re: #37 JC1

The thinking was that companies generally didn’t have the pricing power to do that. Inflation was very low for a very long time. Why didn’t companies jack up prices pre-covid?
Supply chain disruptions provided legitimate shortages for a time. Once those were rectified the companies didn’t lower prices. And they won’t until consumers stop overpaying.

I’m not sure how you get “consumers stop overpaying.”

I can see that on things which are not necessary (restaurants, movies, basically fun things).

Necessary thing are a different story. Say there are six companies which sell beans in tins. There are four major brands, one regional brand, and one house brand (which is really an inferior quality major brand). None of them lower their price.

So you forego beans. You switch to carrots. There are three major brands of carrots and one house brand. None of them lowered their price either.

So you say “fuque this” and decide tinned vegetables are off your shopping list and you go for fresh vegetables. Well, fresh vegetables are more expensive to begin with, those prices also went up.

The same goes for just about any other product. Coffee? All brands went up. Tea? The same. Beef? LOL unless you live in an over-producing area like I do you need a home equity loan to buy porterhouse or New York strip steaks.