No way!
Pikachu, I choose you … to get here and make that face.
This is just capitalism working as intended. The fact that these price increases are being sold as some kind of abnormality is some real neolib brain in action. It isn’t “greedflation,” it’s literally the same capitalism we’ve lived with for centuries.
And then go one step further and realize it’s always been shit. The only time the world has been great has been when kings and capitalism are on a VERY short leash.
It isn’t “greedflation,” it’s literally the same capitalism we’ve lived with for centuries.
You’re both absolutely right and very wrong: it by definition IS greedflation, inflated prices due to greed.
While it is indeed caused by the same capitalist system we’ve lived with for centuries, it’s getting much worse than it has been now that the billionaires and their corporations have realized that there’s no consequences even when their profiteering is so blatant that even the likes of Forbes and WSJ are having to acknowledge what they’ve been able to distract from before.
There is no penalties for collision. Regulation should prevent but since politicians are owned and there’s zero effort at enforcment here we are.
There’s no such thing as greed in capitalism, though. Rather, greed is the understood foundation from which capitalism is based on. It only works when there is greed. Companies shouldn’t avoid raising their prices because they don’t want more money, they’re supposed to (in capitlism). The system only works when they raise their prices as much as the market will bear.
My grevience with the term “Greedflation” popping up so much recently is that it feels like a cop-out from the current administration to ease economic anxiety without replacing or criticizing the overall economic model. It paints price hikes as a one-time, circumstantial “quirk” of our times, instead of the logical realization of capitalism that it is.
Ive no idea why this is downvoted. This is not a bad take.
I would personally frame it as, greed is a feature of capitalism, not a bug, but ur not wrong either.
When you say “neolib” are you referring the Neoliberal economic philosophy, or some slang term for modern political liberals.
I ask because Neoliberal Economics is all about this profit, and share holders first, type values. This is in contrast to the post Great Depression, Classical Economics philosophy where companies valued employees first, and shareholders last.
I ask because Neoliberal Economics is all about this profit, and share holders first, type values.
Sounds exactly like modern political liberals to me.
Really?
Most Democrat Politicians today certainly are on board. But they were late to buy in. The Republicans actually introduced Neoliberal Economics into polotics, chiefly with Ronald Regan.
Today it’s mostly the liberal side of the Democratic Party that introduces legislation to curb all the excesses of Neoliberal Economics.
So are they going to have to pay it back or did the FTC make a report for nothing?
Obviously yes. Their production costs barely rose but their prices skyrocketed. Here’s a Forbes article from 2022 pointing out that it was increased profit margins causing most of the inflation:
yeah, its not like 90% of the chickens in the country died, so there was no reason for eggs to go from 2 bucks a dozen to 12 bucks a dozen but pure corporate exploitation and greed.
Fuck you talking about? They haven’t come down!
edit: actually I thought you were replying to the folks who were talking about inflation, but now I’m not sure what you’re replying to, so maybe disregard the rest of this comment
Inflation dropping just refers to the rate at which prices increase slowing down, not prices themselves going down. Unless regional and federal governments do something, lowered inflation only means relative stability at current price levels.
Did narcissistic sociopaths use a crisis to pursue personal gain?
Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
-Milton Friedman
You expect prices to decrease when demand increases? I would expect the FTC to have taken an economics 101 class.
I was hoping for a little better reporting in this story, like why does “the FTC report suggest the grocery companies were also price-gouging consumers”, but this turd is to be expected from a Gannett-owned organization.
Here’s the report.
And here’s the why …
Notably, consumers are still facing the negative impact of the pandemic’s price hikes, as the Commission’s report finds that some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today. Source
I appreciate the link to the report.
This just further enforces my belief that the FTC doesn’t know much about economics. When there’s a high demand and limited supply, prices increase. The increase in retail costs, inflation, is used to limit consumer demand. Of course their profits are going to increase; that’s how economics works. There’s nothing in this report that seems inappropriate.
I think they’d have better luck attacking the CEOs who are pocketing increasingly inflated salaries and bonuses.
This comment just enforces the belief that you don’t understand the economy. A temporary small bump in cost during covid due to supply chain issues would be a supply and demand issue but if you’ve noticed, the bump was not small and it has continued ever since.
You don’t get to make record profits and then blame prices on the pandemic. If it was solely due to natural inflation, profits would be similar to past years.
The prices inflated due to the supply shortage during Covid have returned to normal levels. The grocery items which are seeing inflated prices today are due to a number of reasons, mostly due to climate change and animal illness. Every company operates in a manner as to increase profits. The pandemic forced businesses to eliminate jobs while increasing efficiency. So, profits are naturally going to increase.
You must be living in a different planet… Prices have absolutely not gone back to normal
I think that the quote from the press release may be rather misleading. The report appears to be talking about pricing between retailers and their upstream suppliers. Apparently what happened is that there are various agreements between retailers and suppliers, and during the pandemic, some large retailers (think Walmart) placed the squeeze on suppliers who didn’t provide them with adequate supply. It isn’t complaining that Walmart wanted to raise prices for the consumer but somehow couldn’t until a shortage and then did so.
Shouldn’t we blame this on the food monopolies rather than grocery stores?
The grocery stores are mostly monopolies too. I am lucky enough to have a couple good small privately owned grocery stores near me. Their prices haven’t gone up nearly as much.
Retail chains actually have a lot of pull over the market, the individual food companies are more beholden to the grocery chains than you might think.
Plenty of blame to go around here.
They both posted record profits.
I’m sure this will result in swift, appropriate actions to hold them accountable. Just let me start holding my breath
Is it normal for you be turning purple when holding your breath?
It’s fair, though. They raised the salaries of the people who worked there.
Right?
They did at least where i worked but 3 years into covid and its was only a temporary bonus
The exhalation proves the roost. Or something like that
Why are people acting surprised? That is just the invisible hand of the market. Isn’t this the unfettered capitalism we asked for?
It’s the unfettered capitalism Reagan delivered to his cronies, which ofc trickled down to the whole fucking world.
You fucking bet and it sure as hell isn’t limited to grocery stores.
I think the FTC is the only one surprised about this. I bet they’re getting their most severe finger wagging ready to go.
Prices were always going to rise, COVID just gave them an excuse to accelerate it in a shorter amount of time. In Capitalism every company with stockholders has to show ever-increasing profits, because it’s never enough. Even if you knock it out of the park one year, you’re expected to knock it out of the park even further the next year. And so they keep charging as much as they think they can get away with, and it’s really not sustainable. We’re approaching the limits of it now as everyone is taking so much that the average citizen doesn’t have much more to give.
