Why is this here? I can hear some folks saying. Well, because the price of food is a sign of the times. I’m not referencing politics, who’s sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, who’s in Congress, what the weather has been like — no, sign of the times as in Biblical, spiritual, though few see that or acknowledge such.

Were you paying attention a few years back, when the BIG COVID-19 lie and multiple lies assocated with that time were spoken or written, and if speaking up against the lies, the fear, why that individual was then considered far worse than the manmade virus that was unleashed on the world as a worldwide experiment — that made evil very pleased and suceeded greatly for the prince of the air.

What lie am I referencing? Why, the one mentioned by many politicians, pundits, on the broadcast airwaves, who recited the script that once the virus was under control and things went back to normal, the price of food would stabilize and begin to go back down.

What a heap of steaming, smelly rubbish those words were. Lies. Can’t, shouldn’t write it any other way than what it was, and is.

Every excuse [lie] under the sun, moon, and the stars as to why prices went up so much and then maintained the fable about prices going back down eventually.

Are you more than 6 months old? Okay, then, when have you EVER witnessed food prices DROPPING and staying lower?

All those connected to food — save for the farmers, ranchers who grow and raise our food — everyone in the food chain except them profited greatly, and the abundance of $$$$$ reaped was so good, so tempting, always wanting more, more, more! There was no way prices were going down.

I worked in food-related businesses for the good part of 30 years off and on — I did venture into other areas at times, but the majority of my working outside the home for a paycheck was in food businesses.

Prices never went down and stayed there. Oh, an item here, a couple there, to entice, to give an illusion.

But then, after everything runs down the conveyor belt and is bagged, and the cashier hands you that little piece of paper with the numerals on it? Those aren’t so small? YIKES!!!

Right?

Not politics. Not due to this, that, all the Babel dished out and heard or read.

All a sign of the times. End times, that is.

The aftermath of the man-made, contrived worldwide experiment to lead everyone into the age we now inhabit was designed by evil people to take us to where we presently are.

Destruction is the method and motto of evil, of The Enemy, of that Old Dragon the devil.

To hinder, to cripple, to incite fear, anxiety, worry, pain, suffering, to the point Satan hopes the people cry out against God and rail against the present age, blaming God, when it is nothing more than massive increased sin and wickedness that has wrought what our sin has brought.

And most fall prey to the fear, the anxiety, the anger, the worry, and concern. Entering into poverty, cutting corners, looking around as to how to survive!

And I do not write this because I’m Mr. Doom & Gloom, but it’s only going to get worse.

Just the way it is.

Why? Because that’s what the Bible tells us plainly, clearly, and it’s all due to our increased wickedness and turning from God, turning from the truth.

Now I’m not saying that if there is a true Jesus Revolution again, a true Great Awakening, Revival in America, that food prices will go down and remain down. That is unlikely. Not going to happen.

But we won’t fret or care too much about food prices if many more come out of darkness and into the Light, the knowledge and saving grace, the Way, the Truth, and the eternal Life, affording a faithful individual committing their life to Jesus, would we?

More important that the folks around us receive the Living Water and Bread of Life that is Jesus Christ, Yeshua Hamashiac, right? Right?

And there will be enough food for everyone, in heaven, no standing in line, no looking at a receipt and feeling the array of emotions those little slips of paper bring out in us.

Read on…and enjoy, rejoice in every day our Good Good Gracious Wonderful Loving Father in heaven blesses us with…it will get better — forever — if truly born again and going to heaven…

Ken Pullen, Tuesday, March 31st, 2026

Madness at the Grocery Store

March 31, 2026

By Jeffrey Tucker

Reprinted from The Epoch Times

Sometimes it is just a mood. Sometimes it’s the store or the product. Regardless, I can hardly go to the grocery store these days without a sense of shock at how much I’m spending even while buying as little as possible.

Money-saving tactics—choosing cheaper venues, substituting products, just eating less—don’t seem to work anymore.

Grocery days used to be happy. Smiles all around. The bounty was all around us. We met people and had quick and charming conversations, even talking about recipes with strangers and making short introductions in line.

The bad mood from shopping started years ago, a year after lockdowns began when prices started responding to the flood of newly printed money funding stimulus payments. The checkout line was filled with grumpy people wearing masks. People stopped talking with each other except to register shock. You left feeling like you had been pillaged.

Time healed that wound even though prices kept rising and predictably so. We all started making changes. Less eating out. No more cocktails at restaurants which had oddly doubled in price because menu items are hard to change. We stopped shopping at the fancy stores and found the grittier venues. We joined wholesale shopper’s clubs and bought in bulk to save money.

This worked for a while to keep the bills down and the budget in check. There are so many money-saving tricks you can use, like giving up products you never should have bought anyway and buying things like vinegar and baking soda instead of branded junk. It’s shocking once you look around the house at how profligate we’ve been during boom times.

All seemed like it was going to be okay after the inauguration in 2025 when price increases stopped and inflation fell dramatically. The prices of 2019 would never come back of course. The dollar had lost some 30 percent of its valuation in a mere five years. Dealing with that psychologically wasn’t easy but at least good times were coming. We could make up in income and salary what we’ve lost in purchasing power.

Those times seem to be at an end. Our money-saving tricks are not working anymore. Every once in a while, we like to sample what it was like in the old days and go out to dinner. The bill comes and the shock hits hard. It seems like we are paying twice what we did before all this chaos hit. What were we thinking getting those appetizers anyway when we could have spent the same amount for 5 pounds of chicken at the store?

I had to check my sense against the empirical data. Sure enough, Truflation, which tracks price increases in real time, reveals that right now goods inflation is running close to 4 percent. Services and resources are on the rise too, having changed course from last year this time.

Then I decided to check what industry was saying. Over three months, inflation for groceries is up 2 percent. This is in addition to a 40 percent rise since 2019.

Maybe 2 percent increases since January don’t sound terrible. Remember, however, that to compare with the way we usually measure inflation, we have to annualize that number. We also have to compound it because past prices are added to new ones.

The end result of what industry is currently reporting right now is an astounding 8.2 percent inflation rate in grocery prices alone. That’s more in keeping with what I saw this morning. I would swear that I noticed the difference just from two weeks ago. It’s enough to make one’s heart race and wonder about the future.

Who is to blame? When I hear that businesses are gouging people, we should generally dismiss such claims. Of course business wants to charge more while the consumer wants to pay less. The price is the point of agreement between supply and demand. That’s just basic economics, something not well understood by media reporters and political activists.

There are a number of factors at work here. The driving force right now is higher gas prices adding dramatically to transportation costs. Groceries are particularly affected by this. Growers are anticipating a very difficult season. Petrol is hard to come by in Australia and Latin America now, and some nations are already rationing. Fertilizer prices have soared to the point that farmers cannot afford it.

Futures markets understand this. Speculations about future prices are discounted to the present.

That’s a major factor but also there is no more room left in pricing metrics to forestall price increases at the consumer end. Tariffs forced distributors onto the edge of profitability in any case. There is also renewed devaluation of the dollar taking place, as the inflation of the last five years had not been entirely squeezed through the tube.

It all adds up and hits everyone very hard. This is certainly a time for pulling back in every possible way. It is also a time to get a freezer for your home, even if it is a small one. Meat is certain to be rising in price at a dramatic rate in the coming months, even if the war somehow comes to an end, which does not seem likely for a long time. Even small apartments can viably store 50 pounds of meat in the freezer.

I cannot help but feel awful for restaurants. During the good times, people got used to eating out several times a week, even nightly. That is no longer viable except for the very rich. If you can get away with $50 a person you are very lucky. Twice that is more common. Many chains are shutting down and many more will in the coming months.

When I was a kid, eating out in my family hardly ever happened. There were restaurants of course but far fewer. That was during the last great wave and eating out was first to go. Home cooking was the norm for my generation, at the tail end of the Baby Boomers. I can easily adapt. It’s much harder for younger people who have never been taught cooking skills and never needed to economize. This is changing by necessity.

I’ve warned many times over several years of a second wave of inflation to match the trajectory of the 1970s. It seems to be unfolding now but with a perfect storm of factors: continued monetary devaluation, tariffs, exploding energy prices, supply chain breakages, and war. One steps back in amazement that the powers that be would have taken such risks with the American (and world) standard of living but here we are.

Most people in what we once called the middle class have already pulled back dramatically. Homes are out of the question. People who can have dropped medical insurance by necessity and decided to embrace the risks. Travel plans have been canceled not only due to rising prices but uncertain wait times at airports, plus gas prices. With a new round of pummeling from grocery prices, we are now forced to take that final step into a seriously degraded standard of living, while increases in wages and salaries are out of the question right now.

There are fixes to all these problems but politicians seem to have other priorities.

What is the outlook for the future? Only a year ago, I was optimistic. These days, not so much. My memories are returning of the values that shaped my grandmother’s life: saving pie pans, canning vegetables, and clipping coupons whenever possible. She was a great and happy woman shaped by the Great Depression, words we hoped would never apply to the times of our lives. And yet here we are.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of “The Best of Ludwig von Mises.” He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.