what a hustle!

When crude oil was selling for a startling $147 dollars a barrel last July 11th I understood. It made sense. Food would have to jump in price as the cost for shipping it , growing it was greatly affected. So it was without much of a thought that I would walk into my neighborhood bagel shop and willingly pay $1.10 for a bagel. H&H Bagels in NY is basically an institution. Some of the best bagels on earth in my opinion and well, they were apparently getting hit hard by the energy price surge. I wasn't one to ask at that time. I like a crack whore fiending for the rock understood.

I got it.

About 2 weeks after the price went up and still in the midst of outrageous pricing for oil ( still in the $140's at that point ) they prominently placed a display of a newspaper article from the new york post which explained the 20 cent per bagel raise in price. It explained all of the obvious information about oil going up and blah blah blah.....ingredients cost more......blah blah blah........trucking cost more blah blah blah! so.....price jump of 20% or so...

I got it.

THEN.......well.....over time......oil went down.......a ton........as low as $37 a barrel and then well.....Bear Stearns went down and so did AIG , WACHOVIA...UBS...WAMU and the entire economy of the United States. You name it, it tanked. The economy went into the worst recession in 80 years and had already at the time of the oil explosion been in recession for 2 quarters ( just nobody was admitting it )

I got it

But you ask what is it I didn't get?

Why, that was the fact that I just went into H&H this morning and I still paid $1.10 per bagel. WTF is that about? a F*$&#*@g! bagel should cost 80 cents max. It's a bunch of high protein flour some poppy seeds and that's it...( ok an everything bagel does have everything but please! )..so with oil at about $50 dollars a barrel , roughly 3 times lower than the all time high. The economy in tatters and 4 million people out of work. They continue to charge the denizens of the upper east side ten cents north of the dollar mark for a bagel. It's an outrage. I CALL FOR A STRIKE!

Of course it goes without saying that the newspaper article on display for months slowly has vanished from the counter. No longer is the explanation for the price bump there. Also no longer around is the 401k savings for roughly 65% of its customers. I think its a horseshit move on their part to gouge for the price of a little piece of bread we already are getting jipped on ( I love the word jipped ) because it has a hole in it.

Tomorrow I will make sure to ask the manager about the newspaper article and the price jump and the across the board price jump on everything they sell. Im sure I will get an explanation about how things still cost more. Its a horseshit answer as its not true. It will be nice to hear it though.

just a thought

be well,

MOWO!™