George Takei 
🏳️🌈🖖🏽The nation’s largest egg producer saw profits rise 600 percent last year. A U.S. Senate candidate's family business was found liable in an egg price-fixing scheme. This often isn’t inflation. It’s price gouging.
Francis 🏴☠️ Gulotta@georgetakei ooo I’d like to know more about the scheme
enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉@georgetakei indeed there have been legit investigations that found 60% of all US inflation was not caused by supply chain issues or anything like that, it was caused by corporate price gouging to boost profits.
David 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️NB they/them@enmodo @georgetakei which makes that not inflation despite how the media covers it, when it’s acknowledged at all.
@SailorDisco @georgetakei unfortunately the people who compute the retail price index and other statistics don't make that distinction. But ultimately the effect inflation is just as damaging regardless of cause.
It's kind of like the unemployment figures which during the Obama presidency Trump famously decried as completely fake because they don't count people who don't want to work or have given up looking. That is true but ultimately the statistic tracks a useful number.
@SailorDisco @georgetakei of course I wish other statistics and causal information were commonly researched and reported by not only government websites lay people rarely ever visit.
Ultimately all we have to look at is corporate profits, worker productivity, and real wages to see whatever the other numbers the vast majority of us are getting screwed.
Pusher Of Pixels (old account)
KozmykIt's like what tobacco companies were doing in the 90's and 00's when I was involved with the retail market. A State would increase sales tax on tobacco every few years and at the same time the tobacco producers would increase their price even more, because the smoking public would blame the State for the price increase. It may be still be happening. Thankfully, I quit smoking 23 years ago.
Also: lobbyists are illegal in every country other than the US.
Wilfried Klaebe@Kozmyk I beg to differ. In Germany we have way too much stuff happen, or not happen, because of lobbyists.
@georgetakei
@georgetakei
Maybe lobbyists work different in Europe. In the US, lobbyists pay off politicians with donations and make them pass laws that benefit the corporations that fund the lobbyists.
One of several thousands of examples.... the oil industry has been paying off politicians for decades, knowing that their industry is destroying the planet since the early 1950's, but found enough of political whores the US Congress that will take money rather than care for the world around them.
@Kozmyk Here, they can't pay the politicians directly, but after leaving office, many people surprisingly end up in well-paid positions close to the companies that benefited from their political actions.
@georgetakei
@georgetakei
yaygya@wonka @Kozmyk @georgetakei that’s how they work in Canada too. I suspect that’s how they are in a lot of countries.
TC Won't Give In To Lies
reiterator@georgetakei it’s an egg price-fixing scheme, and the yolk’s on consumers.
Richard R Lee
andcarnivorous@georgetakei There is research hinting at the fact that much of modern inflation is due to the pricing models of corporations.
Nicole ParsonsPrice gouging triggers inflation, which triggers increases in interest rates.
It punishes everyone who has a mortgage or depends on the flow of credit to run a business. It worsened homelessness and the housing crisis as builders paused projects.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/23/john-rust-rose-acre-farms-egg-price-fixing-senate
https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-price-gouging-lawsuit-conspiracy-8cd455003a3a40bab74d0f046d0f2c9d
@Npars01 @georgetakei
Interest rate rises also trigger more corporate price increases (but never comparable wage increases). Funny that.
Justice💙
LICSW@georgetakei thank you. I share your posts but I wanted to take a moment of gratitude and thank you for your voice for humanity. You’re a force to contend with. 🙏🏼💙🥰 love you. 🫣
Smitty@georgetakei we saw an obvious problem when our local store was under 0.99 a dozen with lots of inventory going out of date.
Antiroo 🔞@georgetakei
I mean, this could be considered marginally good. Controlling the supply could be seen as anti-capitalist, producing and selling fewer eggs at higher profit could be good for the well-being of the chickens and the workers, which are historically terrible( and certainly still are), but the groundwork for a world with less production and consumption is needed if we are to survive.
I mean, this could be considered marginally good. Controlling the supply could be seen as anti-capitalist, producing and selling fewer eggs at higher profit could be good for the well-being of the chickens and the workers, which are historically terrible( and certainly still are), but the groundwork for a world with less production and consumption is needed if we are to survive.
RodneyPetersonTalentAgencyThat’s exactly it. And how these motherfuckers keep unions like SAG, the WGA and the Las Vegas Hotel Employees down. Oh, you want x and x increase? Sure. Well, guess what happened to budget weekly hotels and apartments in Las Vegas shortly after…
On a related note, in China a supplier of milk to public schools was found to have used plastic in the milk. Some kids got kidney disease and died. He was a millionaire, but they didn’t fuck around. He was executed.
In America, especially Trumps America, he’d not only be protected by shitbag lawyers, but likely find his way to some related CEO position, maybe even be part of the FDA.
And we’re supposed to think this isn’t a shithole country.
annie gray@georgetakei
And it's far from the only price gouging that's gone on. Rents have skyrocketed for no valid reason.
And it's far from the only price gouging that's gone on. Rents have skyrocketed for no valid reason.
Jonas@georgetakei Animals are exploited, consumers are deceived. And the additional profit does not even go into better conditions...
Starry Dynamo@georgetakei If it's domestically produced, it's almost guaranteed to be price gouging.
Kenneth@georgetakei and the prices never get lowered after being raised short term due to an increase in 'production costs'
Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)@georgetakei Must admit, I saw "A U.S." and was mentally misinterpreting that as "AUS"… thinking this was a local story.
Still, not good behaviour on the part of the business owners. They complain about inflation, then do things like this? Sorry, who's doing inflationary things? Have a look in the mirror.
Nic@georgetakei making eggsessive profits
Archaide 
@georgetakei i call it "greed-flation"