One big, largely ignored source of inflation: Corporate greed. Mega-corporations are raising prices even as they rake in record profits…so why isn’t the media talking about this?…(read more)
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Inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over time. It can have detrimental effects on consumers, businesses, and the overall economy. While there are several factors driving inflation, one significant contributor often overlooked is corporate greed.
Corporate greed refers to the relentless pursuit of profit and self-interest by businesses, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and the broader society. When companies prioritize profit maximization over all else, it can lead to inflationary pressures in the economy.
One way corporate greed drives inflation is through excessive pricing. When companies are solely driven by a desire to increase profits, they may exploit their market power to charge higher prices for their goods or services. This can be seen in sectors with limited competition, such as essential goods and services or industries with high barriers to entry. Higher prices for these goods and services directly contribute to inflation by increasing the overall price level in the economy.
Additionally, corporate greed can result in wage stagnation or suppression. When businesses focus on squeezing as much profit as possible, they may resist providing fair wages to their employees. This can create a situation where workers struggle to keep up with the rising cost of living. As workers’ purchasing power declines, they have less disposable income to spend, putting pressure on businesses to raise prices to maintain profitability. This wage-price spiral feeds into inflation, as businesses pass on their increased costs to consumers.
Furthermore, corporate greed can lead to unethical business practices, such as price fixing or collusion between companies. These anti-competitive practices restrict market competition, allowing companies to set prices at artificially high levels. When businesses conspire to manipulate prices, it undermines the forces of supply and demand, distorting market equilibrium and leading to inflation.
Another way corporate greed contributes to inflation is through financial manipulation. Large corporations have the power to influence the financial markets, enabling them to engage in speculative activities or manipulate commodity prices. For instance, some companies may exploit commodity markets, such as oil or agricultural products, through speculative trading or hoarding. These actions artificially inflate prices, contributing to higher inflation rates.
Furthermore, corporate greed often leads to environmental exploitation and unsustainable practices. Businesses driven purely by profit may disregard environmental regulations and exploit natural resources without considering long-term consequences. Over time, this leads to depletion of resources, environmental degradation, and increased costs for society due to the need for environmental remediation. These costs are often passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services, further exacerbating inflationary pressures.
It is important to recognize the role of corporate greed in driving inflation. Policymakers should implement regulatory measures to curb excessive pricing, promote fair wages, ensure market competition, and prevent financial manipulation. Additionally, consumers can support businesses that prioritize ethical practices and sustainability. By addressing corporate greed and promoting responsible business behavior, we can mitigate the inflationary effects and foster a more equitable and stable economy.
HEAR HEAR
Deflection. Hack…
Exactly!
Corporation control everything, food, clothing, gas, housing, banking, phone, cable, insurance, car sales, ect.
Paying zero taxes
The weathly getting richer the poor getting poorer, the middle truggling not to disapear.
Workers wages crap
Its time for American unions
Record profits corporate greed (monopolies) PAYING ZERO TAXES
While workers cant survive
You dont hear the Washington swamp talk about this.
ITS TIME FOR WORKERS UNIONS IN AMERICA
what can we do about it as an American?
Sir, thank you for explaining this so clearly. There are few people on earth who understand the economy better than you.
Time for these companies to be broken up. Or get some serious windfall taxes.
How did Pepsi get away with increasing prices without loosing customers?
It's not because they only have 1 competitor, there are many beverage options. The reason is the market is willing to bear this price increase, Roberts argument might be valid if everyone was FORCED to drink Pepsi, but no one is forced to drink Pepsi, therefore people choose to pay more. If customers did not want to pay the price Pepsi would lose sales and would look to lower prices and cut production costs. The avg cost of gas in the US from Nov20 to Apr21 went from $2.2 to $2.9, an increase of over 35%!
The act of raising prices is in no way inflation. Inflation is money. If they need to raise prices for legit reasons it could be because of inflation that costs have went up. The money supply is through the roof. Coca-Cola and pepsi don't print money the Fed does. The us has like 120% debt to income ratio right now. If debt is cheap then corporations are going to make nor money. Some people say real inflation was 17% in 2021. Awful peculiar coke made 16% more ain't it?
They could still be working behind the curtains to create more debt/cheap money because when money comes easy people spend it therefore their profits go up in the value of the dollar goes down. When the value of the dollar goes up they have more valuable dollars and the people who spent there's do not. That therefore, consolidates more of the wealth.
Ok look stupid. Because Biden stopped the keyston pipeline . The price of gas went up $2 to 3 dollars a gallon so the price of everything went up. Companies will still make their profits because the people pay the cost. No company will lose money, they just raise their prices.
This all has to do with one person,
JOE BIDEN. How did that happen? The democrat voters.
Republicans didn't vote for him.
Why did it take 13 days for him to go to Maui. He don't care about the people of Hawaii. But ready to sand money to Ukraine, or illegals. Still has done nothing for the black community. Wake up democrats. People like this guy and the msm are manipulating you quit being a puppet and educate yourself
This country is run by big business and the main reason is that Republicans have eliminated many regulations that consumers to protect them from price gauging. Vote them out!
You have to look at the brands that these conglomerates own. PepsiCo owns frito lay, and 22 other brands.. coke is owned by swire.. it’s absolutely corporate concentration. I worked for DPSG for 20 years, bought out by Keurig who is another conglomerate.. Panera bread and etc. now called keurig Dr Pepper. They annihilated our benefits at the first opportunity and of course cut pay. Don’t like it, don’t work here. Layed off our HR department, moved dispatch to California, Raise prices, cut pay, and train you to forget customer service. If where you work is a good place to work, don’t count on it staying that way unless we can find a way to stop this. Kroger buying out Albertsons is going to be a nightmare and as long as they are allowed to buy politicians it will only get worse
Called monopoly
Companies are incentivized to raise prices to keep their margins because of the never ending printing of money which is the main cause for inflation. Corporate greed is a result of markets adapting to the states stealing purchasing power from every dollar user through Central bank policies
Inflation is the devaluation of currency — which can only be performed by government. Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc etc. Robert is too smart to not know this.
Everyone is paying for these through feeders to get powerful and rich. Stand up people and stop this corporate greed. Don't be weak and cowardly.
Yes, so much for the lauded free market. When a senatorial committee questioned JD Rockefeller about his Standard Oil monopoly he took umbrage and preferred to call it entrepreneurship. But it is better termed as transactional financial rape. The solution is already in place but the will is lacking. As Steven Still said, "We are not helpless we are men."
Corporate Concentration begins when inflation takes hold and inflation takes hold when a worthless president is in power (aka Biden).
Don't feed into his bull propaganda. Inflation is caused by higher taxes, printing money and regulations. Corporations are there to make money and will pass along the cost of doing business caused by the incompetent government. We didn't have this problem when Trump was president. Even if your a dumb as* you should be able to understand this.
Liberal propaganda
Corporate giant's have been running this country for a while and we didn't see record high inflation. Joe Bidens policies and reckless spending caused all this inflation. Stop lying to cover your guy Joe's horrible decisions.
During the start of the pandemic, this was all people would talk about!! If the thieving corporation's, can get us use to this; well, you don't hear about it very much any longer!! Their theories are also, whatever the market will bear!! It's called American Greed!!
Or it could be the over spending of the government.
https://youtu.be/B_nGEj8wIP0
Im sure that the printing of 80% of all US Dollars in existence in the last 3-4 years coupled with a completely foreseeably disastrous and utterly unjustified global economic shutdown has nothing to do with the current out of control inflation rates. But rather those “evil” and “greedy” corporations raising prices due to the massive dollar devaluation, nominal demand in a market place of policy induced supply shortages caused by the aforementioned are the “real”cause of our inflation woes.
Regulat inflation . Easy fix. Capitalism is a joke.
There is no reason to raise prices . It's all Bull SH**t
I don't think it's fair to say no one is talking about it. I think it's better to say it's better to say inflation is being used as a red herring to say inflation is from consumerism instead of greed. Also, the mainstream media is sorely letting the public down by not calling it out. It shouldn't fall on Robert Reich and Jon Stewart
Please explain how Covid lockdown gave cover for this spiral to get started.
What Robert doesn't understand is, when fuel becomes more expensive, the transportation costs go up. That cost is passed on to consumers. When the government raises taxes on corporations, that cost is passed on to consumers! Of course, Robert won't tell you this because he's a communist and his friends in the Democrat party are responsible. The biggest reason for inflation is when you print too much money and the Government increases its debt, you can thank Joe Biden and his friends in the Democrat party for that. The thing that bothers me the most about Robert Reich is his dishonesty, gross hypocrisy, and his double standards! You're a disgrace Robert Reich, why don't you move to China?
Do not have children people! Drive that population down. Create shortages in labor. They are doing this to themselves
You are confusing cause and effect. The high profits are an effect of inflation, not the cause. The power of Pepsi and Coke hasn't changed in decades. And yet we have had miraculously low inflation for decades. What stopped that was the pandemic which caused lots of issues that are obvious causes of inflation. Why are you trying to mislead people?
We need a revolution
Couldn’t agree more.
And those corporations largely buy support of Democrats. GTFOH
Inflation and corporate concentration are two different problems.
Inflation may have a cause deeper than corporation raising prices. We need to look at the corporate debth and how the printed money ended up buying that debth during the pandemia.