Greedflation

Just the other day I was in a car shop in Florence, AZ and a man came in whining about inflation.  I corrected him that it was not inflation but corporate greed that was the cause of prices rising.  He and the other man there both looked at me as if I had just landed from a spaceship. It’s the truth and please pass it on.

In the Fall 2024 Ms. Magazine, (www.msmagazine.com), Martha Burk has an article about Greedflation.  Corporations have had a surge in profits since 2020 and it is not tied to their own prices going up for raw materials or labor.  It’s only tied to greed.  During the supply chain snafus of the COVID era, prices went up due to shortages.  But when that ended, prices never went back down.  When your grocery store got rid of labor costs, the highest cost of any business, and installed self-service kiosks for you to do your own labor, did they reduce the prices of the groceries?   

Groundwork Collaborative has found that in 2023 the main cause for inflation was corporate profits not increases in costs to corporations.  In the 40 years prior to COVID, profits were 11% of the cause of price increases.  Today profits are 53% of the cause of price increases.  In 2023, corporate profit margins were above 15% which is a level not seen since the 1950s when tax rates were from 70-90%.  

Most of the profits went to shareholders, a buildup of cash and paying (often worthless) CEOs.  The median pay for CEOs rose to $16.3 million per year.  An ordinary worker would have to work for 200 years to earn that. This has driven up poverty rates for single women with children especially Black and Latina.  

Do not be fooled by the nodding heads and wagging mouths in the mainstream news.  Corporate greed is the blame for the high prices from the grocery store to the medical clinic.