When the Big Mac was introduced by McDonald’s in 1968 it was priced at 45 cents. Hamburgers were 15 cents. For a nickel more you could get a cheeseburger. Fries were 10 cents.
Those were the good ole days for this writer who was fresh out of high school — 57 years ago.
The projected price for that Big Mac in 2026 is $6.72, a 1,500 percent increase since 1968. At the average rate of inflation of 3.9% it should be costing about $4.25. In some blue states, California, New York and Massachusetts, a Big Mac could cost you as much as $8.00. Would you want fries with that?
But, what did you expect when we started paying McDonald’s workers $15 to $20 per hour? The American people cheered the increased wages. Red states, Missouri and Alaska voted to eventually raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour in November of 2024.
California voters rejected, believe it or not, a move to set the minimum wage in that state for all workers at $18. The issue failed by less than 1%. In April of 2024 California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour. Go figure. Only in California.
Folks are crying for prices to go back to the days before President Otto Penn. They (especially Democrats, who stood buy and watched inflation hit a high of 9% when they were in charge) are demanding President Trump make prices more “affordable.”
News flash! It ain’t happening unless wages are shaved, and nobody wants that to happen, so it won’t. (UNLESS there is a severe recession or depression, which Democrats would love to see in hopes of getting back into power. Remember they were praying for a recession at the end of Trump’s first term. It was the only thing, they thought, that could keep Trump from being re-elected. Then along came Covid and saved their bacon.)
The $20 per hour “fix” for fast food workers boosted the starting wages for almost every job in America.
Wages are a huge factor in the cost of every product. The American worker has come to expect to make more money every year for the same work they did last year. Every raw product that goes into a salable item needs to increase it’s cost year after year. Only a severe lack of demand can cause prices to go back significantly. And they can only go back to a point that results in bankruptcy or a cessation of that product being produced.
Automation affects a lot of jobs and more is being developed to overcome the high cost of payroll. Workers in jobs that require little training and primarily manual labor are in danger of being replaced by a machine. These jobs, routine tasks in assembly work, data entry, jobs that require little education, will be replaced by automation.
That means available jobs will require a higher-skilled, better-educated worker. But what incentive is being offered young students when they believe they can go to a McDonalds and make $30,000 a year and live in Mom and Dad’s basement.
President Trump, who has proven he can juggle a lot of knives at once, has jawboned lower interest rates to lessen the burden of consumer credit. Inflation is in check, facilitating the interest cuts. Unemployment is low and jobs are being created.
Gasoline prices have been reduced by increased production. I paid $2.21 per gallon on my last fill-up. He is winning consolation on drug prices, which have been over-inflated in this country for years.
Black Friday spending jumped a whopping 9% over President Biden’s last Christmas in office, hitting $11.9 billion. And consumers were not spending this huge increase on necessities. Beauty products, fitness equipment, activewear apparel, toys, tablet and headphones were popular items.
Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, blasted through it’s record sales ceiling with $14.25 billion spent, up 7.1% over the previous year and making it the biggest single online shopping day in history. Interestingly, 57.5% of the sales were done from a mobile device, aka a cell phone.
The Democrats still want us to believe Americans are suffering under the Trump Administration.
They are going to try hard to convince voters of that in the mid-terms. They are desperate to get back in control. They want to impeach President Trump again. They want to cover up the failed coup they attempted to perpetrate. They want to entrench more liberal activist judges in the federal judiciary. They want to stop the revelation of non government organization fraud that has stolen billions of taxpayer dollars and funneled lots of it back to the Democrat Party.
The Democrats are a desperate bunch, but we must be even more desperate to prevent this from happening.
Let me say this again: The 2026 mid-term election for the control of Congress is the most consequential election this country has ever seen.
Complacency by the Republican Party and conservative independents will do irreparable harm to this country. Make sure we have great candidates on the ballots and let’s get them elected.
Dispatches from the Deranged…
From Max Burns, Opinion Contributor to The Hill, posted Dec. 31, 2025:
“The Trump administration has given us precious little to be thankful for this year. As 2025 draws to a close, history will remember it as a year scarred by the chaos of a White House that seemed intent on breaking the back of our democracy once and for all. It’s a psychologically exhausting time for the millions already coping with a sagging job market and rising consumer prices.”
THR: Same song. Different singer.
In the same commentary piece Burns included this:
“A Pew Research Center survey published this month shows just how far things have fallen in the opening decades of the 21st century. Back in 2001, 54 percent of Americans reported trusting the federal government, a slight increase from the 47 percent who felt that way in the 1980s. Now, public trust in government is scraping historic lows across every metric: As of 2025, only 17 percent of Americans believe that what their government is telling them is true.”
THR: He’s offering this as if the low respect for our government is all Trump’s fault. Does he not recall how for most of four years our government told us that Joe Biden was hitting on all cylinders, healthy as a race horse, sharp as a tack, best he has ever been? Does he not recall that our government told us that the Russians colluded to get Trump elected in 2020? Does he not realize that our government under Democrat Obama told us it was giving us Affordable Health Care? Our question is where did they find 17% to say they believed our government.
Robert Reich, former Clinton Administration cabinet member, Substacker, and unfortunately, victim of Terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome, said on a Tikok rant:
“I know 2025 was a terrible year! Many will remember 2025 as the year Trump returned to power. I will remember it as the year America began to fight back against oligarchy.”
In his Dec. 31 Substack post, he wrote:
“Most of the people who in previous decades sought to justify their power by claiming they were the ‘leaders’ of America — CEOs, Wall Street bankers, presidents of our major universities, heads of our giant media corporations, managers of the nation’s giant law firms, directors of our largest and most prestigious nonprofits — have lacked the courage to stand up to Trump and his tyranny.
“Some have shamelessly sucked up to him — flattering him, presenting him gifts, enabling him, making excuses for him.”
THR: It must be awful to wake up every morning so unhappy in this land of opportunity and plenty.
George Clooney, American movie star, Democrat king-maker:
The star of one of my favorite movies, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”, couldn’t wake up happy in the country that made him a millionaire and a big screen sex symbol, so he’s now a citizen of France.
The French government announced last week George and his wife Amal, along with their two children, have been granted French citizenship. Amal is a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer.
Clooney has long been a critic of Donald Trump, and a huge fan of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Clooney wrote a New York Times op-ed piece in July of 2024 urging Biden to step down. He later praised Biden’s decision and supported Harris as the new nominee. He contributed significantly to the BILLION dollars Harris burned in losing to Donald Trump.
Clooney told French media that France “is where we’re happiest.” He blames his disenchantment with America on paparazzi, saying in France, “they don’t take photos of kids. There aren’t any paparazzi hidden at the school gates. That’s number one for us,” he told RTL Radio.
THR: He joins Rosy O’Donnell as Hollywood stars who have self-deported.
Thanks for reading. Your comments would make this post much better.
Or you could buy me a coffee here for just $5. It’s New Year’s Eve. It’s going to be a late night.
Excellent read, thank-you so much, my friend. Happy New Year to You and Yours. God Bless!
Love the article, Charles. Happy New Year! In 1965 New York, Mcburgers were $.15, fries were $.10, and Coke was $.10. Gasoline was $.19/gal. You could treat your girl to a burger and put enough gas in your car to cruise all evening. Total about $2.00.
Inflation of about 900% since 1965 means that $2.00 date in the 60s would cost over $25.00 today.
So the higher minimum wage, which puts young people out of that first job, only makes a worker at Mcburger enough to almost buy their girl a burger and drive around for a while.
That's what happens when social pressure by financially ignorant people create inflation.
I promise to come out of my shell and be less shy next year!