I popped in to buy a couple of bagels at Bruegger's today, and I seriously thought I must have been overcharged, so I had to ask the price of bagels. I had a serious old man moment when the cashier told me they were up to 89 cents, but I avoided the temptation to make a grumpy "In my day bagels cost 39 cents!" speech, but I did feel really old for living long enough to have inflation cause me sticker shock. On a bagel.
Then something from my years of training in economics kicked in, and I realized, the US rate of inflation is nowhere near enough to cause that. In fact, over the past 11-12 years, Bruegger's bagels outpaced inflation by 5%. There may be perfectly logical causes, like a particular vulnerability to rising real estate and labor costs, I still say they're ripping me off with their overpriced bagels, damnit, and I think it's this and not the gaping current account deficit that's eroding the value of the US dollar. And of course now I feel old again because I'm obsessing over the price of bagels. I blame Brueggers. Now get off my lawn.
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