Grant, Hamilton and the Real Misery Index

Everyone’s panicked about the price of oil these days, but I really don’t see what the big deal is here. After Venezuela and Iran follow Greenland, Canada, Cuba and Mexico as our newest states, gas will be less than a buck a gallon and we’ll all be laughing about the whole thing.

That’s the problem with the mainstream media, politicians, economists and talk-show hosts. They’re always focused on the same thing and, almost always, it’s not even the thing that’s most important. They even come up with fake gimmicks like THE MISERY INDEX to measure the pain caused by higher prices for things like gas or rent or mortgages or dominatrices.*

Per usual, they’re missing the point. Prices go up and down all the time, but 99% of our economic misery is driven by just one metric: $50 pizzas.

It doesn’t matter who the president is or what mortgage rates are or how many Bitcoin you need to buy a dozen eggs. The battle is lost as soon as you need a portrait of U.S. Grant to pay for a decent pizza…and that means the battle has been lost.

I doomscrolled through the offerings on Door Hub a few days ago, just to see how much it would cost to have dinner with a couple of friends, if I ever made any friends. A medium pizza with sausage, mushroom, onion and green pepper—the minimum number of toppings for a Chicago pie—came in at $38.39, plus another $11.07 for delivery and fees, plus the 20% tip that’s a necessity if you don’t want the driver desecrating your dinner before you get it.

That totals up to roughly $59, basically a Grant and a Hamilton, if the delivery services sullied themselves with actual cash. And, did I mention, the pizza arrives ever-so-slightly colder than when it came out of the oven?

If misery loves company, $50 pizzas can create enough demand to fill a football stadium. Of course, the pizza in one of those facilities would be $50 per slice, but at least the fans would be too sloshed on $87 beers to feel the pain, at first.

In a way, I’m encouraged by the fact that nobody wants to be my friend, so I don’t have to invite anyone to dinner and I can avoid paying $59 (plus beer!!!) to stuff their fat, ungrateful faces. Yes, I could order a pizza from Little Caesars or Pizza Hut or someplace else that’s really cheap, but I tried that already and that’s why nobody wants to be my friend anymore.

This is where I’d usually digress into a hazy memory of kids on bikes delivering pizzas as a part-time gig and no middlemen to grab 30% of the total transaction as their technology toll. Don’t worry, though, because I’m not even going to mention those things.

Frankly, I’m just too miserable.

*Also, I looked up how to spell dominatrices while researching this post and I can't wait to write about all the ads I'm about to get every time I'm online. Seriously, folks, the sacrifices I make for my readers are immeasurable.

Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?

---