I don't know what anything is supposed to cost these days
A cookie or a camel ride. A computer or fast food. Inflation is one thing; the unhinged relative cost of things is another.
On a recent trip to the zoo with our kids and another family, an excursion that is as much about the animals as it is about how many treats and extras the kids can convince us to buy, we faced a conundrum.
Three camel rides or a cookie?
That was the cost equivalent, at least as my oldest daughter remembered it, of purchasing either one cookie from a cart we had just passed by … or waiting to spend money in a little while on three camel rides.
(Being the dutiful researcher and journalist that I am, I double-checked the price of the camel ride. It turns out it was not a 3-to-1 ratio, but it was still at least cheaper than a cookie. Both prices, though, seemed plausible).
The point of all this is to illustrate one of the countless scenarios we are presented with these days where we are made to undertake the impossible task of judging the value of various goods and services.
Inflation has been a big talking point in the past few years, and for good reason. The increased prices of a lot of goods, particularly groceries, has had a real effect on our purchasing power. It is the primary reason a lot of Americans have a negative view of the economy even while experts say we are in good shape.
But I would argue that something else is playing a role in our collectively sour view of the economic landscape: the unhinged relative cost of things.
It’s hard to know what anything is worth or what it should these days for a couple of reasons: Even within categories, there is a wide range of what you can spend on something; and some things seem like outlandish rip-offs while others seem like ridiculous bargains.
This is a little different than me gasping at the price of snacks at Target, and it is quite a bit different than your grandparents talking about how it used to cost a quarter to see a movie in the theater.
This is a feeling that prices for goods and services don’t match up to what we think they should be, in both directions. And the trust gap grows when we find out that higher-priced items don’t always mean higher quality.
Example: Our 10-year-old has been asking for a couple months to get her own laptop instead of a tablet, and she wanted the kind that she used to use at school. She would even repeatedly say that she would spend her own money on it.
My assumption was that it would be cost-prohibitive. But then I did some checking on a secondary market and found that a used version of the laptop she wanted would cost roughly the same amount as one trip through a fast food drive-thru.
I was unsure of the whole thing, but we went ahead with the laptop purchase. It’s an older model, but it works great and our daughter is thrilled.
I’m thrilled for her, but I’m also confused for myself. While I understand that prices don’t just appear in a vacuum — a cookie at the zoo or a beer at a baseball game, for instance, are many times more expensive than their equivalents at a store because you are a captive audience paying for part of an experience — the cost of things seems increasingly arbitrary.
We just bought the largest TV we have ever owned, and we could go on Amazon right now and spend twice as much on a toaster. Or we could spend $15 on a toaster.
The fundamental end game — toasting bread — is the same, and I don’t imagine we would have 40 times the satisfaction at achieving it with the fanciest toaster vs. the cheapest one. (Small, mostly unrelated aside: I can never bring myself to buy the cheapest one of anything. The second-cheapest, sure, as long as the reviews are OK).
I do wonder if some of this untethered pricing within one category is a reflection of the increasing economic gap between the upper class and lower class. More people can spend hundreds of dollars on a toaster without it having any impact on their bottom line, so why wouldn’t the high end just keep going up?
I am more certain that this gap helps explain why there is such a disconnect between how experts and average citizens view the economy, as an economic expert is probably doing fine month to month even if his or her grocery bill jumps 20%.
But again, neither of those sentiments quite explains the feeling that many of the prices we see on things are random and have no real standard.
It’s enough to make us — or at least me — skeptical in both ways. If something seems wildly expensive, I’m offended enough to not buy it. If it seems impossibly inexpensive, I worry that it’s a scam or that it will fall apart in 30 seconds.
Even while shopping for art supplies with our kids at the dollar store (which is now the $1.25 store), I’m constantly evaluating products and trying to gauge their true worth.
I know this sort of game between sellers and buyers has been going on for far longer than I’ve been alive. It just feels different now than it did even 10 years ago.
And when there’s too much uncertainty, nobody gets what they want.
We said yes to some other things, but we skipped the cookies and the camel rides.
The evolution of this substack strongly suggests that we are about three or four posts away from the old man yells at cloud meme.
I had been thinking similarly, but could not put it into words the way you did. Thank you! My wife and I play a game called “Guess how much this costs?” The results are completely random, which adds to the amusement.