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0:54

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production

0:57

of iHeartRadio.

1:04

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

1:06

and there's Chuck and Jerry's here somewhere

1:09

and this is stuff you should know. The

1:12

Timely Topical Edition. I haven't

1:14

done one of these in a while.

1:15

Job. Yeah, Fight the Power

1:17

Edition.

1:19

I guess. So kind of seems that way,

1:21

doesn't It Like there's really very

1:23

few ways to discuss this and not

1:25

kind of come out on that side.

1:28

Yeah. I'm kind of glad you picked this one because

1:31

with all the talk of you know, food grocery

1:33

store prices and stuff, in the

1:35

back of my mind, I've been thinking,

1:37

like, all right, I know there were

1:39

some reasons for this, but I also

1:41

wonder if they just raised

1:44

prices a lot because they could, right,

1:47

and that's kind of what happened.

1:49

Yeah, it true seems that way, Like I

1:53

think, kind of at the end of the day,

1:55

the discussion over what we're talking about, which

1:57

is called greedflation, which is a fairly new

2:00

right. The

2:04

idea isn't that food companies

2:06

made massive profits over

2:09

the last few years, starting in the pandemic,

2:11

right, Like, There's just basically no way you can

2:13

argue that that didn't happen. It's been documented.

2:16

The issue at hand is

2:19

whether that constitutes

2:21

something beyond the norm of

2:23

capitalism, or is that just that's

2:26

what happens in the free market when

2:28

there's you know, weirdness to it. You

2:30

know, that's the that's

2:32

the question. In my mind. What it really comes

2:34

down to is your interpretation of whether

2:37

there's I don't know, maybe some sort of basic

2:40

moral responsibility for certain

2:43

kinds of companies or companies that deal in certain

2:45

kinds of goods to not just make as

2:47

much money as they possibly can. I

2:49

don't know. I think that's the that's the

2:51

actual debate over it.

2:53

Now, let me ask you this, is it possible

2:55

to be a person who says,

2:59

you know, I'm at that percent behind

3:01

capitalism and let it

3:03

run amok and that's just let

3:05

it work itself out, and then also

3:07

complain about food prices like can those things

3:09

co exist?

3:11

Yes? Those people are called the worst.

3:15

Okay, so it can co

3:17

exist. I think so people you don't want

3:19

to hang out with.

3:20

Right exactly?

3:21

Okay?

3:21

Yeah. I think conversely too, you can

3:23

be totally pro capitalists and still

3:25

be like the idea that

3:28

it's just business is kind of a moral.

3:30

Yeah.

3:30

I don't think you have to you have to

3:32

pick one side or the other. I think

3:34

that it's a little grayer than that.

3:36

All right, shall we jump in.

3:38

Yeah, let's so. Ultimately

3:41

what we're talking about are increases and prices

3:43

at the grocery store on levels that we

3:45

just haven't seen before. Like, you're not crazy,

3:47

the prices at the grocery store are bonkers.

3:51

Apparently, in twenty twenty two in America,

3:54

the inflation for food

3:56

at grocery stores increased eleven point

3:58

four percent, and then

4:01

in twenty twenty three it added another five

4:03

percent, and that was, you

4:05

know, half a little a little

4:07

more than half of what the

4:09

increase had been in twenty twenty two, but

4:11

it was still double with the normal annual

4:14

increases of two point

4:16

five percent, that's how much food typically

4:18

inflates year over year at the grocery store.

4:20

Instead, in two years, it inflated

4:22

by almost seventeen percent. Wow.

4:25

Yeah, And there were reasons for this, Like there's a standard

4:28

narrative, which is there's just

4:30

a handful of reasons that everybody points to like

4:32

this is why.

4:33

Yeah, and there's you know, we're going to talk I

4:35

guess a little bit about kind of the

4:38

standard explanations that we've been hearing for

4:40

the past couple of years, which

4:42

we're not saying is you know, bunk

4:45

or anything like that, because, as

4:47

you'll see, I think is a pretty even handed

4:49

episode. We might get a hot

4:51

hot under the collar, but I

4:54

think there's reason to be So

4:56

here we go. So one thing

4:58

you will hear and have heard a lot is, you

5:00

know, the pandemic's obviously a big reason for all

5:02

this, the biggest driver of

5:05

it, and the disruptions to

5:07

the supply chain. Whether

5:09

you were building a house or whether

5:11

you were a food company

5:14

marking up your goods, the supply

5:16

chain squeezed out. It seems like everything

5:19

on the planet, and there were

5:21

food item shortages, there were ingredient

5:24

shortages, and that was one of the

5:26

drivers for inflation.

5:28

Yeah, even packaging shortages. Like

5:30

a good example is that caffeine

5:32

free coke was temporarily discontinued

5:35

because there was a shortage of aluminum,

5:37

which meant that coke had to basically ration their

5:40

cans, and regular coke sells

5:42

more than caffeine free coke, so they just

5:44

basically focused on coke for

5:46

a little while. Yeah, that caused a shortage. It

5:48

was just that sort bizarre and meandering

5:51

in some cases, right.

5:52

Yeah, which had nothing to do with raising prices,

5:54

But that's just a side.

5:55

Note, right, it's

5:57

true. Yes, you're right.

5:59

So people ate at home a lot more during

6:01

the pandemic, obviously, so there

6:03

was more demand that you know, these goods

6:05

were in shorter supply, and all of a sudden,

6:07

there's more demand for fewer those

6:10

goods. And that is just inflation

6:12

one on one as far as how things get out

6:14

of control.

6:15

Right. And then so if you are a processed

6:18

food company, you have to use ingredients,

6:21

and a lot of ingredients were

6:24

scarcer, and the cost of the ingredients

6:26

went up, right, So that means

6:28

that they raised their cost because they

6:31

raised the prices of their products because their costs

6:33

increased, So their marginal cost,

6:35

which is the cost to put everything together and

6:38

deliver it and all that stuff package it

6:41

increased, which means they

6:43

increased their markup their profit, which

6:45

means you put those two together, the price

6:47

increases in unnecessary

6:50

clue GI economic terms.

6:51

Yeah, and we're going to talk more in depth about this

6:53

stuff, obviously, but you know, usually

6:56

if there's like if it's you know, if it's

6:58

not a pandemic, and they're just happens

7:00

to be an ingredient that is getting squeezed,

7:02

and so the cost of making a bag of Cheetos

7:05

or something costs more. They're not gonna

7:07

companies aren't gonna be like, oh, we've got to raise a price. Then

7:09

they'll just sort of absorb that to keep the prices

7:12

kind of steady and keep things flowing.

7:15

That wasn't the case during the pandemic.

7:17

Though, No, and Chuck, that is that

7:19

is a key thing to understand, is what

7:22

we are seeing those markups, the difference

7:24

in the price and the cost

7:26

of the company's pay to actually

7:29

produce the product. Like

7:31

that, that's we've just never

7:34

seen anything like this before. Economists

7:36

are like, I've never seen anything like this before

7:39

in my forty years of studying

7:42

you know, food delivery and food

7:44

supply chain stuff.

7:45

Yeah, and then people said, you've been studying

7:47

that for forty years, and.

7:49

The guy's like, yes, someone please let

7:51

me stop exactly.

7:54

And then another thing that we heard here

7:56

and there was, you know, people got stimulus

7:59

checks. A lot of people did when

8:01

unemployment was just so staggering

8:04

during the pandemic. So the government

8:07

issued these checks. People

8:09

had a little more money in their pocket to spend,

8:12

which was the idea, and demand

8:15

increased and so that push prices

8:18

higher. The thing is though Europe

8:21

experienced the same inflation we

8:24

did, sometimes even worse as far as food costs

8:26

go, and they didn't get stimulus checks.

8:28

So that one is a little, I

8:31

don't know, confusing.

8:32

I guess it is. This way to say it,

8:35

it is, but just based on classic

8:37

economic theory, there's just no way

8:39

it didn't have some impact, you know what I

8:41

mean? Yeah, sure, in a way.

8:43

You can also point to it as being a very

8:46

unusual factor that took

8:49

place within the context of a larger unusual

8:51

period, which was the pandemic. Right,

8:54

you also had other things

8:56

going on at the same time, Like the pandemic

8:58

wasn't enough. There were tons of bouts

9:01

of Avian flu that was killing hens

9:03

left and right, and I

9:06

guess friar roasters, Yeah,

9:08

the kind you eat too, those chickens. So

9:11

there was less chicken to go around and less hens

9:13

to lay eggs, which meant the price of eggs and

9:16

poultry would increase. What's

9:19

interesting about that is that as

9:21

more hens were hatched and started

9:23

laying more eggs and the supply came back, the

9:26

price of eggs went down, And that is

9:29

weird in the context of what's been going

9:31

on lately too.

9:32

Yeah, absolutely, and we'll talk about

9:34

eggs more because, believe it or not, eggs

9:36

are a big story yet, you

9:39

know story. And then, of course,

9:41

the thing we heard a lot about was the war in Ukraine.

9:43

That was another sort of coexisting

9:46

situation alongside the pandemic,

9:49

which disrupted wheat exports.

9:52

You know, when you're a European country the United

9:54

States and you squeeze sanctions onto

9:56

Russia, there's gonna squeeze right

9:59

back, and well, we've got oil

10:01

that we're not going to supply you anymore, and

10:03

that's just going to that squeezes everything. And

10:06

all of a sudden, grain exports, especially

10:08

wheat, went up, which affects the cost

10:11

of a lot of foods.

10:12

Yeah, because the global economy

10:15

is so interconnected that like if if

10:17

Europe is paying higher energy prices, that's

10:19

definitely going to affect the price of the things

10:21

that American companies are importing

10:23

from Europe, right. Yeah, So all

10:26

those things put together added up to that

10:29

unprecedented increase in prices

10:31

in the grocery store.

10:32

All right. So those are a lot of the reasons that we've

10:34

been hearing about, you know, over

10:36

the past few years. But as far as like, what

10:39

this actually looks like in a grocery store. I

10:41

thought, you know, we thought it'd be helpful if we break down just

10:43

what this looks like for just

10:45

a person walking in a grocery store.

10:47

Okay, so I'll be that person walking. Yeah, I've

10:49

got a hat on. Just imagine I have a cool hat

10:52

on. Okay, I don't I'm walking into the ground.

10:54

I don't know that I've ever seen anywhere hat.

10:55

Weirdly though, like I look weird

10:57

right now.

10:58

Well, it's because you're wearing a hat and.

11:00

I'm walking in place.

11:01

But weirdly, I

11:03

think I've seen you walk in place, but I've never seen you where I hat.

11:06

So if you talk to the USDA, they will

11:08

say the price of food in the United

11:10

States is twenty five percent higher this

11:14

last year in twenty twenty three than it was in twenty

11:16

nineteen. What and

11:18

that was higher than every

11:20

other category on the planet except

11:23

for transportation. And that's why

11:25

people are probably like you should also do one on why

11:27

airline by it costs, you know, one thousand

11:29

dollars to fly from Atlanta, New

11:32

York. Now it doesn't really

11:34

a no, that's not true, but just

11:37

airline tickets are ridiculous

11:39

now. Yeah.

11:40

Do you remember when you used to like get on a plane and

11:42

to be like a third full and they'd

11:44

still take off. They didn't cancel it.

11:47

Yeah, Which that's no good, Like let's fill the planes.

11:49

Up, for sure. But I mean, like, but

11:52

true. Now it's just cutthroat. It's like the oppas.

11:54

It's like, oh, you paid for your ticket a month ago, ts

11:56

you're off the flight.

11:57

Yeah yeah, and the expense anyway,

12:00

all that to say that food food

12:02

prices rose over that three

12:04

year period or four year period, more than

12:06

any other category except for transportation.

12:10

And I believe you already talked about the

12:12

food increase percentage

12:15

wise. But if you're in a grocery store, sir,

12:17

with a hat weirdly walking in place,

12:19

why don't you start coming forward?

12:21

Okay, here, I come take off.

12:23

Your hat when you entered like a good gentleman.

12:25

No, I'm going to leave the hat on. Okay, sure, it's

12:27

a really cool hat.

12:29

And you might notice that that loaf of bread

12:31

over there, just that white sandwich bread

12:34

is twenty two percent more expensive than

12:36

it was just two years ago. God, and

12:39

sir, I see you're thinking, like, well,

12:41

forget that I'm gonna bake my own bread. Well,

12:44

good luck with that too, because that all

12:46

purpose flour is twenty one percent more expensive

12:49

and butter is thirty one percent

12:51

more expensive. So I don't even think about baking a

12:53

birthday cake.

12:54

I can't even get a break on butter.

12:56

I can't even I know butter is. I

12:59

mean that stuff right off the stick.

13:01

So so okay, I'm still the guy

13:03

in the hat. I'm moving down another aisle. I'm like

13:05

nuts. To make it my own bread, I'll

13:07

just eat a bunch of ultra process stuff because

13:10

that's dirt cheap. Everybody knows that. Surely

13:13

that hasn't increased in price.

13:15

No, no, And since you said

13:17

nuts, why don't you go ahead and get some of those

13:19

nuts because they're about sixteen

13:21

percent more expensive.

13:23

Well, they make me pack on too much weight anyway, so

13:25

I'm fine with that.

13:26

And by the way, sir with the hat, I want to remind

13:28

you that these stats for process

13:31

foods are just over one year. WHOA,

13:34

from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three. You're

13:37

paying sixteen percent more for the salties, sixteen

13:39

percent more for those cookies, eighteen

13:42

and a half percent more for that granola bar you think

13:44

is held. And if you want a little fruit

13:46

snack, almost twenty four percent more expensive.

13:49

Not the fruit snacks, yes, the fruit

13:51

snacks.

13:52

Chuck. This skit has gotten.

13:54

Really dark, as

13:56

dark as Halloween.

13:58

Pretty dark. Oh actually,

14:00

no, you're right. Halloween was a bloodbath, especially

14:03

if you're talking fun sized Snickers, because

14:05

get this, this is crazy.

14:08

I mean even Halloween. Normally Halloween

14:10

prices are beyond nuts. But

14:12

this is just really bad.

14:14

A bag of fun sized Snickers went

14:17

from twenty twenty two,

14:19

or sorry, went from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty

14:22

two, It increased by one hundred

14:24

and forty percent. You could have

14:26

gotten a bag of fun sized Snickers for five

14:28

bucks in twenty twenty one. You paid twelve

14:30

dollars the next year.

14:33

All right, well there's nothing

14:35

fun about that.

14:37

Okay, So the skits over and scene

14:40

or end scene, depending on your view. And

14:43

I'm gonna keep wearing my hat though, Okay, all.

14:45

Right, keep that hat on. That's a good setup, and we'll be

14:47

right back with more.

15:17

Okay, So there's something

15:19

to remember too, Like it sucks to pay a lot

15:21

at the grocery store, but if you are a

15:24

low income family or a low income

15:26

country, it hits you even worse

15:28

because food prices increases

15:30

in food prices are regressive. They

15:32

have the largest impact on the people

15:35

who have the least amount of money because those

15:37

people spend a far greater proportion

15:40

of their household budget or their national

15:42

budget on food than

15:44

wealthier people do. They just have

15:47

less money, so they

15:49

still need food. It's not something that you

15:51

can skip very easily, and eventually

15:53

you're going to have to eat, so

15:56

it's an essential thing to buy

15:58

and you don't really have much of a say in

16:00

it if the food prices keep rising.

16:03

So it's really important to keep that in mind that it's

16:06

not just an annoyance, it's not just in

16:08

your pocketbook. It actually has pushed

16:10

people into poverty

16:13

classes in different countries and developed

16:15

countries because food

16:17

prices got They were kind of

16:19

close on the border to begin with, and then

16:21

the pandemic came along and as the food prices

16:24

increased, they were pushed into poverty

16:26

categories.

16:27

Yeah, if you look at the Food Price Index, the

16:30

five categories meat, dairy,

16:33

cereals, vegetable, oils,

16:35

and sugar increased fifty

16:37

seven percent all over the world.

16:39

Over a two year period from twenty twenty

16:42

to twenty twenty two, and then

16:44

a couple of years later here in twenty twenty

16:46

four, some prices have come

16:48

down some quite a bit, eggs

16:51

especially, and again we'll talk about eggs a little

16:53

more. They're ones that really

16:56

kind of reset back down again, but

16:59

not everything. And just over

17:01

a two year period, a fifty seven

17:03

percent increase in meat,

17:05

dairy, cereals, vegetable oil, and sugar is

17:08

going to have a real impact, like

17:10

you said, on families in the United States that

17:12

don't have as much money, and certainly hundreds

17:16

of millions of people all over the world in

17:18

countries that didn't have so much money

17:20

to begin with.

17:21

Right, So that's that's one

17:23

side of it. Like this is actually affecting and impacting

17:26

people in very extreme ways. Yeah,

17:29

So on the one hand, you have people

17:31

who are being pushed into poverty. On the other hand,

17:33

you have the food producers

17:35

who are benefiting tremendously, like

17:38

again, in like record degrees

17:41

in some cases.

17:42

You mean these hundreds and hundreds

17:44

of corporations that

17:46

own all these food companies, right.

17:48

No, Chuck, do you have five

17:51

fingers and five toes on each hand? And foot still.

17:54

Yes, well, then you can more than count

17:57

the number of conglomerates essentially running

17:59

the food supply in the developed

18:01

world.

18:02

Yeah. I mean, we were being kind of cheeky there, but we've

18:04

talked about this before the fact that they're

18:07

just a handful of huge corporations that own

18:10

almost every food And

18:12

you know, this is obviously discounting

18:14

the little indie brands and stuff

18:16

like that. They're out there doing their thing. Most of those are

18:18

trying to get bought by one of these companies.

18:20

Yeah, yeah, I was going to say more and more. They're

18:23

a portfolio of one of these larger brands.

18:26

Yeah, looking for that you know, big big

18:28

money exit and you know, good for them.

18:30

But point is, there are

18:33

just a handful of these big corporations and if

18:35

you ask, if you sit down any of their CEOs

18:37

and grill them over this cost

18:39

increase, they're going to talk about those

18:42

things we talked about at the beginning. They're going to be the

18:44

pandemic demic. Inflation was

18:46

out of control and there wasn't anything we could do. We

18:48

were forced to raise our prices

18:51

to remain profitable. And we're not saying

18:53

that you shouldn't

18:56

make a profit or anything like that. Like, we get

18:58

it that these are for profit company, and

19:00

those costs definitely did go up, and they

19:03

maybe could not take that all on the chin. We're

19:06

not arguing for that. But if

19:09

they then raised

19:11

those costs and said, all right, well we have to account for this

19:13

to so we don't lose our profit margins,

19:16

and they accounted for that, then their

19:18

profit margin should have been about the same

19:20

and they should have been like, all right, well, we didn't lose a lot of money.

19:22

We stayed about the same because we accounted for those

19:24

costs. But that's not what happened.

19:26

Yeah, their profits didn't didn't

19:29

increase in step with their costs. They

19:31

increased plus some right,

19:33

plus a lot, right, plus a lot. So

19:36

Tyson Foods a huge producer of

19:38

chicken in the United

19:41

States, and the

19:43

first quarter of twenty twenty one to

19:45

the first quarter of twenty twenty two, they doubled

19:47

their profits, not their revenue. Their

19:50

profits. Yeah doubled. Okay,

19:52

one hundred percent times two doubled.

19:55

Yeah, that's important, and

19:57

that's one year, year over year. Gill

20:00

another huge conglomerate. They had

20:02

a record six point sixty eight billion

20:04

dollar profit in twenty twenty two, double

20:06

its profit two years before.

20:09

Yeah, and overall, food

20:11

corporations had

20:14

their largest profits during the pandemic,

20:16

during peak inflation, when everyone

20:19

was getting squeezed and hurt. The most food

20:21

corporations recorded their largest profits

20:23

in seventy years.

20:25

Right, And some of them even

20:27

did while they were losing sales,

20:29

like General Mills. Sales were declining

20:32

by like nine percent in twenty twenty

20:34

one and another four percent in twenty twenty two,

20:37

and yet at the end of twenty two twenty two, their

20:39

profits were up ninety seven percent

20:42

over the twenty twenty one I believe.

20:45

So here's where the sticking point is, Chuck,

20:47

this is where where views

20:49

diverge because this is documented

20:52

fact. Is that is

20:54

that just to be expected? Like, do

20:56

people who are mad about this greedflation

20:58

idea not understand and basic capitalism

21:02

or do they have a point in

21:05

saying like this, this is approaching and

21:07

probably has passed a morality?

21:10

Yeah, I mean that's a question if you look we're talking

21:12

about corporations, but if you look at

21:14

people. There were sixty

21:16

two new new food

21:19

billionaires over

21:21

that two year span from twenty twenty to

21:23

twenty twenty two, and they

21:25

calculated this is Oxpam who calculated

21:28

this stuff. That the food billionaires,

21:30

which that those two words is interesting

21:33

together food billionaire, those

21:35

food billionaires made more money during

21:38

the two years of the pandemic than they did

21:40

in the previous twenty three years combined.

21:44

That's I mean, that's the stat of the show.

21:46

So economists like have started to dig into

21:48

this, and just like about anything else,

21:50

there's liberal economists, that's a conservative economists,

21:53

And depending on where you fall, you probably

21:55

either agree, like, yes, this is greedflation

21:58

or you're like, no, people don't understand, this is just basic

22:00

capitalism.

22:02

Yeah, we can look at actual numbers

22:04

though, to help people make up their own

22:06

mind. There's a nonpartisan group called the

22:09

Economic Policy Institute that we talked

22:11

about before on the show, and they looked

22:14

at factors that contributed to these

22:16

higher prices over the last few years, and

22:19

they identified three major components

22:21

of costs for a category

22:24

goods and services, which food was a part

22:26

of. Which are unit labor

22:28

costs, which are you know, the workers,

22:31

what you pay a worker, their salary, their benefits,

22:33

stuff like that. The non labor

22:36

costs energy costs, transportation,

22:39

debt payments, tax i imagine

22:41

for the food part, like the actual food

22:43

stuff is in there, right, sure, yeah.

22:46

And then profit margin, which is that

22:48

markup that we talked about that

22:50

you know, that's what's going to generate the profit for the

22:52

company. And so they looked

22:55

since twenty twenty, and prices

22:57

in the non financial

23:00

corporate sector, which like we said, foods are

23:02

part of that group, have

23:04

increased six six point one

23:06

percent a year on average, which

23:08

is three times the pre

23:10

pandemic rate of one point eight a year.

23:14

Right, Okay, So they said, like

23:16

under normal, normal circumstances,

23:18

all these costs are actually pretty

23:21

well represented in a steady way

23:24

across the non financial corporate

23:26

sector. Like inflation increases,

23:29

You can attribute increases in price,

23:31

which is inflation to those

23:33

three things labor,

23:36

non labor, and profit. You

23:39

can divide them up pretty pretty clearly.

23:42

Normally, the largest contributor

23:45

to price increases are labor costs.

23:47

In a normal economy, they contribute

23:50

about sixty two percent to inflation.

23:53

The non labor cost which is like you

23:55

said, the costs that to actually make the

23:57

product and deliver it and all that stuff, that's

23:59

about twenty seven percent, And normally

24:02

the profit represents about eleven

24:04

point four eleven and a half percent, and

24:07

you put all those things together, and that

24:09

explains the increase in prices year

24:11

over year, which we call inflation, right.

24:13

Yeah, and that, by the way, was over a forty

24:16

year period.

24:17

Yeah, So that's, yes, exactly, That's what I'm

24:19

saying, Like, it's pretty stable or what

24:21

has been stable over the last forty years. Where

24:23

it became totally unhinged from

24:27

normalcy is starting

24:29

in the pandemic. It's starting about Q two

24:32

of twenty twenty, where

24:35

everything just kind of went haywire basically

24:38

according to that normal forty year

24:41

trend.

24:42

Yeah. So labor costs, which over that

24:44

forty years previously accounted for about sixty

24:46

two percent of increase in

24:48

costs, accounted for less than

24:50

eight percent this time. Right. The

24:53

non labor cost previously, if you remember,

24:55

was twenty seven percent that

24:57

is now thirty eight percent.

25:00

So that's that that's that narrative

25:02

of like the supply chains and like Ukraine

25:04

and all that stuff. That's what that cost,

25:07

that increase in cost represents.

25:09

Yeah, and then the you

25:11

know what's coming everybody, uh, that eleven

25:13

point four percent over forty

25:16

years of you know, of the markup

25:18

of the corporate profit that accounted

25:20

for an increase in prices went to almost

25:22

fifty four percent.

25:24

And that nuts, I mean, there it is. Yeah,

25:27

so it's about five times the normal rate.

25:29

During a pandemic, food

25:31

companies made about five times

25:34

what they normally make in profits on

25:36

food.

25:37

Yeah, the end, can we stop?

25:41

Pretty I mean pretty much, there's because

25:43

everything else is just basically a matter

25:45

of opinion at that point, there's no

25:48

there's no right answer to tell you

25:50

the truth. It's I think what's going to happen

25:52

is a large enough group will

25:54

decide on what they consider the

25:56

right answer, and that that will be how

25:59

things move forward. Yeah,

26:01

and it looks like the drum beat seems to be pretty

26:04

greed flation. He like people against greed

26:06

flation.

26:07

Yeah, and that, like you said, that's a pretty catchy word.

26:09

There's an actual, like

26:12

economics term. Like if you said, well, you can

26:14

probably get away with saying greed flation in an ECON

26:16

class these days, but.

26:17

Sure everybody will think you're really cool.

26:21

Previously, they say, look at the

26:23

guy in the hat walking in place saying

26:25

things like greed flation.

26:26

Back at it.

26:28

The previous term for that was seller's inflation.

26:31

There was a guy in nineteen fifty eight named

26:33

Abraham Lerner and economists who

26:38

he's a he's a Keensian guy.

26:40

And we've talked about the Keynsian approach

26:43

to economics and what was the other one?

26:45

It's another guy, Oh,

26:48

Milton Friedman, the Chicago School

26:50

guy.

26:52

No, I can't remember.

26:53

Adam Smith, Yeah, that was

26:56

it, the classical the guy who came up

26:58

with capitalism.

26:59

Yeah. Yeah, those are sort of the general big

27:02

two schools of thought. And Keensians

27:04

generally think that if

27:07

there's a lot of inflation going on, that means there's

27:09

too much money in the economy,

27:11

and so the Fed comes in. They

27:13

operate on the Keynesian theories and

27:16

they want to slow that inflation, so

27:18

they'll raise interest rates to

27:20

kind of cool things down and try and get people

27:23

to instead borrow and spend to kind of

27:25

save a little money.

27:26

Yeah, and this actually can control inflation a

27:28

lot, like a lot. But

27:31

what greedflation is showing

27:33

us, and what some economists who study this kind

27:35

of thing, seller's inflation, have known for

27:37

a while that

27:39

kind of monetary policy can't control

27:42

corporate decisions to increase prices.

27:45

In other words, seller inflation.

27:48

Right, So that's seller induced inflation, another

27:50

word for greedflation. It just is saying like,

27:52

the companies who sell these products are

27:54

deciding they want to make more money than they did

27:56

before, and they're going to see if you're willing to

27:58

pay it. Here's the thing, and this

28:00

is why the pandemic changed everything. This is why

28:03

the pandemic takes these

28:05

standard economic narratives and theories

28:07

and just turns

28:10

them on their head in a lot of situations.

28:12

And the reason why is in a normal

28:14

economy where companies are

28:16

competitive with one another, that

28:19

urge to increase their price and make

28:21

more profit is kept down from

28:24

the concern that their competitor is going

28:26

to keep their price the same, and so people

28:29

shoppers, being very price sensitive, especially

28:31

with food, will be like, oh, I'll

28:34

eat this generic wheat flakes

28:36

rather than wheaties because it's a dollar less.

28:38

So I'm just going to become I'm just going to go eat

28:40

these from now on and just abandon wheaties.

28:43

They don't want that to happen, so they're really

28:45

really touchy about raising prices in a

28:47

normally competitive economy. The

28:50

thing is the pandemic offered

28:52

in a lot of people's opinion including

28:54

CEOs as we'll see, basically

28:57

once in a generation opportunity for

29:00

everyone to raise their prices for

29:02

no good reason, essentially because

29:05

they wanted to.

29:06

Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a sweet spot

29:08

if you're a company, you know, and you're making

29:10

a box of granola bars or

29:12

whatever, where like you want to have

29:15

that price as much as it can be without

29:18

getting someone to not buy it, right, And

29:21

that's just sort of the sweet spot where they have

29:23

maximized their profit and

29:27

anything beyond that might get them, like you said,

29:29

to look at another brand or maybe to not get it

29:31

at all, like to make that hard decision. So

29:34

they don't they don't fluctuate in their prices a lot.

29:36

They want to keep it kind of at that maximum

29:38

price where you're still going to buy it, but you you know,

29:41

like it what essentially is quote unquote

29:43

fair for everybody. But like you said,

29:45

during the pandemic, and I don't I don't

29:47

think you know, I don't think anyone is saying they these

29:50

like five or six corporations, like the evil

29:52

heads of them all got together on a call

29:55

and said, on the count of three, we're all

29:57

going to raise our prices together. It

30:00

just sort of happened that way in

30:03

that you know, there isn't

30:05

a lot of competition like when there's only a handful

30:08

of companies, So it's not like you had

30:10

to have some big, wide ranging conspiracy.

30:12

You just had to basically individually

30:17

agree that this pandemic was a great cover

30:20

to raise prices that will never go back

30:22

down.

30:22

Yeah, I think that you don't need collusion.

30:25

Any CEO worth their

30:27

salary would see the pandemic as

30:29

a great opportunity to raise prices

30:31

because there was really highly

30:33

publicized reasons for

30:36

why prices would go up,

30:38

like the supply chain shortages, the

30:40

war in Ukraine, energy prices

30:42

going up. They had this cover. The

30:45

pandemic gave them cover to raise

30:47

their prices just because they wanted to. They didn't need

30:49

to say I'm going to do this. They knew that everybody

30:51

else is going to do this at the same time, which

30:53

provided additional cover. It decreased

30:56

the risk that they were going to lose market share.

30:59

And then the other thing that kind of came together

31:01

to make this a perfect storm of terribly

31:03

high food prices is something

31:05

you touched on. Competition is

31:08

less today than it was, say, ten

31:10

years ago. Fifteen years ago, twenty years

31:12

ago, because the Federal Trade Commission

31:15

and the Justice Department have kind of

31:17

long been for several decades open for business.

31:19

Like, if you want to have a merger, they'll probably

31:22

let you do it, and you'll become a bigger corporation

31:24

and a bigger corporation and a bigger corporation, and

31:27

as you grow, you control more and more market

31:29

share to where some you know, today

31:31

I think three main companies produce

31:34

seventy or eighty percent of the cereals on the

31:36

shelves in American grocery stores. That's

31:38

not competition. That really lowers

31:41

the risk of losing market share because

31:43

you control so many different brands, you

31:45

can monkey with them as much as you want, so lower

31:48

competition because of consolidation. Plus

31:50

the cover that the pandemic gave basically

31:53

presented this perfect opportunity for everybody

31:55

to raise prices basically in unison,

31:58

essentially just to increase their profits.

32:01

That's what we're seeing. And again, I

32:03

know I've been hammering this. We come to this question

32:07

again, is that a moral or is

32:09

that just normal capitalism?

32:11

Yeah, and again we're not saying cover profits

32:13

because all those reasons were real. We're

32:15

not saying raising their costs to so

32:18

they wouldn't like start losing money. We're

32:21

talking about like the kind of increases that we

32:23

saw, which was fifty plus percent profit

32:26

increase. If you are the

32:29

Groundwork Collaborative think tank, you

32:32

can go over transcripts from these corporate

32:35

earnings calls from these companies

32:37

and they're flat out saying it,

32:39

you know, like they're saying, basically, this

32:42

is our chance at a market reset, like

32:44

an adjustment. We thought

32:46

our products were too inexpensive

32:49

before, so this is our chance to really

32:51

raise these profits because we have all this cover. One

32:54

of the exec sit ConAgra even said

32:57

the consumers will welcome the increased

32:59

prey, which is I mean, if that's

33:01

not just out of touch, you

33:04

know, I don't even know what to say about

33:06

that. People might accept

33:08

it and live with it because it's food they need, right,

33:11

but no one's no one welcomes a price

33:13

increase on this something.

33:14

It was a really bizarre word to use, but

33:16

this was this was like these transcripts

33:18

of CEOs talking to their shareholders and major

33:21

investors and then basically taking like a

33:23

victory lap, saying like look at this, this is nuts,

33:26

Like we're able to do this. We were able to like make all these

33:28

extra profits for nothing without without

33:30

our costs like increasing. We just

33:32

raised our prices and here's why. And

33:35

you said something important. A lot of the story

33:37

that you hear from CEOs and corporations

33:40

and the people who typically defend them

33:43

is that, like you said, the prices were

33:45

too low before, so this would this gave

33:47

them a chance to correct the market. And

33:50

then we us continuing

33:53

to buy these products at the higher price sends

33:55

the signal to those companies like, Okay,

33:58

this is a fair price. Still like like, consumers

34:00

are willing to pay this, and

34:03

well, they pay a little bit more, let's find out, and they'll

34:05

increase prices again. And then eventually we

34:07

get to a point where people are like, I'm not paying anymore.

34:10

Demand goes down, maybe the price goes

34:12

down or they hold it at that point.

34:14

Yeah, But and that goes back to the previous

34:16

thing we're saying, where people that are upper

34:19

middle class and higher can maybe

34:22

complain about the cost of something, but

34:24

it doesn't change how they're necessarily buying

34:26

groceries. The people that are really

34:28

getting pinched are the people at the bottom. And

34:31

that's We've

34:34

just seen that happen all over, you know,

34:37

from gas costs

34:39

to food costs. Like I remember when

34:41

gas I can't remember when it was. Veieler

34:43

was in like the late nineties or early two thousands,

34:46

Yes, when gas jumped like

34:48

fifty or sixty cents over a year or two. Yeah,

34:51

And I remember telling my friends at

34:53

the time, like, it's never going to go

34:55

back down because over the previous maybe

34:58

as long as there was gas, but with the previous at least

35:00

decade or so, it fluctuated

35:03

up and down like a nickel two three

35:05

cents, up maybe as high as a dime, then back

35:07

down again. And then it just it just ramped

35:09

up like fifty cents. And I just remember thinking

35:12

I didn't even know why. I knew nothing about it. I

35:14

just remember thinking this was what

35:17

was it? Was it? Jeesu?

35:19

Was it nine to eleven? Maybe now before

35:22

that, there was something that happened and

35:24

they took a huge jump, and I just remember

35:26

thinking, like, this is going to be the cover

35:28

and the gas will never be below

35:30

like a buck seventy five again or whatever

35:33

it was.

35:33

Right, Yeah, And so that's a really cynical

35:35

view, but it's entirely possible. You're correct

35:38

that.

35:38

It was correct.

35:39

Yeah, it They used

35:42

an opportunity to raise prices

35:44

and maybe raise them beyond what they really needed

35:46

to. And it, sure it

35:48

came down, It fluctuated up and down, but it

35:50

reset to a new normal, a new baseline.

35:53

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

35:53

And it didn't really ever drop below

35:56

that. And then that new baseline gave

35:58

them an opportunity later on to ratcheted

36:00

up to a new normal and so on and so forth,

36:03

and under normal conditions, that's just

36:05

inflation, right, Like the

36:08

prices are supposed to grow over

36:10

time. It's like a sign of a healthy economy,

36:13

but it needs to be around two to three

36:15

percent something like that. What we're talking

36:17

about is well beyond that. But

36:19

that does seem to be what

36:21

we're seeing here too. And at least

36:24

one of the CEOs from their earnings

36:26

call said something like this

36:29

is this is giving us a chance to create this

36:31

new normal, to normalize higher prices.

36:34

Essentially, people are going to get used to it. Sure

36:36

we're mad about it. Sure some people are being

36:38

forced in poverty. Now they'll get used

36:40

to it. And the other terrible

36:43

thing about it, Chuck, is that they're driving

36:46

inflation. They're making

36:48

it. They're making everything more expensive,

36:50

like inflation is outpacing

36:53

its normal rate because

36:55

of higher prices. Some economists

36:57

are like, nope, it's the other way around. But it seems

36:59

to be lopsided this

37:02

time, where the higher prices are

37:04

causing higher inflation rather than higher

37:07

inflation causing higher prices, at

37:09

least in the food world.

37:11

All right, let's take another break, then

37:14

we'll talk about more of this stuff right after this.

37:45

So thus far we've

37:48

been leaving grocery stores kind

37:50

of out of the conversation and

37:52

under normal circumstances that would make sense.

37:54

Oh okay, I was wondering if we were gonna get

37:57

the grocery stores.

37:58

Right, because grocery stores, if

38:00

I kind of a check on food manufacturers,

38:03

like the big chains and probably even

38:05

mid size chains, they have entire

38:07

departments whose job it is is to basically

38:09

reconstruct all of the

38:12

costs that the food producers

38:14

have to get a general

38:16

idea of how much they're marking up their

38:19

product right. Because the grocery stores

38:21

don't want to pay any more than anybody

38:23

else. Because they're the ones whose

38:25

stores we actually go to, they have the

38:27

most to lose. And

38:30

then so normally that ends up being like a

38:33

check on how much food companies

38:36

mark up. Makes sense. The

38:39

thing is, it turns out that, at

38:41

least according to the Federal Trade Commission in

38:43

the United States, grocery

38:45

stores were profiteering from the pandemic

38:47

too.

38:48

Can you believe it?

38:49

Yeah. The FTC recently conducted a

38:51

study of nine different grocery stores

38:54

and food wholesalers that includes

38:56

Kroger, Amazon, and Walmart. And

38:59

they found that as an end street, they didn't they weren't

39:01

able to get like individual company data,

39:03

but they found that as an industry their profits

39:05

went up out

39:08

of step with their costs.

39:10

Oh geez, here we go, just like.

39:12

The food producers, although it wasn't nearly as dramatic

39:15

as the food producers. For

39:17

example, in twenty fifteen, the

39:19

peak markup, the peak

39:21

profit was five point six percent

39:24

across the industry, and then

39:26

in twenty twenty one it went

39:28

over six percent, and then two

39:30

years later it hit over seven percent. No

39:32

boy, And again this is out of step with their

39:35

costs. And they also

39:37

found that the large chains used

39:40

their clout to basically get

39:42

their hands on scarce products

39:46

and edged out smaller competitors,

39:48

so they basically created mini monopolies

39:51

in their areas in their regions, temporary

39:53

mini monopolies. So that's

39:55

a thing too. For sure. We're getting

39:57

gouged both by the food companies

40:00

and the grocery stores. It seems.

40:02

Yeah, I mean I can tell when I go to the grocery

40:05

store. It's a big difference.

40:06

Right.

40:07

One thing we should mention kind of quickly here is

40:09

this idea of shrink inflation, because

40:12

that kind of figures in. That's another sort of sneaky

40:14

way to increase profits. That

40:16

is, when you pay the same price

40:19

for less of something that you used to get,

40:22

whether it's you know, five

40:25

less dishwasher

40:29

detergent inserts that come in the

40:31

packet, or whether it's ounces

40:34

off of a chocolate bar or ounces

40:36

out of a coke bottle, the price

40:38

is the same and it's generally

40:40

just like there's nothing illegal about it. But it's like,

40:43

oh boy, maybe they won't notice if we make

40:45

the two liter coke

40:47

one point seventy five leaders if we just

40:50

keep the price the same, and that's what happens.

40:52

Yeah, it's another form of inflation, even

40:54

though the price doesn't go up like the as

40:56

a whole the unit price, like to

40:59

say, the per ounce price has gone up

41:01

because you get less for the same

41:03

price, right right. People who

41:05

attrack inflation actually adjust for

41:07

that because it's so widespread. Shrink flation

41:10

is. But one thing that's not typically

41:12

tracked is something related called skimpflation,

41:15

where the ingredients or the

41:17

packaging or something degrades or downgrades

41:20

to save money, and

41:22

that actually affects the price or the

41:24

value or the quality of what you're paying for.

41:28

That's not tracked as part of inflation.

41:30

So there's still a way to kind of wiggle through without

41:33

making it seem like you're ripping the customer off.

41:35

Yeah, so you mentioned other

41:38

schools of thought. We're going to talk about some

41:40

of those, because there is no arguing

41:42

that during the pandemic that the

41:45

prices just went way way up, like that's

41:47

just it's a fact. But

41:50

there are economists at the FED, the

41:52

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City that

41:54

wrote a paper about these corporate profits

41:57

during the pandemic, and they started looking

41:59

at the dates and the

42:01

timing of this stuff and they noticed something

42:03

interesting, which was that the biggest

42:06

price hikes happening in twenty

42:08

twenty through about the first quarter of twenty

42:11

twenty one, and the

42:13

inflation didn't get really bad until later

42:16

on in twenty twenty one and just devastatingly

42:18

through twenty twenty two. And

42:20

so the Kansas City economists basically

42:23

said that they raise these prices

42:25

early because they thought they

42:27

saw the future that higher costs were coming

42:29

down the line. So instead of waiting

42:31

until that happened for a big spike in

42:33

prices, let's start raising these prices

42:36

now. It's kind of smooth things out over time.

42:38

Yeah, instead of one big increase, maybe

42:40

five smaller increases that equal that

42:43

seem big increase, right, Yeah,

42:45

and that makes sense. That actually

42:47

is pretty smart. I mean,

42:50

like, if you're a business, of course you want to predict increases

42:52

in cost. The thing

42:54

is is the fact that prices

42:57

don't normally come back down. What we were

42:59

talking about with your anecdote about a gas

43:01

going up. Yeah, that when

43:03

prices like of a certain

43:05

type of item or whatever go

43:08

up but tend to not come back down.

43:10

Really that they're called sticky, or

43:12

they're in economic terms, those prices are

43:15

downwardly rigid. They don't like to come down, right,

43:17

So as riggs, right,

43:20

eggs are the miracle. So

43:23

as they're as companies like

43:26

costs, their marginal costs to create and

43:28

deliver the product go down, those

43:30

prices aren't going to come down accordingly, so

43:32

their profits are just going to be nicer and nicer.

43:36

That is an explanation that's definitely

43:38

more in step with the idea like this is just normal

43:41

capitalism. Like it happened to

43:43

be a seller's market

43:45

during the pandemic because demand

43:47

went up and companies were there to fulfill

43:49

that demand, and demand drove prices up,

43:51

and their costs didn't increase in steps,

43:53

so they were able to reap a higher profit. That's

43:56

kind of like that. That what that explanation

43:58

is saying.

43:59

Yeah, for sure, there are people

44:01

that are like, hey, this greedflation

44:03

thing, I don't agree

44:05

with it. There's a guy named Eric Levittz

44:08

at New York Magazine who had a very

44:10

long piece critique basically

44:13

on the greed plation argument

44:15

and said a bunch of things that we're going to

44:17

go over now. But the person was that, Hey,

44:20

these we've had corporate

44:22

consolidation for a while now, and

44:24

they could have just raised these prices whenever.

44:28

So I'm not buying that this happened

44:30

just during the pandemic. But what

44:32

we're and a lot of people, including

44:35

Robert Reich, who's a very smart guy, are

44:37

pointing out it's like, no, what they're saying

44:39

is it gave him the cover to do that, and

44:42

they've sort of admitted this on the call. So

44:45

I just say throw that one out right away.

44:46

Yeah, it totally discounts the idea that brands

44:49

try to cultivate goodwill with their customers,

44:52

that they just wouldn't care that their customers

44:54

didn't like them. TS, you're going to buy our stuff

44:56

anyway because we're consolidated. I agree

44:59

to throw that one.

44:59

Out all right. The next one was, and

45:02

this is kind of what you were talking about, but that fifty

45:04

four nearly fifty four percent increase

45:07

in corporate profits.

45:10

He argues that it's it's

45:14

the effect of inflation, not the cause,

45:16

and that we've got it backwards. Josh and Chuck

45:18

have it backwards right exactly.

45:20

That the companies were there to

45:23

offer the products at the higher price and they just

45:25

happened to make this windfall and that's just it

45:27

was in their favor, right, I

45:30

mean, it's a it's

45:32

a legitimate explanation

45:34

it's just again, it

45:36

skirts that issue of whether that's okay.

45:38

I guess yeah.

45:40

And then the other thing that Levits

45:42

eventually settles on is he's like all that

45:45

stuff that people say, that

45:47

pandemic narrative for higher prices,

45:49

all that's correct. Demand was high,

45:52

supply was tight, people

45:54

had way more money than they normally

45:56

do. All of a sudden, Uncle Joe Biden

45:58

sent a bunch of checks and

46:00

that corporations have always been

46:02

greedy, and that I

46:06

take this to basically say, like, if you don't

46:09

if you don't like what you're seeing, if

46:11

you don't like being price gouged for

46:13

food during a pandemic, then don't

46:16

live through a pandemic in a capitalist

46:18

country. Sorry, right, you

46:21

know.

46:22

Sure that's pretty inconvenient for a lot

46:24

of people, exactly.

46:26

Yeah, And a lot of people are saying, like, no,

46:28

we've got to do something about this. There's a Society

46:31

general banker economist

46:35

named Albert Edward or Edwin,

46:37

I can't remember Edwards,

46:39

I think, and he said that what he's

46:41

seeing. This is the guy who said he's been at this for forty

46:43

years and he's never seen anything like it. He said

46:45

that it's unprecedented

46:48

and astonishing levels of corporate

46:50

greed that we're seeing as a result

46:53

of these price increases in these profit

46:55

margins that we're seeing are eye popping. This

46:57

guy's an economist student for forty years. He's like,

46:59

this is just wrong. And

47:01

he threw out something that a

47:04

lot of people on both sides of the political

47:06

spectrum do not like to hear. He

47:08

said, we should consider price controls,

47:11

Like if corporations are going to go this, be this

47:13

reckless with people's lives and

47:15

you know, budgets, then we

47:18

need to control them. The government needs to step in and

47:20

say you can't charge over this amount for this

47:22

product.

47:23

Yeah, And I mean they're even like

47:27

super capitalist Keynsian economists

47:30

who agree about Parch part

47:32

of that, which is like, hey, if there's

47:34

a like a real bottleneck of

47:36

a commodity that only a handful of people

47:39

control, you

47:41

should cap that commodity price

47:44

so they don't get together and gouge

47:46

people when there's a real

47:48

squeeze on like a particular specific

47:51

thing, right, not

47:53

not like an overall like cap on

47:55

the price of cereal or something.

47:57

So the thing is is that there's there's plenty

47:59

of story worries of horror stories from the past

48:01

where capitalist economies

48:03

have tried to use price controls and

48:06

that they can lead to scarcity

48:08

because suppliers would be like, I'm not

48:10

going to get into this business any longer. I'm

48:12

getting out of it because I can't make more

48:14

than what the government's saying I can make. And all of

48:16

a sudden, that product, say bread,

48:19

is now really hard to come by because nobody's

48:21

making it, and demand spikes and people have to

48:23

stay in line. No one likes price controls,

48:27

but there's not there's

48:29

not a lot of alternative ideas,

48:31

Like there's a sense of helplessness

48:33

and everybody who tends to rely

48:36

on the federal government to solve like major massive

48:38

problems like food suppliers

48:41

gouging customers. You

48:45

got basically either price controls or

48:47

to me, the more legitimate,

48:50

the more legitimate answer, which would be to

48:53

tax those windfall

48:55

profits at a higher rate. Like Okay,

48:58

if you're just doing like the normal capitalist

49:00

thing as a corporation and

49:03

you you can't help it, that's just what

49:05

your profits are. If it's a during

49:07

a pandemic or during a crisis, or

49:09

people are really hurting and you're making these profits

49:12

we're going to tax above you know, X

49:14

percentage higher than everything

49:16

below that is your profit.

49:19

Now is that trigger? Is that like U during

49:22

a specific time or is it like a

49:25

specific like a

49:28

percentage increase in profits triggers

49:30

it or both?

49:31

I think both. I think if you have a

49:33

situation where normal competition

49:36

is being is just kind of like gone

49:38

haywire for some reason, say like the pandemic,

49:40

then it would probably kick in because windfall

49:43

profits are a real possibility. And then say

49:45

anything over you

49:48

know, a twenty percent increase

49:50

in profits is going to get taxed at ninety

49:52

percent or something like that, Like, yeah, you can make the

49:54

profits, but we're going to take away more of it because we got

49:57

to help out these people who are hurting. While

49:59

your benefit, we need to keep things a

50:01

little more even then these

50:03

guys are benefiting, these guys are starving,

50:06

which is the current narrative.

50:08

What you're forgetting, though, Josh, is when corporations

50:10

have these huge windfalls of profits, they

50:13

pass that along to their employees by raising

50:16

their wages and to the consumer eventually

50:18

too. Right, Sure, sure isn't that How isn't

50:20

that how it works? Yeah?

50:21

They drop their prices, right.

50:23

They just don't keep that for themselves, right.

50:25

No, not at all. Well, that's the problem, Like, that's

50:28

where a lot of people are like, Okay, we need to figure

50:30

out just even the basic structure

50:32

of corporations. If the point of a

50:34

corporation is to maximize

50:36

profits for shareholders at all costs,

50:38

at the expense of the economy, at the expense

50:40

of people's lives, health, well

50:42

being, there's something inherently

50:45

broken about that, and we need to fix that. And

50:48

if you ask me, I don't think there's anything inherently

50:51

problematic about capitalism. I think

50:54

people who who

50:56

don't care enough about other people or

50:58

the planet or something like that been allowed

51:00

to come to power over the years, and they're the ones who

51:03

seem to represent capitalism more than others.

51:05

But I don't think that's necessarily like

51:07

a pure capitalist

51:10

format. I think it can be much

51:12

more accommodating of the planet and

51:14

of other people without reverting to socialism

51:17

or communism or anything like that. You can still

51:19

have capitalist a capitalist

51:21

economy, but why can't you also be

51:23

like, you're making way too much money

51:26

and people are starving because

51:28

of all this money you're making. We need to help these people

51:30

out with some of that money, so we're going to tax it. It

51:32

just makes sense to me. I understand that

51:34

a lot of people revile that, and I'm not trying

51:36

to shove my opinion down anyone's throat.

51:39

It just that particular answer

51:42

makes sense to me because this does seem

51:44

like just such a haywire weird

51:47

situation.

51:48

Yeah, and this is especially sort

51:51

of triggering for humans because

51:53

it's food. We're not talking

51:56

about, you know, luxury

51:58

items or you know, other

52:00

weird kinds of inflation that I mean,

52:02

this is something that people literally need

52:05

to live everywhere.

52:08

Right, you know, like recreational pontoons

52:10

aren't what you're talking about, you know, like

52:13

it's really important stuff for

52:15

sure. Yeah, I agree. I think that

52:17

that makes it a different a different conversation than

52:20

if we were talking about a different commodity or

52:22

different.

52:22

I mean, it seems like it. But geez,

52:24

I'm sure we'll hear from people that say

52:27

that we don't know what we're talking about.

52:29

And oh man, we're going to get some ugly

52:31

emails from people. It's

52:33

fine, we can do it.

52:34

Those people don't complain about the

52:36

cost of food.

52:37

I'm sure right, you have a right to your opinion.

52:40

You know, we have a right to our opinion too, so don't

52:42

get mad. You can share your opinion with us, but don't

52:44

get mad at us for sharing ours.

52:46

Yeah. We're just people. Yeah, we

52:48

don't have some We never

52:50

took some oath of neutrality

52:53

right to be podcasters. I think

52:55

people think that sometimes.

52:57

Right, Yeah, for sure, we're just a couple

52:59

of regular dudes, one of whom is

53:01

wearing an awesome hat.

53:02

Right now, walking

53:04

in place.

53:05

Weirdly, you got anything else?

53:08

No, Well, go forth everybody and decide

53:10

is greedflation an evil thing?

53:13

Or is it just normal or what? And if

53:15

you have other solutions to the idea or

53:17

the problem, then I would love

53:19

to hear those, said Tom. And in

53:21

the meantime, I say, Chuck, it's time for a listener maw.

53:24

All right, Hey, guys, just want to say thanks for keeping

53:27

me entertained since the pandemic.

53:29

I've been the office random facts guy.

53:32

I'm already that guy.

53:34

This guy sends random facts to people.

53:36

No, no, no facts, gotcha. Yeah,

53:39

that'd be funny though. It's a good bit. People

53:43

to just hear that sound, that fact sound, and they're

53:46

like, God, Gary's at it. I'm

53:48

sorry, it's Daniel, I'm already that guy

53:50

when it comes to a lot of the things I treat,

53:53

but now it's about all things. Because

53:55

of long rides to Ohio to see

53:58

the family. My toddlers even asked for stuff, you know,

54:01

specifically the fire truck episode that's

54:03

cute makes sense, which can

54:05

be tough to find since I'm currently working

54:08

backwards from newest to oldest. I even

54:10

just found out that Josh and I are.

54:11

Birthday buddies, so oh hey, happy birthday.

54:14

That's right, he says. And not cancers anymore. Did

54:16

they change? Did they change that?

54:18

I don't think so well,

54:20

I'm to look into it. I have felt a

54:22

little different in the last couple of years.

54:24

All right, Thank you all again for the hours

54:27

of enjoyment, laughs and learning. If you do end up reading

54:29

this, would you shout out my wife Lynn, who

54:31

has become a fan. So that is from Daniel

54:34

Klein and Lynn

54:36

and their kids.

54:37

Nice. Thanks a lot, Daniel, thank you for indoctrinating

54:40

your children into stuff you should know. Universe.

54:44

That's right, and they're also listening now to Biblical

54:46

time machine. Okay from Dave

54:48

Ruse.

54:50

Is it biblical or is it Bible time machine?

54:53

Daniel says biblical and I'm not sure and

54:56

we're not going to look it.

54:56

Up right either way. It's a top notch

54:59

Dave Ruse podc And by the way, Dave

55:01

Ruth's helped us with this episode too, so that's very

55:03

appropriate. Double Dave yep

55:06

again, Thank you, Daniel, and if you want to be like Daniel

55:08

and get in touch with us, you can send us

55:10

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55:18

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