Doug Casey: The $20 Burrito, the Affordability Crisis, and What Comes Next

A $20 burrito has become a national political issue in the United States—and for veteran speculator and author Doug Casey, the controversy says less about food prices than about the declining value of the dollar itself. The burrito entered the political bloodstream during New York City's 2025 mayoral race, when Zohran Mamdani cited the rising price of a lunchtime burrito as shorthand for the cost-of-living squeeze. Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, took office in January 2026 on a platform of freezing rents on stabilized apartments, making buses free, and opening city-run grocery stores. In an interview originally published on International Man, Casey argued that the public is blaming the wrong culprits for the affordability crisis—and that government itself is the problem.

The macro backdrop frames the debate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US consumer prices peaked at a 9.1 percent annual rate in June 2022—the fastest since 1981—and the overall price level has risen more than 20 percent since early 2020, with restaurant prices climbing roughly a quarter over the same stretch. Federal debt, for its part, crossed $36 trillion in late 2024, and the Congressional Budget Office's baseline projections show deficits continuing to grow over the coming decade. It is against these numbers—monetary and fiscal rather than culinary, in Casey's telling—that the interview below unfolds.

"$20 just isn't worth that much anymore"

International Man: A $20 burrito has somehow become a national political issue. Is this just another silly internet controversy, or does it reveal something important about the state of the American economy?

Doug Casey: The bottom line is that $20 just isn't worth that much anymore. Malcolm Forbes used to joke that his idea of social change was plenty of tens and twenties. If he were alive today, he'd have to say fifties and hundreds.

If it's a good burrito, $20 might be quite reasonable. On Sunday, I ordered a breakfast burrito at an ordinary restaurant—it was $21, although accompanied by home-fried potatoes. I wasn't outraged. When I was a kid in the 50s, a bottle of Coke was a nickel or a dime, and any candy bar was a nickel. And if you returned the bottle, you got 2 cents back.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last week talking about $100 hot dogs. They're decked out with caviar and other exotic accouterments. But it's still a $100 hot dog on a bun. It's the type of thing future generations will tell stories about, as we do of the Romans eating sparrows' tongues—the signs of degenerate civilizations which have lost all sense of value.

People are blaming burrito makers, or cattle farmers, or capitalism itself, for the existence of a $20 burrito. Few blame the government or the Federal Reserve for debasing the currency.

Idiotically, they're looking to the government to make it better when the government itself is the problem. The election of the so-called Democratic Socialist Mamdani in New York to cure the problem is a sign that the situation is hopeless.

$20 burritos are the least of our problems.

Not capitalism, but "state capitalism"

International Man: Some say today's high prices are simply capitalism at work—the market sets the price, and consumers can choose whether to pay it. It seems something is missing from that argument?

Doug Casey: High prices are not the fault of capitalism. In a pure free market capitalist system, prices of consumer goods would fall consistently. What Boobus Americanus doesn't understand is that we don't live in a real capitalist system. What we have in the U.S. is better described as state capitalism, which is a "partnership" between large corporations and the government. Mussolini described it as fascism—a term he coined. But that word has lost its original meaning.

Fascism has nothing to do with jackboots, military parades, and hating Jews. It's an economic system where the means of production are privately owned but essentially controlled by the State.

Are younger Americans entitled—or poorer?

International Man: One response to the affordability crisis has been essentially: stop complaining, eat cheaper food, get roommates, and lower your expectations. Are younger Americans actually entitled—or has their standard of living genuinely deteriorated compared with previous generations?

Doug Casey: The key to financial success is to produce more than you consume and save the difference. That's become harder in recent years, because wages have not kept up with debasement of the currency. Even worse, the money that you do save is losing value faster than ever. Saving dollars has become a losing proposition, a fool's game.

There is no question that each generation of Americans has become softer and more entitled than the previous generation. As technology increases the amount of leisure, and debt finances a higher standard of living, moral fiber diminishes. It's perfectly natural, however unfortunate.

Little can be done to alter major trends in a civilization. All you can do is keep yourself from being corrupted and act as a good example.

Why political "solutions" fail

International Man: Politicians inevitably respond to affordability problems with proposals for higher minimum wages, price controls, subsidies, tax credits, or other government programs. Why do these supposed solutions make the underlying problem worse?

Doug Casey: That's because none of those things are solutions.

To start with, politicians are inevitably the worst type of people in a society. They're professional busybodies who get into politics because they like to manipulate other people and impose their will on them. It's foolish to hope what amounts to a professional criminal class will solve economic problems.

The average American knows nothing about economics. And what he thinks he knows is basically Keynesian economics. He's easily convinced that there are political solutions to economic problems.

Deficits, the dollar, and where Casey sees value

International Man: If the government continues running huge deficits and debasing the currency, where should people position their capital to protect themselves—and potentially profit from what comes next?

Doug Casey: There is no question but that the government will continue running huge deficits. The deficits are not just huge, but growing exponentially.

Those deficits can't be financed from domestic savings, which are approximately zero. They're not going to be financed by selling debt to foreigners, who have come to despise the US. The deficits will, therefore, be financed by selling debt to the Federal Reserve, which pays for them by printing dollars and depositing them in the government's accounts in commercial banks.

The dollar will continue losing value, and at an accelerating rate. Although, because of all the debt that's being created, we might suffer a deflationary credit collapse on the way to hyperinflation.

Americans are caught between a rock and a hard place. Or, as recent watchers of "The Odyssey" may have learned, between Scylla and Charybdis.

The bright side is that while the world is caught up in a super bubble centering around AI, it's overlooked raw materials stocks. I'm personally very invested in commodities in general, and energy and mining in particular. Many of the stocks we recommend in Contrarian Insider and Crisis Investing show current yields of between 6% and 10%. That's good, but not nearly as important as the fact that they're very, very underpriced and have 10 to 1 upside from here.

This article was originally published on International Man.

About the author

Doug Casey is a best-selling author, world-renowned speculator, and libertarian philosopher who has garnered a reputation for his erudite—and often controversial—insights into politics, economics, and investment markets. He is widely respected as one of the preeminent authorities on "rational speculation," especially in the high-potential natural resource sector.

His book Crisis Investing spent multiple weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and became the best-selling financial book of 1980 with 438,640 copies sold, surpassing titles such as Free to Choose by Milton Friedman, The Real War by Richard Nixon, and Cosmos by Carl Sagan. His follow-up, Strategic Investing, set a record by receiving the largest advance ever paid for a financial book at the time, and The International Man was the best-selling book in the history of Rhodesia. His more recent releases, Totally Incorrect (2012) and Right on the Money (2013), continue the tradition of challenging statism and advocating liberty and free markets.

Casey has been a featured guest on hundreds of radio and TV shows, including David Letterman, Merv Griffin, Charlie Rose, Phil Donahue, Regis Philbin, Maury Povich, NBC News, and CNN; has been the subject of features in periodicals such as Time, Forbes, People, and the Washington Post; and is a regular keynote speaker at FreedomFest, the world's largest gathering of free minds. He has lived in 10 countries and visited over 175. Today he is most likely to be found at La Estancia de Cafayate (Casey's Gulch), an oasis tucked away in the high red mountains outside Salta, Argentina—a setting that most resembles the isolating beauty of Bryce Canyon, Utah, combined with the lush vineyards of Napa Valley.