Sad seeing the Steers burger shrivel up into almost nothing. Latest trick is the oversized bun with the afterthought patty hidden somewhere inside. It has to pretend inflation averaged 6% for the past 20yrs and it will butcher that patty until it confesses.
If you compare the price of a Steers burger 20 years ago to its less impressive descendent now, it more or less fits the official CPI inflation story (~6%). If you compare it to a decent quality burger today, more like 9% annual.
The common response to this is that falling quality products are offset by rising quality products, making the CPI avg essentially/roughly accurate. But the point of broad technological progress *should* be to cause things like burgers to improve while getting *more* affordable.
If tech makes our supply chain systems better and improves efficiency throughout the production process, and makes buyers more productive in their jobs, and hence raises real income, why does this result in declining quality burgers? It must be due wealth destruction...
...offsetting the productivity gains from tech progress. In SA's case, this has a number of causes: socialist policy, state looting, emigration of skills, capital consumption etc. This is where and how the practical effects of wealth destruction manifest, gradually, year by year.
Implication: in a de-developing country like SA, if you're using official CPI to benchmark the cost of your *constant quality* of life, you're deceived. If you're investing with the hope of a *better* future quality of life, your inflation hurdle rate is muuuuch higher than CPI.
