By Gary Martin
My therapist encourages me to find the bright side of things…even if there are only six items in that $200 bag.
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Gary B. Martin is an illustrator and animator who has lived on the Upper West Side for more than 30 years. His illustrations appear in the Rag on Sundays, chronicling life in the neighborhood, New York City, and the Universe. See them all here. For a broader range of Gary’s work, including animations and other motion graphics, please visit www.martoons.com
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Happy Easter (and Happy Belated Passover) to all who celebrate! May your $200 get you more than one bag of groceries…
Good one, Gary. Keep exercising!
A combination of both? Keep exercising!
Have you tried shoplifting? Great cartoon.
Soon you can put them in your fanny-pack!
Right on the mark!
Wait isn’t the price of eggs going down lol.
This one belongs in a time capsule. If there’s anyone left to unpack it. Or, egad, if $200 is by then considered a quaint bargain memory by those who didn’t starve. Bravo!
More made up narratives—nobody’s starving and that bag can’t cost more than $50 at any store
Omg. This is so funny. But true
Market efficiency!
Ah, but in my case the problem could be the price of the groceries or the strength of aging limbs
Strange how he didn’t do this cartoon when the Dementia patient was pretending to be in charge.
Person, woman, dictator, camera, TV?
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/04/10/egg-prices-break-record-for-third-month-in-a-row-top-6-dozen/
Strange to the obstinately oblivious, perhaps.
More for your ignoring pleasure:
• https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/taking-trumps-tariffs-seriously-the-fiscal-and-economic-impact-for-nyc/
• https://www.vox.com/politics/406467/trump-tariffs-prices-liberation-day-economy
• https://www.theverge.com/news/642240/trump-tariffs-imports-apple-manufacturing
• https://www.vox.com/economy/408873/us-recession-trump-tariffs-economist-projection
Assuming you refer to Biden rather than to esteemed Professor Person Woman Man Camera TV, here’s something else to bear in mind or not: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024-10-19 . Oh, how quickly “the envy of the world” can fall apart!
But hey, we must still be in Day One, so there’s yet hope, right?
Might want to check the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SA0L1E?output_view=pct_12mths
2021,2022,2023 were the peak years.
Maybe I missed this cartoon when it came out ?
Yes, I had already encountered that chart. What do we see there? We see the rate of inflation (or rather greedflation) spiking in the early 2020s; i.e., the early and worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of Doddering Donnie’s more noteworthy gifts to the nation. And THEN we see it dropping pretty steadily from mid-2022 until present, or at least until the start of Trump II, at which point the graph conveniently ends. If your intent was to illustrate the decline of inflation under the Biden administration (despite a relentlessly obstructionist (R) House), congratulations — mission accomplished! If not, what, if anything, is your point?
Very funny; very sad.
And that doesn’t even include the 10 cents for the bag!
30 cents, 10 cents was a while ago! 😛
Should have gone to Trader Joe’s – Key Food way too much $$$. See you at the gym!
True in general, but Key Food does have some good sale prices fairly often. Or at least it has had….
Excellent!
The Key Food Kettle Bell. Better than Equinox.
It would be funny….if it wasn’t so sad.
Laugh…cry, rinse repeat.
Remember, it is important to work out your legs, as well — NOT just the upper body.
Ha ha all too true!
HA! HA! 👍 ……. And I thought it was my exercise classes that strengthened my arms! 🫣🤫
Happy musings! Let them arm muscles flex! 😉
Hahaha! Now that is funny! (because groceries cost so much more now than they used to, so there would be less to carry)
I love this cartoon! Again, right on point, as usual!
Lol! You hit it out of the park again, Gary!
Sad but true!
Did you buy mayonnaise from the West Side Market? I can’t get out of that store without spending $60!
Ouch! So true. We used to say $50 is the new $20, and in the blink of an eye, it was $200 is the new $50.