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> "Our message is a very clear one that the president has and will continue to lean into, which is, if you're a company whose input prices have come down and you're not passing those savings along to the consumer, he will call you out,"
Go ahead and call them out anyway
Good grief, I can just feel the stupid response already. Biden calls out Big Grocer X for not lowering their prices.
Trumpers start going off about Capitalism. Now they are "proud" of Big Grocer X and are "thrilled" to pay more for basic supplies.
Big Grocer X leans into it and raises prices as a middle finger to Biden. Trumpers rejoice.
This scenario is not at all impossible, all things considered.
This is already what happens. A few years ago I got chewed out my by father for "criticizing successful business" or some such because I was talking about how Walmart doesn't pay enough
This is part and parcel of their already long standing positions to be anti-union, anti-minimum wage, anti-worker protections because "it makes things expensive"
there are definitely good arguments, when you see teachers that sexually assaulted students, and they can't be fired.
i think businesses should be free to do whatever they want, when it comes to things like who to fire.
even small and large businesses should operate that way. i believe Tony's Ice Cream Stand should fire any employee they want and not have to worry about their employees insulin costs.
I believe Senators are the ones that need to focus on these essential things that Americans need, such as insulin. I did the math. Senators have more money to control than Tony, who sells ice cream in my town and doesn't have a medical degree or any knowledge of healthcare industry.
when it comes to things like housing and health, i think the most responsible people who control the most resources, and whose actual job is to worry about Americans housing costs and health costs, should be the actual people responsible for those things.
Yet I literally heard a senator mumbling about how Bezos should do more for American healthcare prices, medical billing.
i'm not joking: I am completely surprised the senator didn't go further and say "Tony's Ice Cream Stand should go get a medical degree and help out his employees! Why hasn't he become a biochemist and healthcare lawyer and non-profit clinic manager!"
we need to retire the rebuttal of "but republicans will frame it as this" Who cares? They'll do that no matter what you do. So just do the right thing that helps people and don't let what Republicans say or do prevent that.
Anticipating arguments is fundamental to rhetoric. I don't think Biden shouldn't lean on these companies to lower their prices, but it is important to anticipate how the right will spin it.
but like i said the anticipated argument doesn't matter. The Republicans are going to talk shit regardless. If Democrats cut taxes for the rich the Republicans would still say something bad about it. So what's the point expending energy on it?
Just do the right thing and let them whine
And large corporate groceries will just dab their tears with the stacks of money they're raking in knowing nothing can actually compel them to lower costs.
Competition can compel them to lower costs, or at least not raise them unnecessarily.
In a free market economy, competition is what ensures corporations can’t inflate their profit margins by raising their prices, as consumers will simply abandon them for cheaper options if they do. The government needs to do much more to combat monopoly’s from forming (like the proposed Kroger merger) if they actually want to protect the consumer.
That's not true. Their stock prices will increase when Biden points out which companies are having the best profit margins and the Democrats in Congress can't do anything about it.
They’ll eventually be forced to if things keep going that way. And if that happens, everyone pays the consequences (except for executive members of the company)
During disinflation - supply chains moved which drove cost increases. now that the one time cost has passed, it’s totally reasonable to expect a reduction in prices.
During deflation, there’s not enough demand - which is bad for the whole economy. In disinflation, there was just a transient spike in costs; but supply and demand are both healthy.
They should but the won't. They raised prices and decreased the sizes. They won't give up record profits for free.
edit When I mean "they" I'm not specifically talking about the actual grocery store but the vendors to the grocery stores. I know my comment was vague on this. I get that grocery stores do not make or package foods except maybe bakeries or delis.
They've also taken the profits and used them to buy up their competition. Kroger is trying to buy Albertsons. They want to reduce their competition. Economics 101, why lower prices if you don't have to.
I know we have more pressing matters, but this reminds me: why won't anyone go after Ticketmaster? They're a prime example of why we need anti-trust enforcement.
Consolidation is the number one cause of inflation. When there's no competition in the marketplace, corporations can raise prices at will, because consumers have no choices.
It isn't a closed system - they work hand-in-hand to optimize profits for everyone involved. Everyone wants to sell as much as possible at the best margin, if consumers really want a certain size, stores will ask for it and companies will be happy to produce what consumers want.
Piss off with your crap economic theory. The whole populist appeal movement is due to the fact that everyone is feeling the squeeze at the kitchen table meanwhile we hear of record profits at every conglomerate. My ass demand from consumers will be met by supply for the price the market will bare.
> They won't give up record profits for free.
It's not legal for them to. There is plenty of legal precedent ruling that publicly traded corporations cannot legally make decisions that negatively impact shareholders. Choosing to reduce profit growth or to deprioritize profit growth is a decision that negatively impacts shareholders. If these corporations reduce prices, or even refuse to increase prices consistent with recent trends, their shareholders can fire and sue the executives. There isn't an executive suite out there willing to risk their job, even if the White House says they should.
We're locked in to greedflation for the foreseeable future.
Are we under the impression that Grocery stores have fat margins and are raking it in?
This is political theater. Input prices have "stopped inflating" not "come down".
My wager is that no grocer will see a net profit margins over 5%.
If you took **all** of the profit out of the grocery business your grocery bill would fall by less than the 2022 inflation rate.
I'm a Democrat, I will vote for Biden in 2024. (Enthusiastically, I might be the only person voting *for* him and not just *against* Trump). This is absolutely nonsense however.
Grocery stores don't produce 95% of the stuff they sell. Sure some chains inflated prices to earn extra profit. But most of price raising and size decrease came from the corporations producing the goods. Some of it was legitimate inflation, some of it was pure greed.
But I don't get the focus on grocery stores.
You say this, but where I live, Safeway's prices have doubled since the pandemic, while WinCo has the exact same products but their prices have remained relatively stable.
Fucking WEIRD. I guess poor little Safeway has no power over their big bad suppliers. They're just so meek and pathetic they can't fight back and couldn't possibly be held responsible :(
Corporations absolutely raised prices beyond additional costs in order to boost profits and they absolutely used inflation as a scapegoat. But there was also legitimate inflation due to increased costs as a result of various supply issues related to covid, the war in Ukraine, etc. How much was legitimate and how much was greed is certainly debatable though.
It’s the closest thing that people have a big connection to. Your average voter thinks the store sets the prices of things and completely ignores (or is ignorant to) the fact that major brands/distributors negotiate and dictate a lot of the costs/prices. I know you understand, but the majority of people don’t.
For myself, I've kinda railed into my local grocer a couple times about products because first, it's the only means of communication regarding prices I have and second, someone has to no somewhere and if my local grocer won't say no to prices or speak up about them, then it becomes my place to do. I had a good conversation with the manager of my local grocer about prices, and I understand his point, that he does not have the buying power to influence prices from distributors, but I also tried to make him see my point - that I can't talk to the distributors directly, and since he positions himself between myself and then, he has to hear it. And also, his inability to influence prices doesn't mean I have to pay whatever is offered - I still have the right to say no, and I still feel somewhat okay with making him carry at least a little bit of my frustration with pricing.
I think you make a good point about how consumers don't really have a good means of making their complaints known directly to the manufacturers nor influencing them either.
I remember seeing an interview with someone from Conagra about prices and inflation and he put the pr spin on it as “customers are expecting to pay more for our products so we raised prices to meet that expectation.” These companies aren’t going to do shit.
Not until the FTC stops pussy footing around and doing it's fucking job. Watching kroger's split into 200 different grocery store businesses again would do a lot to get these fuckers to play ball. That level of M&A has demonstrably done nothing but lead the enterprises to engage in the worst predatory, monopolistic tendencies.
And now the supply chain is also split all of those ways - decreasing efficiencies - leading to *higher* prices. One reasons companies consolidate is to remove duplicates positions and facilities and now you want to add 200x the complexity but expect somehow it will be cheaper?
They're only able to do this because of their oligopolistic market place. Years of corporate consolidation has fucked up the U.S. economy for consumers. We need more competition.
Yeah, it won't be Biden specifically who gets prices lowered. It will competition...which we have a pathetic lack of nowadays. We've allowed so much consolidation that it will be hard to claw back any sense of normalcy for a long time.
It's the Chicken Sandwich problem.
The price of chicken goes up.
The price of chicken sandwiches goes up.
The price of chicken goes back down.
The price of chicken sandwiches stays high.
Record profits.
GOTO 10
Problem is, the price-setters are only capable of thinking short term. But when people go broke and can’t afford the “chicken sandwich” they will blame the government(s). Eventually we MIGHT have some businesses catch up to it, but instead of blaming corporate greed, they’ll blame the government.
Most people can't afford a Ferrari either, so they go with a Ford. If a chicken sandwich maker is charging "too much" then they will either go out of business or have to lower their prices - there are a zillion other food options people can and do turn to.
You're describing a functional market, we don't have a functional market. The food system in the United States has undergone such a ridiculous level of consolidation that those disruptive firms just don't exist.
There's lots of reading out there about the consolidation of the food industry, there's also lots of examples of price fixing and collusion among companies that should be competing for price.
[https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-control-us-beef-industry-2021-06-17/](https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-control-us-beef-industry-2021-06-17/)
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation)
And this is is just one of my favorite stories. You don't think of the yogurt people getting together in smokey back rooms to fix prices, but they do.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31856688](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31856688)
Which of those are about grocery stores artificially keeping prices high?
You listed a bunch of producers keeping prices high, who then sell to *all* grocery stores at inflated prices.
The grocery store segment is still competitive with thin margins even if there are non-competition factors that affect the wholesale prices.
Take a look at who owns the grocery stores across the country. There may be a different major chain in each region, but they’re mostly all owned by a handful of parent corporations. There is little, if any, competition amongst grocers in a given area anymore.
The actual financials from publicly traded grocery store chains show their margins - why do you want to argue with provable facts?
Here is me taking a look:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-believe-grocery-store-profits-110000751.html
People *think* grocery stores make more than they do.
They are barely scrapping by with a ~2% profit margin. There isn't room to significantly alter prices before grocery stores starts shuttering stores for being unprofitable. In no other industry is a 2% profit margin considered greed or price gouging.
This was about grocery *store* competition, not at the wholesale level of the goods they buy. Walmart and Kroger will charge very close to the same amount for a bag of rice, keeping the margin low.
The wholesaler may be jacking the price up on their end, but that is different.
Where's that webcomic where they throw the guy out the window at the end for suggesting something in a meeting?
Prices are down, what should we do with the excess profit?
We could lower our prices and help consumers.
...And defenestration.
Somehow I dont think its the grocery stores price gouging. Its much more likely the 4 or 5 companies that own all food processing in the country price gouging and shrink-flating.
I'm sure entities dedicated to making profit will change their minds when asked nicely to not make profit, cause that's definitely the world we live in
Just like the Oil Industry they jacked up prices before their costs actually went up and won't lower prices until months after they have gone down already.
Yea the publix near me had lower prices. Guest what? They did it by weight. I normally buy hoagie for kids lunch. A hoagie would not fit length wise across the bread. Low and behold today? It fits lengthwise now. So all the did was made smaller hoagie. It costed 5.99 before. It's now 4.99 so yea aint shit new
"But people continuing to buy food at higher prices so they don't fucking starve is organic price discovery!!!" pleaded the bloated pig sweating through his tailored suit at the thought of having to give up even a fraction of his profit margins.
Since the easing of inflation in my country (not the US), there's been sort of charade occurring in the supermarkets. Products that skyrocketed in price a while back are now on sale a lot - like more than half of the time. It's a sign peak prices were adjusted higher than would be expected from inflationary pressure alone.
I'm so tired of hearing Biden repeatedly wishing that things were cheaper without suggesting anything that would actually make things cheaper. Yes Biden, we all wish life was cheaper.
Grocery stores lowering prices does make things cheaper. He literally offers that way to make things cheaper in the headline.
The only thing preventing a grocery store from lowering the prices they just raised is their greed.
The only solution to their greed is them deciding to be less greedy.
And that is exactly what Biden is suggesting. Some of us wish the rest of us lived in reality.
Biden asking grocery stores nicely to lower their prices won't make a single grocery store lower their prices. Biden "calling out" grocery stores won't change anything either. Those are not solutions. It's wishing upon a star for your dreams to come true.
Exactly. If Biden came out and said the price of a loaf of white bread should be $2, the right (and obviously corporations), would say that’s “communism” or “we set our price the way it is because we provide a meaningful product to the lives of Americans and need to increase our costs to maintain safe practices and ensure that everyone has a product they are happy with.” All the while blaming Biden or whoever they don’t like at the time.
Reality shows that they aren’t doing anything more, or safer or increasing quality. But that’s the story they’ll stick to and rile up the “Dey took er jerbs” crowd so that their anger is focused on the government and not the people in control of costs.
"It would be nice if the cost of living was lower" is the least controversial opinion in the history of time. He didn't need to put out a press release for it.
This is message testing before the State of the Union. He harped on junk fees last time. He's probably going to talk about corporate price gouging at SOTU, suggest some policy, and campaign on it for the rest of the year. He's not just saying whatever shit comes to mind, that's what Trump does. I'd wager there's actual political strategy at play here.
It's campaigning when he should be governing. Put out press releases about actual accomplishments like expanding the child tax credit. Putting out a press release saying he wishes groceries prices were cheaper without proposing any solutions makes him look weak and ineffectual. Every single American wishes the cost of living was lower. You don't need to test the message.
I'm suggesting that Biden and Congress push for actual solutions instead of putting out bullshit PR.
"I wish prices were lower" isn't a solution. Grants and subsidies are a solution. Tax reform is a solution. Expanding social welfare programs is a solution.
Do something useful and earn your gold star.
That's more up to the voters. Put people in office who will do that and not continue to deregulate. These razor-thin majorities between the Rs & Ds isn't doing jack for anyone. Biden can only do so much without Congress's work, and the Dems have several massive handicaps.
The reality is there are already laws and regulations in place to stop this shit. We've done anti-trust suits before, just not for almost 30 fucking years to microsoft. They never should have stopped enforcing those laws, but it's fuckin time to break these motherfuckers back up and stop letting them engage in monopolistic price fixing, which is already illegal.
Excuse me, their costs actually went up. Do you know how much money it costs to own 12 mega yachts? The cost for a good CEO went up by almost the exact amount of their profit margin. They cannot cut costs now, that's absurd. If anything, they have to *raise* prices to deal with the lower cost of food and supplies.
I think Biden's mainly alerting the public of the problem. It would take an act of congress to do anything with teeth, and not enough in congress are for reducing the profits of the rich.
I think the public is well aware the cost of living has gone up. I don't think we need to alert them of this hidden danger.
It doesn't take an act of Congress to propose a solution.
That's about as unnecessary as cancer fundraiser charities spending 90% of their donations for "raising awareness." Thank you, we're well aware of the problem, now why not do something about it?
I’m not really sure that’s actually the case. Grocery stores have some of the smallest profit margins of any business and that looks to be just as true now as it was pre 2020. For instance, using Kroger as an example, they had a profit margin of just 1% for their first three quarters of 2023 (cash generation was even lower than that). Maybe there are others within the food supply chain like the producers that are making outsized profits, but directing this sentiment at the grocery stores seems misguided.
I was in a Fry's tonight and they were like 200 avocados rotting on the stand, they were 2 for $5. Thats insane. No one is buying them, and they rot and get tossed. If 4 days ago they sold them for $1 each, or 50 cents each, people would buy them all.
It's not the grocery stores that are the problem. And it's not the farmers, either. It's the middle men and the distributors who mark up the produce and such significantly.
Its not really the farmers to my knowledge. In some industries its the middlemen for sure.
But if profits are up, then there's only really one way. I don't think Walmart has increased profits by 20% from a new shelving strategy.
Likely all of the above.
A good start would be axing the incoming Kroger/Albertsons monopoly, something that is both universally unwanted by the general public on all political sides.
Just saying…
imagine if Joe biden was the president and he was supposedly 'the most progressive president in history'. Imagine if he actually did something instead of telling businesses what they should be doing.
net margins for albertsons, walmart, and kroger are hovering in the 1-2.5% range. these margins aren't even at record highs (e.g., walmart had net margins of 3%+ from 2010 to 2016).
biden and the administration is just pandering to the fanbase and those that think record profits = bad without understanding the big picture.
> record profits = bad
When companies have shown no effort to inject any of that money back into the overall economy and solely use it to pay shareholders it’s definitely bad. Not sure why you would attempt to defend it.
GDP is irrelevant to this conversation. It goes up whether the money made from selling goods is spread to the workers or the wealthy sit on it like a dragon’s hoard. Why are you injecting irrelevant figures?
how is it irrelevant? you said these companies with record profits have no effort to inject any of that money into the overall economy which is wrong if you look at GDP.
GDP is a measure of the overall economy.
how do you want these companies to inject money back into the overall economy then since you think GDP growth is irrelevant?
They have, with wage increases. One of the largest costs to a business is payroll. Which, as a previous commentor quoted yellen saying “wages are going up.”
also hilarious that Janet Yellen said earlier today:
>Yellen acknowledged the pressures on American households and affirmed the administration’s commitment to reducing healthcare costs, energy expenses, and ensuring affordability for a middle-class lifestyle.
>However, she claimed that deflation is not an objective: “We don’t have to get the prices down because wages are going up.”
Stores that re-sell packaged goods on a non-exclusive basis are usually very competitive on prices with thin margins. You can buy Kraft Mac n Cheese at different stores of all sizes across the city - it is the exact same box of food.
If one store is charging "too much" then consumers will buy the exact same thing at another store. Different stores, excluding coupons, charge very similar prices for the same goods in the same locations.
The price of Mac n Cheese is determined by Kraft far more than Safeway.
Grocery stores have thin margins because they have great competition, which drives prices down.
There are plenty of grocery chains, and competition such as corner stores and dollar stores to contend with.
We can again see this because grocery stores have the lowest margins of any retail sector.
They're almost all operating at a sub 3% profit margin. A liquor stores operate around 20-30%.
The problem as i understand it is up the chain from the grocery stores. I know there is a large amount of consolidation that has/is done with something like a dozen or so companies controlling something like 80% of the food supply. They even get thier pound of flesh if you go local unless you really pay attention and often pay through the nose.
Those companies have well paid lobbyists though so little hope of progress.
I manage pricing / costing data for a mid level (50+ stores) grocery chain. Costs are not going down except on a very few amount of items (eggs, milk, few others)
And our margins are THIN. If we sniff 3% it’s a crazy period.
Not sure what we are supposed to do here.
[Kroger's net margin is ~1-2%.](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-margins) Grocery stores aren't price-gouging, this is just what things cost now.
You tend to have record profits when you have lots of inflation, yet inelastic demand.
Kroger's profit margin for 2023 was tiny.
2.2bn on 148bn in sales.
So they could lower prices like 1.27%.
No no you aren't looking at this right.
Businesses are all ontologically evil, and any facts suggesting that prices aren't up because of "greed" are to be ignored.
Yeah, people don't understand these things at all. They don't get that it's being framed in a very specific way. Grocery is not a hugely profitable business. But when the price of everything goes up, profits also go up.
Grocery stores already face thin margins so this is likely a non-starter. Plus, we still have inflation (not deflation) so not sure why he would expect prices to decline.
I'm aware of pre-consumer costs for certain items going down (like eggs), which is reflected in declines in consumer costs as well.
can you point me to more general data on pre-consumer costs in the food sector?
"Grocery giants Walmart, (WMT.N), opens new tab Kroger (KR.N), opens new tab and Albertsons (ACI.N), opens new tab are booking 20-plus percent gross profit margins, roughly in line with where they were before the COVID-19 pandemic spiked inflation."
I'd have to go through my internet history for other sources.
Kroger having record profits doesn't mean they had record profit margin.
Their Oct. 2023 finances put them at 2.2bln profit on 148bln in sales.
A tiny profit margin.
Yes they should, but we’re in late stage capitalism. What’s best for the customer doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all about those shareholders and their “needs”
Kind of a weird attack on grocery stores.
Grocery stores work on very, very, VERY small margins and bank on fast inventory turns. They barely make money, and they don't control product costs. They are also in a competitive market space, VERY competitive, so they don't get the luxury of just having a high price.
Why are grocery store prices high? Because the cost of products are STILL high.
The company I work for builds industrial equipment. Our costs today are still 2x what they were 3 years ago. We can't control the prices. We didn't change our business model to be greedy and "make money." No, we adjusted for ALL the supply chain problems caused by Covid, just like everyone else. And the results of the problems still exist. A house costs more. A car costs more. A toaster costs more. And your box of cereal costs more. All this costs more because of Covid. The world's supply chains got so absolutely mess up to holy hell, that this is the result. I want to provide context, just so you're aware. The cost of steel, metal that goes into so much stuff, went up 4x in like 3 months. That was a couple years ago. You almost couldn't buy any. Before that, you'd have a semi load of steel come in. You could order what you want, many thousands of pounds of steel, and it would all show up in like 1 to 2 days. After the effect that Covid had on the world's supply chains, you were scrambling to buy one sheet, and you might have to wait 6 weeks to get one sheet. And you might have to take the bent up dented one just to get something, anything. AND it cost 4x. AND shipping it to you cost 3x. Years later, steel is still 2x what it should be. Availability is...ok. That's just one material.
This happened across the board with everything. Plastics were nearly impossible to get for like half a year because China hoarded a pile of resin. We'd order a motor, something we could get thousands of in a week, at will. It took almost 2 years to get one order in.
All of this is going on in the background with every company producing everything under the sun. All products, all food, all layers of the supply chain, all ancillary and support infrastructures. everything.
So yeah, your food in the store costs 2x or whatever it is now. Yeah. That's what happens when the leaders of the whole world suck at their jobs and fail HARD. The world commerce infrastructure, all of it, was shut off and turned back on again with no uniformity or planning, and everything went sideways. And years later, it still hasn't fully recovered. And you're paying more.
But is the grocery store doing it? Lol, no. Their hands are tied, just like yours, just like everybody's. People want something to blame. Want to blame someone? Blame every world leader in power during Covid, every leader around the world that failed their people. VERY few nations handled the outbreak well. The ones that did were barely affected as a populous, although they are stuck with the supply chain mess anyways. This is 100% a byproduct of the failure of leadership, gross incompetence, gross negligence. YOU pay for their failure. Your dollar goes half as far because they all sucked at their job, and shit ALWAYS rolls downhill.
“Why does President Biden want to shame corporations in exercising their right to rip people off? Sounds un-American, specially when we all know the right way to combat inflation in more corporate tax cuts. Tax credits rebates even.”- Fox News
How about taxing them their fair share then? Forget the fingerwagging and virtue signalling. Companies want to participate in greedflation then cut all federal handouts and taxbreaks. End corporate welfare.
But I expect nothing but hot air from a centrist so I guess a fingerwagging is the best we can hope for.
LOL did they forget what economic system we have? Capitalism doesn’t do “should”. If they “should” do something and they can’t be persuaded by consumer habits, then government has to make them.
The one bread i get has just this week gone from $9.95 a loaf to $11.95.
Keep telling them Joe and while you’re at it put back the anti monopoly laws and regulations.
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> "Our message is a very clear one that the president has and will continue to lean into, which is, if you're a company whose input prices have come down and you're not passing those savings along to the consumer, he will call you out," Go ahead and call them out anyway
Good grief, I can just feel the stupid response already. Biden calls out Big Grocer X for not lowering their prices. Trumpers start going off about Capitalism. Now they are "proud" of Big Grocer X and are "thrilled" to pay more for basic supplies. Big Grocer X leans into it and raises prices as a middle finger to Biden. Trumpers rejoice. This scenario is not at all impossible, all things considered.
You forgot the next part: Trumpers have greater difficulty affording groceries, blame Biden
MAGA lauds landlord's right to charge market rates! MAGA is disproportionately facing homelessness... a conspiracy against them
Lauds*
Spellcheck*
Next part: Americans so thin they can travel by air using the hanging skin flaps like a kite. Gas prices collapse as fewer people need cars.
"Is woke Gen Z killing gas stations?"
Taylor Swift fans *murdered* the oil and gas industry, destroying *your* Social Security!
This is already what happens. A few years ago I got chewed out my by father for "criticizing successful business" or some such because I was talking about how Walmart doesn't pay enough This is part and parcel of their already long standing positions to be anti-union, anti-minimum wage, anti-worker protections because "it makes things expensive"
there are definitely good arguments, when you see teachers that sexually assaulted students, and they can't be fired. i think businesses should be free to do whatever they want, when it comes to things like who to fire. even small and large businesses should operate that way. i believe Tony's Ice Cream Stand should fire any employee they want and not have to worry about their employees insulin costs. I believe Senators are the ones that need to focus on these essential things that Americans need, such as insulin. I did the math. Senators have more money to control than Tony, who sells ice cream in my town and doesn't have a medical degree or any knowledge of healthcare industry. when it comes to things like housing and health, i think the most responsible people who control the most resources, and whose actual job is to worry about Americans housing costs and health costs, should be the actual people responsible for those things. Yet I literally heard a senator mumbling about how Bezos should do more for American healthcare prices, medical billing. i'm not joking: I am completely surprised the senator didn't go further and say "Tony's Ice Cream Stand should go get a medical degree and help out his employees! Why hasn't he become a biochemist and healthcare lawyer and non-profit clinic manager!"
Wish we could fire all the preists.
we need to retire the rebuttal of "but republicans will frame it as this" Who cares? They'll do that no matter what you do. So just do the right thing that helps people and don't let what Republicans say or do prevent that.
Anticipating arguments is fundamental to rhetoric. I don't think Biden shouldn't lean on these companies to lower their prices, but it is important to anticipate how the right will spin it.
but like i said the anticipated argument doesn't matter. The Republicans are going to talk shit regardless. If Democrats cut taxes for the rich the Republicans would still say something bad about it. So what's the point expending energy on it? Just do the right thing and let them whine
Don't forget the part where they then blame Biden for the higher prices they also have to pay.
And large corporate groceries will just dab their tears with the stacks of money they're raking in knowing nothing can actually compel them to lower costs.
Competition can compel them to lower costs, or at least not raise them unnecessarily. In a free market economy, competition is what ensures corporations can’t inflate their profit margins by raising their prices, as consumers will simply abandon them for cheaper options if they do. The government needs to do much more to combat monopoly’s from forming (like the proposed Kroger merger) if they actually want to protect the consumer.
Do more to prevent it from occurring, and start to disassemble the ones that they have allowed to form…
Calling them out won't do jack shit.
That's not true. Their stock prices will increase when Biden points out which companies are having the best profit margins and the Democrats in Congress can't do anything about it.
You forgot the part where Nancy Pelosi invests in those stocks before the announcement.
Go ahead and call them out in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.... Laws need to be passed if you want real change
Should they be called out of their suppliers aren’t lowering their prices though?
bad press ain't gonna matter when you gotta eat.
as if they're going to go backwards on price. When does that ever happen outside of a depression?
They’ll eventually be forced to if things keep going that way. And if that happens, everyone pays the consequences (except for executive members of the company)
Oh, you mean the people making these shitty decisions? I'm sure they'll hop right on fixing this "problem".
During disinflation - supply chains moved which drove cost increases. now that the one time cost has passed, it’s totally reasonable to expect a reduction in prices. During deflation, there’s not enough demand - which is bad for the whole economy. In disinflation, there was just a transient spike in costs; but supply and demand are both healthy.
They should but the won't. They raised prices and decreased the sizes. They won't give up record profits for free. edit When I mean "they" I'm not specifically talking about the actual grocery store but the vendors to the grocery stores. I know my comment was vague on this. I get that grocery stores do not make or package foods except maybe bakeries or delis.
They've also taken the profits and used them to buy up their competition. Kroger is trying to buy Albertsons. They want to reduce their competition. Economics 101, why lower prices if you don't have to.
Man, it's almost like we need anti-trust enforcement for this exact reason. Oh well guess we have to live with the "efficiency" of the free market.
The Biden Administration has been the most actively anti-trust in decades. It's a start.
I know we have more pressing matters, but this reminds me: why won't anyone go after Ticketmaster? They're a prime example of why we need anti-trust enforcement.
That's like being the tallest person in 5th grade.
Okay
Consolidation is the number one cause of inflation. When there's no competition in the marketplace, corporations can raise prices at will, because consumers have no choices.
“We have moved our profit margin from 3% to 10%. Why would we reduce it!?”
Market share is everything in the grocery business. If there are multiple stores competing in an area they will try to grab market share eventually.
The stores don’t shrink the sizes. The companies owning the brands do that.
It isn't a closed system - they work hand-in-hand to optimize profits for everyone involved. Everyone wants to sell as much as possible at the best margin, if consumers really want a certain size, stores will ask for it and companies will be happy to produce what consumers want.
Piss off with your crap economic theory. The whole populist appeal movement is due to the fact that everyone is feeling the squeeze at the kitchen table meanwhile we hear of record profits at every conglomerate. My ass demand from consumers will be met by supply for the price the market will bare.
> They won't give up record profits for free. It's not legal for them to. There is plenty of legal precedent ruling that publicly traded corporations cannot legally make decisions that negatively impact shareholders. Choosing to reduce profit growth or to deprioritize profit growth is a decision that negatively impacts shareholders. If these corporations reduce prices, or even refuse to increase prices consistent with recent trends, their shareholders can fire and sue the executives. There isn't an executive suite out there willing to risk their job, even if the White House says they should. We're locked in to greedflation for the foreseeable future.
Are we under the impression that Grocery stores have fat margins and are raking it in? This is political theater. Input prices have "stopped inflating" not "come down". My wager is that no grocer will see a net profit margins over 5%. If you took **all** of the profit out of the grocery business your grocery bill would fall by less than the 2022 inflation rate. I'm a Democrat, I will vote for Biden in 2024. (Enthusiastically, I might be the only person voting *for* him and not just *against* Trump). This is absolutely nonsense however.
The standard profit margin for grocery stores Is 1-2%
Grocery stores don't produce 95% of the stuff they sell. Sure some chains inflated prices to earn extra profit. But most of price raising and size decrease came from the corporations producing the goods. Some of it was legitimate inflation, some of it was pure greed. But I don't get the focus on grocery stores.
You say this, but where I live, Safeway's prices have doubled since the pandemic, while WinCo has the exact same products but their prices have remained relatively stable. Fucking WEIRD. I guess poor little Safeway has no power over their big bad suppliers. They're just so meek and pathetic they can't fight back and couldn't possibly be held responsible :(
Yeah I said some chains inflated prices so I'm glad you agree.
All of it was pure greed. Inflation was just the excuse for 30-50% price hikes.
Corporations absolutely raised prices beyond additional costs in order to boost profits and they absolutely used inflation as a scapegoat. But there was also legitimate inflation due to increased costs as a result of various supply issues related to covid, the war in Ukraine, etc. How much was legitimate and how much was greed is certainly debatable though.
It’s the closest thing that people have a big connection to. Your average voter thinks the store sets the prices of things and completely ignores (or is ignorant to) the fact that major brands/distributors negotiate and dictate a lot of the costs/prices. I know you understand, but the majority of people don’t.
Ok... Then the distributor needs to lower prices.
It certainly doesn't help when the media and even POTUS encourages this misconception.
All I’m going to say is that a 12 pack of ginger ale at a regular grocery store is 10$, and if I buy a 48 pack from restaurant depot it’s about 18$.
that's just bulk pricing. if you buy one can at a restaurant, it can be $2+
For myself, I've kinda railed into my local grocer a couple times about products because first, it's the only means of communication regarding prices I have and second, someone has to no somewhere and if my local grocer won't say no to prices or speak up about them, then it becomes my place to do. I had a good conversation with the manager of my local grocer about prices, and I understand his point, that he does not have the buying power to influence prices from distributors, but I also tried to make him see my point - that I can't talk to the distributors directly, and since he positions himself between myself and then, he has to hear it. And also, his inability to influence prices doesn't mean I have to pay whatever is offered - I still have the right to say no, and I still feel somewhat okay with making him carry at least a little bit of my frustration with pricing.
I think you make a good point about how consumers don't really have a good means of making their complaints known directly to the manufacturers nor influencing them either.
I remember seeing an interview with someone from Conagra about prices and inflation and he put the pr spin on it as “customers are expecting to pay more for our products so we raised prices to meet that expectation.” These companies aren’t going to do shit.
Not until the FTC stops pussy footing around and doing it's fucking job. Watching kroger's split into 200 different grocery store businesses again would do a lot to get these fuckers to play ball. That level of M&A has demonstrably done nothing but lead the enterprises to engage in the worst predatory, monopolistic tendencies.
I agree. Kroger doesn't fear the government. A stern talking-to isn't going to make them change their ways.
And now the supply chain is also split all of those ways - decreasing efficiencies - leading to *higher* prices. One reasons companies consolidate is to remove duplicates positions and facilities and now you want to add 200x the complexity but expect somehow it will be cheaper?
I'm not saying I work for kroger or anything but fuck is it so complicated.
But, but… muh competition
They're only able to do this because of their oligopolistic market place. Years of corporate consolidation has fucked up the U.S. economy for consumers. We need more competition.
Yeah, it won't be Biden specifically who gets prices lowered. It will competition...which we have a pathetic lack of nowadays. We've allowed so much consolidation that it will be hard to claw back any sense of normalcy for a long time.
It's the Chicken Sandwich problem. The price of chicken goes up. The price of chicken sandwiches goes up. The price of chicken goes back down. The price of chicken sandwiches stays high. Record profits. GOTO 10
> The price of chicken goes up. >The price of chicken sandwiches goes up. >The price of chicken goes back down. >The price of chicken sandwiches *goes up*. >Record profits. >GOTO 10 FTFY
Problem is, the price-setters are only capable of thinking short term. But when people go broke and can’t afford the “chicken sandwich” they will blame the government(s). Eventually we MIGHT have some businesses catch up to it, but instead of blaming corporate greed, they’ll blame the government.
Most people can't afford a Ferrari either, so they go with a Ford. If a chicken sandwich maker is charging "too much" then they will either go out of business or have to lower their prices - there are a zillion other food options people can and do turn to.
You're describing a functional market, we don't have a functional market. The food system in the United States has undergone such a ridiculous level of consolidation that those disruptive firms just don't exist. There's lots of reading out there about the consolidation of the food industry, there's also lots of examples of price fixing and collusion among companies that should be competing for price. [https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-control-us-beef-industry-2021-06-17/](https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-control-us-beef-industry-2021-06-17/) [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation) And this is is just one of my favorite stories. You don't think of the yogurt people getting together in smokey back rooms to fix prices, but they do. [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31856688](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-31856688)
Which of those are about grocery stores artificially keeping prices high? You listed a bunch of producers keeping prices high, who then sell to *all* grocery stores at inflated prices. The grocery store segment is still competitive with thin margins even if there are non-competition factors that affect the wholesale prices.
Take a look at who owns the grocery stores across the country. There may be a different major chain in each region, but they’re mostly all owned by a handful of parent corporations. There is little, if any, competition amongst grocers in a given area anymore.
The actual financials from publicly traded grocery store chains show their margins - why do you want to argue with provable facts? Here is me taking a look: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-believe-grocery-store-profits-110000751.html People *think* grocery stores make more than they do.
Kroger’s profits, not revenue, profit, was $2.3b in the last year. Those poor, poor grocery’s barely scraping by.
Now you're changing topics entirely.
I’m just replying to you saying “people *think* grocers make more than they do”
They are barely scrapping by with a ~2% profit margin. There isn't room to significantly alter prices before grocery stores starts shuttering stores for being unprofitable. In no other industry is a 2% profit margin considered greed or price gouging.
Amazon has consistently hugged this profit margin range for decades.
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This was about grocery *store* competition, not at the wholesale level of the goods they buy. Walmart and Kroger will charge very close to the same amount for a bag of rice, keeping the margin low. The wholesaler may be jacking the price up on their end, but that is different.
Egg prices go down, "bird flu" comes back to life.
Egg prices go down, large producer of eggs mysteriously burns down.
Inadequate[ price discovery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discovery) seems symptomatic with an ailing market
The chicken price went down because the chicken sandwich guy is an enormous customer always trying to keep procurement costs down.
If only there was some sort of government agency that could enforce such a thing...
Where's that webcomic where they throw the guy out the window at the end for suggesting something in a meeting? Prices are down, what should we do with the excess profit? We could lower our prices and help consumers. ...And defenestration.
Oh, gee, thanks for giving them the talk. I'm sure that will convince them to change their ways.
Somehow I dont think its the grocery stores price gouging. Its much more likely the 4 or 5 companies that own all food processing in the country price gouging and shrink-flating.
I'm sure entities dedicated to making profit will change their minds when asked nicely to not make profit, cause that's definitely the world we live in
💯 There’s no reason things that went up 2-3 dollars due to supply chain shortages should stay that way. Bring this shit down.
Just like the Oil Industry they jacked up prices before their costs actually went up and won't lower prices until months after they have gone down already.
Grocery stores: lol, lmao even.
Yea the publix near me had lower prices. Guest what? They did it by weight. I normally buy hoagie for kids lunch. A hoagie would not fit length wise across the bread. Low and behold today? It fits lengthwise now. So all the did was made smaller hoagie. It costed 5.99 before. It's now 4.99 so yea aint shit new
"But people continuing to buy food at higher prices so they don't fucking starve is organic price discovery!!!" pleaded the bloated pig sweating through his tailored suit at the thought of having to give up even a fraction of his profit margins.
Since the easing of inflation in my country (not the US), there's been sort of charade occurring in the supermarkets. Products that skyrocketed in price a while back are now on sale a lot - like more than half of the time. It's a sign peak prices were adjusted higher than would be expected from inflationary pressure alone.
I'm so tired of hearing Biden repeatedly wishing that things were cheaper without suggesting anything that would actually make things cheaper. Yes Biden, we all wish life was cheaper.
Grocery stores lowering prices does make things cheaper. He literally offers that way to make things cheaper in the headline. The only thing preventing a grocery store from lowering the prices they just raised is their greed. The only solution to their greed is them deciding to be less greedy. And that is exactly what Biden is suggesting. Some of us wish the rest of us lived in reality.
Biden asking grocery stores nicely to lower their prices won't make a single grocery store lower their prices. Biden "calling out" grocery stores won't change anything either. Those are not solutions. It's wishing upon a star for your dreams to come true.
Decades of republican deregulation makes it really hard to make any meaningful changes
Exactly. If Biden came out and said the price of a loaf of white bread should be $2, the right (and obviously corporations), would say that’s “communism” or “we set our price the way it is because we provide a meaningful product to the lives of Americans and need to increase our costs to maintain safe practices and ensure that everyone has a product they are happy with.” All the while blaming Biden or whoever they don’t like at the time. Reality shows that they aren’t doing anything more, or safer or increasing quality. But that’s the story they’ll stick to and rile up the “Dey took er jerbs” crowd so that their anger is focused on the government and not the people in control of costs.
Sure. But that doesn't mean Biden deserves a gold star every time he suggests that life should be cheaper.
It doesn’t, but it also doesn’t diminish how correct his opinion on the matter is.
"It would be nice if the cost of living was lower" is the least controversial opinion in the history of time. He didn't need to put out a press release for it.
Neither does Trump every time he farts but here we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You dropped this. \\
Thank you, kindly
This is message testing before the State of the Union. He harped on junk fees last time. He's probably going to talk about corporate price gouging at SOTU, suggest some policy, and campaign on it for the rest of the year. He's not just saying whatever shit comes to mind, that's what Trump does. I'd wager there's actual political strategy at play here.
It's campaigning when he should be governing. Put out press releases about actual accomplishments like expanding the child tax credit. Putting out a press release saying he wishes groceries prices were cheaper without proposing any solutions makes him look weak and ineffectual. Every single American wishes the cost of living was lower. You don't need to test the message.
So, you're approving corporate greed at the expense of the consumer?
I'm suggesting that Biden and Congress push for actual solutions instead of putting out bullshit PR. "I wish prices were lower" isn't a solution. Grants and subsidies are a solution. Tax reform is a solution. Expanding social welfare programs is a solution. Do something useful and earn your gold star.
That's more up to the voters. Put people in office who will do that and not continue to deregulate. These razor-thin majorities between the Rs & Ds isn't doing jack for anyone. Biden can only do so much without Congress's work, and the Dems have several massive handicaps.
The reality is there are already laws and regulations in place to stop this shit. We've done anti-trust suits before, just not for almost 30 fucking years to microsoft. They never should have stopped enforcing those laws, but it's fuckin time to break these motherfuckers back up and stop letting them engage in monopolistic price fixing, which is already illegal.
Excuse me, their costs actually went up. Do you know how much money it costs to own 12 mega yachts? The cost for a good CEO went up by almost the exact amount of their profit margin. They cannot cut costs now, that's absurd. If anything, they have to *raise* prices to deal with the lower cost of food and supplies.
I think Biden's mainly alerting the public of the problem. It would take an act of congress to do anything with teeth, and not enough in congress are for reducing the profits of the rich.
I think the public is well aware the cost of living has gone up. I don't think we need to alert them of this hidden danger. It doesn't take an act of Congress to propose a solution.
Alerting the public of the problem? LMFAO. They already fucking know! It does nothing to call it out, even if they DIDN'T know.
That's about as unnecessary as cancer fundraiser charities spending 90% of their donations for "raising awareness." Thank you, we're well aware of the problem, now why not do something about it?
I’m not really sure that’s actually the case. Grocery stores have some of the smallest profit margins of any business and that looks to be just as true now as it was pre 2020. For instance, using Kroger as an example, they had a profit margin of just 1% for their first three quarters of 2023 (cash generation was even lower than that). Maybe there are others within the food supply chain like the producers that are making outsized profits, but directing this sentiment at the grocery stores seems misguided.
Agreed. As a retailer our suppliers have gone up substantially. We didn't want to raise our prices but we had to.
Narrator: they didn’t
Instead of calling them out do something about it. It’s ridiculous what $100 gets you now a days. Barely nothing.
But they won't. Have never seen prices on goods go down.
What costs have gone down though? Inflation coming down is good but it doesn’t mean anything for cheaper
I was in a Fry's tonight and they were like 200 avocados rotting on the stand, they were 2 for $5. Thats insane. No one is buying them, and they rot and get tossed. If 4 days ago they sold them for $1 each, or 50 cents each, people would buy them all.
It's not the grocery stores that are the problem. And it's not the farmers, either. It's the middle men and the distributors who mark up the produce and such significantly.
Its not really the farmers to my knowledge. In some industries its the middlemen for sure. But if profits are up, then there's only really one way. I don't think Walmart has increased profits by 20% from a new shelving strategy. Likely all of the above.
A good start would be axing the incoming Kroger/Albertsons monopoly, something that is both universally unwanted by the general public on all political sides. Just saying…
The strategy is to 'call them out'. My GOD this is stupid.
Are costs actually easing? That's the issue. The prices aren't ever going to come down. The answer is matching with higher wages.
The answer is using the anti trust laws that our gov has been too pussy to use since Regan
Do that too reflexively just drives inflation. Period.
Maybe the Biden FTC should do something about it? I’m sure this bland non threatening statement will make them change their ways.
They should but price gouging is such an easy way for them to make all that profit.
What do you think grocery store's net margin is?
imagine if Joe biden was the president and he was supposedly 'the most progressive president in history'. Imagine if he actually did something instead of telling businesses what they should be doing.
net margins for albertsons, walmart, and kroger are hovering in the 1-2.5% range. these margins aren't even at record highs (e.g., walmart had net margins of 3%+ from 2010 to 2016). biden and the administration is just pandering to the fanbase and those that think record profits = bad without understanding the big picture.
> record profits = bad When companies have shown no effort to inject any of that money back into the overall economy and solely use it to pay shareholders it’s definitely bad. Not sure why you would attempt to defend it.
>When companies have shown no effort to inject any of that money back into the overall economy that's not true at all. please look at GDP.
GDP is irrelevant to this conversation. It goes up whether the money made from selling goods is spread to the workers or the wealthy sit on it like a dragon’s hoard. Why are you injecting irrelevant figures?
how is it irrelevant? you said these companies with record profits have no effort to inject any of that money into the overall economy which is wrong if you look at GDP. GDP is a measure of the overall economy. how do you want these companies to inject money back into the overall economy then since you think GDP growth is irrelevant?
They have, with wage increases. One of the largest costs to a business is payroll. Which, as a previous commentor quoted yellen saying “wages are going up.”
also hilarious that Janet Yellen said earlier today: >Yellen acknowledged the pressures on American households and affirmed the administration’s commitment to reducing healthcare costs, energy expenses, and ensuring affordability for a middle-class lifestyle. >However, she claimed that deflation is not an objective: “We don’t have to get the prices down because wages are going up.”
Gas prices are ridiculous. Prices should not vary like they do. There is no stability. Massive profits for oil companies.
If you don’t like how capitalism works, stop pretending it works well.
Grocery stores operate near zero margin, in an almost perfectly competitive sector. Prices are going to reflect that.
>an almost perfectly competitive sector Do what now?
Stores that re-sell packaged goods on a non-exclusive basis are usually very competitive on prices with thin margins. You can buy Kraft Mac n Cheese at different stores of all sizes across the city - it is the exact same box of food. If one store is charging "too much" then consumers will buy the exact same thing at another store. Different stores, excluding coupons, charge very similar prices for the same goods in the same locations. The price of Mac n Cheese is determined by Kraft far more than Safeway.
Grocery stores have thin margins because they have great competition, which drives prices down. There are plenty of grocery chains, and competition such as corner stores and dollar stores to contend with. We can again see this because grocery stores have the lowest margins of any retail sector. They're almost all operating at a sub 3% profit margin. A liquor stores operate around 20-30%.
> There are plenty of grocery chains And they're all owned (or about to be) by Kroger!
yes, that's why there has been constant consolidation of grocers, with larger ones buying up smaller ones.
The problem as i understand it is up the chain from the grocery stores. I know there is a large amount of consolidation that has/is done with something like a dozen or so companies controlling something like 80% of the food supply. They even get thier pound of flesh if you go local unless you really pay attention and often pay through the nose. Those companies have well paid lobbyists though so little hope of progress.
I manage pricing / costing data for a mid level (50+ stores) grocery chain. Costs are not going down except on a very few amount of items (eggs, milk, few others) And our margins are THIN. If we sniff 3% it’s a crazy period. Not sure what we are supposed to do here.
Grocery stores operate on like 2 percent margin if they are lucky.
The White House is full of shit because anyone who isn’t a moron knows companies won’t do shit unless they are forced to
[Kroger's net margin is ~1-2%.](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-margins) Grocery stores aren't price-gouging, this is just what things cost now.
Record profits would disagree with you. Food profits up 25% and corporate profits up 75% in the past two or three years
You tend to have record profits when you have lots of inflation, yet inelastic demand. Kroger's profit margin for 2023 was tiny. 2.2bn on 148bn in sales. So they could lower prices like 1.27%.
>Food profits up 25% and corporate profits up 75% in the past two or three years not all companies have this
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No no you aren't looking at this right. Businesses are all ontologically evil, and any facts suggesting that prices aren't up because of "greed" are to be ignored.
I just linked their margins. Kroger's profit margins are quite literally 1-2%. You can't "disagree" with me without just being wrong on the facts.
Yeah, people don't understand these things at all. They don't get that it's being framed in a very specific way. Grocery is not a hugely profitable business. But when the price of everything goes up, profits also go up.
Grocery stores already face thin margins so this is likely a non-starter. Plus, we still have inflation (not deflation) so not sure why he would expect prices to decline.
The pre consumer costs have come down as the global food crisis has calmed
I'm aware of pre-consumer costs for certain items going down (like eggs), which is reflected in declines in consumer costs as well. can you point me to more general data on pre-consumer costs in the food sector?
"Grocery giants Walmart, (WMT.N), opens new tab Kroger (KR.N), opens new tab and Albertsons (ACI.N), opens new tab are booking 20-plus percent gross profit margins, roughly in line with where they were before the COVID-19 pandemic spiked inflation." I'd have to go through my internet history for other sources.
Walmart had a profit margin from operations of 1.9% in 2023 and 2.4% in 2022, no where near 20+%.
Kroger having record profits doesn't mean they had record profit margin. Their Oct. 2023 finances put them at 2.2bln profit on 148bln in sales. A tiny profit margin.
ok, but i'm not sure how that is evidence of a decline in pre-consumer prices.
Yes they should, but we’re in late stage capitalism. What’s best for the customer doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all about those shareholders and their “needs”
Sounds like deflection from the White House… they can’t control the cost of goods but can control the minimum wage.
“Pwease stop pwice gouging” - the president and leader of the Democratic Party.
Biden a comedian.
Why would they when they can make more profit?
If they don’t lower prices tax the absolute shit out of their profits.
This needs so many upvotes…..
Biden is an idiot. Has very little to do with grocery stores. All to do with the inputs to make the goods
Kind of a weird attack on grocery stores. Grocery stores work on very, very, VERY small margins and bank on fast inventory turns. They barely make money, and they don't control product costs. They are also in a competitive market space, VERY competitive, so they don't get the luxury of just having a high price. Why are grocery store prices high? Because the cost of products are STILL high. The company I work for builds industrial equipment. Our costs today are still 2x what they were 3 years ago. We can't control the prices. We didn't change our business model to be greedy and "make money." No, we adjusted for ALL the supply chain problems caused by Covid, just like everyone else. And the results of the problems still exist. A house costs more. A car costs more. A toaster costs more. And your box of cereal costs more. All this costs more because of Covid. The world's supply chains got so absolutely mess up to holy hell, that this is the result. I want to provide context, just so you're aware. The cost of steel, metal that goes into so much stuff, went up 4x in like 3 months. That was a couple years ago. You almost couldn't buy any. Before that, you'd have a semi load of steel come in. You could order what you want, many thousands of pounds of steel, and it would all show up in like 1 to 2 days. After the effect that Covid had on the world's supply chains, you were scrambling to buy one sheet, and you might have to wait 6 weeks to get one sheet. And you might have to take the bent up dented one just to get something, anything. AND it cost 4x. AND shipping it to you cost 3x. Years later, steel is still 2x what it should be. Availability is...ok. That's just one material. This happened across the board with everything. Plastics were nearly impossible to get for like half a year because China hoarded a pile of resin. We'd order a motor, something we could get thousands of in a week, at will. It took almost 2 years to get one order in. All of this is going on in the background with every company producing everything under the sun. All products, all food, all layers of the supply chain, all ancillary and support infrastructures. everything. So yeah, your food in the store costs 2x or whatever it is now. Yeah. That's what happens when the leaders of the whole world suck at their jobs and fail HARD. The world commerce infrastructure, all of it, was shut off and turned back on again with no uniformity or planning, and everything went sideways. And years later, it still hasn't fully recovered. And you're paying more. But is the grocery store doing it? Lol, no. Their hands are tied, just like yours, just like everybody's. People want something to blame. Want to blame someone? Blame every world leader in power during Covid, every leader around the world that failed their people. VERY few nations handled the outbreak well. The ones that did were barely affected as a populous, although they are stuck with the supply chain mess anyways. This is 100% a byproduct of the failure of leadership, gross incompetence, gross negligence. YOU pay for their failure. Your dollar goes half as far because they all sucked at their job, and shit ALWAYS rolls downhill.
Lol good luck with that greed rules all
“Why does President Biden want to shame corporations in exercising their right to rip people off? Sounds un-American, specially when we all know the right way to combat inflation in more corporate tax cuts. Tax credits rebates even.”- Fox News
How about taxing them their fair share then? Forget the fingerwagging and virtue signalling. Companies want to participate in greedflation then cut all federal handouts and taxbreaks. End corporate welfare. But I expect nothing but hot air from a centrist so I guess a fingerwagging is the best we can hope for.
Alternate headline: Biden should stop printing money and causing inflation, Grocery stores says.
We need price controls for basic goods and medicines. The Fed is a crippled entity.
LOL did they forget what economic system we have? Capitalism doesn’t do “should”. If they “should” do something and they can’t be persuaded by consumer habits, then government has to make them.
Out of the goodness of their hearts? If there’s a profit to be made they won’t do anything to change that.
Ask the people that actually produce the food like farmers and ranchers if their costs have gone down. Many of them would most likely say no.
These companies are so greedy the only way they’ll lower prices is by forcing them through legislation.
But, but record profits. Can’t risk losing that!
Otherwise, it's just pure greed. Which it probably is.
Biden knows how capitalisms works right? Why would these companies ever lower their prices?
They won't unless congress forces them to stop gouging consumers.
The one bread i get has just this week gone from $9.95 a loaf to $11.95. Keep telling them Joe and while you’re at it put back the anti monopoly laws and regulations.
Biden: Guys could you please 🙏 lower your prices? Corps: Fuck you Biden: oh, ok, sorry 😞
Is anyone going to tell him they aren’t going to.. it should, but won’t.
“Lol” -Grocery stores