Inflation

[ezdays]

I think the problem for plastic manufacturing is oil.  Plastic is made from oil.  When that Evergreen ship stopped traffic in the Suez Canal, oil tankers were stuck waiting for it to clear.  Prices suddenly sky rocketed.  Every time a refinery has a problem, oil prices go up.  When they had a glut of oil a couple of months ago, oil stocks crashed, and prices at the pump dropped, but somewhere along the line prices remained high for stuff made of plastic.  About the only place where product prices follow the price of oil is at gas pumps and perhaps lube oil.  Every time something that is made out of oil has a price rise, they blame the cost of oil, but when oil prices drop, the price of plastic products does not follow!

Think also about a cup of coffee. Just about for any reason that comes along, the price of a cup of coffee goes up. When that issue goes away, the price of coffee stays up, just like things made of plastic. Why, two reasons I think, they do it because folks are used to paying the higher prices and secondly, they do it because they can. The same goes for soda at sit-down restaurants. I went to my handy-dandy inflation calculator and asked how much should a nickle cup of coffee (or a glass of soda) in 1940 cost today, it said, 95 cents. I just paid $2.89 for one cup of coffee at Denny's the other day, the same price for tea or soda.