$4 for Cheerios???!
Also in the Mister Coffee file: Howard “from the projects” Schultz was surprised to learn that Cheerios cost four bucks for an 18 ounce box.
When asked on “Morning Joe” Wednesday about the price of a box of Cheerios, Schultz, who is exploring running as an independent for president, did not have the answer.
“An 18-ounce box of Cheerios? I don’t eat Cheerios,” he told host Mika Brzezinski. When she told him it costs $4, he seemed surprised, saying, “That’s a lot.”
Hmm. Yes, but it’s enough for several breakfasts, while a single Starbucks “latte”…
Which makes you wonder: If Schultz thinks $4 is expensive for cereal, then by extension, isn’t a $4 coffee “a lot?” After all, an 18-ounce box of Cheerios will feed a family breakfast for nearly a week, and contains whole grains and fiber. A grande cafe mocha, which is about $4, will caffeinate you for a few hours. Heck, you can get a whole box of Cheerios for just 50 cents more than a two-pack of cake pops at Starbucks.
Yes but part of what you’re paying for at Starbucks is the luxury, the ambiance, the glamour, the intangible but very real thrill of it all. You pay extra to stay at the Plaza, and you pay extra to partake of the unique beauty and elegance of Starbucks.
Luxury
Ambiance
Glamour
Thrill
Starbucks?
Erm…I think you’ve spotted the joke?
Maybe. My brain is full. Can I be excused?
I’m not defending Mr. Coffee here but I really don’t see why interviewers ask such questions of people who obviously don’t do their own grocery shopping and wouldn’t have the faintest idea of the price of a loaf of bread, box of cereals, joint of lamb, etc. From memory I’ve seen similar questions asked to Boris Johnson, Richard Branson, Margaret Thatcher, and Prince Choss. If it’s meant to show how out of touch with the everyday world they are, well they’re multi-millionaires, billionaires, world leaders, royalty, and so on; of course they’re out of touch with the common people.
I don’t think Howard Schultz should be president, but the vitriol being directed at him seems a little excessive. Criticize his dumb idea to run for president, sure, but why is “from the projects” in sneer quotes when he actually did live in NY housing projects? Why is “latte” in sneer quotes when Starbucks serves perfectly fine lattes? Coffee snobs can quibble about their roasts, etc., but they are pulling espresso shots from freshly ground beans and combining it with steamed milk, so why is it a “latte”?
Skimming his Wikipedia page, he seems like a decent guy that started with little, worked his way up the ladder, came up with some innovative ideas for the U.S. coffee business, and became very successful. Credentials to be president? No. But he doesn’t seem like the clown or monster that he’s being portrayed as (come on, this is not a secret plan to re-elect Trump).
I think he sees a very divided country and his well-intentioned instinct is to try to split differences down the middle to bring people together. This is mostly naive and misguided, but it’s not evil. He seems to be a clumsy politician anyway, so I don’t think he’s going to go anywhere with this.
And…while we’re on the subject, you know what else doesn’t give someone the credentials to be president? Knowing how much Cheerios cost.
And Bush 41, who had no idea what a loaf of bread costs.
I agree that they wouldn’t be expected to know, but I think the point of the question is valid: these people who are asking to be in charge of the country have no idea how the people who actually work and play and live and die in the country live. They are so clueless that they may not be aware that other people don’t actually have someone to do their shopping for them.
That being said, I agree with Schultz on one thing: I don’t eat Cheerios, either, and would not be able to tell you the cost even though I do my own shopping. You want to know the price of a bag of house brand navy beans, though, I’m usually up on that, and I keep on top of the price of fresh broccoli. Singling out any one item is always a gotcha, because it’s probably not that hard to find out what people like to eat, and then zing them with something they would likely never buy.
Iknklast, reminds me of one of our former Prime Ministers who was asked what he would do if the Bank called and said they were putting up his home loan rate. He replied ‘pay it off’. Now, he was actually a Labour member and a decent person, but his answer was tone deaf at best. He’d lost sight of the fact that an answer that made sense in the context of his personal circumstances, sounded terrible in the context of most peoples circumstances. It never hurts for rich and powerful people who want a say (directly or indirectly) over other peoples lives to make an effort to actually walk in those shoes from time to time. Queue for that burger, go a week with $20 bucks in your pocket and no credit. Actually ask your cleaner, and other invisible staff what their lives are like. Walk around the streets of a neighbourhood that makes you uncomfortable.
Rob, I think most of these billionaires would be uncomfortable in my life, and I consider myself comfortable enough that I don’t spend tons of time worrying about every penny. Oh, yes, large expenses come up, and my husband and I both have health issues that go along with getting older, and it isn’t unusual that our checking account is pretty barren by the end of the month, but we are living a decent life. Still, I can’t imagine many of these people managing (hell, I know a lot of my middle class friends making more than I am who are unable to manage with what they make, because they don’t plan and budget well).
People like Schultz like to make a lot of where they came from, but it appears he’s moved a long way from there, and doesn’t remember what it was like. I sympathize to some extent. I have to work sometimes to remember how I got along as an unemployed single mother, because the past 15 years have intervened and I feel like a different person. And I am not fabulously wealthy, only gainfully employed with a decent wage.
I saw this in the last election, too, with people like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz touting their street cred as children of working class parents, but with no sign at all that they remember what that means, or have any clue what is required to survive that way. I suspect at some level it’s because they assume that everything they have they got for themselves (fat chance – lots of people working on their behalf, usually starting with their mother) and they assume that everyone else can get it just as easily.
There was an article in some German newspaper last year on Angela Merkel’s shopping behaviour: Yes, she goes to the supermarket herself, accompanied by security, but doing her own shopping. It is not a law of nature that “world leaders” have to be completely detached from everyday experience.
For what it’s worth, Margaret Thatcher famously did know what a loaf of bread (and, of course, a pint of milk) cost. Because she deliberately memorised the prices in case she was asked the question.
Knowing the prices of stuff isn’t a good proxy for being a down to earth person of the people but at least….I guess… she understood that it was a thing people cared about. Or at least something that interviewers implied people care about. Or something. Either way, it’s the closest proxy for empathy she ever showed so… yay?
Oh, but Merkel and Thatcher are women. Isn’t it in their DNA to shop?
The reality is, if we want to be honest, most of the grocery shopping is still done by women, and we ask these questions to many men who are not wealthy and out of touch, they still wouldn’t know, but their wife might. Which a lot of voters are going to recognize, and see as okay (because Trump and Schultz type voters don’t tend to be feminists). So the “gotcha” is really only a way for the left to mock the wealthy businessmen on the right, or for the right to stage a “gotcha” to show that the left is just as out of touch.
I would love to see someone set these interlocutors down without preparation and start asking them the price of these things. Most of these big time journalists are just as out of touch as our politicians, but someone gives them the answers in advance.
True, I had forgotten that women are natural gatherers whereas men go out and hunt all the meat they consume to the uproarious applause of their women-folk.
It doesn’t explain why mrs latsot and I eat very little meat these days even though I do all the shopping and cooking or why Thatcher SNATCHED OUR MILK, but we can hardly allow facts to influence anything, can we, or else where would we be?
Iatsot: Maybe milk was the only thing Thatcher knew the price of of, hence the snatching of it to save a bit of cash. Just imagine, someone could have told her the price of a nasty uncomfortable child size chair instead, you would have been sitting on the floor ;)
Um…a family getting seven meals out of 18 ounces of Cheerios?
That’s 2.5 OUNCES per day.
Of which I’m guessing about 2.3g is sugar.
Ounces, you old fool, 2.3 ounces. Honestly, the first time in ages I don’t preview…..
Cheerios is among the brands with the lowest sugar content, about 1 g per 1 cup serving. They estimate 12 servings per box. (In my experience, few people other than small children limit themselves to one cup.) Serving sizes for some cereals, such as Special K, are advertised as “one bowl, one ounce, provides [nutritional benefits]”, so I considered that a decent rule of thumb when I used to buy cereal. Cheerios is a popular snack to give to toddlers because of the low sugar and the size and material characteristics.