{"id":91437,"date":"2026-07-25T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T08:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=91437"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:00:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T17:00:34","slug":"black-coffee-25-july-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id91437-black-coffee-25-july-2026.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Shopping for Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got another busy weekend ahead of me, so let\u2019s get right to this week\u2019s commentary\u2026<\/p>\n

Economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I wouldn’t even let one of them handle my grocery shopping. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2013 Pauline Hanson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? Taylor Swift\u2019s new husband, Travis Kelce, signed a four-year rookie deal worth $3.1 million after being drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, which included a $703,304 signing bonus. For most folks, that’s life-changing money, but by the end of his first NFL season Kelce was dead broke<\/a>; in fact, he still didn\u2019t have a car, and he couldn\u2019t cover his rent. Where did all the cash go? Kelce said he wasted all of it on frivilous stuff including a Rolex, a $10,000 (!) pair of sneakers, excessive leisure travel, and lots of \u201cVIP bottle service\u201d at tawny nightclubs. But he says, \u201cIt\u2019s an experience that I appreciate now, because it helped me figure out exactly how to spend, how to save, and how to invest\u201d later on.<\/p>\n

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The Far Side – Gary Larson<\/p><\/div>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Meanwhile, with high living costs and labor market uncertainty making personal finance discussion more open than ever, Gen Z is breaking one of the most deeply rooted social taboos by openly discussing salaries<\/a>. We wonder if that’s because more and more people are collecting a six-figure salary these days. On the other hand, we also wonder how many people earning $100,000 per year today understand that that has the equivalent purchasing power of just $53,600 back in 2000. Or, looking at it in reverse, $100,000 at the turn of this century had the purchasing power of roughly $188,000 today (but probably much more considering official inflation figures are understated). Either way, that goes a long<\/strong><\/em> way toward explaining this…<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> We wonder how many of those Gen Zers admit they were caught holding shares of IBM stock on July 14th when it fell more than 25%<\/a>. Yes; in a single day<\/strong><\/em>. Ouch. The technology stock\u2019s collapse was its worst drop in decades, after the company preannounced earnings that fell well below Wall Street’s expectations. Apparently, customers have shifted their spending away from software and mainframe products and toward AI servers and memory.<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> We see that the government\u2019s shamelessly-gamed (yeah, we said it) inflation indicator known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had it\u2019s biggest monthly decline<\/a> in June after falling 0.4% month-over-month (MoM). No, really. That’s the biggest monthly decline since the pandemic (April 2020). That also managed to drag the year-over-year (YoY) CPI change down to 3.5%. Looking under the CPI\u2019s hood, lower energy prices were the largest contributor to last month’s decline, more than offsetting price increases for everything else<\/strong><\/em>, including shelter and food. Now for the bad news: That was then. And this is now<\/strong><\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> As for those grocery prices, they officially increased 0.2% on a monthly basis in June and ticked up 2.7% year over year. Food inflation was little changed from May’s 2.7% increase, but it was milder than April’s 2.9% rate, which just so happened to be the highest reading since August 2023. Meanwhile, food inflation at restaurants and bars fell to its lowest YoY reading since June 2020<\/a>, at 3.4%.Then again, we guess that depends on who you talk to…<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> On a related note, a new study compared the cost of 15 store-brand essentials at Kroger, Walmart, Aldi and Albertsons, including milk, bread, eggs, chicken breast, spaghetti, canned beans and baking items. The winner? Kroger, with a total basket cost of $30<\/a>. In fact, Kroger had the lowest prices on 10 of the 15 items analyzed, including dry spaghetti, sugar, a dozen large eggs, and canned diced tomatoes. As for the other competitors, Walmart came in second with a basket total of $30.95, followed by Aldi at $33.15 and Albertsons at $35.58. Meanwhile, back in the produce department…<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, the US National Debt will soon be crossing $40 trillion<\/a>. To show you just how quickly the growth in red ink is accelerating, today\u2019s US annual budget deficits<\/strong><\/em> now routinely exceed the entire National Debt back in 1984. And the pace is only going speed up from here. So it\u2019s folly to believe that the current US dollar based (USD) monetary system will be continue to facilitate market functionality for much longer. If only there was a way to stop this ongoing destructive monetary larceny. Hmmmm. Perhaps something like this<\/strong><\/em>?<\/p>\n