Ruth Ashby is a resident of Lincoln.
Has anyone else heard enough about the relatively minor issues of pennies and power costs and eggs? Oh, my!
Changes to various types of money and money systems have occurred throughout our country’s history. If pennies cost more to make than they are worth, then why make them? I think all the money brains in this country can easily figure out how to get rid of them. Perhaps round all prices up or down to multiples of 5 cents. Instead of $2.54, the price becomes $2.55 automatically, and the nickel becomes the new smallest denomination. Can we have a nickel for your thoughts?
As to the surge in power costs — yes, the rate went up. So has the cost of everything else. How can anyone expect the power companies to continue providing the electricity we need without ever raising prices to keep pace with their costs? While it did hit us especially hard this season, so did Old Man Winter. We had some of the coldest prolonged temperatures on record. It got cold earlier and stayed cold longer, and not just in the 30s and 40s but in the single digits some nights. It doesn’t take an Albert Einstein to realize that, to keep our homes comfortable at colder temperatures, our furnaces run longer and use more power. Let’s hope we don’t have extended heat waves over the summer that cost us similarly for our air conditioning!
As to the price of eggs — hello, folks, remember the bird flu that not only hit our agricultural chicken production, it actually migrated into the wild bird populations, as well? Birds had their own flu epidemic, and they don’t have an option for flu shots to protect them. Raise your hands: Who wants to eat a chicken that may have been infected with bird flu? Who wants eggs laid by chickens who may have been exposed to bird flu? Unfortunately, to protect ourselves, we killed all those poor birds, slaughtered them to save ourselves. It is going to take time to build our chicken population back up, and until we do, we either accept the helping hands of other countries and buy eggs and chickens from them, or our prices go up for the fewer birds and eggs that we produce ourselves. Oh, wait — we are antagonizing all our neighbors with tariffs. Maybe we should get used to eating vegan-type roast chicken and tofu nuggets.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
