Why higher prices have a silver lining

 You may think that higher prices for goods is a bad thing with no redeeming qualities. For you, the consumer, in the moment, that may be true. But higher prices are actually indicative of a system that is working as intended. A free market handles system shocks--like the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war--by causing the prices of the now-more-scarce goods to increase. This does two things. It a) incentivizes people to use only what they need and waste less and b) incentivizes people to create more of that good. High prices are a free market's method of handling a shock to the system. While it may be unpleasant, it would be more unpleasant if the distribution of resources was handled by anything other than a decentralized aggregate of every interested party; i.e. a free market. If the distribution of the newly scarce resource were in the hands of an individual or even an organization, now matter how smart and uncorrupt, there would be inefficiencies all over the place and some people would go without while others have so much they throw it away. 

Thus, while you pay more for those potato chips, just thank Adam Smith that there isn't a bureaucrat telling you exactly how many bags you're allowed per day. If you want ten bags of chips, you're going to get those bags, but you're going to sacrifice somewhere else--thus freeing up that something else for someone else who needs it. 

Now this system isn't perfect, but it's not designed to be perfect. In fact, it's not designed at all. It emerges naturally through human interaction without heavy oversight. The assumption that any single human or even organization can develop a better system is hubris. No one designed the free market. They only designed for the free market. Thus, to complain that something is wrong with the system itself when prices go up is a misunderstanding of how prices work. 

I don't mean for you to take high prices laying down. Or low wages. The thing about free markets is that you have a voice. If you think that potato chips are too expensive, do something to capitalize on that! Start a sustainable potato chip business! Buy bonds from a company that grows potatoes! There are actions that you, the individual, can take to improve both your life and the lives of others. And the best thing is that you'll be compensated based on the amount of good you do for others. In other words, they'll pay you. Money may make the world go around, but it also lubricates the gears and repairs leaks. 

Let me leave you with one last anecdote. In Germany during World War Two, bread was heavily subsidized. So do you know what people did with it? They fed it to pigs. I don't know if this anecdote is true, but it illustrates a point. When prices are manipulated, it causes use cases to misalign with availability, creating undue hardship. Therefore, we, the consumers, must buckle down and do what our Great Depression ancestors did: survive with less while working to create more.