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More Producer Generated Inflation [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-12-07  

Today’s Seattle Times has an article that continues a saga of inflation created, not by too much stimulus or by production/supply chain problems, but by producer greed. This adds on to an earlier article in Kos about price fixing by a couple of egg producers — a price-fixing scheme going back to the 90s(!) that overreached around 2021/2022.

Washington state is sending out more than 400,000 checks to lower income WA households to compensate for price fixing by chicken and tuna producers. The state is also holding back an additional $1.7 million for people who might be eligible for a refund but didn’t receive one on this first round.

WA sued 19 poultry producers accounting for 95% of broiler chickens produced in the US in 2021 and settled with 15 of those companies for $35.5 million. The remaining 3 companies (2 merged) go to trial next year. WA also sued 2 tuna producers and the former CEO of a 3rd for scheming to raise prices and received $5.1 million in the settlement.

Adam Smith called this out back in “Wealth of Nations”, published in 1776:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

And never trust what any company says about the cause of price increases without taking a close look at their financial documents.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/7/2210266/-More-Producer-Generated-Inflation?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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