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Most people who are experiencing and talking about "inflation" are experiencing and talking about the increases in food and energy which, for the most part, hav

Most people who are experiencing and talking about "inflation" are experiencing and talking about the increases in food and energy which, for the most part, haven't gone down. It just goes to show you that the food price increases were never inflation, just them realizing they could price gouge under the cover of inflation. This may not matter for capitalists and finance industry jargon heads who don't have to personally worry about food and energy, but for most of us it's a substantial part (if not >1/3) of our monthly bills.

nradov 4y ago
What is price gouging exactly? How can we determine whether a particular price level is due to gouging or other factors?
- superkuh 4y ago
  In this case price gouging is when there's a natural disaster going on and grocery and consumable CEOs explicitly say they're raising prices because of this cover preventing consumer backlash. > Colgate CEO Noel Wallace: "What we are very good at is pricing." > Kroger CEO Gary Millerchip: "We’ve been very comfortable with our ability to pass on the increases that we’ve seen at this point, and we would expect that to continue to be the case." They wait for a disaster to price-gouge and then they use their market power to make us all poorer while at the same time reporting record profits. If you don't like the phrase price gouging maybe "excuseflation" will work (ie, the eggs incident aftermath).
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Ahh yes, everybody started losing their minds when prices went up during the pandemic at the same time celebrating when gas prices fell during the pandemic not realizing that it’s basically the same economic mechanism. Supply and demand is a sadistic but beautiful bitch that occasionally gives you some of that good lovin’ you enjoy with that beating you don’t.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> the increases in food and energy which, for the most part, haven’t gone down Energy inflation is -6.4% year over year in the last CPI report, as well as being down month over month (both “raw” and with seasonal adjustments). What on Earth are you talking about? (Yes, Food inflation is still fairly high, energy though…if anything, one of the drivers of continued inflation fears despite the low trend of the last several months is that the current low inflation is substantially dependent on energy inflation, which is generally historically highly-volatile, being negative.)

nradov 4y ago

What is price gouging exactly? How can we determine whether a particular price level is due to gouging or other factors?

superkuh 4y ago
In this case price gouging is when there's a natural disaster going on and grocery and consumable CEOs explicitly say they're raising prices because of this cover preventing consumer backlash. > Colgate CEO Noel Wallace: "What we are very good at is pricing." > Kroger CEO Gary Millerchip: "We’ve been very comfortable with our ability to pass on the increases that we’ve seen at this point, and we would expect that to continue to be the case." They wait for a disaster to price-gouge and then they use their market power to make us all poorer while at the same time reporting record profits. If you don't like the phrase price gouging maybe "excuseflation" will work (ie, the eggs incident aftermath).
- kcplate 4y ago
  Ahh yes, everybody started losing their minds when prices went up during the pandemic at the same time celebrating when gas prices fell during the pandemic not realizing that it’s basically the same economic mechanism. Supply and demand is a sadistic but beautiful bitch that occasionally gives you some of that good lovin’ you enjoy with that beating you don’t.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> the increases in food and energy which, for the most part, haven’t gone down Energy inflation is -6.4% year over year in the last CPI report, as well as being down month over month (both “raw” and with seasonal adjustments). What on Earth are you talking about? (Yes, Food inflation is still fairly high, energy though…if anything, one of the drivers of continued inflation fears despite the low trend of the last several months is that the current low inflation is substantially dependent on energy inflation, which is generally historically highly-volatile, being negative.)