A WSJ article looked into the rise in food prices and said:
Many small manufacturers that have raised their prices have another explanation. They say they also are being squeezed by the distributors who act as gatekeepers to many supermarkets.
...
These days, the chief executive of Yellowbird Foods relies on national distributors to ship his product to stores, a process he said is riddled with obscure costs that make it hard to know what, if anything, he'll be paid.
...
Many smaller food makers complain they are being gouged, and that fees and other charges that stream in from distributors have forced them to raise their prices to stay in business.
So basically, every voice that said that greedflation was a conspiracy theory was wrong and Kamala was 100% right.
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I think "greedflation" is probably not a good explanation but there is documented evidence of rising concentration in certain industries and with it increased markups over the last few decades. There's no way that supermarkets are charging higher markups but it is plausible that distributors/wholesalers are.
A very common PE strategy these days are "rollups" where a PE fund will buy a bunch of independent operators and consolidate them into a single bigger business. They say it's about operational efficiency but it's not crazy to think they're also building and exercising market power.
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Anyways Kamala's proposed solution of price controls on products is stupid af. Retail margins are fricking awful and the only thing price controls will do is just have most places stop stocking a lot of affected products.
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Dairy in leafland is price controlled, and it still costs you 8$ a gallon, retailers only keep it because they're forced to and no one makes money on milk.
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Yeah I think retail price controls is an r-slured idea but more aggressive antitrust enforcement is a good idea.
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When you dump new money in the economy, things don't immediately inflate everywhere at the same time. It's called the Cantillon Effect; those closest to the source of new money experience inflation before those farther away from the source of new money.
The net result is that cheap money flows away from those close to the money printer and wealth flows toward them. Those who get new money first benefit at everyone else's expense.
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The distributors and wholesalers operate under tight margins, too.
This works in some markets. Food is not one of them.
Think about it this way: inflation is evidence that companies are charging more because they can or must.
But "it's macroeconomics" is a lot less satisfying than "some greedy dude," so I guess we're going with it.
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If a lot of people raise prices bc they can then there is tautologically inflation. Like I said I don't think rising markups are the main driver of inflation but it's a plausible mechanism at slower-than-business cycle frequencies.
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It's not tautological, it's cause and effect. Companies can't raise prices normally or they get priced out.
There are a ton of mechanisms that can raise prices. Greed is not plausibly one of them in the food sector.
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They can raise prices as they gain market power
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Everyone's prices are always as high as they can manage. Market realities force sellers to keep their prices in line with the value they individually provide, in competition with one another and always edging each other out. The only thing that can cause higher prices across the board is either less wealth for sale or more units of value measurement floating around.
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
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Markups are rising lol the world is not in perfect competition.
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How is this related to inflation? You read a comment from some rando and go on a rant about distributors magically and solely being the cause for higher prices. How dumb are you?
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If markups (prices) rise across the board then that is literally inflation lmao. Rising markups in aggregate tautologically cause inflation. I don't think that explains a quantitatively large share of inflation but it's a coherent mechanism.
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Yes, rising nominal prices are indicative of inflation. What causes that? It's not distributors, you r-slur. Where do you think money comes from? What controls the supply of money?
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lol saved
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demoKKKrats think this explanation makes sense.
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eh, more about opportunities to actualize the greed (i.e. conflating it with inflation in bad faith)
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OP BTFOd
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Dems are probably right about a lot of things but they give me the ick so no.
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both sides are right about some stuff, butt both are more wrong about stuff than theyre right
!slots1000
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Having more than 2 sides would probably help.
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Not really. Look at western Europe. It's r-slurred because voters are r-slurred, but it's not quite their fault since incentives nudge them toward that behavior.
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introducing: maga
pretty much cucked the republican party
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Here's 1000
to gamble again.
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!slots1000
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Can i have 1k dc please
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Aren't you a chinaman?
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"price gouging" is only a thing when there is a disaster or something and a merchant raises peices just to take advantage of people's desperation. If something wrong/illegal is happening in this case itd be called "price-fixing" i think, where the distributors or grocery chains all coordinated as a cartel to raise prices on everyone which might be a anti-trust violation or something, butt idk. Either way wrong nomenclature
!slots1000
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No. Price gouging means "you priced something too high too soon according to our arbitrary law." That's it.
"Price gouging" tells buyers and sellers that a certain place needs more of something, and the windfall profit incentives them to get that shit there as soon as possible. Eventually, the price comes back down as the supply meets the new shift in demand.
But if you ban that, you get a shortage and more chaos. Government always creates this shit, and r-slurs always blame markets for it instead of government. Butthead.
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From the comments:
Stephen D:
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well well well. I had to file a giant complaint against UNFI not even a week ago over their bullshit r-slurred drivers leaving juices outside of coolers. they were doing it at like 10 different stores. They are fricking horrible. The amount of lost product due to these guys is off the charts.
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who told these people about greed in the last couple years?! we've went so long without them knowing this was even an option!
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wait a second
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Let's speak the truth: people are protesting because Black people have been treated as less than human in America. Out country has never fully addressed the systemic racism that has plagued our country since its earliest days.
Snapshots:
https://archive.is/jidYa:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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1000% true and the only way to fix inflation is to cut every american another 2 or 3 stimmy checks
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Literally everything got more expensive. Supply lines for the product and packacking, gas for trucking, more COVID regulations in plants to comply with laws
Every step of the way everything was made more expensive but yes making cashews cost 80cents more was purely greed
Even the fed said it wasn't greed and they want nothing more than to blame others vs inflation
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