The always hilarious and insightful Richard Daughty, aka The Mogambu Guru, explains how the 25% increase in the price of eggs can be reduced by officially Government sanctioned Hedonic Adjustments, such that the officially reported increase is 0% (Full article):
USA Today, citing the American Farm Bureau Federation, reports, "Easter eggs will cost U.S. consumers about 25% more than last year," as "The average U.S. retail price for a dozen large eggs was $1.51 in the first quarter, 43 cents more than a year earlier."
The explanation offered for this staggering increase in the price of eggs was that "The increase stemmed mostly from higher corn and soybean prices," which are used in the production of chickens, as "ethanol demand drives up feed prices."
I sense that you are asking, "How can eggs be up by 25%, and yet the lying government, and the lying Federal Reserve, and their lying collaborators in the lying Congress, the nations' lying universities, and the lying newspapers all say that there is no inflation in prices? What am I, some kind of stupid poopie-head that is supposed to believe that silly crap?"
By way of explanation, let me first say (with all due respect) that you are a stupid, ignorant boob and you don't know squat about how to calculate inflation these days.
The answer is, obviously, that the Federal Reserve, the government and their ignorant lackeys all say that inflation in egg prices is zero (although the price of eggs is up 25%) because the hedonically-adjusted increase in price (43 cents) is not the price of the egg going up, but is the additional cost of additional benefits that you now receive! As just one example, part of the additional 43 cents is to pay for the benefit of happier chickens, thanks to free-range chickens and less crowding.
And if the chickens are happier, see, then the eggs are not affected by, for example, stress hormones, and thus they are, somehow healthier! So, the eggs are of higher quality!
So THAT'S the benefit for which you are paying more. It has NOTHING to do with the price of the basic egg, which is, when the price of these benefits is stripped out, completely unchanged in price! Thus, inflation in egg prices is proved to be, after applying officially-sanctioned hedonic adjustments, zero!
See how I am doing this? It's easy! I don't know why government wonks get paid so much to do this stuff!
Anyway, the result is that you, as the consumer, get a big benefit from knowing that chickens are happier, and you and your family are healthier from eating higher-quality eggs, for which you paid another lousy 43 cents instead of having to eat unhealthy eggs from stressed-out chickens.
