Years ago, in a move likely cooked up in the fevered mind of a grad-school PR flak, some thought it a good idea for Elizabeth Warren to bolster her presidential campaign by filming an Instagram Live kitchen scene with her husband. During this cringing cooking segment, Liz appeared as natural as a billboard in a forest, her stilted conversation with her “sweetie” made worse by needing to repeatedly mention “I’m going to have a beer / do you want a beer? / Enjoy your beer.” 

Later, during the Democratic debates, Stephen Colbert attempted to help out her image by having a lengthy segment in a South Carolina eatery, with a portion of their visit filmed in the bar. Warren and the host swigged Michelob Ultra, and Colbert cracked with the ancient joke about sex in a canoe, which “beer drinker” Warren apparently had never heard before. The Senator comes off as relatable as a call center drone working in New Delhi.

After all of this, one might think the last thing she would want to do is affiliate herself with food and drinks, yet lately, Liz has been in high-Karen dudgeon regarding our foodstuffs. The results have not gone well, for neither the stomach nor the mind. The woman who loves to tinker with economic issues to assured failure is now looking to monkey around with our food choices.

In December, Warren was making a scene regarding the potential sale of the fast food chain Subway to the investment firm Roark Capital. The potential $10 billion deal would add to the company’s food portfolio, and this is what had the Senator acting aghast. Roark is the owner of Arby’s, but more concerning to the senator, it also controls the chain eatery Jimmy John’s. This prospect delivers the nefarious promise of a cold-cuts monopoly, apparently.

Warren believes that everyone will suffer as a result; customers, workers, franchisees, and suppliers - displaying all the ignorance of economics. This “nightmare” only applies if all of those entities cannot make a decision on their behalf. If sub prices soar to untenable levels at these chains people are still able to eat elsewhere. Roark Capital will not possess exclusive licensing rights to sandwich-making. People can make them in their homes if need be.

But Liz is not only fighting against Big Sandwich. In her latest snacktime salvo, she now has turned her attention to the issue of “shrinkflation”. As many have seen, companies have been dealing with soaring costs and supply chain challenges by scaling back on the sizes of their products. Warren wants to point to a nefarious corporate cabal that is colluding to soak consumers.

Fewer Doritos in your bag.
Fewer Oreos in your box.
Less toilet paper on your roll.

You aren’t imagining it—big corporations really are making you pay the same amount (sometimes more) for less. It’s called “shrinkflation,” and we’ve got to crack down on it.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 6, 2024

There are so many layers to her idiocy here. The first being that if she intends to fight this effect she needs to first establish a baseline for how a company packages its product(s). This means the government would have to dictate just how large a bag of Doritos is supposed to be. There will be a federal quota on how many Oreos must be in a package. The only other solution would be price controls, and your basic college freshman in Econ-101 already knows this is foolhardy. 

The extent of the idiocy from Warren is that she is desperately deflecting from herself being culpable for these market realities. We have inflation due to the $4 trillion pandemic rescue plan, and Joe Biden’s subsequent nearly $2 trillion “rescue” plan. The dollar became diluted as the marketplace was corrupted. Companies were propped up with aid while consumers were delivered cash, and the free market forces were bastardized. More cash was out, fewer goods were available, and companies did not need to adjust because they had federal support.

Now raw goods cost more, fuel prices are high and impacting delivery costs, and Liz is acting baffled that the spending policies she voted for are creating negative impacts in the grocery stores. The solution to these economic challenges is something she does not want to hear and would never entertain - less government involvement. 

But here she is rallying on behalf of junk food production, which can lead to the next issue for her to rail about: a rise in obesity. 

Then she can blame these same companies for that problem and force more cost-spiking restrictions in the name of public health. Next, we can expect a label on produce with Warren’s face, telling us how she mandated high organic standards for the good of consumers…now go enjoy your $10 tomato.

Liz needs to go ensconce herself in her kitchen so she and her sweetie can swig her diluted swill and stop jiggering with the food supply. As is always the case in Washington, if you truly want to deliver a benefit to consumers the first step will be to stop helping.