Advice on inflation, interest on savings, productivity of soldiers, good prices at your real grocery store/part 1

Advice on inflation, interest on savings, productivity of soldiers, good prices at your real grocery store/ part 1

fiction
edward w pritchard


People are not good at figuring out what is actually happening but that doesn't stop armchair experts from looking for the cause and effect between everything and anything and writing about it.

This is another of one of those type of articles about inflation and prices. This is advice for young people who are unaware what it means when the Government tells us that inflation will return for real soon.

Back in 1974 or thereabouts  this old writer was selling insurance to black folks in the urban neighborhood trying to get started in life. One afternoon an eighty eight year old black man retired from " The Goodyear" explained to me what inflation was. I was trying to sell him an another insurance policy he didn't need.

" He said, concerning inflation " when the government says inflation is low I get 2% interest on the five thousand dollars I have in the bank and if I want to buy a nice steak I pay 99 cents a pound for a good steak. " If the government says inflation has went up to 16% per year I get about 16% interest on my 5,000 that I have in the bank on the money that it took me my whole life to save. With low inflation I get one hundred dollars interest per year on my money that I can spend if I want to buy a steak now and then or with sixteen per cent inflation and interest rates on savings accounts I get eight hundred dollars a year in interest on my money but with higher inflation a nice steak costs more, about five dollars a pound. Either way I can only have steak a few times a year because my digestion is delicate nowadays. "Well", he said "I guess I'll take the inflation if I can and then I'll choose when to eat steak and what to buy with the higher interest I earn on the money I have in the Bank."

Another time...
end part 1