Is it inflation or price gouging?
By ROBERT REICH
Americans feel like they’re still being price-gouged, even as inflation has come down.
If we look at a few of the biggest drivers of inflation, we’ll see that some corporations are still using their power and shady techniques to keep prices high while they rake in record profits.
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Let’s start with rent. Corporate landlords have been buying up hundreds of thousands of homes and rental properties over the past few years.They’ve also been using a pricing software called RealPage to allegedly collude with each other to jack up the rents on as many as 16 million apartments nationwide.
How about gas prices? In 2022, the top five Big Oil companies doubled their profits from the previous year, to nearly $200 billion. Then the same companies spent $100 billion on stock buybacks and dividends. The kicker? According to recent findings from the Federal Trade Commission, a major Big Oil executive allegedly colluded with OPEC to artificially cut supply and drive up prices across the industry.
And what about groceries? Customers have been paying an arm and a leg in particular for beef, pork, and poultry. It just so happens that only four companies process nearly all of America’s meat, and they use the same high-tech pricing tool -- which has allegedly allowed them to collude with each other to fix prices.
Now the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is investigating RealPage and launching a massive antitrust lawsuit over price-fixing in the meat industry. Meanwhile the Federal Trade Commission is suing to block the mega-merger of Kroger and Albertsons that would send food prices even further through the roof.
Thank you for your ongoing efforts to tackle corporate power!
Robert Reich
Inequality Media
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