“Congress has stalled out on doing work that it could do to help families lower costs," Sen. Warren tells TIME. "The President has the tools to fight back.”
When an economy undergoes inflation, not all prices rise by the same amount. That’s one of the reasons high inflation can be so disruptive. For example, wages (the price of labor) often rise some time after other prices, to the detriment of some wage earners.
It’s pretty believable that grocery store chains have acquired enough market power that they’re able to pass on all their cost increases to customers, and more, thereby increasing their profit rate. But the fact that individual companies and sectors are well placed to cope with inflation doesn’t explain the economy-wide and world-wide inflation.
We can also look at the “companies have market power” explanation using the overall labour share, which measures how much income is going to labor vs capital, economy wide. It doesn’t seem to have shifted much during the recent bout of inflation. But again, individual wage earners have seen huge disparities, including some who have been made much worse off by the inflation.
But why are the prices of food rising faster than the costs paid by companies (this is inclusive of all costs)? The naive assumption is that if all costs were originally x and prices were 1.1x, then as costs become 1.3x, prices become 1.1*1.3x. However, their profit margins as a percentage rose. So instead of 1.1 we now have 1.4.
Obviously the numbers used are fake, but this is why people are angry and it’s not something I’ve seen explained using economic principles that don’t involve terms like market consolidation at best or collusion at worst on any article. Rage sells so telling people their groceries cost more because there aren’t enough grocers or the grocers are collaborating is good business for newspapers as long as they can find an expert or group to make the allegations for them.
When an economy undergoes inflation, not all prices rise by the same amount. That’s one of the reasons high inflation can be so disruptive. For example, wages (the price of labor) often rise some time after other prices, to the detriment of some wage earners.
It’s pretty believable that grocery store chains have acquired enough market power that they’re able to pass on all their cost increases to customers, and more, thereby increasing their profit rate. But the fact that individual companies and sectors are well placed to cope with inflation doesn’t explain the economy-wide and world-wide inflation.
We can also look at the “companies have market power” explanation using the overall labour share, which measures how much income is going to labor vs capital, economy wide. It doesn’t seem to have shifted much during the recent bout of inflation. But again, individual wage earners have seen huge disparities, including some who have been made much worse off by the inflation.
But why are the prices of food rising faster than the costs paid by companies (this is inclusive of all costs)? The naive assumption is that if all costs were originally x and prices were 1.1x, then as costs become 1.3x, prices become 1.1*1.3x. However, their profit margins as a percentage rose. So instead of 1.1 we now have 1.4.
Obviously the numbers used are fake, but this is why people are angry and it’s not something I’ve seen explained using economic principles that don’t involve terms like market consolidation at best or collusion at worst on any article. Rage sells so telling people their groceries cost more because there aren’t enough grocers or the grocers are collaborating is good business for newspapers as long as they can find an expert or group to make the allegations for them.