{"id":60038,"date":"2021-10-22T07:43:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T12:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60038"},"modified":"2021-10-22T07:43:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T12:43:37","slug":"corporate-greed-the-real-culprit-behind-rising-prices-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60038","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Greed the &#8216;Real Culprit Behind Rising Prices,&#8217; Researchers Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2021\/10\/14\/corporate-greed-real-culprit-behind-rising-prices-researchers-say\">Corporate Greed the &#8216;Real Culprit Behind Rising Prices,&#8217; Researchers Say<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"headline__field-subtitle text-lg tracking-tighter leading-tightest\"><strong>&#8220;The more sway mega-corporations have over our economy, the more power they have to gouge customers, squeeze Main Street, and exploit workers.&#8221;<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"block\">\n<div class=\"headline__body prose node__body\">\n<p><strong>Amid mounting data showing<\/strong>\u00a0that people are paying more for food at grocery stores around the United States, a new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/groundworkcollaborative.org\/news\/new-research-from-groundwork-collaborative-shows-link-between-price-hikes-monopoly-and-corporate-greed\/\">analysis<\/a>\u00a0out Wednesday reveals how corporate power is &#8220;the real culprit behind rising prices at the checkout line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">&#8220;Addressing this crisis means recognizing these price increases for what they are: the result of deeply entrenched concentrated corporate power.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After the U.S. Labor Department announced that the Consumer Price Index increased by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/cpi.nr0.htm\">0.4%<\/a>\u00a0in September, researchers at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, explained the connections between &#8220;price hikes, monopoly, and corporate greed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The more sway mega-corporations have over our economy, the more power they have to gouge customers, squeeze Main Street, and exploit workers,&#8221; Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/groundworkcollaborative.org\/news\/new-research-from-groundwork-collaborative-shows-link-between-price-hikes-monopoly-and-corporate-greed\/\">said<\/a>\u00a0in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Since September 2020, food prices overall have increased by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/cpi.nr0.htm\">4.6%<\/a>, with the price of meats, poultry, fish, and eggs surging the most over the past 12 months, at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/shopping\/2021\/10\/13\/food-shopping-prices-up-cpi-september-2021-saving-tips\/6035703001\/\">10.5%<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The higher inflation rate in those industries, researchers noted, can be attributed to decades of consolidation, which has given a handful of corporations an ever-greater degree of market control and with it, the power to set prices.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Groundwork Collaborative:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Just four meat processing conglomerates control more than 80% of the beef industry and more than 60% of the pork industry. This enables them to dictate prices that both\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MorePerfectUS\/status\/1438241268937670661\">flatten returns for farmers and ranchers<\/a>\u00a0and inflate prices for consumers at the meat counter. As a result,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/cpi.t02.htm\">consumers have seen<\/a> a 12% increase in the cost of beef and a nearly 10% increase in the cost of pork over the last year&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corporate Greed the &#8216;Real Culprit Behind Rising Prices,&#8217; Researchers Say &#8220;The more sway mega-corporations have over our economy, the more power they have to gouge customers, squeeze Main Street, and exploit workers.&#8221; Amid mounting data showing\u00a0that people are paying more for food at grocery stores around the United States, a new\u00a0analysis\u00a0out Wednesday reveals how corporate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7669,6963,171,322,426,32004,32005,13351,827],"class_list":["post-60038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-common-dreams","tag-consortium-news","tag-corporations","tag-food-prices","tag-inflation","tag-kenny-stancil","tag-market-control","tag-price-inflation","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60039,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60038\/revisions\/60039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}