Inflation to the consumer (CPI) is calculated by monitoring the prices of a standard “basket of goods”. There are soooooo many ways to monkey around with the contents of this standard basket, some of which are entirely legitimate and some of which are completely bullshit. One of the arguments of the past involved how people respond when an item in the “basket” becomes hellishly expensive. Do they keep buying it? If so, then the basket should keep that item, and show that massive increase. But if they quit buying it, or substitute something else — if they stop buying bananas in the face of a steep increase, or switch to apples, or whatever — then the basket should mimic their behavior. Of course, when you do that, someone is going to scream, but you cheated! Bananas are stupid expensive! That should be in the index!
Whatever. You can care about that. I don’t. (
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chain-linked-cpi.asp if you want a decent explanation as opposed to my garbage summary).
Shrinkflation seems to be selling a Hershey bar for the same price, but less Hershey bar (that’s an old example, intentionally — box of cereal with less cereal in it, or a roll of TP with less TP on it is probably more apt now). Skimpflation is when the service (or good) that you bought has less to it than it once did. Like, you got the hotel room for 3 nights, but they didn’t automatically make your bed anymore. You went to get food, and they made you order it at the counter or from a device, instead of from a person, or you had to go pick it up at a counter instead of someone bringing it out to you.
I have a whole bunch of instinctive reactions to this that can be summed up as, just fucking adapt already. If they are screwing with the Hershey bar to hit a price point, they know their customers are super price sensitive, but NOT quality sensitive. And now, I am going to start telling stories.
When I was a teenager (<— yes, under 21, and YES the legal drinking age was 21 where and when this occurred), my dad bought cheap beer. I’d been drinking since I was 2 (probably earlier), and had developed some pretty detailed preferences over the years. I wasn’t drinking to get drunk; I liked the taste and I always had (nothing like having an age 2 entry in a baby book that says “walkitout likes wine”. I call chianti the wine of my childhood, but honestly, it’s the wine of my toddler years). I _disliked_ my dad’s beer. Also, my parents had no issue whatsoever with my drinking. They had some issues with some of my sisters’ drinking, because they were getting smashed and so forth and also stealing liquor and watering it down. I did not do any of that nonsense. They had no problem with me. So I asked my dad to buy me some beer. I wanted Alaskan Amber, and I had a job so I gave him the money. He went. He bought the beer and brought me the change. I thanked him and offered him a beer.
This was actually a cynical move. It was _not_ to ensure he would keep doing what had just happened. I was _hoping_ that if he had some good beer, he’d be motivated to buy it for the house and be willing to let me have some. He was absolutely prepared to go buy me beer, assuming it wasn’t out of his way (he was already going to the store that had the beer in question), and assuming I funded it. I would have preferred to not fund it. He took the beer. He drank the beer. He liked the beer. I asked if he would buy the beer. He said, no, it was too expensive.
*sigh*
But there’s a real story here. He was born during the Great Depression, and a love of salvage value was bred into him from a tender age; he imparted to me the basic idea of 10 cents on the dollar, and I have never forgotten it. I’m not inclined to be as rude as he is, with a lowball offer, but I have some respect for people who are willing to Go There. I consistently overpay and overtip, because I know what people are like, and you don’t have to go very far over to come across as the Second Coming of Someone Or Other, given the general skinflintiness of people with long memories. I _love_ the attentive service that comes from the contrast. Over time, even my skinflinty (those people who say you marry your parent are Not Wrong) husband has come around. My dad remembers cheap gas and cheap beer, and while he loved how the inflation of the 1970s ate away at the personal impact of his vintage 1968 mortgage, and he _really_ loved his union electrician job that ensured cost of living rises, he also adapted to the rise of price of everything by moving from upper shelves to lower shelves. And he shopped garage and yard sales as a hobby, to keep his hand in.
If you’re complaining about shrinkflation or skimpflation, then basically, something became untenably expensive versus what it used to cost and everyone else adapted to something else but you are stubbornly hanging on, trying to reproduce that previous experience at the previous price point and complaining about it.
Meanwhile, the kids these days are eating at food halls and food trucks and drinking at taprooms and bringing beer home in a growler and otherwise figuring out ways to have fun with their friends having really good food and good beer and not have it cost an insane amount of money. If that means long tables and an outdoor setting instead of white linen and table service, oh well that’s just fine. So what if you have to go place your order at the counter and pick it up when your pager buzzes.
Obviously, the other relevant component here is where are you in your life arc. A young person is happy that they finally can command a decent wage (emphasis on command). An older person planned a retirement with an idea of lifestyle and funds, and that is eroding and they are not happy about it. How far back you can look and compare prices really matters. If today’s price is roughly like the earliest price you ever saw, because that was a couple years ago, *shrug*. But everyone comparing today’s price to the prices they first paid forty-plus years ago, well, that’s a tough time right there.
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