Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

How many eggs do most people even buy? Almost every story is talking about eggs and how much of a burden it is on the public, but what are we talking about here? I can buy 18 fancy Vital Farms pasture raised eggs for $12. How is such a small purchase so important in the financial press?

The whole thing is just completely silly. The focus should be on the true cost drivers like healthcare, insurance, child care, and housing.

I agree. I doubt eggs are a significant outlay for many people. I think it's probably because it's a stereotypical staple, like bread, milk and cheese. It's a kind of representative of food prices in general.

But yeah it doesn't make any sense to care much about it in isolation, unless you run a mousse business or something.

It was an election thing, right?

It was not really plausible for Republicans to say they are going to do something about healthcare or insurance (I mean, hopefully that isn’t controversial—it isn’t like they are lying about that, healthcare just isn’t part of their platform). It was a folksy way to complain about the economy under Biden without complaining about capitalism.

Now it is a folksy way for Democrats to complain about the economy, that doesn’t require bringing up the fact that there was some inflation under Biden. And it has some vague healthcare relevance (since bird flu might jump to humans).

The way stuff gets talked about in America now is intense focus on extremely niche stuff. Our legislative branch is not really functional anymore, so we can’t talk seriously about solving big problems. So, let’s put a on our blinders and talk about eggs. The eggs represent our whole system, it is dumb as hell.

A few years ago 18 eggs was just under $2.50. Today that same 18 eggs is $9.36. If your family goes through a lot of eggs, it can have a significant impact on your budget.

For example, a family of 4 might use a dozen eggs a day for breakfast. End of the week that could be 6 dozen eggs. When prices were cheap that’s $15, but now that would be just under $60. Quiet a tough pill to swallow for those on a budget.

This is a reasonable take on the nonsense. “Look at the awful burden of spending $10 more a month on eggs is doing to the average family!” … meanwhile huge landlord conglomerates are colluding on rent prices (via third party apps of course), raising rents, and gobbling up housing in the hottest growth areas.