When mentioning the health and overall stability of the economy in the United States, there seems to be a few markers that normal everyday people talk about. Firstly, it is always gas prices, because that is the first thing you notice on your way to work. Secondly, it is the Federal Interest Rates, because it is on the news constantly when you get home. Lastly, when you finally must go to the store for your grocery run of the week, you see it, eggs are now up at least a dollar or more. There are some other things that you might notice or hear about when the economy is tanking, but I would say these are the main three. I don’t believe GDP, unemployment or wage stagnation to be good indicators of this, as they measure economic inter-reliance instead of economic growth or decline. You need tangible goods and direct monetary incentives to be able to measure inflation. You may have heard the monetary terms M1, M2 and M3, to keep it short and crayon eating understandable, M1 is the most liquid cash in the economy and M3 is the least liquid cash in the economy. The most basic way to understand economic inflation is to say that the volume of M1 has increased significantly over a short period of time, which makes goods have a higher price while the value is relatively the same. So, when the regular guy sees that a gallon of gas has gone from $2.00 to $2.50 in the course of about a week, it is a serious amount of inflation because of the frequency he must use this good. This also is something he notices because most likely his wage or salary does not go up in the time that the gas price has increased. This is the foremost way of seeing economic health, but since gas prices are much more fluid and change rapidly, I would say that, what I will term to be a “hard good”, to be a better measure of overall economic health and stability.

So, we get to it, the article’s purpose. The Egg, or rather a dozen of them in a cart. What makes them a hard good? Well mostly because of the cost of chickens and the farming of their byproducts is extremely low which makes it a fairly stable good. Meaning the good does not experience much fluctuation in price and is a highly supplied good. This shows the value of the egg is also stable according to the price being more accurate against the dollars that you earn. Once again, the regular American man sees that his eggs have gone from a measly $1.68 to about $2.38, while only being a $0.70 increase, it is a huge leap for him. Maybe you can see the problem now, because he is paying nearly $0.20 per egg instead of $0.14. Let’s use the recent numbers surrounding our last election cycle as a talking point for Joe Biden’s economy. When Joe Biden inherited the economy as of Jan 20 2021, the average cost country-wide of a dozen eggs was $1.47. When Joe Biden left office as of Jan 20 2025, the average cost country-wide was $4.95. This is an increase of 237% over 4 years. Alot of misleading economists say that this means the economy grew during the term Joe Biden had, such as Paul Krugman did. Though if that was true, then why did we see wage stagflation and unemployment rates that would indicate a falling economy by their own measures?

This is merely a misunderstanding of value by these same economists. A typical Keynesian will say the increase in price has transformed the good’s value. But even a simple average guy can see that the value of the good has not changed at all. If you combat them on this, the statement now becomes that the value did not transform for you because you have been pushed into being even more of a part of the poorer class. Also, that the richer classes did not feel anything as this change occurred and that they are the reason for your strife by virtue of them controlling prices. These economists conveniently miss many factors that drive these prices upward. We will start with the most obvious, the amount of M1 increased in a dramatic fashion during Joe Biden’s term which caused the majority of currency inflation. This in turn caused price inflation of many goods, including eggs. Next most, is energy costs relative to demand such that the supply does not sustain it. After that would be, federal spending on various social or foreign policies, coupled with a high federal interest rate. Lastly, the most unfavorite topic that makes them uncomfortable to notice or talk about is the unfiltered immigration into the country. You see another basic misunderstanding these economists’ function on is that a more open immigration policy automatically increases GDP by at least another 2%. This is also seen as a way to replace a work force as more people become skilled workers in a society. Yet also, as a way to supplement a population that is collapsing. As you might guess, all of these notions just simply misunderstand extremely basic economics and population demographics and dynamics.

So why do they stick to this form of thinking instead of realizing societal change never comes to what they think it is? These thinkers are ideologues who are stuck on thoughts of liberal democracy and Keynesian economic structures. They also have this view of whig history, all the while adhering to the Fukuyama supposition that we are in a post history world in the western hemisphere. These economists are a symptom of a deeper problem that we have in the western world. They view the world as being measurable in economic growth, unfiltered international trade and progress by any means. Everything is morally relative to them when attaining a certain metric or cap. This is “Intellectualism” at its worst, developed from an over indulged academic class of university tenured scholars endlessly writing about economic inequality. But where do they sit? What is their position in life? Compared to the average American man who has to work a physical stressful job to buy eggs, he is out of touch. He simply can’t comprehend the pressings against this average American man that he must deal with daily. So, now when we come back to the egg, we can see why it is a better marker of overall economy health. The abstract numbers that these sorts of post-Keynesians use are not connected with anything the normal American interacts with.

So, what exactly is the answer to this riddle? How do we really know if the economy is stable or not? What are the factors that even hold it together? To be honest, the USA’s economy is extremely fragile. It isn’t built on real numbers but abstract ones. It no longer has a base industry to run off of, it now stands purely on services and federalism. For it to have real production and stability would mean changing so much about the country that it would likely collapse. But, let’s use Argentina as a case study. It seems the extraordinary cuts that Milei has been doing, following the Austrian school thinking has been going well for him and his people. But he hasn’t gotten to the main crux of economic strife, he has merely taken half of the weight off of the top. He still needs a diagnosis and treatment of the plywood boards holding it up. The same is needed for the American economy. Perhaps I will delve into that in a different article. I’ll see you there.