It does to me (cereals) and I've tried every one of them. I should clarify though, it's not the generic store brand, rather a large grocery chain that sells their own in-house label, so it's not necessarily generic, but even cheaper cost-wise that supermarket generic items.
The other day 2L coke was $1.89, now is a $1.89 a lot of money for a 2L bottle of coke??? IT may not be, but when you look of how much a bottle of soda has risen in the last few years its quite amazing. Tide Detergent $15.99 Bounty Paper Towels the largest they make $16.00++++ 1 LB of butter over $5.00 and these prices are only going higher, as long as they keep propping the markets up, as long as they keep QE in place and keep easy money policies in place price of goods will continue to rise!!!!
I did do a taste test not too long ago, I bought the store brand oats which are like Cheerios, they looked different and had a different taste, could I eat them? sure..... but for some reason when it comes to certain generic products cereal is just not one of things I choose. I would rather go General mills or kellogs, I usually wait for the sale and stock up on a few boxes of each.
IF QE3 does make it to the markets and rates stat at 0% for another 12-18 months it is going to get a lot more serious, this is just the beginning Bubble ben bernake has backed himself into a corner, what ever he does will cause stress on the system no matter which way he goes. All he had to do was let the markets handle it but instead they had to intervene as they always do which always leads to future economic problems.