Originally published at: NY Times' David Brooks, forgetting how much he drank, complains of $80 burger | Boing Boing
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Methinks Brooks is trying to expense his booze to the NYT and their finance department isn’t buying it.
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Thanks to Musk, I’d have to sign up for Twitter in order to see the interaction that once made Twitter seem so fun. And Thanks to Musk, I’m not planning to.
but rumor has it that the replies are interesting
Predatory airport pricing, though, predates Biden-era inflation. One might argue, as such, that the problem being demonstrated is in fact the incentive for firms in a relatively unregulated economy to engage in “rent-seeking,” i.e., creating captive markets in which they can remain profitable without innovating or offering quality products simply because their customers have no other options. What really might be bothering fiscally conservative University of Chicago graduate David Brooks, in other words, is the taste of capitalism.
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First of all, food at any airport is at least double what it would be at the same chain back in town, because they have captive patrons.
But I’m not sure who he’s pointing the finger at here, the airport? The restaurant? Biden? The very nature of capitalism?
Do they serve Macallan 18 at the Smokehouse in Newark, or did he just have five Dewar’s to wash down that burger?
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Wow, congestion pricing really is getting out of hand, isn’t it?
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Foregoing that lunchtime scotch probably wasn’t an option for him. If it was my job to try (emphasis on try) to make conservatives seem respectable and reasonable by writing his style of opinion pieces I’d be a heavy drinker too.
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David Brooks is kind of famous for his extremely disingenuous arguments, so this kind of bullshit to make a point (about how “people” feel) seems very much on-brand for him.
People’s (which people?) “perception” of the economy*, which is obviously incredibly nebulous. To be fair, providing a wildly, dishonestly inflated price tag for a meal is exactly the sort of thing that makes people feel like the economy is “terrible.” Actual facts don’t have to come into it.
*The vague implication is that inflation is up under Biden, which isn’t true, but he’s not actually saying it, so…
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Even if there was an $80 burger in Newark, you’d have to be an absolute dolt to buy it, so…
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I’m thinking that there might have also been a “they’re being nice to me because they actually like me” tip for the server included in that bill.
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Ha! Thanks for sharing Joyce Carol Oates’ response. It’s great.
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FTFY 
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Inflation is real, but it’s also a global phenomenon and we’ve fared much better than a lot of other places.
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Strictly speaking, this was her response, just in case you were confused by the capitalist comment.
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Damn, that bill is about the same as my groceries for a week.
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So he wrote this at a “belligerent at the world” arc in a drunken binge? Did he also submit to his editor loud exclamations of how much he loves all youse guys, and then phone in transcripts of him vomiting?
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Yeah what gives him away as being hopelessly out of touch is that, even granting his baldfaced fib, when faced with an $80 burger and fries, normal people would walk away and go hungry because they can’t afford that. Or, anticipating that airports rip people off, a few radical people would gasp perhaps bring a friggin’ sandwich, as the poors do.
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Maybe it was just Guaraná…
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