Was 2024 the most expensive Thanksgiving?
November 29, 2024
Happy Black Friday. We hope you find some good deals in stores and online. Remember that Cyber Monday is coming up next. Hint: most retailers have expanded “black Friday” sales to the entire holiday season. No need to rush. No need to overspend.
Was this year the most expensive Thanksgiving in U.S. history?
No. Although it felt expensive, this year’s average Thanksgiving dinner was about 5% less than last year according to the economists keeping track. Reportedly, the average meal for 10 people was $58 this year ($5.80) per person. Supposedly, last year was about 5% more, mainly because turkeys were 6% more expensive last year.
For most Americans, food prices seem and feel very expensive. They seem to increase overall year by year. In fact, with the exception of the 1930s after the Great Depression, and between 2007 and 2008 after the Great Recession, food prices have gone up almost every year since economists have been tracking.
Moderate inflation is healthy
During the Great Depression, overall prices fell by about 25% and food prices fell by about 17%. In 2008, after the Great Recession, food prices fell a little. For food prices to fall significantly, we seem to need a dramatic economic downturn leading to drastic reductions in demand. In other words, people have to be suffering so much economically that they basically cannot afford to eat. If that is the price to be paid for better food prices, perhaps it’s better to see them rise a little every year. We certainly don’t want another great depression in the United States.
High inflation is not that healthy
From 2019 through 2023, food prices in the U.S. increased significantly and dramatically by about 25%. That’s too much too fast. There are many factors. You can blame it on COVID19 (both the supply chain disruptions and the stimulus package); on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; on avian flu; on high transportation costs; on climate change; on government regulations; on subsidies; on corporate greed; on the mystery of the plan of God; on whatever. Regardless of the blame game, the fact is that food prices went up. Chances are that they will never go down to pre 2019 levels. Chances are they will continue rising in the near future and beyond.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the world to change or food prices to come down.
If you are hoping for food prices to come down significantly, you’re essentially hoping for a major economic depression. A major economic depressions is always possible, but we don’t think one is likely any time soon. We may be wrong. However, don’t hold your breath waiting for food prices to come down. Chances are that they won’t come down. If you are reminiscing the food prices of 2019, join the club. Just don’t fool yourself thinking that those price will ever return. They won’t.
The Second Coming of Trump is Here
First thing first. We didn’t vote for Trump, we promoted the Democrats, but we wish Trump and the MAGA team great success. This is our country and we’re all in this together. We will find ways to continue winning. We happen to think that our country was great and continues to be great. There’s no need to go “back” and there’s no need to take anything “back” (neither back in time, nor back from someone). We’re not perfect, for sure, but when we work together we make the best country in the world. We’re #1 out of 193. That’s not only good, that’s great.
Whether people like it or not, we’re now headed into the Second Coming of Trump. The people voted. The majority chose Trump and his second coming to the White House. Trump won by a landslide and has a democratic mandate to impose his agenda.
Trump will have control of Congress and a pro-Trump Supreme Court. The Trump team should be able to implement the MAGA agenda without problems. Hopefully it works. Hopefully it keeps America great by being focused on making it great “again”. Hopefully we keep making progress while focused on not losing and getting things “back” to our collective and individual greatness.
The MAGA agenda can work.
We’re talking about more business and less government. We’re talking about less taxes, less regulations, less welfare, more defense, less nation-building overseas, less foreign wars, more tradition, less abortion, more security, less crime, more deportations, less illegal immigration, more selective immigration, more tariffs, less globalization, etcetera. Some may love it; some may hate it. It can work. Anything can work if you make it work.
The Second Coming of Trump May Bring More Inflation
Globalization and illegal immigration have something in common: they are deflationary in nature. They bring prices down. People can buy more products and more services when things are made by cheaper labor overseas and when services are provided by less expensive workers. That, we think, is a fact.
Trump’s plan is to impose tariffs and deport illegal immigrants. The majority of Americans are in favor and demonstrated so democratically. Halting globalization and deporting illegal immigrants will cost a lot of money and will increase prices across the board. We think that is a fact. The future has not been created yet, but we are not aware of a scenario where you can have the cake and eat it too. If Trump can somehow crack that nut, more power to him. We simply can’t see how he will do it.
Can Trump make the DJT stock great again?
We believe that Trump will make many prices increase. One of them, we hope, will be the prices of the shares of his media and technology company. the Trump Media & Technology Group company that trades in the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker DJT (the President’s initials).
We “invested” (gambled and speculated) $3,000 on DJT stock before the election when it was trading at about $45 per share. As of today, we are down about 30% with DJT trading at about $32. Professional investors see little value in the company and its stock. It is viewed as a very mediocre media company that operates the Truth Social network (Trump’s copy of Twitter). The company is a net money loser with expenses far exceeding revenue and with little to zero growth.
We believe that the Trump man will find ways of leveraging his presidential powers into turning the company into a profitable venture and a worthwhile stock. That’s why we put some play money into it to track it with some skin in the game. By the way, we did the same thing with crypto alternate coins back in 2018. We bought $4,000 worth of Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and Metaland or something like that. The $4K evaporated into about $700 during the Biden years. After Trump’s victory, our Coinbase account is at about $2,000. The crypto community (crypto gambling club) is hopeful that the Trump administration will let the crypto industry flourish again. After all, even Melania Trump had lent her name to an NFT company during the previous Trump administration. We’ll be thankful if we can at least make a grand on the crypto gamble at some point in time. If that happens, we will be thanking Trump and the MAGA world.
Trump’s Disturbing Thanksgiving Message Gives Hope
Trump’s Thanksgiving message yesterday was crass. Instead of simply wishing all Americans a happy thanksgiving, Trump used the holiday as a pretext to attack the “liberal lunatics” in the country. Hopefully Trump was not thinking about the 74M Americans, 48% of the electorate, who voted for the Democrats. It will be hard for Trump to run a prosperous economy with only 52% of the population. Just saying.
The silver lining in Trump’s Thanksgiving message comes for DJT “investors” (speculators) like us. That’s because Trump is using Truth Social to post these messages that are getting significant attention. In so doing, he draws traffic to the site and presumably increases its value. We can imagine that many companies and investors, including foreign countries who don’t want to pay tariffs, will find ways to quasi bribe Trump by advertising on Truth Social and by “investing” in the company. Our $3k should become $5k in 18 months. We’ll see.
Trump’s Touch
Unfortunately, it seems to us that everything that Trump touches turns to shit, fraud, or both. Hopefully we’re wrong (again) because we don’t want to see our country turn into neither of those. Trump has been a successful business person. However, the success may be do in part to fraud. Trump’s main business was real estate development. According to the legal system in New York, the Trump Company was engaged in misleading and fraudulent activities. Trump was a successful Reality TV entertainer, but supposedly he was a “me too” sex offender in that industry and in those years. Trump had many failed businesses and multiple bankruptcies. Politically, Trump promised to build a wall that Mexico would pay for and failed miserably on that. Moreover, and more importantly, Trump failed in the handling of the COVID19 pandemic even after receiving advanced intelligence reports about it.
Hope for the Best. Prepare for the Worst
We hope that Trump can redeem himself during his Second Coming. We hope that all the MAGA dreams of a happy country where everything can be as simple as believing in a king on Earth and a king on heaven can somehow come true. We doubt that it will come true.
We are preparing for the worst by investing in our skills as problem solvers. There will always be problems to solve in life. Problem solvers will always be in high demand. Regardless of whether conservatives or liberals are in charge, regardless of whether you live in a democracy or under an authoritarian regime, there will be problems to solve. Problem solvers will always be compensated well for their services to the powers that be.
Problems are Practically Infinite (PI).
The more problems humans solve, the more problems humans discover. The solution to a problem creates more problems. That is what we call the Problem Paradox.
Even if Trump finds a magic wand to solve all known problems in our country, there will be a practically infinite (PI) amount of new problems to solve. Don’t hold your breath waiting for problems to go away. So long as you are alive, you will be surrounded by a PI amount of problems to solve. Become a problem solver for fun. Enjoy your life as problem solver in a world with a PI amount of problems to solve.
