Costco musings

Commander Zero

VERBATIM POST
============================

Went to CostCo today. Either America has developed a taste for Mexican food in previously unknown quantities or the natives are restless and stocking up…that is, if the amount of toilet paper being purchased was anything to go buy. A pack o’ CostCo TP is 36 rolls…thats gonna last quite a while (unless, of course, there are Gyno-Americans in your household). Everyone who was buying the stuff was buying it two cases at a time…and, no, it wasnt on sale. It’s funny, you’d think that in a crisis people would be eating less and therefore the toilet paper requirements would correspondingly be less. Unless, of course, the TP is to be used as new currency…in which case the current currency will become TP.

But seriously…walking through CostCo just puts me in mind that theres no reasonably intelligent reason that I can fathom to NOT stock up on anything and everything that you’ll use regularly and keeps well. Like what? Oh, just off the top of my head…soap, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap, laundry detergent, toothpaste, dental floss, toothbrushes, socks, underwear, shoes, clothes, motor oil, cookware, bedding, eyeglasses, sponges, brooms, light bulbs, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, ziploc baggies, etc, etc, etc. Pretty much anything you would normally use and/or replace within a year or so. Why? ‘Cause it ain’t gonna get cheaper, assuming its even available.

Everyone in Washington is patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for dodging a bullet (except for Rep. Giffords, of course) and, really, if you look at what was actually done all thats happened is the can has been kicked down the road. From what I read the only real way to deal with this debt issue, assuming that they want to deal with it at all, is to inflate their way out of it. And while a rising tide lifts all boats, an inflated currency won’t screw over just the people that are holding the debts based in that currency. As the dollar is inflated to pay off the debts, it will also do some ugly things to whatever dollar denominated savings you have. Or, at least, thats how I see it with my minimal background in economics.

I’m reminded of a story/joke I read somewhere. A guy goes into suspended animation. He’s re-animated 500 years later. As he’s being debriefed, he asks how his investments had done. He had planned carefully and threw all his money into long term investments. The guy debriefing him tells him that over the course of 500 years there were, of course, fluctuations in the market..some years his investments lost money and some years they did amazingly well. As it stands, his investments have matured to the point where he has $900 million in the bank. The guy is flustered. He never thought he’d do that well. He says he wants to celebrate and could the man debriefing him recommend a place for a celebratory meal? He says ’sure’…theres a great steakhouse around the corner and you can get a New York strip and baked potato for only $300 million, $500 million with a nice wine.

That sums up how it works as best as I can describe it.