Readers’ comments: July 25, 2025

Notes from a consumer
Dear editor:
I often feel that our consumer economy is an Agatha Christie “who done it?” mystery. The suspects: tariffs, inflation, corporate greed, price gouging, shrinkflation. Where’s Hercule Poirot?
In late June I ordered my favorite Columbian coffee from Walmart. It was $14.28 per 30-oz can as it had been for some time. Ordered it last week and it went up 40% to $19.96. Was it a tariff that is typically passed on to the consumer? Don’t know.
Another example: Scotties tissues I buy at Dollar Tree. That company raised its base price from $1 for most items to $1.25 in early 2022, a 25% increase. I get that. A dollar just isn’t what it used to be. However, thanks to sleight of hand, some things become more expensive despite maintaining the same price. A short time ago 175 generic tissues cost $1.25. Scotties were $1.25 for 160, but the box that is still $1.25 now contains only 120 tissues, a 25% reduction in quantity. This “shrinkflation” is seen every time we shop. Charmin, for example, has many variations of its TP: rolls of 220, 275, 330, 363 sheets, etc. One needs a calculator and a math degree to figure out what the best deal is. And the sheets seem smaller now. If you shave half an inch off the width of each roll and multiply that by millions of rolls, Proctor & Gamble makes more even when the price stays the same. I’ll bet there are people whose only job is to work on these things.
While the president is rounding up people who typically do the hard jobs most Americans don’t want to do, where are those lower grocery prices we were promised? Is all this inflation stuff still Biden’s or Obama’s or Hillary’s fault? Hercule, help us!
Don Linde
La Verne