Jeff Stahler for July 14, 2021

Remember the “five and dime” stores? Ours was a Sprouse Reitz (I think is the spelling). That was a fine store for a kid with a nickle burning a hole in his pocket!

Does anyone really ever go to the dollar store just to buy one thing, though?

A nickel is worth about a dollar and thirty seven cents today. 1913 to 2021. I worked in Reno for a summer job and usually had silver dollars in my pocket. Made 50 dollars one night on just the red and black. Past 2 am Harrah’s had dime roulette and craps. I learned a lot, and lost some.

Bill Harrah would have eggs Benedict but no bacon. Just eggs, english muffin and sauce. Loved his car museum.

He once passed me in one of his Ferrari’s me in my MGA at about 90. Very smooth, just another sunday drive.

I did not mean to put salt in his morning coffee. It just sort of happened.

I thought he was very cool.

Everybody is going to try to make it back to pre-covid levels of business income but it will take time. Price hikes are just the first step. And, given the long-needed and long-delayed trend to higher hourly wages, they are likely to become the norm for the next few years.

So? When there were five and dime store the average pay was one dollar per hour. Do the math, thing aren’t all that bad.

We are our own worst enemies when it comes to some of the price increasess.

Just tell people that there is a shortage and they will pay ANYTHING to get it. Doesn’t matter if it is gasoline, houses or cabbage patch dolls.

If you do a comparison of both quality and size between $ stores and regular stores often the $ store is more expensive. For example $1 for a jug of 2% bleach/98% Mexican tap water is not a bargain compared to a jug of 7% bleach for $2.75 at Target/Walmart/HEB.

The harsh by-product of a pandemic; the cost of living’s going up while the chance of living’s going down.

We are now paying for the pandemic backlogs.

Prices have been going up since everyone was born. No surprise now.

People should realize that if a product can retail for $1 that is after 2/3 50% mark-ups, transportation, tariffs, storage cost so the actual cost to manufacture is likely $.25-$.35. The same with the $20 toaster likely had manufacturing cost of about $7.

I suspect as time goes by that more and more people find our billion-dollar-crybaby is a five-and-ten-cent bore.

Frankly, there has been nothing for $1 in my Dollar store for years

Thanks, Biden.

The online ad for Dollar Tree, it’s all $1 each.

So… Family Dollar?