Kamala Harris made clear she agrees with those economists who have found that some corporations, rather than merely raising prices in response to a spike in demand relative to existing supply, have taken advantage of market conditions to pad their profits with higher prices. There are likewise a number of Republican lawmakers who have advocated for federal intervention to stop price gouging ...
In an apparent reference to Harris' admittedly vague plan to forbid "price gouging" on food, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls," one of several policies he claimed would make inflation "100 times WORSE."Donald Trump - "I'm entitled to personally attack Kamala Harris" - is the gift that keeps on giving. He's fully ignorant that 34 states already have anti-price gouging laws on their books, including those "communist" havens of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Ohio. In fact, 42 states have emergency regulations or anti-price gouging laws to protect American consumers in times of federally declared emergencies from unduly raising their prices beyond certain points. en.wikipedia.org
The Republican National Committee joined in, sharing the New York Post's Saturday headline "Kamunism" on X with the caption, "Comrade Kamala."
Harris singled out two industries, beef and pharmaceuticals, that have attracted scrutiny from plenty of Republicans.
In December, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced legislation restricting how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), a middleman industry that negotiates prescription drug prices for insurance plans, can operate.
Grassley is a longtime critic of PBMs' and pharmaceutical companies' pricing practices, going so far as to accuse some companies of price gouging. "As a leading advocate for lowering drug prices in the U.S. Senate, I've hauled Big Pharma and pharmacy benefit manager executives before Congress, led a two-year bipartisan investigation into insulin price-gouging, and advanced bipartisan reforms to lower the cost of insulin and many other prescription drugs," Grassley wrote in an October 2022 op-ed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
He sounds a whole lot like Harris, who said on Friday, "I'll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone with your support, not only our seniors and demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine."
There are likewise a number of Republican lawmakers who have advocated for federal intervention to stop price gouging in the beef industry. Grassley joined Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in February 2023 to reintroduce the Meat Packing Special Investigator Act, which would create a new special investigator in the Department of Agriculture to crack down on meatpacking giants' anticompetitive practices.
The trio argued that concentration in the meatpacking industry, which is now dominated by just four companies, has enabled corporations to at once squeeze independent cattle ranchers with lower purchase prices, and then charge consumers higher and higher prices in supermarkets.
Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, wrote to the Federal Trade Commission in September to encourage strict scrutiny of a potential merger between the supermarket conglomerates Kroger and Albertsons.
"The track record of grocery consolidation in our state does not bode well for Alaskans' food security, affordability, and our dedicated workforce," the pair wrote.
So just who is the anti-American here, the one asking for a more robust federal protections, or the person claiming that standing up for consumers during times of emergency is somehow a road too far towards collectivism?
@#6 ... "Americans spent 25% more on food at the start of 2024 compared to 2020. During that time, the country's ten largest grocery and restaurant brands saw their profits skyrocket. Then they took their fattened profits and collectively spent $77 billion on stock buybacks and dividends to enrich executives and wealthy shareholders. ...
Got a link?
That quote is not in the cited article.
Here's what I found...
x.com
OK, I found this...
Food Retailers Are Still Lying About Inflation and Profits
jacobin.com
... American consumers are paying more and more at both grocery stores and fast-food chains. These retailers are disingenuously blaming the price hikes on inflation while they put their massive profits toward stock buybacks and fat dividends. ...
Yeah, OK.
But I want details....
There's this...
Exclusive: Democrats Urge Biden to Investigate Grocery Store Price-Fixing (May 2024)
time.com
... The letter, shared exclusively with TIME, comes after a report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that major grocery chains seemed to take advantage of supply chain disruptions during the pandemic to hike up prices to increase their profits ...
And this...
FTC Releases Report on Grocery Supply Chain Disruptions (March 2024)
www.ftc.gov
... Pandemic-induced disruptions disproportionally impacted smaller firms, as larger companies sought to protect market share, power ...
The Federal Trade Commission today issued a report on the causes behind grocery supply chain disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report revealed that large market participants accelerated and distorted the negative effects associated with supply chain disruptions.
The FTC's report also examined how supply chain disruptions affected competition among retailers, wholesalers, and producers, as well as the impacts on consumers and businesses. The report found that consumers felt the negative effects of supply chain disruptions in the form of sky rocketing prices for groceries and product shortages for essentials, like toilet paper. ...
Details,
*From April to September 2023, corporate profits drove 53% of inflation. Comparatively, over the 40 years prior to the pandemic, profits drove just 11% of price growth.with receipts.
*While prices for consumers have risen by 3.4% over the past year, input costs for producers have risen by just 1%. For many commodities and services, producers' prices have actually decreased. Corporations have failed to pass these savings to consumers.
*Corporate profits as a share of national income have skyrocketed by 29% since the start of the pandemic. While our economy has returned to or surpassed its pre-pandemic levels on many indicators, workers' share of corporate income has still not recovered.
Groundwork was one of the first to expose the link between corporate price gouging and inflation. Starting in the summer of 2021, Groundwork began digging through recent corporate earnings call transcripts across multiple industries experiencing record-high prices. This research revealed CEOs openly bragging to their shareholders about their ability to raise prices beyond their rising costs to increase profits. To justify these moves, CEOs hid behind the cover of supply chain issues and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic.
Over two years later, corporations continue to be explicit about how they have and will continue to do so even as inflation comes down and supply chains normalize. The report highlights recent quotes from companies, including Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, General Mills, and PepsiCo.
Read the full report here.
@#16
A link to the article that the PDF of #16 seems to reference...
Inflation Revelation: How Outsized Corporate Profits Drive Rising Costs (January 2024)
groundworkcollaborative.org
... Overview
Inflation has come down significantly from its peak over the past year, yet prices remain high for American consumers. As supply chain snarls have receded and the economy has stabilized, businesses continue to pad their bottom lines, rather than passing these savings on to consumers. ...
"A new report claims "resounding evidence" shows that high corporate profits are a main driver of ongoing inflation, and companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop."
www.theguardian.com
"As Hostess's C.E.O. told shareholders last quarter, "When all prices go up, it helps." The head of research for the bank Barclay's echoed this. "The longer inflation lasts and the more widespread it is, the more air cover it gives companies to raise prices," he told Bloomberg. More than half of retailers admitted as much when surveyed."
www.nytimes.com
OK, when I visit the About page of GroundWork, I am greeted with...
groundworkcollaborative.org
... Who We Are
Groundwork's analytical and strategic approach allows us to drive narrative and policy change with credibility, expertise, and impact.
Watch this video to learn more about Groundwork. ...
So I have to suffer through a 3-minute video to learn something that I could read in a few seconds were it in text?
What are they trying to hide?
So I continue to ask, who is (are) this GroundWork? And what is the basis of their assertions?
The "basis" of their assertions are contained in every single linked document with the exact information being reported by them.
Go to this link: endcorporateprofiteering.org and read all the corporate reports (call and earnings) where they openly state in clear language how their revenues have been enhanced by raising prices higher than absorbing increases in production costs because of the pandemic.
@#25 ... The "basis" of their assertions are contained in every single linked document with the exact information being reported by them. ...
Thank-you for that.
But I will still say that GroundWork needs to do better than hiding behind a video on their About page.
Yeah, OK, I will readily admit, I'm an old fart, but, still.
An About page should be one that gushes about what the website is "about," without making the page visitor sitting thorough a long rambling video.
imo, GroundWork failed in that basic area.
For example...
About ExtremeTech
www.extremetech.com
...
ExtremeTech is the world's top destination for news and analysis of emerging science and technology trends, software, hardware, and gadgets. We're a thriving community of users and experts seeking to answer the most pressing questions. We dig deep into the subterranean depths of technological knowledge, looking for the most vital, behind-the-scenes information that motivates enthusiasts. If you need to know how the chips hum, the galaxies swirl, and the robots move, you're in the right place.
How do we know? Because we're enthusiasts ourselves. We're a one-stop shop for serious technological needs. Our writers search for the real story behind what's out there today and what will be tomorrow. We not only look at products and technological developments but also explore the concepts that drive them.
You, our dynamic community, fill in all the gaps by chatting about anything and everything.
See our editorial masthead to learn more about the writers and how to contact us.
Be sure to read our editorial guidelines. ...
Yeah, that's what I want to see when I visit an About page, not some deflection to a boring video.
*Corporate profiteering
Groundwork offers research on "corporate profiteering" which the organization claims is a contributor to inflation sometimes called "greedflation". The organization maintains a database that tracks corporate earnings calls which news reports say "has described the CEOs as not just price gouging, but also 'bragging' about their ability to raise prices faster than costs."[18][19] The organization has referenced companies including Chevron, H.B. Fuller, 3M and Colgate-Palmolive in the media, alleging its CEOs are "using the cover of inflation to jack up prices on consumers."[20] In November 2022, Groundwork and the progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen released a report that found that large corporations opposed to anti-price gouging legislation spent $751 million on federal lobbying since 2020, nine times more than what was spent by supporters of the legislation.[21]
The organization released a report in January 2024 arguing that it had "resounding evidence" that high corporate profits were responsible for 53% of inflation in the United States during the second and third quarters of 2023.[25] Economist Isabella Weber called this phenomenon where firms do not lower prices for consumers after input prices fall a form of implicit collusion, allowing companies to reap windfall profits.[25] This followed a similar December 2023 paper published by the UK-based Institute for Public Policy Research and Common Wealth think tanks that stated that corporate profiteering played an important role in the inflation spike of 2022. Corporate profits surged while wages failed to keep pace with rising prices, resulting in the working class suffering the largest decline in disposable and discretionary income since World War II.[26]
The organization also reported in February 2024, that 30% of the rise in grocery prices in particularly vulnerable sectors like beef, chicken, fruits, vegetables and snacks and urged the Biden administration to finalize rules to address the concentration in the meatpacking industry.[27]
en.wikipedia.org(GWC)%20is%20an,for%20all%20of%20us.%22%20The
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