Life, 1924-05-08 · page 26 of 42
Life — May 8, 1924 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical economic commentary by Don Herold mocking American manufacturing inefficiency. The article breaks down the "waffle dollar" to show how costs consume profits: flour costs 67 cents, transportation 20 cents, labor 85 cents—leaving waffles' makers losing money on every sale. The joke is that this absurdly unprofitable industry somehow exists. The cartoon shows a pompous figure labeled "Life" presenting "facts" to an incredulous listener—the satire being that these "facts" are actually ridiculous. The point: American industries operate on razor-thin or negative margins through poor cost management, seasonal demand fluctuations, and inflated overhead. It's mocking both the waffle industry specifically *and* broader American business practices for their fundamental economic illogic. The accompanying piece "The Blessing of Newspapers" shifts tone entirely, becoming earnest gratitude for newspapers' practical utility in everyday life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
L-WFE. Alte are some Don't read ¢m Mo mel Inside facta about — f cart? have Ahése bi§ ndushics Ahe waffle sndustry always drev, Pp The Waffle Industry and the Waffle Dollar By Don Herold Transportation eats up another waffle industry is on twenty cents. Re forty-four cents. Gas, thirteen cents. Light, ten cents. ced upon you. Labor, eighty-five cents. Returned ustries about which go along were not for wrmatic In fa the public has many mis- — wafiles, thirty-nine cents. So you can about the waffle as it has about so many thir see how the waffle dotlar is dissipated To add to the difficulties of the waffle | it knows nothing. So the North Amer- manufacturers, the waffle market is dis- { ican W ste Associa fl employed me to attempt to replace these not buy waffles i t concept has agreeably seasor ne people will cold weather and may waft ! misconceptions with a lot of new mis- some will not sin hot conceptions a little tiny bit more favor- weather. This spreads the production able to the waffle industry of waffles over the entire year and In the first. plac w do you think makes it about even—which is the m affle dollar is divided uneconomic condition under which any ir rough guess would probably bx that the is ninety or ninety-five cents Well, you profit in every waffle dolla ea mile loss, not toufles Let us analyze the waffle dollar and see if we cannot prove the above asser tion by some hook or er Sixty-seven cents of every wafile sf dollar g the chief ingredient ¢ wafiles, which is billposters’ paste seventy-five cents of the ir Koes, This may seem high, but you can verify these by going up to any billposter ing him for seventy-five cents’ worth y of waffle pa 1 may think you getting “l deal for your me the time, but just wait until carried it home and reduced it to waffles. Then your h will begin to product can be fabricated, as every manufacturer knows. Se, when next you buy a wafile, do ybody 1p into that waffle to not think that you are doin, javer. Think of the pa that have been pu make it please your palate. And re member that the waffle casters are los ing exactly twelve cents out of every dollar that you spend with them, and that they would much prefer that you never bought another waffle as long as you lived. It is a question how long the waffle industry can last on such a small margin. The Blessing of Newspapers [ DON'T know what Pa do without newspapers I cover everything in the attic with them [lie on them when I tinker with my car. I< wrapping. paper. I start fires with them in the y I put them on the chairs that I have to stand on. I save the floors with them. I have use for them a hundred times sionally have to use them for a day I keep them for the Salvation Army I them I guess that's all Thank God fo: dvertise ir the printed we Edmund J. Kiefer. go out to the wafile industry “THAT BIG ONE’S THE ONE YOU HAD A-HOLD OF TWICE AND CAME BACK TO GET comicbooks.com