OT Stuff - Happy Thanksgiving to all those giving thanks! Once in awhile it’s good to look back! The declaration of a national Thanksgiving holiday was intended to bring our divided country together…seems like we need to remember this important history now, more than ever!
Good listen / read on the underlying history of our often misunderstood holiday -
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/1214380338/mother-of-thanksgiving
Macro Stuff - The price of the Thanksgiving meal is often used as a measure of inflation. Whose prices should we use? Being a foodie, I prefer to use the Julia Child measure -
Shocker…prices are up in 2025. Turkey is driving most of the increased cost.
“Turkey hens sold for about $1.65 per lb last autumn, Purdue’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability found, while they are expected to fetch $2.05 per lb on average this Thanksgiving.”
While shopping for some various accoutrements at Kroger’s this past Sunday I noticed that whole frozen turkeys were selling for $.89 per lb.
Turkey prices at places like Walmart and Kroger’s shouldn’t be used to justify lower inflation because -
"However, prices vary significantly as some supermarkets prefer to price their turkeys as loss leaders, encouraging customers to do the rest of their holiday shopping in their store.
The American Farm Bureau Federation’s Thanksgiving consumer survey found turkeys advertised at less than $1 per lb by some retailers, despite the almost 70 per cent wholesale price increase on last year."
More OT Stuff - Seeing that we could’ve bought a 16 lb turkey for less than $20, La Demonia asked why we spent $100 for a Diestel Farms turkey. I tried to explain the difference in quality, the abuses of industrialized turkey factories, and then sarcastically said…“We should be thankful we can afford a turkey that doesn’t have a plastic pop-up in the breast.”
She reminded me that Thanksgiving isn’t about being thankful, it’s about giving thanks.
Pinche La Demonia…
