The Hidden Inflation.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Producers are under two pressures: to raise prices to account for the loss of purchasing power of each dollar, and to lower prices to attract customers with declining incomes. They most obvious way to accomplish both is to keep the nominal prices the same or slightly lower while adulterating the goods and services.
In groceries, that means 59oz cartons instead of 64oz, at the post office, 18-stamp booklets instead of 20-stamp, and at the hotel much reduced service, such as no daily bedding changes. The difference over even one year has been drastic enough to be noticed.
The other cost is in the increase of regulations. To use the sound suppressor registration as an example, government intervention at least triples of the prices over countries where suppressors are not registered. To that, a $200 excise tax is added. And to those costs, the value of productivity lost while complying with the paperwork requirements, easily a full day of work time. So a suppressor costing $100 in New Zealand ends up costing Americans $300+$200 tax+$200 lost work time, a total of $700 plus a delay of 6-8 months. This is as an illustration only - all regulations increase costs and most provide no benefits to anyone but the bureaucrats enforcing them in exchange for paychecks and influence.