As you head to the grocery store to get a dozen of eggs, retired Monmouth College Economics Professor Ken McMillan reminds consumers that the increased price has nothing to do with inflation. The price of eggs is the result of the bird flu:
“When the bird flu hits a hen, the hen dies, no more eggs. When we kill off a lot of the poultry flock in order to prevent the spread of the disease, that is fewer hens, and fewer eggs. When we can get the bird flu under control, when we can stop butchering roosters, we can put the roosters and hens together, we will have some fertilized eggs, and it only takes three weeks to get more chickens, and we can soon get enough producing hens to get back in a normal supply and demand situation for eggs. In the meantime, even if you have $6 a dozen for eggs, that is 50 cents an egg, but that is not inflation, that is supply and demand in action.”