It’s so hard to get people (MAGAs especially) to understand that this is being done to us. It’s not Biden’s policies but corporate greed, you can’t have record profits and blame inflation for rising prices and stagnant wages.
Sorry, but it is mainly Biden’s policies. The administration has largely ignored white collar crime, especially when it comes to things like price collusion, antitrust, etc.
Case in point: the DOJ lawsuit against RealPage software (which landlords were using to collude on apartment prices). The company was engaged in extremely serious criminal activity, but the DOJ did not file any criminal charges.
We’ve had six straight administrations of almost total non-enforcement of antitrust. I’m happy with Biden bringing lots civil cases when no one else has done anything about the problem, especially because civil cases are much easier to win. The goal should be to fix the problem more than punish people for what past administrations effectively legalized.
In support of OP, just copying and pasting a comment I made a few days ago for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t think this is real or widespread.
The gig has been up about their “supply chain costs” excuse they started pulling during the pandemic for quite some time now.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan is pushing for an inquiry into the ongoing surge in grocery prices that started during the Covid-19 pandemic and that remains a hot topic in this year’s presidential election.
On Thursday, during a virtual public meeting hosted by the FTC and the Department of Justice, Khan said the probe would “shed light” on why prices and profits at grocery chains “remain so high even as costs appear to have come down.”
“We want to make sure that major businesses are not exploiting their power to inflate prices for American families at the grocery store,” she said.
Puh. They absolutely ARE and HAVE BEEN exploiting their power to inflate prices.
Between grocery prices, fast food shenanigans, and shrinkflation, anyone with little enough disposable income to be at all conscious of prices has known for a long while that these companies have picked the pandemic as their excuse to pull in as much money hand over fist as they possibly can, all while fighting tooth and nail against wage increases to even approach the overall rate of inflation across the same period of time.
From the first link in that para:
TheStreet reported that Medium French Fries went from $1.79 in 2019 to $4.19 in 2024, a 134.1 percent increase. A McChicken went from $1.29 to $3.89, a 201.6 percent hike.
The price of the beloved Big Mac increased 87.7 percent, from $3.99 to $7.49. An order of 10 McNuggets rose by 68.8 percent, from $4.49 to $7.58. Of the five popular products examined, cheeseburgers saw the largest price increase—going from $1 to $3.15, a 215 percent spike.
These increases exceed the general average for inflation calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that prices went up by about 21.5 percent between the end of 2019 and March 2024.
From the second link in that para:
Few details were released about the change, but Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said the new menus will let the fast food chain test “more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.”
“We expect our digital menu boards will drive immediate benefits to order accuracy, improve crew experience and sales growth from upselling and consistent merchandising execution,” Tanner said on the call.
Surge pricing could be a “turning point” in the industry, according to Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of trade publication Restaurant Business. “If Wendy’s idea works, it could get others to do something similar, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see another chain or two test the idea themselves, given what Wendy’s is doing.”
Fuck you Wendy’s. You’ve been a favorite since I was 12, and I tried to ignore your decreasing quality in recent years. You are dead to me now. (Yes, I know they rolled the idea back after they heard what the announcement did to the pitchfork futures market.)
From the third link in that para:
Frito-Lay shrank bags of some of its Dorito’s from 9.75 ounces to 9.25 ounces. Bags in both of these sizes, as well as some 9.5-ounce bags, are currently for sale at Target for the same price. "We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips," a Frito-Lay spokesperson told Quartz.
Fuck you Frito-Lay, what kind of Orwellian doublethink is this?
It’s laughable when some people talk about inflation as it’s a physical law like gravity. No, it’s a decision of the capital owners to protect and grow their profits at the expense of the workers.
Yup, it’s just bullshit like trickle down economics.
The only people being affected by inflation are the people who can’t afford to save money. (Which one of the points of inflation is to prevent money hording)
The oligarchy hides most of their wealth in owning stuff and as such are unaffected.
Fucking raise the minimum wage. The problem is that prices are rising but wages are remaining stagnant.
Without a way too keep them from just raising costs to match, raising min wage has a limited effect. Taxes on profit are more effective. Reinvestment or raises should be deductable, tax the everliving fuck out of gross profit for the rest.
The area I lived in voted for a minimum wage increase several years ago. Tons of people were saying that it was a bad idea, because the businesses would just raise prices on everything.
Minimum wage increase passed. Prices didn’t change.
I think this is because minimum wage increases don’t happen in a vacuum. There are other things to consider. If your company raises prices, I’m going to go to a competitor who doesn’t. The idea that “they’ll just raise prices” assumes that all businesses will react to a minimum wage increase in the same way, and that’s not the case.
Perhaps I was being overly cynical but last years grocery hike was all of those businesses acting in concert. Which I’m sure is illegal for everyone but the rich…
Minimum wage should have been tied automatically to inflation rates. Even if it gets increased, 30 years from now we’ll be in the exact same boat.
Solid take.
Now, if they’d be honest about inflation rates…
Yeah, the actual calculation still needs to be done right, but having it as an ‘automated’ process will help reduce this sort of bullshit:
A lot of things don’t even go up at the inflation rate. Look at the car prices and housing.
Car prices: supply is constrained because of supply chain issues where often just a small handful of the myriad of chips in the car are unavailable.
Housing: supply is artificially constrained by various laws, often of the NIMBY type.
This meme is propaganda. The primary cause of inflation is out of control government spending. In the wise words of Milton Friedman, “Every budget is balanced… If you want to know the real government budget look at inflation.”
The primary cause of inflation is a massive increase in the money supply
