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
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.
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.
Here’s the report.
https://www.ftc.gov/reports/feeding-america-time-crisis-ftc-staff-report-united-states-grocery-supply-chain-covid-19-pandemic
And here’s the why …
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.