This article was written by Brandon Smith and originally published at Birch Gold Group
Recently one of the most important debates in the history of conservative discourse raged across the internet, with sides deeply divided and solutions rare or nonexistent. This debate went largely unnoticed by the rest of the country but it regards the deepest underlying foundations of our economic future.
I am speaking, of course, about the “Great Burrito Debate” of 2026.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating about the significance but I do think this conflict taps into the core of people’s concerns about America’s inflation problem. Not only that, but it exposes a lot of misconceptions people have about what inflation is, what’s causing it and who is to blame.
The burrito debate started as an honest discussion about the cost of living crisis and somehow ended up as dog-pile on conservative manners when it comes to economic discourse. Many conservative and libertarian commentators jumped into the fray with their two cents, though, the vast majority of them have minimal economic background, which I think added more confusion than clarity to the issue.
After two decades of macroeconomic analysis (and predicting the stagflationary crisis well in advance of the Ivy League “experts”) I thought I might offer my own perspective.
Keep in mind, those of us in the alternative economic field had to fight against the lies of the Biden Administration as well as establishment economists like Paul Krugman and Federal Reserve officials like Janet Yellen just to wake the public up to the fact that inflation was upon us and that it was NOT “transitory”.
Ultimately, everyone’s bank balances and monthly bills could not be denied and the gas-lighting ended. The only recourse of the establishment at that point was to blame Trump for all of it. The “Herbert Hoover” comparisons were rampant.
Who Really Has The Power To End Inflation?
To be clear, Trump has reduced the size of government by around 12%, which is an incredible accomplishment considering the amount of legal resistance that was put in place to stop him. However, he did not reduce government spending, which is currently 3% higher than under Biden.
One problem is that 60% of all federal spending is mandatory. By law, programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. all scale their spending to match inflation and there is very little that Trump can do about that. Then there’s the rising interest on debt payments, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve, not the President. Trump’s cuts were only focused on discretionary spending, on institutions like USAID, and even those measures were repeatedly throttled by activist judges.
Trump has tried to circumvent the bureaucracy by issuing tariffs as a counter to the debt problem, but once again, activist judges have intervened. For those who claim that tariffs are “causing inflation”, this is simply false. The contribution tariffs make to CPI is negligible (around 0.5 percentage points). The media (and some libertarians) continue to falsely claim that tariffs are an issue.
This is where I think the public has a disconnect from the reality of the situation, and this includes fiscal conservatives who think they are “holding Trump’s feet to the fire” over US debt. The president is not all-powerful and he has very little control over the direction of the US economy. If he made all the cuts these people demand, he would have to become a dictator and he would have to do it by force.
That is to say, they can’t have it both ways. Either the President takes a constitutional hands-off approach to the economy and government spending, or, he goes full-bore Francisco Franco, declares himself supreme leader, and starts chopping out large pieces of the government (the Spanish “Stabilization Plan” of 1959, not the price control plan of 1939 which ultimately failed).
That’s the only way these kinds of policies are going to happen in the US because Congress isn’t going to do jack. Congress’ primary job is to maintain the status quo, not enact solutions.
The reason fiscal reform is impossible is because our modern government is designed to perpetuate itself; it is designed to grow forever. This is accomplished through the bureaucracy, which is the REAL power base within American politics. Most people do not understand that political leaders come and go, but the bureaucracy is forever and there are no term limits.
The socialist parasites within these structures control the direction of the country and the economy (this includes the central bank). When they face any real political opposition, they simply stall, obstruct, and wait for that political party or leader to leave office. Trump, for example, has only four years to redirect a system that has been on the wrong path for decades. It’s not going to happen without bringing the hammer down.
This brings us back to the “Burrito Debate” and the issue of inflation vs public expectations. The debate started with a post quoting college students complaining about the cost of basic necessities including a “$20 dollar price tag” on burritos. This triggered a wider discussion about affordability vs perception, then spiraled into an argument over conservatives not having enough empathy for struggling youth.
Critics asserted that conservative dismissals of the ongoing cost of living crisis will lead to younger generations rushing to support socialism, and MAGA would be to blame. There are two elements to this argument that I think need to be addressed and I’ll try to summarize as best I can.
Gen Z Has No Point Of Reference Because History Is Ignored
First, there’s the issue of younger generations not having a point of reference for how bad the cost of living crisis today is compared to previous generations. Second, there’s the lack of understanding among older generations on where the current crisis is likely headed in the future without drastic action.
Of course, no burrito actually costs $20. This is a terrible contention which is not based in reality. Maybe it’s the most expensive burrito in the most expensive restaurant in a high cost city like San Francisco or New York, but for the majority of the country a burrito is pocket change.
This brings me to the first issue, which is the younger generation’s lack of historical perspective. To be clear, the current inflationary crisis in the US is NOT the worst inflationary crisis this country has seen in modern times. Not yet, anyway.
From 1972-1981 (just after the US dollar was fully detached from the gold standard), the US suffered one of the most brutal series of inflationary beatings in the nation’s history. Inflation rates hit as high as 13% per year, food prices rose by around 120%, rent prices jumped by 75%, home prices rose by 150% and gas shortages were rampant.
The 1970s demoralized middle-class America. The poverty rate hit 14% and the unemployment rate peaked at 9%. Wages remained stagnant or even dropped for some workers. The average yearly income by 1981 was only $12,000 for individual workers. Most younger people today complain about how “the boomers had it easy” with food prices and house prices back in the day. They don’t actually consider how low wages were, or how high inflation was.
The point is, yes, Gen Z is struggling. Their fears should not be dismissed as frivolous. That said, I think because of internet culture and false expectations, many young people assume they are going through the worst crisis of all time and that no one understands them.
In reality, generations before them had it MUCH worse. The inflationary crisis of the 1970s did not end until the Federal Reserve exploded interest rates to 20%, causing a deflationary reset and making loans unattainable for most people for years.
If you are in your 20s and you think you’re not supposed to be struggling, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. We all had to struggle, many of us with terrible wages and low job availability compared to today. Don’t expect to be living comfortably until your mid-30s. It’s just the way things have always been.
Every generation experiences periods of economic uncertainty. But this doesn’t mean that there’s not considerable danger looming in the near future.
Kicking The Can Has Created An Economic Time Bomb
What some conservatives get wrong is the notion that the system can be fixed politically and that things will improve if we only keep Democrats out of office. Keeping leftists away from power is always a good thing, if only to prevent the country from going completely communist and cannibalizing itself. But when it comes to inflation, once an avalanche is set in motion it can’t be stopped and this avalanche has been building for decades.
Inflation cannot be reversed without a deflationary event. Since the credit crash of 2008-2009, political leaders and the Federal Reserve have been aggressively trying to prevent any deflation (the Keynesian standard). Which means that America (and most of the world) has not taken the deflationary medicine we should have taken years ago. Instead, we kicked the can down the road.
Some “experts” believe we can kick the can down the road for eternity. This is foolish.
The Catch-22 is that the central bankers must continue to intervene to prevent deflation but each time they do they pump up the money supply and create even more inflation, which then demands more deflation for balance.
The pandemic event was the most recent instance of this intervention. The covid bailouts caused an immense inflationary reaction and the spike in prices that followed is what most of Gen Z is feeling today as they enter the work-a-day world.
If the Fed stimulates, more inflation is on the way. If they hike interest rates and refuse to intervene, the US faces a deflationary crash. This is where we’re at in 2026 and yes, Gen Z and Gen Alpha will be hit the hardest unless something is done. But what?
The only policy solution that makes sense is an organized deflation plan, if such a thing is possible. Meaning, a reformed government would have to eliminate the central bank, hike rates far higher than they currently are, refuse to bail out failing companies relying on cheap debt, then institute austerity measures on social programs for everyone except the disabled and elderly. This is basically what Franco did (while also hunting down hundreds of thousands of liberals and communists, but let’s set that aside for now).
This government would have to find a way to cut spending, balance the budget and also act to mitigate greater damage to consumers by reducing taxes wherever possible (perhaps even ending property taxes on single family homes).
That would require a level of institutional coordination and cooperation that does not exist in the US right now. Again, Trump, or someone else, would have to act like an economic authoritarian and dictate every detail of the operation.
The system could return to a more normal condition after the economic bubble has been strategically burst, but I suspect similar actions would have to take place perhaps every 25 years to prevent another buildup of inflationary pressure. It would be a kind of “reset”, but not in the way that globalists at the WEF imagine. It would be a planned reset coordinated with the public so we are no longer waiting around for the bankers or random chance to decide when a crash is going to occur.
Meaning, each generation would have to accept the responsibility of dealing with a controlled deflationary downturn for at least a few years. Planning such an event would make it possible for the public to prep ahead of time. It could become a sort of deflationary tradition; similar to a Jubilee.
The only other option, as noted, is to do nothing and wait for the bubble to burst on its own. Eventually, high prices will drag down spending enough that deflation sets in. Job losses will jump. The Yen-carry trade will derail. A Black Swan event will pull the rug out from under us – Something will happen that sets the deflationary chain of events in motion and the central bank will do what it always does: Print money.
This is true of almost every country in the world right now. The US is not the only economy facing inflationary dilemmas, it’s just the largest.
A time will come when the dollar won’t be able to take it anymore and the currency system will break. Then, your burritos really will cost $20 or more and that will be a terrible day of reckoning. It’s a conundrum that should have been dealt with back in 2009, but NO ONE wants to be responsible for the financial pain caused by taking that bitter deflationary pill.
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The dollar buys less today than it did a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago. That slide is the predictable result of endless printing and borrowing. Dr. Ron Paul believes the FED has the answer. But they’re keeping it to themselves. Fortunately, a new financial chart has publicly exposed their secret moves. See it for yourself HERE.
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25 Comments
My father told me 40 years ago that we need a benevolent dictator.
Jesus is His name.
“while also hunting down hundreds of thousands of liberals and communists, but let’s set that aside for now”
I smell a Wild Bunch Dispatch how-to article haha!
Joking aside we still need to remember that socialiam ideology thrives in economic downturns and keeping this thinking in check is going to be critical coming into the next couple of election cycles. I can see Trump is aggressively fighting to eradicate voter fraud before November because he knows if he can’t accomplish this mission they will just fraud in their DSA candidates that “won” their respective primaries. Struggling young people always take the bait when it comes to promises of free shit and wealth redistribution. If somehow Trump can gain control of both houses I think he will have a better chance of instituting more aggressive austerity measures while also supplementing with alternate sources of revenue streams, such as more tarrifs and equal bilateral trade agreements between other nations.
“Who Really Has The Power To End Inflation?”
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The Dark Side that controls the internal workings of our World does not want inflation to end. They want all the Useless Eaters to continue to go bankrupt and watch their finances and futures go down the drain. If anything, the Dark Ones would like to punish The Eaters even more – but not so much that The Eaters get really pissed and figure out its time to do something real about it… and against the facades of power that front for The Dark Ones.
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“The president is not all-powerful…”.
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This would come as surprising news to the sitting King. Because he sure thinks and acts he’s all powerful. And he’s got lots of facilitators helping him in this endeavor.
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“… political leaders come and go, but the bureaucracy is forever and there are no term limits.”
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Political leaders who never have the guts or will to actually fix problems. And a bureaucracy that is the public-facing functioning arms and legs for the Dark Side.
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“The 1970s demoralized middle-class America.”
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Yes it did. And the 21st Century is doing its best to finish the job.
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Let’s face it. Nothing and no one is coming along to fix this. This slide into National bankruptcy will not only continue but accelerate as the shrinking US dollar devalues itself to its true fiat value which is always NOTHING – a big fat zero. We simply pretend it has value until the day when we don’t pretend this any more.
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You can’t fix a problem that no one has the will to fix. All you can do is shake your head and pray for one more day that someone still pretends that the piece of paper you had them will actually still buy you something.
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We are using Monopoly Money today that did not come out of a box but out of the US Treasury. Who says playing games isn’t instructive?…
“This would come as surprising news to the sitting King. Because he sure thinks and acts he’s all powerful. And he’s got lots of facilitators helping him in this endeavor…”
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Yeah, I’m just not seeing it. I think if Trump actually acted the way people seem to imagine he acts, more shit would get done. All we have seen for the past two years is the bureaucracy setting up obstacle after obstacle. The guy can’t even improve DC monuments or the White House without endless interference. It’s a miracle he has managed to enforce millions of deportations given the number of judges trying to stop him. What I see, perhaps, is a guy who is trying to find a way around the system to get things done, but there is no way around the system. The only way is to cut through the system, or roll right over top of it.
What I see as well is a nation of people who are largly entitled and narcissistic. Theres no sense of national sacrifice for the greater good like in WWll and other times. They just want everything fixed without considering how corrupt and broken other past narcissism has made everything. It would take an incredible level of unified courage among Americans to fix what grift these psychos have perpetuated for decades. It becomes less and less likely with time that it will get straightened out and Americans just vote angrily like desperate wild animals at the corrupt ballot box thinking this can be fixed that way slamming ones head into the same voting wall over and over again. No one person can save you. Get your heads on straight and prepare to make sacrifices and fight for freedom, including the freedom to buy cheap burritos.
Two trillion a year for just medicare and medicaid aren’t helping (that’s a 52% increase for those two since 2020). The US Health Care cartel takes 18% of the entire GDP, the highest in the world in both percentage and real terms. Imagine, you go to the store to buy $100 worth of goods and $18 of it actually goes to health care just by virtue of that mafia’s existence.
The medical industry is starving every other industry of revenues and I’m not sure how we come out of this alive.
“This government would have to find a way to cut spending, balance the budget and also act to mitigate greater damage to consumers by reducing taxes wherever possible (perhaps even ending property taxes on single family homes).”
Politicians get elected and re-elected by promising voters stuff that costs (taxpayers’) money. The permanent solution is take away Congress’ (and the President’s) power to Appropriate money and give that power, exclusively, to the taxpayers who earned the money in the first place. However this is done would require a Constitutional amendment, even though Appropriation is an implied (not explicit) power of Congress.
One way might be to create a 3rd chamber of Congress (Appropriature?) with the sole power to appropriate tax monies – but no other power, not even the power to tax. The House of Representative would retain the power to ‘lay and collect taxes’ but give each taxpayer a receipt that would be used as a ballot (or to buy ballots). The more taxes one paid, the more ‘votes’ he could cast for members of the Appropriature.
Since the Appropriature represented taxpayers, its members would tend to be frugal and reluctant to waste money on stuff that taxpayers aren’t interested in. The House, while retaining its taxing power, would be reluctant to enact or increase taxes as they would not be able to spend the money to buy votes. This would be consistent with Separation of Powers, as it separates the power to tax from the power to appropriate.
Of course, this solution would be more complicated when considering corporate taxes, tariffs and other kinds of taxes. The ‘devil’ is in the details.
“The permanent solution is take away Congress’ (and the President’s) power to Appropriate money and give that power, exclusively, to the taxpayers who earned the money in the first place. However this is done would require a Constitutional amendment, even though Appropriation is an implied (not explicit) power of Congress….”
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This is what I would refer to as the usual wish list libertarian solution – It’s nice to think about it in theory but there’s no way it will ever happen. As noted in the article, our problem is that Congress maintains the status quo. They will NEVER pass the kinds of amendments required to make your idea a reality. Furthermore, the bureaucracy would block such an effort every step of the way. If Trump can’t even get new construction done in DC without the courts stepping on his toes, there’s no chance we’ll get a constitutional amendment that takes away the government’s power to spend. My primary point stands, which is that the only way to change the system today is to trample over it, and any political leadership that tries to do that would be labeled “authoritarian” by the same people that want the system reformed. It’s a big Catch-22.
FDR faced a similar problem when got prohibition repealed, at least as far as get state legislatures to approve, relying instead on state conventions.
This solution might be possible when inflating the value of the dollar no longer works and everything crashes into a deflationary down spiral with cascading defaults. A similar approach might also work for some state and local governments. Or foreign governments. The key is, again, to separate taxation from spending.
The problem is that the country is FAR too divided to unify around a common cause, even one as logical as fiscal reform. The political left WANTS the country to burn to the ground and conservatives are trying desperately to maintain a sense of order. The truth is, economic responsibility will have to take a back seat to inevitable civil conflict. Only when leftists and globalists are removed from the country will we then be free to solve our nations money and debt problems.
What we actually need is to restore Congress, by restoring the Constitution. Senatots SHOULD be appointed by State Governments, not popularly elected. The House was supposed to GROW with the population; that’s what the Census is actually for. Article One explains it quite clearly. The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 should have been thrown out by the courts, but the Crash that happened later in the year first distracted everyone, then made them forget. 750,000 people in a district means that We The People can’t possibly be represented; only each member’s top 1,000 donors are getting represented, and it clearly show. This act is next to the Federal Reserve Act, and the Income Tax Amendment as reasons this Republic has essentially failed. It’s now a Kleptocratic Kakistocracy, and the spirit of the Revolution must rise against these lying, murdering, thieves, or we’re done for.
Congress is only part of the problem. That goes for the Federal Reserve as well. The REAL problem is that around 30% of this country’s voting population is openly hostile to every founding principle we have. We have a cancerous growth of socialists and globalists that need to go. Nothing is going to change until we clean house.
Fwiw, you are describing the congress used to “ work “ some decades ago. Then came the emergencies. They were very useful.
A Beef Barabaco burrito with a double serving of beef and a double tortilla wrap with guacamole sauce (aka a “Super Burrito”) at Chipotle in San Jose CA is $22.50 + tax.
Right, so you are basically getting TWO burritos for $22.50. In other words, one burrito is $11. This is kind of what I’m talking about when I discuss lack of perspective with people today when it comes to the concept of inflation…
Just remember that $22.50 is the cost of you renting that Chipotle burrito by the hour.
A better metric is calories per dollar. Im sure its probably not that bad when seeing the calories to the dollar.
Excellent article!
Inflation is built-in to our economic models, which is evident by the FED’s target of 2% inflation (although it looks like 3% is the new 2% these days).
With $40 trillion debt requiring $1.2 trillion to serve that debt every year and as you note “Congress’ primary job is to maintain the status quo, not enact solutions”, there is no realistic solution other than a huge crash with major deflation.
Although there is one other possibly, and that is the AI Singularity arrives where an AI takes over and robots advance enough to do most, if not all jobs humans hold now.
In this future, the need for concepts like money evaporate. With everything provided for free by the AI and its robot workers, there is no need for money, payments, ownership or economic theories at all.
So there seems to be two possible, relatively near-term solutions to our worsening problems:
1. Massive economic crash and deflation.
2. AI takes over and provides for all human needs.
What is your choice?
Yes, I wrote about the AI management theory recently – I wouldn’t put too much hope in AI to save us, especially when we consider who most of the people behind AI are.
https://alt-market.us/total-freedom-vs-total-slavery-and-the-race-for-ai-supremacy/
AI is a near term “ choice “ to take over and provide for all human needs.
I’m all for that. I need a Gulfstream V.
“ The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Yeah, all those f..ck cameras are going to help keep me safe on the way to the airport.
Can you smell my contempt ?
The Fed & IMF already has a solution.
1. Default on all the debt of the US Dollar
2. Replace the dollar as the world currency with the IMF’s new gold backed currency.
3. The price of gold will be permanently set and borrowing will be very limited.
4. Allow all the banks to default except the too big to fails, (top 4-5 banks).
5. All other accounts will be absorbed by these TBTF banks and they will do a bail-in to balance the books or seize properties on those who default on their loans.
6. The new system will be digital. Brick and mortar banks will mostly be a thing of the past.
7. There will be a two-tiered US currency, green back for govt and international trade and another colored currency for local use. But its use will be very limited due to the digital system.
8. Every financial transaction either digital or with money will be recorded even a piece of candy.
9. All entitlement programs will be reworked into one system based on a UBI Universal Basic Income and govt run socialized everything else.
10. This event is not time based as in a set date, but event date, when massive events all happen at once they will pull the default trigger so they can blame this on unforseen events to come.
Oh yes, they have a plan: Controlled demolition of the western world, followed by global communism. Their attempt, of course, will lead to an all out war which they think they will win, but I think they overestimate their chances.
I’m sorry to say, but a large burrito already costs $20.
Nope. The average price of a burrito dinner across the US is $12 to $13. As noted in the article, you might be able to find a burrito for $20 in the most expensive restaurants in the country, but that’s not a representation of what most people are paying. This is yet another example of people not understanding inflation. One restaurant charging inflated prices is not a representation of wider inflation.