People will always complain about high prices – Newton Daily News

“It's the economy, stupid!” Remember that old political saying from the 1990s? Now we're 30 years later in another presidential election cycle, and the economy is still what everyone is talking about and complaining about. I was watching an old black and white movie from the early 1950s on TV the other day, and at one point one of the characters was complaining about prices being “so high.” The 1950s!

As far back as I can remember, since the 1960s, I've heard people complaining about the high cost of living and high prices. In the 1970s, people complained about the high prices of food and gas. In the 1980s, people complained about the high prices of food and gas. In the 1990s, in the 2000s, and up until today, people complained about the high prices, just like their parents and grandparents complained all those years ago.

And yet we and everyone else on the news and social media act as if this is something new, as if prices only recently got too high. We seem to be looking at the past through the ever-present “rose-colored glasses” that we all seem to possess.

The fact is that prices have always been considered “too high”, regardless of the level and regardless of the generation affected.

People have always complained about high prices, and the only difference between then and now is that today, thanks to cable news and social media apps like Facebook, TikTok, and X, we have all sorts of new and creative ways to complain.

Politicians like to use the economy to manipulate voters. But the fact is that no matter who is elected, people will never be happy with the prices at the supermarket or at the gas pump and will always look for someone to blame. Of course, things might be perceived differently if wages had kept pace with inflation, allowing people to not just get by but actually get ahead.

But I'm sure we'd just find something else to complain about.

John Moore

Newton