Huevos

[Jenise]

Me to lady in a store yesterday staring at the last carton of eggs they had, which were white: "It's DEI. Trump wants to do away with brown eggs."

It's DEI. Trump wants to do away with brown eggs.

This week's final question to the panelists on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me was, "What will replace eggs in the American breakfast?" You know that an issue has become seriously important when it appears on Wait Wait.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Eggs are mentioned in this piece:

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 2024

The grocery store is a goddamn war zone. A dystopian hellscape where avocados sit behind glass like museum artifacts, tomatoes are sold on the black market like rare diamonds, and the price of a single steak could finance a hostile corporate takeover. Thanks to Donald J. Trump—America’s bloated casino gremlin—your local supermarket has officially entered the Mad Max era.

The old man has decided to kick off his second term with a full-blown trade war, slapping a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and a 10% tax on China, all under the pretense that this will somehow stop fentanyl, illegal immigration, and whatever else Fox News told him to be mad about last week. The logic, if you can call it that, is that tariffs will make it too expensive to import foreign goods, forcing American companies to "bring manufacturing back home"—a fantasy so delusional it makes QAnon look like an AP Econ class.

What Trump has conveniently forgotten (or never understood in the first place) is that tariffs are not paid by foreign governments—they’re paid by American companies. These businesses, much like Trump himself, have a strict “never pay for anything yourself” policy, which means you, the poor bastard just trying to afford groceries, are about to get fleeced. You will pay more for everything—milk, beer, fruit, bread, meat, clothes, electronics, cars, furniture, appliances, and possibly air, if Trump figures out how to tax that too.

The avocados are going first. Mexico is the sole reason millennials ever got to taste avocado toast in the first place, and now Trump has decided that guacamole is a threat to national security. Canada, meanwhile, supplies a massive chunk of America’s dairy, grains, and meat, which means every barbecue from here to Mississippi is about to get a whole lot sadder. Try throwing a Super Bowl party when cheese costs as much as an iPhone.

Meanwhile, up north, Justin Trudeau is sharpening his maple syrup-covered bayonets and preparing for war. The Canadians are pissed. Mexico’s newly elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, a scientist—yes, an actual scientist—is also gearing up for battle. Both have promised retaliation, because when you slap your best customers in the face with a 25% tax, they tend to get a little testy. This means American exports—things like soybeans, pork, and whiskey—are about to get slaughtered in foreign markets. The same farmers Trump claims to love? They’re about to get steamrolled like a squirrel on an interstate. But don’t worry! The government will bail them out again, just like last time, because in Trump’s America, the free market only applies when it’s convenient.

And let’s not forget China, the planet’s largest sweatshop and America’s go-to supplier of everything under the sun. Trump’s 10% tariff might seem like a slap on the wrist, but China plays the long game. They will retaliate. Last time Trump pulled this stunt, China smacked the U.S. economy upside the head by slapping tariffs on American agriculture, forcing Trump to hand farmers a $10 billion bailout just to keep them from burning down his golf courses. But sure, let’s do it again! Because nothing says "economic genius" like waging a trade war you already lost once.

Trump, of course, sees this as a victory. He’s already bragging that “tariffs are the ultimate weapon” and that “America has the biggest piggy bank.” This is the same piggy bank, mind you, that he tried to crack open every time one of his businesses collapsed into financial ruin. The man couldn’t run a casino without going bankrupt, and now he’s convinced himself he can play 4D chess with the global economy? Good luck with that.

If you listen to his people, they’ll tell you this is all part of the plan—a brilliant strategy to force American companies to bring manufacturing home. What they won’t tell you is that this would take YEARS. Factories don’t just appear overnight, unless you’re using child labor and some serious bribes. Setting up supply chains, hiring workers, building infrastructure—these things take time and money, two things Trump has never been patient with or good at managing. By the time a single factory breaks ground in Ohio, Trump will either be out of office or selling steaks out of a food truck on the Las Vegas Strip.

So who wins in all this? Corporations, as always. The moment these tariffs hit, they’ll jack up prices, blame it on “supply chain issues,” and watch as the money rolls in. Farmers, workers, and middle-class Americans? They’re screwed. The same Trump voters who screamed about inflation under Biden are about to get blindsided by price hikes so aggressive they’ll start reminiscing about the good old days when eggs only cost $6 a dozen.

And yet, when the dust settles, when a trip to the supermarket requires a line of credit and a prayer, there will still be some sad, broke fool sitting in a Denny’s somewhere, gnawing on a $15 pancake, muttering, “At least he kept the Mexicans out.”

Congratulations, America. Hope you like beans, because that’s dinner now.

[Robin Garr]

I finally got around to actually looking at the price of the local pastured eggs that we've always bought without worrying about the nominal cost. Two regional farms, Chelsea's and Organic Acres, both have been selling around $6 a dozen at local specialty stores like Paul's markets and Rainbow Blossom. They're healthy, they're organic, they're humane, and they cost about 50 cents per henfruit. That has always seemed fair to me, and it feels twice as good now that supermarket/industrial eggs have evidently pretty much caught up in price.

chelseas eggs.jpeg

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