Opinion | Cookie Monster is not your puppet, Democrats

The post went viral, and within hours President Biden co-opted it into his anti-corporate greed agenda. “C is for consumers who are fooled.” The White House tweeted. “President Biden is calling on companies to put a stop to shrinkflation.”

Multiple Democratic Senators exploited viral tweetalso expressed support for legislation This would prohibit companies from reducing the size of their products without commensurately reducing prices. The bill, introduced by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), is also supported by Biden, according to a fact sheet sent to reporters.

Not surprisingly, many noticed that Cookie Monster’s shrinkflation tweet was published days before Biden’s State of the Union address. Cookie Monster certainly looks like a puppet of the Democratic Party. (I will show up.)

Sesame Workshop claims that Cookie is his own, er, monster. “As part of our ongoing efforts to connect and engage with our adult fans, we posted a playful tweet about Cookie Monster’s favorite theme: cookies,” the organization said in a statement to me. . “This post was not intended to be political. Sesame His Workshop is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.”

There are so many depressing things about this story that I don’t know where to start. Let’s go.

First, the idea that consumer products might shrink in size to mask price increases is not new. This phenomenon often occurs cyclically when companies face cost pressures. In 2011, I covered consumer complaints about “stealth downsizing.”

Changes in product size are already factored into official inflation measures, despite occasional commentary that shrinkflation makes inflation even worse than officially reported. For example, if the number of sheets per roll of toilet paper decreases, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will take into account the increase in the price per sheet when calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

In fact, BLS tracks how often products are downsized and, for that matter, upsized. In a report on “shrinkflation” last year, the agency found that of the 100,000 goods and services tracked for CPI calculations, only a small fraction were reported as shrinking. Product downsizing increased further in 2015 and 2016.

Although the report only includes aggregates through 2021, BLS says the frequency of contractions in today’s CPI data is about the same as in recent years.

So why are package size reductions becoming more pronounced? It’s always frustrating when you get less for the same price, but it’s especially It’s frustrating when you’re conscious of rising costs. Americans are understandably furious that their purchasing power has decreased, whether because cookies have shrunk, or because the price of existing cookie sizes has increased, or both.

But there are a lot of upsetting things happening in supermarkets, and not all of them require federal intervention. For example: Self-checkout machines get very angry if you don’t immediately place your scanned items in the bagging area. Anyone who brings 11 items into the “10 or less lane” should be kicked out.Also, the signboard says “10 items or few” And why is the line I choose always the slowest one?

At a certain point, these complaints start to sound like bad stand-up routines from the ’90s. (“do you have? saw That’s basically what Cookie Monster tweeted – a goofy joke about candy that, for some reason, was politicized by some cynical politician.

In the case of shrinkflation, the problem will only get worse if Congressional intervention and Mr. Biden propose fixes for shrinkflation. Prohibiting companies from changing the prices or sizes of everyday goods without government instructions is a type of price control. (Casey’s bill is actually the second price regulation bill introduced in recent weeks; the other is an older preliminary bill sponsored by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. be.)

Price controls are not a brave new idea. Ask any Argentine, resident of the former Soviet Union, or American who remembers the “Nixon Shock” of 1971. With limited exceptions, these measures are sure to cause many problems and distortions. They can cause stockouts and reduce product quality (for example, an increase in the price of flour means more sawdust in cookies).If it becomes difficult to raise prices, companies may even set prices. taller than than otherwise. (Can we have a temporary sale? What happens if the price goes up after the sale?)

Additionally, enforcing government-approved price levels requires spending vast amounts of public resources elsewhere.

Ironically, food inflation has actually plummeted recently, but not because of lawmakers who have been pushing and failing for years to impose price controls. But I understand. This is an election year, and politicians want to show they’re ‘doing something’ about table issues. But if they have to demagogue, I hope they will rid this world of this innocent, googly-eyed monster.

As Cookie himself says, such indulgences are “occasional food.”