The Sliced-Bread Theory of Economics

In 2026, Colorado, the state where I grew up and spent the last ten years of my life, became the 47th most expensive state in the United States in which to live.  I've been keeping a budget about that long, and I can share the stats for our family grocery budget.  It tracks.

One of the biggest, if not THE single biggest, factor in making life difficult is housing.  There simply isn't enough.  I haven't really seen a government, from the small town city council up to the Federal government, address WHY.  They just keep coming up with new temporary fixes for the problem.  Build more houses.  Try to give discounts to renters.  Nobody's talking about why.

Enter my Sliced Bread Theory of Economics.  Say you have enough money to go to a small, yet regionally important small community and buy every single loaf of bread.  All of it.  The Wonder Bread, the fancy sourdough, the french bread loafs... all the bread.  You take it home, and you have to resell it, of course.  People NEED bread, after all.

You have fancy bags designed with your own label.  You open up the bread, slice the loaves that aren't sliced yet.  Each slice gets it's own bag, and a slice can be yours for only $4!  So what if a loaf of Wonder Bread used to be $2.99.  You can get a slice of white bread for just $4!

Now, wait! Isn't this illegal?  Apparently, not.  It's just a dick move.  Let's talk to the city council.  Some of them are holding on to a few loaves of bread themselves, but let's try to tell them that we are hungry, that our kids are hungry, and that $4 a slice is simply unacceptable.

"What if we made more slices of bread?" they suggested.  "What if we made it illegal to charge more than $3.50 per slice?"  "What if you have to make 10% of the bread you sell $2 a slice, but you can sell some really good sourdough from the same oven for $6 a slice so the people who bought up all the bread in the first place aren't screwed?"

"What if you just make it illegal to buy whole loaves of bread?" "What if you made it illegal to buy bread that you aren't going to eat yourself?"

"Who the fuck are you?" they scoffed from their council chambers.