If you’d prefer to invest your money with no return in the future please PM me. I promise to not hire any employees, pay any benefits, buy any raw materials, or produce any marketable or useful product. This way we won’t have to pay taxes for the local schools, build roads and bridges, fund services for people in need or keep the roads plowed. We won’t be burdened by record keeping or accountability. We will be able to avoid virtue signaling by donating to organizations for the disenfranchised. You have my e-mail, I’ll send an address to send your money.

Thats nothing new, it has been going on for quite awhile now. When was the last time you bought ice cream that contained a full half gallon of ice cream? There is at least one brand around here, Stewart's Ice Cream Shoppe for one, that does, but all the major brands like Breyers only contain 1.5 quarts of ice cream. They not only put less product in the package, but they hit you with a double whammy by raising the prices as well.

Your darn lucky if you are getting 14 ounces of coffee in a can. I bought 3 cans of coffee which were on "sale" recently (a major brand which has been around since I was a kid) and the cans not only had 10.5 ounces of coffee (down from 11.5 ounces not all that long ago) and the sale price was more than what this brand cost a year or so ago. Opening the first can, the coffee was about 2" below the top of the can.

We all know food producers have been slowly reducing the volume, but not the price, of the foods we buy. A one pound can of coffee now contains 14 ounces, a 5-pound bag of sugar is now 4 pounds, etc.

The newest ways food producers cheat consumers to keep their profits up is to switch to cheaper ingredients. Sodas once sweetened with sugar now use cheaper corn syrup. Many times, taste suffers and the new ingredients are even less healthy. In some cases, negative customer feedback forced manufacturers to return to their previous ingredients.

Since the '70's I enjoyed Cheez-Its but about 5 years ago they simply stopped tasting cheesy so I stopped buying them. Suddenly this summer, Cheez-Its boxes announced they were "now cheesier" and guess what; they once again taste the same as the old Cheez-Its. I wonder if this is a case where customers forced Cheez-Its to return to their previous formulation. I wish others would do the same.

https://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-high-prices-costs-making-food-snacks-sodas-worse-quality-2023-12

Some prices are getting ridiculous! A medium order of french fries at McDonalds is now 4.00! Everyone knows how these fast-food places depend a lot on soda. A 2.00 soda is about .17 to make. Now it seems they are trying to make french fries a major profit item as well. I have all but stopped using fast-food restaurants. A few years ago I would go once or twice a week. Now I may go twice a month, maybe less. When buying a fast-food meal for three people tops 30.00, it's time to quit in my opinion.

I wonder if this is just a local thing or if it is becoming a trend. Many local drivers have their high beams - usually LEDs - on day and night. It seems to be mostly pickup trucks, which are higher than cars, so they're lights are at eye level for oncoming drivers. The idea behind DRLs was to make cars more noticeable in the daytime. GM had the high beams turn on at 50% power. Honda still seems to do that. Headlights have turned from a safety feature to a hazard. I guess that's what you call ironic.