TheVoiceOfJoyce Unemployment won’t bring down inflation nor will increases in labor’s wages and benefits. Labor’s wages have been stagnated for decades, they’re not causing inflation. Slap anti trust suits on American Corporations and they’ll have an incentive to lower their pricing. American Corporations have no competition. 4 major Corporations dominate every Industrial sector, break up the monopolies, add competition and prices will come down. Monopoly power, unchecked is causing inflation, not Labor. Labor deserves better wages, benefits and a say in Corporate governance now.

Posted on by jaslvr

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/08/us-monopolies-inflation-unemployment-rising-prices-federal-reserve

Corporate pricing power is out of control because corporations face so little competition.

Worried about sky-high airline fares and lousy service? That’s largely because airlines have merged from 12 carriers in 1980 to four today.

Concerned about drug prices? A handful of drug companies control the pharmaceutical industry.

Upset about food costs? Four giants now control over 80% of meat processing, 66% of the pork market, and 54% of the poultry market.

Worried about grocery prices? Albertsons bought Safeway and now Kroger is buying Albertsons. Combined, they would control almost 22% of the US grocery market. Add in Walmart, and the three brands would control 70% of the grocery market in 167 cities across the country.

And so on. The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

It’s getting worse. There were over a thousand major corporate mergers or acquisitions last year. Each had a merger value of $100m or more. The total transaction value was $1.4tn.

The government must stop putting the responsibility for fighting inflation on working people whose wages have gone nowhere for four decades.

Put the responsibility where it belongs – on big corporations with power to raise their prices.

One possibility: any large corporation in an industry dominated by five or fewer giant corporations that raises its prices more than the Fed’s target of 2% should be presumed to have monopoly power, and slammed with an antitrust lawsuit.

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