It doesn't have to be this way

This whole egg war really got me, as if "Brandon" was to blame for the ever growing prices.  Turns out it was some kind of avian flu that had badly impacted hens across America.  As much as 25 percent of the egg-laying flock was eradicated.  They didn't want the virus to spread any further, so wiped out whole poultry farms to stop the spread of the contagion.  At its peak in December, white eggs seemed to be worth their weight in gold to see some of the memes on facebook, but the scare is apparently over as wholesale prices have collapsed.  Thank goodness! 

Americans act like they live in a vacuum.  Egg prices have soared here too as a result of this contagion.  We had already been hit with high grain and dairy prices, as a result of the war in Ukraine, so that meant bread and pastry prices soared as well.  I'm more selective at the bakery these days.  The odd part is that this spike affected brown eggs here, the preferred egg in Europe, so it struck me suppliers were trying to make money off the avian scare.

Raspberry jam also got hit hard.  I used to buy my favorite jam at 1.80 euros for a jar, now it is 3.80 euros!  I wanted to see what the cause of this was, as strawberry and cherry jam prices stayed relatively stable.  Mostly, I got hits for Raspberry Pi, which has also increased dramatically in price, but as I sorted through the google listings I found that import costs were the main culprit.  I assume by that they meant increased transportation prices.  So, more countries try to grow them in greenhouses, which is costly too.  I can understand a 20 or 30 percent boost in prices, but we are talking more than a 100% increase!  

Coffee prices have risen too, but not astronomically.  I can still buy my favorite Lavazza Gold on sale with my Iki discount card for 13.99 euros for a kilogram of beans.  So, I stock up, as there is no limit.

Worse are the energy prices, ten times worse than in America, or so it feels, but we don't whine as much.  Last month we paid over 500 euros for heating.  Granted we have a big house, but it never cost anywhere near that amount before.  This despite falling natural gas prices.  The energy suppliers claimed it was because they bought all their natural gas at peak prices, so now they pass along their poor planning to us.  They will have another excuse next year.  

We are now considering solar panels.  Our neighbor says he's saving a bundle, and will be able to pay off his solar panels in three years.  Before, the average time was seven years, roughly the life of solar cell panels.  That means he will essentially get four years for free!

The problem isn't inflation, it's speculation.  I keep yelling this at the TV anytime one of these "economists" comes on to explain the high prices.  It's a chain reaction. You start raising the price for one thing and soon everything else is affected, and before long your grocery bill is 20, 30 even 50 percent more than what it used to be. Thank goodness for discount cards and sales!  

Western governments generally do little to curb this speculation, as they don't want to tamper with the "free market."  So, they send out their "economists" to tell us it is just inflation.   It will go away at some point, like the avian flu.  God forbid, we actually get into a war with Russia, then prices would really go through the roof.

For years, Lithuanian economists were telling us that the increasing prices weren't inflation, although these "economists" wouldn't go so far as to call it speculation.  When Lithuania switched to the euro in 2014, prices immediately jumped 15 to 25 percent.  No, these "economists" said, that's illusory.  The overall price index remained the same.  Yet a hair cut that used to cost me 15 litas was now 6 euros (21 litas).  I didn't complain as she was still a lot cheaper than the other hairdressers and "barbers" in the neighborhood.  There was no reason for this other than a new currency, as the jump was literally overnight.  Since then prices have crept up.  She now charges me 12 euros, which is still a lot cheaper than her competition.  

"Barbers" are outrageous, some charging as much as 50 euros for a haircut and shave!  My idea of a barber was some guy who charged two or three dollars for a crew cut.  I generally tended to avoid them, but now they are high-end coiffeurs, spending as much as an hour steaming your face, clipping away at your hair and beard and then lathering you in hair and skin oils and cologne.  Somebody gave me a gift certificate for my birthday one year.  That's how I found out.  It was like a trip to the spa.

Even still, it hasn't been as bad as it could be.  I see petrol prices continue to tumble.  Remember when Americans were sticking Brandon memes with the catch phrase "I did that!" on gas pumps across the country?  At least "Brandon," a.k.a. Joe Biden, had the foresight to buy enough petrol to refill the reserves at low prices after dumping a bunch of petrol on the market to offset the Saudi-Russian attempt to price gouge the world last October.  I think it was aimed at the United States in particular, as it was just before the midterm elections.  

We all thought 2023 was going to be another big recession.  The "economists" were telling us that the markets were due for a correction.  Michael Burry has contemplating buying short on Tesla.  The tech companies were laying off workers right and left, but somehow overall unemployment numbers remained low. In January 500,000 new jobs were added in the US, far exceeding expectations.

We don't hear much from King Twitter anymore either.  Seems he is mulling over his record financial losses last year.  Elon Musk officially became the first man in history to lose $200 billion in one year.  And you thought Kanye, excuse me Ye, didn't know how to manage his money. Musk tried to offset his massive losses by discounting Tesla cars 20 percent, which led to a spike in sales.  Since then Tesla stock prices have been climbing, and I assume his fortune too.  Teslas are still out of my reach, but I see more and more of them floating around Vilnius.

All this bellyaching about the economy, yet things still seem in pretty good shape.  We picked up two new projects at the start of the year and have more work than we can handle right now.  Our colleagues are saying the same thing.  The building industry hasn't slowed down one bit, and it is usually one of the first markets to get hit by a recession.  I imagine there will come a time when things slow down but, knock on wood, not yet.

You never know when it will come.  I remember taking the family to the US in the summer of 2008, thinking everything was looking up, only to be hit with a massive recession that Fall that led to the loss of virtually all our clients.  If it wasn't for an ongoing utilities project with the US Embassy we would have been essentially unemployed.  It took us four years to climb out of that hole. We don't want to go through that again.

Eggs prices still seem a little higher than they should be, and we are thinking about cutting off our heat entirely and roughing it through these last days of winter, as we had done in the early days of October, but on the whole we feel pretty good about ourselves.  Even planning a trip to the South of France (I love saying those words) this summer if the economy doesn't take a nosedive.

I suppose this is where the panic comes.  People eating their Denver omelet like it will be their last.  We could avoid all this if we just tamped down on speculation.  

Years ago, I read a book Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher, in which he made the case for a smaller capitalist economy that would result in less severe recessions.  Of course, you wouldn't make as much money either, but the overall effect would be beneficial to everyone.  Maybe it is time world leaders took a look at this little book in their efforts to battle speculation, I mean inflation.