At least it seemed to be whenever I checked, but once it jumped to $279 I resigned to just pick up a used one eventually instead when I get back to CA. Are you saying IKEA is still struggling to get stuff in stock today? I was under the impression that's largely behind us now.
arminsergiony 4y ago
The article only supports one theory, which is that food costs are going up. However, I don't think the article looks at the other side of balancing the books: it could just be that fewer people are going to restaurants, even before prices go up.
fzeroracer 4y ago
Short-term profit seeking behavior leads to companies raising prices far more than they should while keeping wages stagnant. So they raise the prices on food and other common goods, consumer buying power goes down while overall profitability goes up. Smaller businesses in the middle like restaurants fall apart because they don't have access to the benefits of economy at scale and they can't pay people enough nor can they raise prices (because they're servicing people that have smaller and smaller buying power). The solution to this problem should've been done decades ago and that's tying minimum wage to inflation. But now we're seeing the end result of what happens when you don't. A lot of restaurants skirted by on extremely low cost labor but in times when said labor market gets fed up, they move on to the larger chains that can afford to pay 15+ an hour and a large correction occurs which kills small town restaurants.
buescher 4y ago
My barber just raised his price 25% for the first time in the 11 years I've been going to him. There's some sticktion to prices that's breaking free with the inflation we're seeing. I like to look at the USDA retail price surveys for meat: https://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/retail https://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/retail Chicken prices are all over the map right now - wings are down from last year, as are bagged leg quarters. Boneless chicken breasts have almost doubled in price. Dude's paying over retail for AA eggs.
- memcg 4y ago
  Thanks for the link. My consumption of beef and pork (Washington DC area) has increased since Covid began. Over the last decade, my grocery stores have moved from in-house butchers to regional processors, or better yet, vacuum sealed products. These products are clean and easier to freeze without repacking. I have purchased at least more than 100 lbs of cooked, vacuum sealed beef brisket for $8-10 lb in the last year alone. The quality is consistently better than my local BBQ joint. My approach is to compare and shop, not just buy.
typon 4y ago
This is what happens when leftist politicians run your state
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  leftist politicians Texas Bwaaaaaaa, hahahahahahahahaha. Oh Murgatroyd.
taylodl 4y ago
People have been complaining that the actual inflation is greater than the "officially reported" inflation for the past 30 years - ever since the Great Recession. The cost for energy was factored out, and even the cost of food was factored out to some extent - so long as you can replace item A with item B and the price of A > B then we'll take item B. This had led to an "officially reported" inflation rate that is lower than the actual inflation people experience. Critics say it's to keep the cost of social security increases low, since they're based on the "officially reported" inflation rate. Next up, another pet peeve of mine: the calculation of the unemployment rate.. Edit: replaced "Cynics" with "Critics"
- leereeves 4y ago
  > Cynics say it's to keep the cost of social security increases low, since they're based on the "officially reported" inflation rate. Intentional or not, it certainly has had that effect. Social security payments haven't kept up with the cost of living. My grandparents managed to live on social security alone. My father has social security and a state pension and still needs a part time job.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    Fair point - I spoke incorrectly. I should have said "critics", not "cynics."
orm 4y ago
It's a strange article to illustrate inflation. It mentions there is a drought that has made a local river dry, which was a tourist attraction driving a lot of traffic through the town. This meant a lot less customers, a lot less pay available. It Didn't seem to try to disentangle the inflation from this other pretty big effect... which seems hard to do... But then why pick this town or this headline.
lamontcg 4y ago
The biggest problem we have facing businesses like restaurants is probably the price of labor, and that is out of whack because you can't live on the wages that restaurants can offer. A lot of that is likely due to things like health insurance, residential home prices and escalating college costs (which also lands on the price of eggs because the trucker who drives those to the supermarket needs health insurance as well). The restauranteur can't just raise prices and pay his workers more though because that "VAT" tax from stuff like health care is being taken out from every transaction in the economy. We're seeing the effects of the parasitism and rent seeking behavior where certain segments of the economy increase to squeeze and tax everyone else because their product is something nobody can do without. If it was just inflation that was happening, then everyone could raise prices and we'd eventually be back to normal (if the value if the dollar is sliced in half, but everyone doubles their prices and wages, nothing really changes). The secular problem we're seeing on the longer term (and the article addresses what has happened since he opened his business in 2001 so he's talking way beyond this latest spike) is more than just inflation.

164 points by fortran77 4y ago

rob_c 4y ago

thebooktocome 4y ago

That’s rough, but when a business is no longer economically viable it’s probably time to close up shop.

gumby 4y ago
What if the economic change is transient? There are only two regular restaurants in town. The impact is larger than just the owner.
- kungfufrog 4y ago
  I actually found it a really sad article to read. I feel like living in a major city, earning software development $$$'s, it can be real easy to disconnect from the producer side of the economy. Increasingly large companies are creating an environment that's conducive to their profits and survival at the expense of smaller producers who care more about the process and quality of what they produce.
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  These increased food and fuel costs are largely not transient. The town itself might very well not be viable anymore. I’ve seen this happen in my own neck of the woods. It’s sad, but the death of small towns like this is just a reality of the economic policy we’ve chosen to pursue here.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I'd be fairly surprised if we don't see gas under $3/gal sometime in the next decade. There's a reason several key economic indicators exclude food and energy (due to the much higher volatility of these categories).
    - thebooktocome 4y ago
      Let’s see, they opened in 2001. So their original business model assumed gas would be around 1.40/gal (1.90 inflation adjusted). When do you think gas will fall that low again?
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        You can’t reasonably predict a specific future price-at-time of a volatile commodity (that’s the whole point of excluding its transient excursions). Dev 2008, Feb 2016, spring 2020 were all times with retracements back near the 2001 levels (adjusted for currency devaluation/inflation). I expect we’ll see them again in my lifetime, but you can’t reliably predict exactly when. (If you could, you could retire quite quickly via commodity speculation.)
  - tylermac1 4y ago
    this is just a reality of the economic policy we’ve chosen to pursue here. Now who is "we" in this scenario?
    - wins32767 4y ago
      American citizens collectively.
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        But also the general development of the world
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Just the same thing as people say on HN for other things. Your business model is not my problem.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  So you're just locked into a slowly decaying town by social norms and guilt? Sounds like the well intentioned by arguably antagonistic group of adults in a coming of age young adult movie. The decline of rural towns has been a long term thing.
rco8786 4y ago
Obviously. The article is about the effect of that happening on the community.
chiphammertime 4y ago
I know it's unfair of me, but I'm imagining a default-dead early startup guy saying this while drinking the weird mushroom water, so thank you for that
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  I probably give off that vibe. But nah, I’m just a jaded, cynical survivor of the Rust Belt imploding twenty years ago, causing similar destruction to our mom n’ pops. From which we also never really recovered. Anyway, more importantly, what weird mushroom water? Is it any good?
  - ev1 4y ago
    kombucha and it is very much an acquired taste IMO
    - richbell 4y ago
      I've never heard Kombucha referred to as mushroom water. I assumed they meant Chaga.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      How is fermented tea “mushroom water”?
      - ev1 4y ago
        Old coworkers used to call the growth mushroom as slang for some reason, at least that was the first thing that came to mind. The other one is a ludicrously overpriced relatively recent beverage called mud water (caffeinated mushroom water?)
        Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        In Russian, it is called grib, aka mushroom
      - 4y ago
quickthrower2 4y ago
No you pivot! You have the shop, the loyalty, the community. What I imagine small towns need is convenience. If I can buy some groceries while at the BBQ house that is handy. Maybe sell phone chargers too and watnot. Change the menu so the items are affordable, large but the item cost is lower.

bee_rider 4y ago

> This year, Tyson Foods, the country’s largest meat processor, saw its first-quarter profits nearly double. Meanwhile, all over Texas, barbecue places have shut their doors: Two Sawers BBQ, in Floresville; 1836 BBQ, in New Braunfels; Brisket Bar-BQ, in Bellaire. Kinda curious what the long term plan is here for Tyson -- just sell directly to customers after all the restaurants have closed, I guess?

tedunangst 4y ago
Why not? Profit margins are up, but overall sales volume was also up 25%. If they can make more money by selling more product, why stop? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/tyson-foods-higher-meat-prices-nearly-doubles-profits-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/tyson-foods-higher-meat-pric...
- gruez 4y ago
  Higher margins is exactly what we would expect in a supply constrained environment. Demand outstrips supply, so businesses can raise their prices without leaving unsold products. The natural temptation here is to enforce price controls or whatever, but they come with their own problems. If demand is outstripping supply, price controls would lead to empty shelves/rationing.
  - losteric 4y ago
    > Higher margins is exactly what we would expect in a supply constrained environment... The natural temptation here is to enforce price controls or whatever, but they come with their own problems. Or in markets with limited effective competition, no? In which case breaking up businesses is another option.
- pottertheotter 4y ago
  Your statement is incorrect. Their sales volume was flat (up 0.3%), not 25%. The rest of the sales increase was price. Also, that's from Q1 (reported in February) so a bit old. Q2 (reported in May) saw a 16.1% increase in sales, with volumes down 1.5% and price up 17.6%.

InefficientRed 4y ago

> a box of a hundred and eighty eggs, which had cost around eight dollars when he opened the restaurant, in 2001, was nearly fifty. I don't think I've seen wholesale eggs even close to that high at any point. I think the only place I've seen unit prices that high is at a Whole Foods (which is organic, not wholesale, and has a "premium brand"/convenience markup). Are eggs just outrageously expensive in the Texas market at the moment?

throwaway1777 4y ago
At my Costco the 180 box is just under 40 with tax, and thats for the medium eggs. If you want large its $60 for the box. So this seems believable…
- breput 4y ago
  Large vs. Medium eggs - also a chance for a shrinkflation serving without removing 50% of the serving.
- bluedino 4y ago
  How are they that much? I pay $1.49 for 18 eggs at Kroger
  - throwaway1777 4y ago
    Those must be really low quality eggs? The Costco ones are not quite the bottom tier.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Eggs can be hyperlocal - we were as low as $.25 a dozen just a few years ago, now we hit about $2 a dozen. The eggs from further away are more - the latest price increases have made the "grown local by cage free hens" eggs competitive again.
    - frumper 4y ago
      Eggs at my Costco were $8-9 for 60 large a couple weeks ago.

RickJWagner 4y ago

rafaelero 4y ago

LAC-Tech 4y ago
Yeah we need more articles about the minor inconveniences people have in the bay area. Fuck these fly over peasants.
- rafaelero 4y ago
  - wernercd 4y ago
    #FirstWorldProblems can't find real problems? Make them up.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Even if you had a decent point to make, you seem to be intentionally heartless and incompetent in your rhetorical skills.
    - rafaelero 4y ago
      - nostromo 4y ago
        > Do you feel for the coal workers that lost their job because the plant went offline? Yes, obviously yes.
      - tomcam 4y ago
        > Do you feel for the coal workers that lost their job because the plant went offline? Uh, I sure do.
      - noirbot 4y ago
        Odd that what you call a "luxury industry" is essentially something that poor people have been doing for over a century. I generally agree that trying to eat less meat, especially beef, is a fine idea, but farming, ranching, and BBQ are all industries that are about as far from luxury as you can get. A lot of these foods are based around cooking the cheapest and least edible meats that poor communities could afford to buy.

tootie 4y ago

Sounds like inflation _and_ climate change. But they only talk about inflation.

mrits 4y ago
Are you under the impression that droughts didn't happen in Texas until the 21st century? Can we stop calling all extreme weather climate change? It just gives talking points to the critics.
- tootie 4y ago
  While a particular dry season isn't indicative of climate change, Texas is very much experiencing a decades-long drying that is definitely attributable to climate change. That water park may not be viable much longer. https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/megadrought-texas-american-west-driest-1200-years/ https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/megadrought-texas-american-...
  - oldjavacoder 4y ago
    Lived here for over 1.5 decades and do not see a "decades-long drying". Texas isn't perfect but water management is something it does right. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-last-drop/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-last-drop/ "Among the fifty states, Texas may rank near the bottom in many categories—including environmental protection (forty-fifth), quality of parks and recreation (forty-ninth), and availability of mental health care (forty-sixth)—but there is one area of public policy where it ranks indisputably first: water planning. No other state knows with such precision how much water it has and how much it will have in the future." "The drought of the 1890’s killed off much of its nascent cattle industry. In the fifties a seven-year drought (Texas’s worst statewide drought ever) destroyed much of the state’s agriculture and caused 244 of the state’s 254 counties to be declared federal disaster areas. This led the state legislature to create the Texas Water Development Board, which published its first water plan in 1961." For every time a climate change hand waver starts up, the answer is, yes climate change is real...it's how the Earth works. What we need is for people moving to the state do do what we did and get rid of the back yard, make a nice rock garden, stop watering those massive lawns.

pj_mukh 4y ago

Generally, this really sucks for the restaurant and the town but, "the price of food, particularly meat, has risen more than the over-all consumer-price index" Unpopular opinion: But maybe this is fine? In fact after inflation is under control, maybe real meat needs a heavy carbon tax to keep the prices high. We can rebuild the supply chain around fake meats as we slowly switch away. I know this all seems implausible, because the cow/meat lobby will have a field day with any congressman suggesting this, but one can dream.

kart23 4y ago
fake meats are overly processed, and probably more expensive too. real chicken has far more protein and is better digested than fake meat. from a nutrition standpoint, the real thing is much better.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  True, but so is less of it. “Western Diet” is a real malady at scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_pattern_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_pattern_diet
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Red meat consumption has been declining in the US since the early 2000s and more people than ever are vegetarians. I think it's time to update the trope about the "Western" diet.
    - rafaelero 4y ago
      Vegetable consumption is still very low. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/vegetable-consumption-per-capita?tab=chart&country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/vegetable-consumption-per...
      - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        Can’t replace meat consumption with vegetable consumption. Not enough calories. If you are giving up meat, you are replacing it with grains and legumes.

nostromo 4y ago

I’ve seen some people showing actual price increases they’ve seen in their local communities. For a lot of folks it’s much higher than is being reported. Here’s one from a person in Seattle: https://preview.redd.it/max54wqv9kb91.png?width=1112&format=png&auto=webp&s=bde6b9317519c97c68900c41ad8e8bde475d3d27 https://preview.redd.it/max54wqv9kb91.png?width=1112&format=...

noirbot 4y ago
I'm always curious for some of these how much it's just a problem of round numbers. Something like the vet visit, I totally believe, but marking down the $1 increase in airport parking cost feels like it's less a percentage and more that they just added 1 to the number because making it cost 36 cents more would just be awkward. Not that that doesn't cause a problem for the people paying it, but pricing for relatively cheap items is a coarse instrument. If you're a business owner and you have no idea how long inflation will be this high, you maybe just err on the side of pricing in some future price increases now and raising prices more in one go vs. changing them every couple weeks. Most consumer goods aren't like gas where people just expect the price to go up and down constantly day to day.
gruez 4y ago
That seems massively susceptible to sampling bias. eg. are you really reporting all of your costs, or only the costs that you noticed going up? Meanwhile BLS provides regional CPI numbers[1], which puts "Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA" inflation at 10.1% between Jun 2021 and Jun 2022. https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/factsheet/consumer-price-index-data-tables.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/factsheet/consumer-price-in...
- tyingq 4y ago
  The CPI is well thought out, though it's possible that their choices on weighting don't match your own spend. Some detail here: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2021.htm https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2021.htm
  - 4y ago

compumike 4y ago

The article presses only a single hypothesis (food input costs going up), but I don't think the article addresses the other side of balancing the books: it may just be a substantial drop in customer traffic to restaurants, even before price changes. It does seem that publicly-traded restaurants are being impacted far more than meat suppliers: https://totalrealreturns.com/s/TSN,CMG,MCD,QSR,DRI,BLMN https://totalrealreturns.com/s/TSN,CMG,MCD,QSR,DRI,BLMN I think the "Total Real Drawdowns" chart is decently instructive. See the huge dip in March 2020, then the general hopeful recovery of June 2021. Compare the red line (Tyson Foods, from the article) versus all the restaurants. With the exception of McDonald's, the restaurants are fairing worse. Would have to dig into fundamentals to get a better sense of why.

gnicholas 4y ago
> The article presses only a single hypothesis (food input costs going up) It also talks about gas prices, which affect a cook who quit and a customer with a lawnmowing business.
ponco 4y ago
Half the article discusses other factors? 1. staff shortages 2. very elastic customers 3. climate change.

jimmygrapes 4y ago

>The New Yorker, talking about Texas restaurants that only cosmopolitan (proxy for "New Yorker") people visit. Sure, sure. Keep the context in mind.

Sentino 4y ago
That article did not mention cosmopolitan people at all.
- Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
  Well, there are cosmopolitan Rodriguezes

cardosof 4y ago

As others said: traffic goes down, restaurants close doors. Food prices may not be the culprit, people getting their meals from delivery and cooking at home may be the cause as well. Having that said, I do work in market research and gather purchase data and create inflation models for a living and to be honest things look really scary from the US to UK+EU and Latin America (which is used to high inflation though). Who knew all that free money from the last decade would do that!

owlninja 4y ago
The drought causing rivers to have such low flow this year doesn't help! River float trips are yearly staples for some Texans, but if the river isn't flowing - it's not worth the trip often.
sofixa 4y ago
> Who knew all that free money from the last decade would do that! As if a war where one of the largest fossil fuel exporters, also exporting enormous amounts of foodstuffs, invaded the biggest exporter in some foodstuffs (grain, sunflower oil, etc.) and a pandemic with all the death, lowered economic activity and lockdowns have nothing to do with the current economic situation. Oil and gas prices are up, and they're a factor in pretty much every other product's price. Add in foodstuff shortages helping drive their prices even more. Some of the increases are profiteering, some are anticipation, some are cold hard math. "Free money" is only a part of it.
- yobbo 4y ago
  "Deaths" from the pandemic have zero impact on inflation. Oil prices are high and have been climbing since a short-term bottom at the the start of the pandemic. Prices since february are not noteworthy. Fossil fuel production seems to have peaked in 2018 or 2019 last I saw some charts. Germany and Europe are shutting down coal and nuclear power plants, and this is having big and wide impact. Dependence on russian nat.gas, and thus the war (with gas prices), are just a few of the consequences. European energy price is raising the price of fertilizer, which is raising costs in agriculture, and so on. But, for all that stimulus money to not cause inflation, world energy production would have had to double or 1.5x or something. But that's impossible.

jason-phillips 4y ago

For context, I live in San Saba and Lampasas, TX. San Saba is located two hours northwest of Austin where the population density is three people per square mile. While there is truth to the story about inflation hitting rural, poorer areas the hardest, this gentleman's quotes are a but of a stretch. > Brisket went from one sixty-nine a pound to seven Brisket has not been $1.69 for years, unless this gentleman has some sort of sweetheart deal. Also, I show that HEB's market price for brisket today is between $3.05/lb and $5.14/lb. [0] > “In Texas, in all two hundred and fifty-four counties, you can go get barbecue—that’s what we could lose,” she said. It seems that this person is saying we could lose BBQ in all 254 counties in Texas? That's unmitigated hyperbole and balderdash. > “We’ve had a handful of customers that have been here from Day One, every morning. Drinking coffee, a lot of times ordering the same taco.” When the restaurant opened back up at 7 A.M. on Thursday, only two of the seven morning regulars showed up. “It brought a tear to my eyes,” Rodriguez said. “Like, man, am I losing it? I’ve put too much work in here. I’ve worked so hard to want people to come in here. And now I have it, and I’m having to shut the doors.” This is a great example of a writer trying to prove a point without stopping for a moment to make sure that they were being truthful in their accounting so as to avoid being disingenuous. This is a very teachable moment for this writer, and others. Absolutely, inflation hurts. For example, I know that small town governments who provide the critical infrastructure for their communities drive the equivalent of an F150 and the increase in gas prices strains city budgets, which may only be $1M per annum. Will they get by? Absolutely, because self-reliance is baked into their existence, the community rallies and supports its own, or they couldn't continue to live and survive in such remote environs. To address the author's original question, will the local county BBQ joins in Texas survive inflation? It will hurt, but of course they will survive. Texas BBQ will never go away. [0] https://www.heb.com/category/brisket/338579 https://www.heb.com/category/brisket/338579

gnicholas 4y ago
> It seems that this person is saying we could lose BBQ in all 254 counties in Texas? That's unmitigated hyperbole and balderdash. I interpreted this to mean that BBQ is available in all of the counties in TX, and that may no longer be true in the future, since some rural counties may lose their last BBQ joint.

UIUC_06 4y ago

The problem of inflation has been solved before. It is a monetary phenomenon, period. It was solved by Paul Volcker turning the screws, mercilessly, until it went away. I can understand the desire to treat it as brand-new, never been seen before. After all, maybe you weren't even around the last time this was a problem.

rob_c 4y ago
Yes, and we knew covid-19 was of the covid class of virus, people still treated it like it was an alien contageon asif it had never been documented and studied pre-2019 extremely well how this class of infection spreads and what the full risk profile looks like. The biggest problem here is the risk of "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" is cropping up in all forms of public, opinion driven politics and it's in all likelyhood not going to end well. I wish and hope that I'm wrong.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  The fool learns from experience. The wise person learns from other people's experience.

pengaru 4y ago

In 2021 this IKEA gateleg table [0] cost $199 [1]. In early 2022 it was $229 according to my records, but never in stock at any IKEAs near me. Presumably because of all the crazy supply chain/lumber problems, the IKEA shelves were largely empty. By the time it managed to get back in stock, the price was $259 [2]. Today it's $279 [0], a 40% increase over its 2021 price. I don't even know how low it was before 2020/pre-pandemic, as far back as archive.org goes it's $199. [0] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-9042... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210227021124/https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210227021124/https://www.ikea.... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220422144639/https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/norden-gateleg-table-birch-90423887/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220422144639/https://www.ikea....

rob_c 4y ago
"don't worry you're just imagining it, the market will correct itself" We're now into the early 1920's stage of potentially a huge depression which will probably end (at best) in a cold war with China/Global-East. At worst more and more proxy conflicts as superpowers turn back to expansionism rather than fixing the fact that the bubble around an exponential growth based economy will eventually burst.
ravedave5 4y ago
Ha, I got that table, we had to stalk Ikea's store every day to catch it in stock and drive there immediately. This is a tangential anecdote for inflation though, it's supply and demand here. They have a limited number so they are going to charge as much as they can for the limited stock they have.
- pengaru 4y ago
  > Ha, I got that table, we had to stalk Ikea's store every day to catch it in stock and drive there immediately. When was that? > This is a tangential anecdote for inflation though, it's supply and demand here. They have a limited number so they are going to charge as much as they can for the limited stock they have. It was consistently in-stock at the Covina, CA IKEA around when the price jumped to $259. At least it seemed to be whenever I checked, but once it jumped to $279 I resigned to just pick up a used one eventually instead when I get back to CA. Are you saying IKEA is still struggling to get stuff in stock today? I was under the impression that's largely behind us now.

arminsergiony 4y ago

The article only supports one theory, which is that food costs are going up. However, I don't think the article looks at the other side of balancing the books: it could just be that fewer people are going to restaurants, even before prices go up.

fzeroracer 4y ago

Short-term profit seeking behavior leads to companies raising prices far more than they should while keeping wages stagnant. So they raise the prices on food and other common goods, consumer buying power goes down while overall profitability goes up. Smaller businesses in the middle like restaurants fall apart because they don't have access to the benefits of economy at scale and they can't pay people enough nor can they raise prices (because they're servicing people that have smaller and smaller buying power). The solution to this problem should've been done decades ago and that's tying minimum wage to inflation. But now we're seeing the end result of what happens when you don't. A lot of restaurants skirted by on extremely low cost labor but in times when said labor market gets fed up, they move on to the larger chains that can afford to pay 15+ an hour and a large correction occurs which kills small town restaurants.

buescher 4y ago

My barber just raised his price 25% for the first time in the 11 years I've been going to him. There's some sticktion to prices that's breaking free with the inflation we're seeing. I like to look at the USDA retail price surveys for meat: https://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/retail https://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/retail Chicken prices are all over the map right now - wings are down from last year, as are bagged leg quarters. Boneless chicken breasts have almost doubled in price. Dude's paying over retail for AA eggs.

memcg 4y ago
Thanks for the link. My consumption of beef and pork (Washington DC area) has increased since Covid began. Over the last decade, my grocery stores have moved from in-house butchers to regional processors, or better yet, vacuum sealed products. These products are clean and easier to freeze without repacking. I have purchased at least more than 100 lbs of cooked, vacuum sealed beef brisket for $8-10 lb in the last year alone. The quality is consistently better than my local BBQ joint. My approach is to compare and shop, not just buy.

typon 4y ago

This is what happens when leftist politicians run your state

LBJsPNS 4y ago
leftist politicians Texas Bwaaaaaaa, hahahahahahahahaha. Oh Murgatroyd.

taylodl 4y ago

People have been complaining that the actual inflation is greater than the "officially reported" inflation for the past 30 years - ever since the Great Recession. The cost for energy was factored out, and even the cost of food was factored out to some extent - so long as you can replace item A with item B and the price of A > B then we'll take item B. This had led to an "officially reported" inflation rate that is lower than the actual inflation people experience. Critics say it's to keep the cost of social security increases low, since they're based on the "officially reported" inflation rate. Next up, another pet peeve of mine: the calculation of the unemployment rate.. Edit: replaced "Cynics" with "Critics"

leereeves 4y ago
> Cynics say it's to keep the cost of social security increases low, since they're based on the "officially reported" inflation rate. Intentional or not, it certainly has had that effect. Social security payments haven't kept up with the cost of living. My grandparents managed to live on social security alone. My father has social security and a state pension and still needs a part time job.
- taylodl 4y ago
  Fair point - I spoke incorrectly. I should have said "critics", not "cynics."

orm 4y ago

It's a strange article to illustrate inflation. It mentions there is a drought that has made a local river dry, which was a tourist attraction driving a lot of traffic through the town. This meant a lot less customers, a lot less pay available. It Didn't seem to try to disentangle the inflation from this other pretty big effect... which seems hard to do... But then why pick this town or this headline.

lamontcg 4y ago

The biggest problem we have facing businesses like restaurants is probably the price of labor, and that is out of whack because you can't live on the wages that restaurants can offer. A lot of that is likely due to things like health insurance, residential home prices and escalating college costs (which also lands on the price of eggs because the trucker who drives those to the supermarket needs health insurance as well). The restauranteur can't just raise prices and pay his workers more though because that "VAT" tax from stuff like health care is being taken out from every transaction in the economy. We're seeing the effects of the parasitism and rent seeking behavior where certain segments of the economy increase to squeeze and tax everyone else because their product is something nobody can do without. If it was just inflation that was happening, then everyone could raise prices and we'd eventually be back to normal (if the value if the dollar is sliced in half, but everyone doubles their prices and wages, nothing really changes). The secular problem we're seeing on the longer term (and the article addresses what has happened since he opened his business in 2001 so he's talking way beyond this latest spike) is more than just inflation.