The temperature outside cooled down after I created a fire inside. The fire cooled down the outside. Oh wait, maybe it actually cooled down because it was night time?
Inflation is the growth of the money supply outpacing the increase of goods and services. The government is the primary culprit in causing an over-production of money, as they create it out of thin air. "Profits" won't drive inflation, since no money is created. Economic bubbles contribution to inflation, and excess borrowing, which is why the Fed raises the interest rate to decrease inflation, which is exactly what they did. It wasn't "the inflation reduction act".
The fed is starting to believe that their manipulation of interest rates to cool inflation doesn’t have the impact it used to. Most likely because of the price gouging that is done to consumers. Shareholders are a great deal of why companies keep prices so high. It’s now considered a failure if record profits aren’t made each quarter. Trying to relive the glory of corporate profiteering which was done during the pandemic.
Politicians allow all of this through over/under regulation and legislation, and have a very real financial stake in the continuation of it. So to pretend it has little to do with policy is just ignoring basic facts. Corporations aren’t just allowed to do whatever they want without the green light from legislators. Corporations and government are intertwined in the same, amalgamous, multi-tentacled parasitic blob. They have basically fully merged at this point.
"Price gouging" is used as an excuse by politicians to offshore the blame, then they claim they can come in and "rescue" the population from a problem they've caused. Not that price gouging doesn't occur, but it doesn't with goods for which there is healthy competition.
Another thing with food prices: much of the wheat and fertilizer in the world comes from Ukraine. So the war has caused the cost of fertilizer and wheat to go up, not to mention the cost of fuel. Then you have regulations being passed that are further putting the squeeze on farmers. Chicken's being slaughtered en masse because of the bird flu. There are reasons prices go up aside from "greed".
The math between record profits and high inflation doesn’t add up. When in American history have corporations raked in record profits (countless companies) but yet inflation rises to such a high level? This isn’t rocket science.
That's why they said most of it was from greed. They use those other reasons as excuses to raise prices and keep them high. Sure, some upward pressure has been applied. But not enough to explain thw skyrocketing prices. There have been several links posted on this forum to studies that have found this is the case.
This is getting better and better. The Biden Administration rolled out its plan to further cut prescription drug prices with a presser just now, which will continue to wrap up the older American vote. Tomorrow, Harris is proposing a federal ban on price gouging. If successful, that should bring down grocery prices a bit. Bringing out all this stuff right before the election while Trump is reeling and they are in the position to do it. All Trump can do is talk and he can't even stay on topic. Beautiful to watch.
And - Inflation continues to drop as the economy has stayed strong. Interest rate cuts to begin in September.
