Who really believes that the price of groceries is due to price gouging?

[Anonymous]

Do you believe the grocery chains just all decided at once that they were going to be greedy and run up prices, possibly driving business to competitors?

[buzzword]

Grocery stores make like 1-2% profit. If they can stop normal theft and breakage they can double their profits. If there is excessive theft and breakage (BLM riots) then it is an unprofitable business and you no longer have a grocery store in your neighborhood. In reality it is a volume game. Everyone has to eat so it's a reliable source of cash flow so long as there is rule of law. The profit margin is nothing to get excited about, it is basically a public service, unless you were able to barrow piles of money at low interest rates and then exploit rising prices due to inflation. In that situation, you have a better return on investment.

The primary reasons you have higher food prices is first the Federal Reserve printed shit tons of money which devalued the dollar. This was government policy. Second, government regulators created supply shocks on purpose in many ways. They locked down entire economies so that people could not work to produce and ship goods. They cut fertilizer shipments by 20% as part of the green new deal driving grain prices higher which in turn boosted the price of meat and processed foods. They cut water supplies to potato farmers to reduce a core calorie crop. They slaughtered millions of animals based on bogus PCR tests claiming chickens, turkey's etc. had covid or bird flu. Hundreds of food processing and packing plants mysteriously burnt to the ground (terrorism)... Quite frankly the left wing tried to starve the public. They want you dead and they won't stop until you stop breathing. It has nothing to do with price gouging.

[WindAtMyBack]

First of all, price gouging is not easily defined. Straight supply and demand can cause dramatic changes in prices under some circumstances. That is not price gouging.

Anyway, I have seen what I would call price gouging in my lifetime, but it has always been by individuals trying to hoard and corner a market, or by very small businesses owned by individuals. Off the top of my head, I can not think of any cases of a major retailer price gouging, no matter how that is reasonably defined.

I'll say the same thing here that I said in another recent question about grocery prices. Grocery stores operate on a 1-3% profit margin. That was true when I took economics more than 40 years ago, and it's still true. Grocery stores make their money on very high volume sales, not a large profit margin.

Of course that's an average, with some items being higher profit than others. Grocery stores actually have a lot of loss leaders. If you see a good sale on a popular item like milk, they are probably selling it at a loss.

Harris is an idiot who talks about nonsense like this to get votes. It's typical Democrat strategy. They buy votes. Just tell people you will give them free stuff, or cheap stuff, and they will vote for you. It doesn't have to make any sense, or be economically sound. It's straight out buying votes.

[jennifer_bloom]

Grocery stores need to make money so I don't blame them for having increased prices since the pandemic started. If they wanted cheap groceries they could always eat rice and oatmeal instead of caesar salad.

[Anonymous]

Price gouging really isn't possible in an economy at scale outside of very short term event's like disasters.

If anyone for any unjustified reasons raises their price too much people figure that out and go to their competitors instead.

Even in the short term event of disasters there is legitimately a short term shortage in which the value such thing is much higher. In such cases limits of information, time and accessible resources make establishing a 'fair' price very difficult.

Such "price gouging" laws tend to make things even more difficult leading to shortages in a critical situation.

[Telekinetic-Potato]

Not for the small guys, but the huge conglomerate owned farms yea a lot of it is price gouging.

They have proprietary gmo seeds, immense power to take out competition through lawfare. Unfair access to automation technology unfair willingness to engage in animal cruelty, unfair access to chemistry labs and talant. I could go on.

There is no reason why a burger at McDonald's should be $3.00 or chicken thighs in the supermarket $1.70/lb

[Summeroflove]

People who need to blame someone it’s the stupid president and the economy. Okay? There are some stores that price gouge yes but not most especially the small businesses who are just trying to stay alive.

[Syntosi]

As I remember, it was pretty decisively proven that businesses were price gouging after covid19 which accounted for a lot, but not all of the inflation.

[Asker]

I'm talking about then prices right now at the grocery store. We aren't talking about covid. Prices have risen steeply since then.

[Syntosi]

It is one and the same for the most part, just a continuation of what they began doing under covid19. "The new normal" as it were.

[Asker]

Where is this "proof"

[Syntosi]

Well, after a quick google search this was the first result:
groundworkcollaborative.org/.../...fits-Report.pdf

[Asker]

Your source is a liberal activist group.

[Syntosi]

... so? Does not mean that they are wrong.

[Asker]

It means i don't trust their data, especially considering there are no citations as to where this data came from. They could have made it up for all anyone knows.

[Curmudgeon]

The Left is trying to distract from their hyperinflation and currency devaluation policies, yet again.

[Curmudgeon]

Seriously, the retail grocery industry is the most competitive around. Anyone even trying to "price gouge:" would be undercut by their competitors.

This is not a monopoly or an oligopoly situation. Oligopoly is present in certain industries where the underlying capital costs, and hence barriers to new competitors entering the business, are quite high. But grocery retailing isn't oil refining or automaking.

[Asker]

100%

[DryGermanGuy]

It’s fairly easy to move in unison in a business oligopoly, especially if antitrust regulations and oversight are weak. My first inquiry into it would simply be to check their earnings / EBITDA.

[exitseven]

No the high cost of groceries is due to high fuel costs, supply chain failures and printing trillions of dollars.

[DrPepper12]

The regional feds in SF & KC & NY. The Dept of commerce. Most think tanks. Wholesalers and importers. Dept of labor. @ 70% of Consumers. Why?

[noohair]

Our national debt is over 35,000,000,000,000. Deficit spending caused our money to have less value. That is why we need more pieces of paper to buy the same things. This is simple economics.

[ProbablyClueless]

Lots of democrats believe that.

[Anonymous]

Left-wing Marxist imbeciles, that's who.

[jahaims]

You can look a companies yearly profit you know.

[gatixek710]

Moron democrats. That's who.

[Anonymous]

No one smart, price gauging requires a crisis