I was at a budget meeting today, and some numbers blew my mind. For instance, our dining services suffer greatly because the prices have skyrocketed for the items we regularly purchase up to 68% to a whopping 157%. Some of the items are red grapes, bacon bits for salad, and vinyl gloves for cooks and servers.
Also, taking into account inflation over 20 years, our overall university budget decreased by 53 million dollars per year. It’s about 46% of the budget.
We are trying to make this calculation for buying an overpriced house.
On the one hand, inflation will devalue the loan, and the real value of the house will catch up with the amount we overpaid, in a few years.
On the other hand, if groceries keep going up, we’re not sure if we can keep paying the mortgage.
But rent would be just as bad, so…
The gloves are getting absolutely ridiculous. About a year or so ago hospitals transitioned from nitrile gloves to vinyl in certain areas. At the same time, the quality of the nitrile gloves went down tremendously, even from the same brands and suppliers. To hear that vinyl gloves are also increasingly difficult to stock…. It makes me wonder if there’s truly a shortage due to the pandemic anymore or companies are just pretending (this is always, without exception, the excuse).
It’s definitely price-gouging.
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Prices are really really out of control. Gas prices have more than doubled here in CA. Restaurants are so expensive now that we cut down on our eating out, and other discretionary stuff such as manicures and hair-colors. My heart goes out to small business owner — I don’t know how they make things work in this economy!
Another interesting thing: literally every social gathering I go to, people are talking about either out-of-control inflation or gas prices or the newly-minted homeless people on our streets. Yet Shellenberger lost in the county, and it’s the same people who overwhelmingly vote Newsom into office! It’s as if people don’t see the relationship between cause and effect.
Ay, I was so pro-Shellenberger. It still rankles that he lost. What an excellent candidate! Smart, with a great program, calm, reasonable. What are people thinking?
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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