2025-12-04
8 分钟The Economist Hello, Alice Fullwood here.
Co-host of Money Talks, our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
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Americans have a knack for turning the price of food into national theatre.
In 1916, housewives boycotted egg speculators for daring to charge 36.5 cents a dozen.
Three decades later,
President Harry Truman urged America to observe meatless Tuesdays and eggless Thursdays,
earning backlash when the White House itself had to forgo pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
By the early 1970s, with eggs pushing 80 cents a dozen and beef edging past a dollar a pound,
suburban mothers marched under banners like Save Our Sanity and Boycott All Meat.
One U-turn vowed to start trapping starlings before paying supermarket prices.
A New Yorker resigned herself to more tuna-fish casserole.
President Richard Nixon tried to quell the revolt with price freezes on beef, pork and lamb.
Shelves emptied, inflation eventually surged.
Today,
TikTok videos lamenting $13.05 guys burgers $12 Chipotle burritos and $5 a dozen eggs fit into the tradition.
And politicians have responded in kind.
President Donald Trump has proposed $2,000 stimulus checks, supposedly funded by tariff revenue,