Food costs for Americans continue to soar – and so do the profits of the corporations selling us our food. In fact, multiple studies have found that the prices we’re paying for food far outpace the rate of inflation, and at the same time, corporations are spending their record profits on stock buybacks. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Food costs for Americans continue to soar, and so do the profits of the corporations selling us food. In fact, multiple studies have found that the prices we’re paying for food far outpace the rate of inflation. At the same time, corporations are spending record profits on stock buybacks. Here’s this, this is such an ugly story in the sense that, first of all, you have these corporations arguing, well, it’s because of COVID. COVID made us do it. Well, really? Because COVIS is gone now and you’re still coming in at these ridiculous increases. The other thing we’re hearing is, well, this is because of the American Rescue Plan that Biden signed, that he signed. Well, there are two sides to that. Yes, it is. There’s some inflation because of it. These things that Biden has done that are inflationary, the Inflationary Reduction Act actually became inflationary. They’re making all these lobbyist arguments that really sound pretty convincing when you listen to what they’re saying and they have the numbers to kinda show it. But at the end of the day, it’s PepsiCo, people like Walmart, PepsiCo saying, look, we just want more money. We want to pay our CEOs more money. We want more money for ourselves and hell with everybody else.
Farron Cousins: Well listen, when we’re in times of high inflation, as we’ve discussed a million times, we’ll discuss it a million more times before we’re through as well, in periods of high inflation corporations make it very clear, we’re gonna raise our prices above what inflation is. And right now that rate is about 7%, a 7% increase over inflation is what these corporations are passing on to us. Pepsi, Kroger, Walmart, all the usual suspects here. So they are making more profits than at any other point in history while claiming, oh, no, no, no. Things are, we got to do this because inflation’s so bad. No. All of the, The Lever put together all the numbers for all the companies.
Mike Papantonio: Lever, by the way, if you have any doubt about this, go read The Lever. These folks get it right all the time.
Farron Cousins: Every time.
Mike Papantonio: Every time. And I mean, the numbers are easy to look at. You got inflation at this rate, you got increases at this rate. You got stock buyouts that are skyrocketing. And the stock buyout, all it is, it’s good for the shareholder, it’s good for the people at the top and to hell with everybody else trying to buy milk or bread. It doesn’t really make a difference.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Because we’re seeing grocery prices, the price of eggs has increased by 93%. So the price of eggs has almost doubled in the last two years. Milk is over 80% increase. We are getting screwed and part of that, little part of it is inflation because inflation’s coming down a little bit, but the prices are not. So these companies, when they raised their prices during inflation, eventually they may drop ’em down a couple pennies and people will say, oh, okay, it came down, but they’re still way higher than they were before inflation.
Mike Papantonio: This isn’t rocket science. There are indexes that show you this day to day. It’s not like you have to figure this out. You got an inflation index, you got a price increase index. It’s right there. And the truth of the matter is, I’m a little concerned that there hasn’t been any effort to have price controls and say at least threaten them with price controls. Say, look, you continue to do this, you’re 7% above what the inflation rate. I’m not seeing any reaction either way. You know it’s about your stock buyouts. You know it’s about the greed of management with a corporation.
Farron Cousins: The golden parachutes.
Mike Papantonio: There’s not even, but there’s not even any threat to it. You see, that’s what bothers me. A leader says, you know, you continue doing this, not only are you affecting the chances of us being reelected because inflation is one of the key issues. But you’re also affecting the rights of American consumers to be able to live a life, a quality life without being, it’s a license loot. That’s the best explanation. Somebody used the term in the story, license to loot, COVID gave them a license to loot, inflation arguments have given them a license to loot. And at the end of the day, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Farron Cousins: No. The one person, and I do mean one person that has been consistent on this issue.
Mike Papantonio: Elizabeth Warren.
Farron Cousins: Elizabeth Warren,
Mike Papantonio: Elizabeth Warren.
Farron Cousins: She’s been sounding this alarm for two years now,
Mike Papantonio: Every time. And nevertheless, we ignore her. Now we’re talking about one of the segments we did was on, really 350 million Americans, this is what we have to choose from. Why not an Elizabeth Warren? Why not somebody like that? Okay.
