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FTC head wants investigation into grocery stores over inflated prices
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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does this need investigation? a spike in profit should be rather obvious, if not the spike than increased income and some new mysterious expenses.
Yes it does. Because they need ironclad proof if they're going to take legal action.
I love that we need ironclad proof to decide whether or not it's okay for people to be able to afford sustenance or not. If there's no proof then, oh well! The poors will just have to make do.
That's how legal cases work. You have to prove your side. I'm not sure how else they should work.
I'm aware that's how they work but when the system "works" and the result is starving families then maybe it's time we rethink whether we should keep following this system, no?
So how should it work? What system could not be abused by, for example, a Trump administration?
The problem is but just one system, but a set of interlocking bad systems. For instance, there would have been no Trump administration without the Electoral College and plurality voting. I didn't think any system can be made to work right when we allow bad people to be put in charge.
That doesn't really answer my question of how it should work.
Would you prefer the FTC just forces them to cut prices, and then give both the corporations reason to sue them, as well as more right-wing talking points about "big government stealing money from Ma and Pa grocer"? The unfortunate reality is that if the FTC don't do this investigation and come back with hard proof, no matter how blatantly obvious what the large grocers are doing actually is, they will play the victim and make it even harder to take any hard action against them.
The other reality is that, even if it's not actually the case, if it turned out that it was just "inflation" and all those companies did have to raise prices to stay afloat (again, not saying this is the case at all, just simply playing devil's advocate), the FTC would face an absolute shitstorm if they took action and it did actually do serious harm to grocers/the broader food supply chain. Again, not a "Oh no, profits were only up 20% YoY instead of 35% because of the FTC action" but a "We will literally be selling all our products at a severe loss and will be bankrupt in weeks". They have to understand exactly how much they're fucking people over to take action, because historically there have been plenty of times where a well-intentioned "Stop fucking people over" rule, has caused much greater consequences down the line.
It sucks and is disgusting that in such a wealthy nation that we have people going hungry at all, but at least they're attempting to finally do something about this specific issue, and hopefully will at least discourage shit like this in the future.
Yes, if there's collusion or a lack of competition, there are legal solutions, namely breaking up the offending companies.
But will those solutions be applied? That's always in doubt.
We're at an inflection point where Federal government arms actually have to show the citizens they sometimes work. Something may actually happen here. Many government agencies like them, the FCC, DOE, DOT, and FTC are actually being run by people that are trying to make a difference. Did a 4000 mile road trip across the US over the holidays and was impressed to see so many bridges actually being fixed, rebuilt, or replaced. First time I've ever seen that level of progress. (Or at least, level of undoing technical debt.)
Not to fill you with false optimism though. I've not seen our federal government do anything useful my entire life, only take away rights with things like the Patriot Act and making women not be people anymore, so I have a hard time myself believing they will actually do something for the People.
Opposite corollary: They antitrusted Google over search while Google is currently being run by morons and failing at everything, meanwhile ignoring that Apple is becoming an actual monopoly in the US and segregating the population based on the color of a text bubble; owning media production, distribution, and sales; and other bad behavior.
Who knows, but Khan is the best chance we've had of something getting done in a very long time.
When was the last time this happened?
Bell telephone
So 42 years ago.