alt Hacker News"The price of eggs has nothing on the price of computer memory right now.". A dozen eggs went to ~$5. They are eggs and most people use what, max 12 eggs a month? Get out of here with that trite garbage. Everyone knew that the egg shortage was due to the extreme step the US does of culling herds infected with avian flu and that they were transitory.
Replies
The average person buys, what, 0 ram per month? Which cares.
Eggs have traditionally been an extremely cheap protein staple.
A typical pattern might be to have two eggs for breakfast (a whopping 120 calories), boiled eggs for lunch/snack (another 60-120 calories), and of course baking, but I will pretend that people don’t bake.
A more typical serving for an adult breakfast might be 3 eggs if not supplemented.
For mom and dad and the little one, you’re now at 35 (2+2+1+2)x5 eggs per week. When your cost goes from $6 (2x18 @3) to $16 (2x18@8) per week, you notice.
Obviously the political discourse around this was not healthy. But eggs suddenly becoming a cost you have to notice is a big deal, and a symbol for all of the other grocery prices that went up simultaneously.
If you’re a typical HN user in the US you might be out of touch with the reality that costs going up $10/week can be a real hardship when you’re raising a family on limited income.
The peak was actually closer to $8/dozen, my math has been conservative at every step, the situation is worse than I describe.
There was also a lot of profiteering going on? This was talked about quite a bit? And it's still going on in other markets with other things like cars??
Surprisingly, apparently Americans average 279 eggs per year per person or 24 per month.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/28/why-ameri...
(This is not a comment making any judgements about cost or the state of the economy, I was just surprised to find it that high)