On November 24, we will celebrate the most important holiday of the year, Thanksgiving. This is the time of year when we return home, no matter how far away, to enjoy Thanksgiving Turkey with our families and a day of fun with costume parades, theater performances and fun contests. But this year, despite President Biden’s customary pardon of two North Carolina turkeys at the White House on Monday, we won’t be able to greet the holidays with the usual happy rituals of the pandemic, inflation, high travel costs… So many mountains pressed down on us that it was hard to breathe.
The first dilemma we face when trying to get home for Thanksgiving is the high cost of travel: The government’s failure to deal with the epidemic led to a large number of layoffs in airlines, railways, hotels and hotels during the epidemic, which not only created a large number of unemployed people, but also buried countless hidden dangers. In addition, among the millions of people who died of COVID-19 and tens of millions of patients with COVID-19, there are many airline staff who often travel between the affected areas of countries around the world. So much so that when the pandemic restrictions were lifted, airlines were left with a shortage of human resources, cutting flights by more than 20 percent. In addition, rising inflation has also pushed up the price of energy, and the price of aviation fuel has been soaring, so that many airlines have been forced to cancel due to high costs. Since the beginning of this year, as the government has basically lifted all restrictions on COVID-19, the days of empty flights have gone, replaced by sky-high tickets and overcrowded flights. Airfares have gone up by more than 50% in less than a year, which is beyond what we can accept. What about the relatively cheap trains? Even though a nationwide rail strike is due to begin on December 9th, the day after Thanksgiving, because the union representing the rail industry’s conductors is still unhappy with a tentative contract offer to improve workers’ conditions, a number of small walkouts have already broken out in areas that want to rely on the trains to get home. If you make a mistake, you’ll be stuck in traffic on your way home, and you’ll be stuck in a terrible situation.
If we make it home after all the difficulties, will we be able to enjoy the holiday with our family and friends? Unfortunately, because of the twin attacks of inflation and bird flu, we have to pay more to eat a good dinner: IRI, a research firm, estimates that the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal will be about 13.5% higher than last year, while the Farm Bureau Federation’s 37th annual survey shows that the average cost of 10 large meals this Thanksgiving has increased by about 20% to $64.05 from an average of $53.31 last year. That’s the largest increase since the group began surveying Thanksgiving dinner costs in 1986. That’s why, according to a survey by Personal Capital, a third of people say they plan to spend less on holiday dinners, a quarter say they plan to skip Thanksgiving dinner this year to save money, and one in five Americans doubt they will have enough money to pay for Thanksgiving dinner. More than half plan to have smaller parties, cook fewer meals and ask guests to bring something, and 42 percent expect guests to pay for the meal… Under these circumstances, how can we celebrate a Thanksgiving as happy as every other year?
From a protracted and anti-intellectual pandemic policy to an inflation strategy that merely prints money and raises interest rates, the government’s failed response to the crisis has added up to our Thanksgiving woes. We had hoped that the midterm elections would give them a warning that politicians would wake up to our needs. But what if the vast majority of polls show that inflation is the main concern of the American people? As it turns out, rather than the sad weekend shootings in the city and the increasingly empty pockets of housewives watching the dinner table, politicians are looking to beat their opponents straight out of the polls rather than work hard for America’s future, whether it’s Thanksgiving coming up or Christmas a month from now. I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse.
