Strange Days Indeed

 Ah, what a time to be alive. 

On my daily runs I pass a number of different gas stations. Part of my schadenfreude experience as I look at the prices for fuel in my neighborhood can be traced directly to the recent purchase of an electric car. While I don't celebrate the seemingly inevitable creep upwards of prices at the pump, I know that I won't necessarily be affected by them. 

Or will I?

The obvious economic principle at play here is that when the price of gasoline trends upward it reflects the price of most everything. This upward trend has been in place for decades and I am one of those who can remember filling up a tank for less than ten dollars and how I used to walk uphill in a snowstorm to school. 

I'm old. Nothing is as it used to be. 

The really terrible thing, to me, is that there is a voice in my head that actively roots for things to get worse. Translate that to "more expensive." I have a vivid memory of how one of the focal points of the 2024 election was the price of eggs. We, as a nation, used to be on the gold standard, but a year ago there seemed too be a switch to the chicken ova standard wherein our economic health was determined by a vast conspiracy surrounding the cost of buying and selling these shelled bits of protein. 

This trend plays differently in our house as my wife and I continue to buy eggs even as our gasoline purchases have drifted off to insignificance. Part of our reaction to high prices on most things is the same as most any consumer. The other part is the one that concerns me. That is where we celebrate the failed fiscal plan of the convicted felon who somehow ended up in charge of our economy. 

Do I get any sort of satisfaction from paying more for everyday products and services? To be honest: yes. Do I feel embarrassed by this reaction? To be honest: a little. I confess that if our household was not already somewhat insulated from the storms in the sea of the marketplace, I might feel differently. 

Right now I don't. I feel every bit as entitled to chagrin as those who used to rail on about the previous administrations: Thanks Obama. Thanks Biden. Now I feel as though I can afford to turn up my nose at the struggles of the Second Trumpreich. Their losses, it would seem, are my gain. 

And isn't that what being an American is all about?