The discussion that is long overdue in our culture is about how many people who claim that the economy is lousy and inflation is destroying them in fact did not do enough personally to position themselves to weather the storm. I see lots of folks who overspent for years on fun stuff no less than necessities, running up credit card debt and interest payments in kicking the can down the road, to the point of having garages that function largely as storage units, full of junk that they no longer need or use. (People from elsewhere like to say that the behavior is "so American.") They also do not do without what they really want, packing airports and planes and highways for recreational travel, dining out regularly, going to ball games, picking up the latest tech devices instead of making due with what they have, and other things that are not necessities like those eggs that they say were so important at the ballot box. As long as politicians have no magic wand, that too is a factor, and part of the choices-and-consequences issue. Then there is the impact of the free market economy, rather than politics, on pricing. But that is another discussion for another time, albeit just as relevant.