I was listening to an interview the other day with the CEO of Costco, Craig Jelinek (his story is fascinating by the way: he started as a store clerk at Costco in 1984, and his interviews highly entertaining and informative). At one point he was asked “will you increase the price of the foot long hotdog”? To which he adamantly replied “no”.

 

In the U.S. (which makes me want to check next time what the price is in Canada), Costco has offered a soda (with refill to boot!) foot long combo since 1985. I’m not sure how I could incorporate such an inflation hedge on portfolios, but it’s been the same $1.50 U.S. since 1985. With inflation, that should be well over $4.00 today…

 

 

I am working on a follow-up presentation on inflation (not hotdogs!), pertaining to Oil in particular, and will have more details over the summer. On inflation, employers say they expect the average raise to be 4.1% in 2023, which would be the largest hike in 15 years, according to a survey of more than 1,400 organizations from advisory firm Willis Towers Watson. This sounds good, but of course, inflation is currently much higher than this, so when workers get effective increases of less than this, their purchasing power decreases. Interesting times.

 

It has also been interesting times as “inflation” has crept into my household: my oldest turned 13 years old today. I turned on the Open Championship to see that Tiger Woods missed the cut. On the tennis side, Roger Federer didn’t play Wimbledon. Federer and Tiger, in the summer competing for the titles at Wimbledon and the Open, have been as certain as my Son’s birthday, for many more than his 13 birthdays… Times change, things go by fast.

 

I’m going back to the Rory “well”, and trust to see him hoist the Claret Jug on Sunday.