Producer Price Index Rises More Than Forecast

Not sure I follow. Consumer protection and stopping price gouging is bad?

I know you are not a Trump supporter, but what is his alternative plan?

How is inflation on groceries reduced other than challenging the entire supply chain on food costs?

 

I'm seriously interested in the reaction to this craziness...maybe they think the country's ready to commie down.

 

if you paid attention to what I post you wouldn’t be.

 

first of all, what exactly is “price gouging”? In the pasnit has meant extreme price hikes in the event of emergency demand, like selling generators at 3 times the price at hurricane sites when electricity is out.

I don’t know of any price gouging that has gone on at grocery stores. Price increases have been a result of supply and demand curve shifts and re-equalizing.

So now we are going to penalize grocery stores for raising prices when supply decreases and demand increases? The alternative is empty shelves if price is too low.

This is what I hate hate hate about the inflation is due to “greedy corporations” narrative - this is where it leads to - government price fixing or price controls, which again and again have been shown to be an abject failure.

So what are they proposing - regulation of profits?

Grocery stores are not generally the highest margin businesses in the first place. The govt has stepped in and paused the combination of Kroger and Safeway due to anti trust concerns - but that ignores they have to compete with low price competitors like Walmart and Costco. The Biden anti trust dept is really operating with a philosophy of 50 years ago which does t work in todays environment.

I”m fundamentally a free market capitalist. In my mind this is terrible policy.

My concern has been stuff like this - once she starts throwing actual policy out there, it won’t have any rhyme or reason and could eventually scare off some centrists and center right anti Trumpers. Sure, Democrats don’t care, but some of us do.

 

Not only all of the above, but the time to implement food price controls would have been 2 to 3 years ago, not today when food inflation has fallen below 2%.

 

Thank you for the detailed response. 100% agree with the logic. The issue is through the entire value chain, profits have crept up with no incremental value to the end product or service. There are certainly sectors in the economy where along the value chain exists a high concentration of pricing power. The appropriate study is for government to understand the value chain and assess such concentration and competition.100% agree this isn’t a grocery store end user matter as much as a producer / supplier matter.

 

A rate drop could also increase supply. In addition to homeowners who finance their purchasers builders also borrow to finance construction. Lower rates wouldn't increase the supply of existing homes or rental units but they could increase the number of new units over time.

 

The PPI, CPI and the market are tied together... So... if it does go down a ton, I see that as a buying opportunity.

 

You should get out of your partisan cheerleading bubble. I’m not interesting in picking a side or a candidate and rationalizing everything they do or responding with “the other side is worse”. If a policy is bad IMO I’ll call it out for what it is.

 

Similar in my area of Florida. Also houses are sitting far longer on the market.

This isn’t even including the terrible condo sales due to the new state laws (that were needed).

 

Why? I Boy isn’t a far lefty…

 

These are questions any serious person should ask.

 

Why would you assume they are just talking about “grocery stores”??? Industry consolidation has been an issue for a long time in agriculture. Due to economies of scale, small farmers are priced out of almost everything nowadays. Of course that phenomenon of “big ag” isn’t inflationary, may even be deflationary so long as competition exists and there isn’t illegal collusion among the major players. I wouldn’t say I’m in favor of blocking some of the recent big food deals I’ve seen, but they are also “big” enough it makes sense to at least look at them, and some areas within food really are down to a handful of players. Do we really want to end up with a handful of companies owning almost the entire food supply chain? Because that’s where things are possibly heading in 10-20 years.

On a lot of these issues the govt is likely to be on losing side of court cases, as these don’t quite seem to qualify as anti-trust. Not yet anyway. But another wave of mega deals could hit the limits. I actually agree calling it “price gouging” seems off base on a general level, my take is that’s just terminology/talking point for the rubes on the left side of the isle rather than getting into the weeds on anti-trust concerns, but it’s hard to really judge until they offer specific examples/cases.

Doesn’t seem a big deal to me as I think food inflation is a vastly overhyped issue in the first place, and it mostly seems over with.

 

I guess we will see. But I think this is at best a political blunder. At worst a policy blunder.

I posted in the other thread an oped from Wash Post - not a particular conservative writer - if someone calls you a communist don’t propose price controls.

I suspect what she is proposing is a bigger deal than what you are indicating but I hope I am wrong.

This and the stupid tax free tips are reaffirming my prior perception of Harris as a lightweight both on policy and politics. I just have a bad feeling she is going to blow herself up somewhere. Again, I hope I’m wrong on both counts.

 

The no tax on tips is also stupid, and BOTH candidates are obviously doing it to pander for casino/service worker votes in NV. Not sure it’s dumb politics because she’s directly taking that issue away from Trump, but as a policy i think it’s awful. Basically special interest pandering (even if the workers are low wage, I see no reason to treat earned tips differently from any other wages). If they are low wage that is already captured in the system of progressive tax brackets. I’m sure there are plenty of low wage workers in Vegas who don’t get tips, or salaried workers that make less than some who earn a ton in tips, but only the tips would be “tax free”. Makes no sense to them either, i’m sure.

 

No tax on tips is dumb policy but it isn’t catastrophic. Reminds me when both John McCain and Hillary Clinton advocated for suspending the gas tax when gas taxes got high.

Depending on how legislation would be worded it could be messy because it would likely expand the tip economy which isn’t necessarily good for workers if it comes at the expense of wages.

Price controls of groceries, if that is what we are looking at in any form is possibly the dumbest proposal I’ve seen in 50 years.