By Theophilus Gant, Editorialist Emeritus
It has come to this: I spent fourteen crowns last Tuesday and walked away from the grocer with a half-loaf of rye, two bruised pears, and what I was assured was “milk-adjacent.” This, dear reader, is not an isolated incident, but rather the latest symptom of the quiet disease overtaking our economy: inflation — a creeping curse that renders our coin ever more like polished tin and ever less like a store of value.
What was once a modest but respectable allowance now feels like the weekly budget of a candle-carrying mendicant. Prices rise, wages stagnate, and the only thing gaining ground is the smirking confidence of the man who sells turnips for three times their rightful cost.
The Ministry of Trade has issued their usual diagrams and assurances. “It’s temporary,” they say. “Transitional.” They might as well say “magical” for all the grounding in reality such words seem to have. While parchment forecasts and tea-leaf predictions swirl in the offices of accountants, the common people feel the pinch — at the market stall, at the mill, and especially in the pub.
There are whispers of “adjusted weights” and “enhanced valuation metrics.” I call it what it is: nonsense lacquered in numbers. If the coin buys less, the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s practical.
I call upon the Crown to issue firm guidance — not only to the ministries, but to the merchants who seem increasingly comfortable pricing bread as if it were imported sapphire. Let us not forget: a hungry people are not patient. They are not polite. And they certainly do not continue to elect city stewards who price onions by the bulb.