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Harry Wilmerding on November 23, 2021

Dollar Tree announced Tuesday it is raising its prices, bringing the cost of its products over one dollar for the first time in 35 years.

The dollar store will raise its prices by 25%, bringing the cost of its products to $1.25 as customers become accustomed to higher prices across multiple industries, the company announced in its third-quarter 2021 earnings report. Additionally, Dollar Tree said its decision to raise prices is permanent and “not a reaction to short-term or transitory market conditions.”

The company noted that 91% of customers surveyed said they would continue to shop at Dollar Tree with the same or increased frequency despite the price spike.

“We experienced a strong finish to the quarter, as shoppers are increasingly focused on value in this inflationary environment,” company president and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Witnyski, said in the press release.

“Our Dollar Tree pricing tests have demonstrated broad consumer acceptance of the new price point and excitement about the additional offerings and extreme value we will be able to provide. Accordingly, we have begun rolling out the $1.25 price point at Dollar Tree stores nationwide,” Witnyski added.

Keeping prices at $1 would have forced Dollar Tree to stop stocking shelves with multiple products that are popular with consumers, the company said in its earnings report. Additionally, the spike would allow the company to return to its historically high margin range by cutting higher costs.

“Lifting the one-dollar constraint represents a monumental step for our organization and we are enthusiastic about the opportunity to meaningfully improve our shoppers’ experience and unlock value for our stakeholders,” Witynski said.

Inflation hit a 30 year high in October, with the Consumer Price Index surging 0.9% on a month-over-month basis and 6.2% compared to the previous year.

Dollar Tree did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Harry Wilmerding on November 3, 2021

The company behind popular snacks like Oreos announced Tuesday that it would increase its prices to combat the rising cost of inflation, multiple sources reported.

Mondelez International, the company behind Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers and Sour Patch Kids, is expected to raise prices by up to 7% in the U.S. through 2022 to offset the high costs for ingredients, transportation, increasing wages and growing demand, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“We’ve been increasing prices, and we plan to increase prices more than we’ve done at least in the time that I’m here and probably for quite a while as a company,” Mondelez chief executive Dirk Van de Put told the WSJ.

Van de Put told CNBC he expects cost inflation to increase 6% in 2022, citing higher commodity prices and ongoing transportation shortages. He highlighted the difficulty in keeping stores stocked, saying inventory is “nowhere near where we would like it to be.”

The issues impacting the company have been felt globally, but the impact on the U.S. has been especially strong, Van de Put told CNBC. The company expects price increases in Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Southeast Asia, the WSJ reported.

Demand for Mondelez’s snacks has remained strong as consumers have spent less eating out at restaurants, Van de Put told  CNBC.

“The average consumer around the world spends 15% more time at home than before,” Van de Put said. “It happens that these categories, biscuits and chocolate, are also something that is more consumed at home.”

Food prices have surged recently as companies combat increasing costs, labor shortages and supply chain problems, the WSJ reported. Consumer spending at grocery stores was 4% higher in August than the same month one year prior, but food prices increased 1.2% in September.

Major food companies like Kraft Heinz, Conagra Brands, General Mills and Nestle have all announced price increases to offset the costs of materials, transportation, supply chain issues and increasing wages.

Mondelez International did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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What happened? It turns out, contrary to what minimum wage activists think, money does not grow on trees and wealth is not created out of nothing. The demand for higher wages did not just start within the past few decades. Its roots go back to 19th century Europe and then to the Great Depression when the minimum wage was introduced in the United States. Once people realized they could petition the government to force employers to give more “free” money, the troubles began.

The Beginning of a New Era

The first noticeable pushes for higher wages occurred in Europe and then spread around the world. In 1831, silk workers in the city of Lyon, France went on a strike and petitioned for a living wage. They were not able to achieve their desired goal, but this would be the catalyst for future events.

The first nation to actually pass such a law was New Zealand in 1894, which also banned worker strikes and lockouts by employers as part of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Employers were forced to negotiate with unions, and if an agreement could not be reached, then a local and then a national conciliation board would act as a judge and help resolve these disputes. The policy had mixed effects. In the short-term, it seemed to work, resulting in allowing hundreds of smaller unions to form and wages for workers did improve. The negative effects included a bogging down of the Arbitration Court due to the number of hearings, as well as backlash from larger unions due to them losing the right to strike.

Dissatisfaction soon settled in and led to the first strike in 12 years in 1906. The uptick in worker strikes showed that the arbitration system was inefficient and older tactics were much more effective. In 1898, Samuel Gompers, the founder and president of the American Federation of Labor published a key article which advocated not only for higher wages, but that they should be livable, which is a vague term to say the least, and still remains a buzzword in various liberal circles today.

Minimum Wage Comes to American Shores

The first actual American policy that forced businesses to pay a minimum wage was enacted in Massachusetts in 1912, which was soon followed by many more states in the next decade. In 1923, there was a key Supreme Court case which seemed to stall the enacted laws called Atkins v. Children’s Hospital of D.C. In 1918, Congress passed a minimum wage law in the District of Columbia for women and children, and the hospital in question chose not to enforce the law due to its large staff of female employees. What resulted was a ruling in which the law was ruled unconstitutional, as it violated the freedom of contract that employers have when negotiating with their employees. All minimum wage laws across the country were ruled as unconstitutional, and they became more like guidelines for a recommended wage rather than a legally enforceable law.

Turning Up the Heat

During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed Congress to enact the National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA), which suspended various antitrust restrictions, as well as allowed industries to enforce their own codes, resulting in higher wages. The final Supreme Court case that would serve as blowback against the minimum wage laws was Schecter Poultry Corporation v. United States in which it was ruled that it was unconstitutional for Congress to give the President the legislative authority to regulate certain industries without any guiding standards.

The court case that would bring the end of the Supreme Court voting against regulation of business in the so-called Lochner era was West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, in which a female employee of the company sued for unpaid wages, as they were below the $14.50 per week as established by the state of Washington. It was narrowly decided after Justice Owen Roberts’ decision in favor of Parrish. As Justice Charles Hughes explained it, the re-election of Roosevelt and the impacts of the New Deal were the cause of Roberts switching sides. In a dissenting opinion by Justice George Sutherland, he wrote that personal opinion should not have an impact on the interpretation of the Constitution.

In 1938, Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which would create the first federal minimum wage. Originally, it called for a 40 cent per hour wage, but was lowered to 25 cents so that the bill could pass. Over the next few decades there would be a variety of laws passed to expand the scope of the law, as well as raising the salary amount on many occasions. For instance, in 1963, John Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act so that women were able to get the same pay as men, while in 1974, Congress declared that the minimum wage covers non-supervisory government workers.

What Is Happening Today and What Does the Future Hold?

The situation remains unchanged, today. In 2015, California and New York raised their own minimum wages to $15 an hr. Just four years later, a total of 29 different states would adopt laws which would raise the payment threshold above the current $7.25 per hr. The most recent push for the “Fight for $15” was part of Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill, which was ultimately removed from the bill, as its provisions did not meet the definition of budget reconciliation.

With inflation hitting a 13-year high, there will no doubt be more supporters for a higher wage, with that number, no doubt, being pushed even further through the roof. We can only hope that pushback in Congress or by some other means can help stop these laws so that you are not stuck in a Wendy’s drive-thru paying more for poor customer service and a meager burger. 

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This Is Both Startling and Thrilling

It startles me because I wonder where it’s coming from. The best I can imagine is that it’s not talked about at home. If kids take the initiative now to learn about politics and philosophy, though, there’s hope that they will eventually see things in a different light after some life experience.

The worst I can imagine is that they’re learning about it, absent its inherent individual submissiveness and abdication of responsibility no doubt, from authority figures.

Nonetheless, I’m thrilled, as well. Having the opportunity to teach college students is one thing. Being able to convey to my own children the wisdom of the principles codified by our Founding Fathers is quite another. It’s a privilege.

My mind filled with these thoughts upon reading Peggy Noonan’s recent column in The Wall Street Journal. I’m not a regular reader of her weekend “Declarations,” but the highlighted “Less taxes and spending won’t resolve America’s crisis” caught my attention.

How Did We Get Here?

Initially, I thought to myself, “Great; another ‘conservative’ throwing in the towel on fiscal matters.” Sure enough, she taps out: “The federal government will not become smaller or less expensive in our lifetimes.”

A couple of years ago, a younger friend of mine expressed a similar sentiment when he asked, “Shouldn’t we just accept the government we have and work with it?” Even if I deemphasized my stance on one issue in favor of others, I can’t imagine so openly surrendering my principles in the process.

For the first time in a half-century, the GOP had control of Congress as the 21st century began, and for a majority of it, a Republican presidency. But far from being the “sober-minded … best stewards” of the government who look at spending “coolly,” they became drunk with the power of the purse. Spending rose an average of 7 percent per year, two to three times the rate of inflation.

Perhaps the saddest part of this commentary is that she predicates her entreaty on the certainty of a “terrible day” in our future, an act of war against us using nuclear or biological weapons. This is eerily reminiscent of the justifications we hear to maintain military spending more than twice as high as China, and more than the next seven countries combined.

Only those who live under a rock are unaware of the presence of such weapons. To exploit fears of such nightmare scenarios so that taxpayer resources can be politically directed toward “growing families” is unfortunate, to say the least. Not only should such appeals be rejected, but said defense spending should also be subject to greater spending discipline, especially when the Pentagon seems prone to losing track of almost a billion dollars.

On one of the tests in my macroeconomics class, a question states, “Discretionary fiscal policy is limited by the fact that roughly __% of the federal budget is dedicated to defense or is on autopilot: 30, 50, 70 or 90.” The answer is 70.

How to Combat Growing Expenditures

Rooting out “waste and fraud” is always a noble sentiment, but over the years it’s been reduced to little more than a political bromide intended to placate those committed to a constitutionally-sized government. If Republicans “naturally enjoy” this exercise, as Ms. Noonan alleges, they’ll work with President Trump in his effort to sell off the government’s $1.45 trillion student loan debt to private investors, just to name one example. They could even go a step further and help him make the Department of Education (DoE) leaner.

While abolishing the DoE altogether and returning that function to the states where it belongs is the ultimate goal, these practical baby steps would at least prove her right. The primary target of spending reform, however, should be that 70 percent.

Some of what should be done is simply common sense.

Life expectancy, for example, has increased by roughly a decade since the inception of both Social Security and Medicare. Logic dictates that the age of eligibility should follow suit. Also, we should have more choice about our participation in these programs and the way disbursements are administered.

Furthermore, there’s a popular myth that these entitlements have dedicated revenue streams: the payroll tax. The fact is barely a third of Medicare is funded that way, and if demographic trends don’t change, it’s currently projected that Social Security will also have to start dipping into general revenues to help pay out full benefits in fifteen years.

Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has a wonderfully illuminative chart (see below) that shows the inflationary effects wrought by government involvement in some of these sectors. It eats into our ability to pursue other worthy personal ventures, not to mention the vicious cycle it perpetuates on the federal budget.

If we do not adequately address these problems, interest on the national debt will likely blow past 10 percent of the budget, and Ms. Noonan’s spending preferences will be further squeezed. This assumes, of course, that hers is not simply one of the initial “conservative” endorsements of the fantasy known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

Where Do We Go from Here?

Ms. Noonan is correct in stating that Republicans are bigger proponents of free-market capitalism. One might quibble that her claim that progressives simply do “not love it” is too restrictive. Some on the left profess to, and genuinely enjoy prosperity, but their obliviousness regarding which policies support or impede it is often staggering.

If we’re stuck with a two-party system, Republicans need to be the party that aggressively represents and promotes independence and personal responsibility, not to mention logic and basic math. It’s been proven before, in 2006 and last year, that they can’t win elections maintaining or adding to the welfare state.

Something else we regularly hear misplaced grousing about is “gridlock.” But gridlock is good. The Founders set up our republic so that time would be required to deliberate changes to the people’s business, and thank goodness considering socialism is back in vogue. Its return is about as welcomed as that of the measles.

By that token, perhaps Ms. Noonan has a point that the government will not be right-sized in our lifetimes. At the same time we teach our kids about our federalist system, though, we should also impart upon them the ideal to work toward.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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