Whole Foods Market Insanity

Every so often I go the local Whole Foods store on days when there are free samples at lunchtime, but I very rarely find anything priced low enough to purchase. I find the pricing for everything to be insanely high, compared to what I am used to at several supermarket chains that I routinely patronize. So, was I totally shocked when data came out just after Valentines Day 2010 showing that Whole Foods sales and profits have soared recently during this Great Recession. Its stock price has tripled during the past year!

How can all this be explained? Why are so many Americans still spending so much for overpriced groceries? How can they afford their self-indulgence?

The most likely answer is that affluent members of the Upper Class still have so much wealth that they are spending more than ever to indulge themselves with what they think are premium groceries. This is consistent with new data showing that the unemployment rate for higher income households is extremely low and about one-tenth the 30 percent level for the lowest income people.

This is what economic inequality is all about. Wealth and income are hugely different between the Upper Class and the disappearing middle class that is morphing into a large Lower Class. Elite rich Americans benefit from a political system that they have so much control of through a host of corrupting mechanisms. Why was $3.5 billion spent on lobbying politicians last year? Because corporations and other special interests get a big return on their corrupting investments, which have made the federal government dysfunctional, dishonest, and wasteful. Government is broken and a large number of members of the House and Senate are quitting out of total disgust with the broken system.

Whole Foods is a symbol of America's economic inequality and social sickness. As more and more Americans have to use government food stamps and get their food from charitable food pantries, others are spending obnoxious amounts of money at Whole Foods. Welcome to the world's greatest delusional democracy and its delusional prosperity.