She's basically going to bash businesses. She's going to accuse businesses once again of price gouging and excess margins. And I just want to say these charges by Biden and Harris [00:00:15] are now three and a half years old plus, and there is no evidence of corporate price gouging or excessive margins or something called corporate greed. Kroger's top pricing executive has confessed in court [00:00:33] to price gouging, literally, and it's all part of this ongoing battle between the Federal Trade Commission and Kroger, which is trying to acquire Albertsons, one of its largest competitors. The Federal Trade Commission is trying to stop that from happening [00:00:50] because the monopolization within the grocery store sector of our economy would be absolutely disastrous for consumers. They would be able to raise prices, and you would have no other options but to pay those insanely high prices. Now, Kroger really wants to do that acquisition. [00:01:08] And so they're taking the FTC to court over this. And during these court proceedings, super, super interesting things have been said. So it kind of revolved around an email that was sent in March of 2020 for, [00:01:23] the pricing executive here. His name is Andy Groff, had sent this email to his bosses. And in it, basically, he admitted that the company had raised its prices more than required to adjust for higher costs. [00:01:39] Right. And so, he says, on milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation. - Well, there's your admission. - Okay. The company's goal is to pass through our inflation to consumers, Groff said [00:01:55] in response to questions about the email. Pass through our inflation to consumers. And remember, not just his inflation. The cost inflation, yes. But on top of that, they're adding excess margins. [00:02:10] Well, that's weird because I just saw Larry Kudlow tell us that there is no such thing as excess margins. It doesn't happen. And he said, and this has got to be one of the funniest lines ever said on television. There is no such thing as corporate greed. Hey, don't scroll away, come back, come back. [00:02:26] Because before the video continues, we just want to urge you to lend your support to TYT. You power our honest reporting. You do it at tight.com/team and we love you for it. Okay, if you say so by the way. Run your campaign on that. Where there's no corporate greed. [00:02:43] Corporations are are the loveliest things on earth and they're looking out for you. Run your campaign on that. See how it turns out. Again, I want to read the first graphic again. This is what the pricing executive for Kroger sent to his bosses on milk and eggs. [00:03:01] Retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation. Yet at the retail stores, we're inflating our prices, passed our costs. You see, guys in a normal market, what happens is when inflation occurs, [00:03:18] a company has to make a decision. How much of the inflation cost do we pass on to consumers, and how much do we eat? Because if we pass it all on, our competition will undercut our price and and then we'll lose market share. So that's why they got it. That's a tough decision they got to make. [00:03:35] But in an oligopoly where they control the market because there's very little competition. Right. What they could easily do is go, you know what, we're going to pass on 100% of the inflation cost on them. And then some guy comes around and goes, you know, boss, we could make more money if we go past the 100% use inflation as an excuse to really jack up prices. [00:03:53] Exactly. And look, this is not to say that we want like price fixing in response to it, but when there's predatory activity taking place, there should be something in place to protect consumers from that activity. Right. And so I also want to just talk about what we all knew if we were paying attention [00:04:13] to those shareholder calls. Right. Because as Rakeen Mabud who is a chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, says, execs all over the economy were saying this stuff on their earnings calls back in 2021. This was not a secret. [00:04:29] And that's what we've been trying to tell you guys. We've been providing the receipts on that. So as the Financial Times notes, the grocery industry, as represented by four of its largest players, became more profitable in the pandemic. [00:04:44] And it has stayed that way for a couple of years at least. It is a good guess that price increases in excess of cost increases have played a role in this. Unfortunately, Kroger has also become a producer of milk, [00:05:01] which means that they have some level of control over milk supply as well, which is a little bit concerning. But you know, Kroger has pushed into the milk business over the years and today operates more than a dozen dairy plants. [00:05:16] So look guys, it is if you believe in capitalism, the only way capitalism works is when you have competition. And that is why what the FTC is doing under the leadership of Lina Khan is so critical and so important. [00:05:33] Kroger buying its top competitor, Albertsons, means that you will have less choices in regard to where you buy your groceries from and when you have less choices. Well, the mega merged company is able to charge you what whatever they want, [00:05:50] and you have no choice but to either pay the higher prices or forgo certain things that you currently enjoy in your household. Yeah. And so look, part of the reason they cranked up the prices wasn't just because they had supply chain issues that gave them the cost inflation. [00:06:06] Consumers back then also had more money because of some of the relief packages that were passed during Covid. And so that made the demand more inelastic. We talked about it in a different show. My point here is that there are a number of factors that go into this. [00:06:21] But the government is supposed to protect us in a functioning democracy if there's price gouging. So, for example, in a in a catastrophe, if there's a hurricane and there's a, you know, a water used to be a dollar and they're charging you $100 because you desperately need the water and you can't bring any more in. [00:06:38] The government protects you and doesn't let them do that. So if you're saying price controls, we're saying no. If you're saying anti-price gouging, we're saying yes. So it depends on the situation here. And then in terms of the mergers, the Republicans always say, oh my God, our corporate friends, they're so shackled. [00:06:53] Those poor guys, they're just, you know, the victims in this country. So we should deregulate and allow them to do every merger. Guys, if you allow these grocery stores to do a merger to me here, the oligopoly issue or the monopoly issue is much larger than in tech. [00:07:09] In tech, there's tons of competition. But here, if Albertsons and Kroger's are the two grocery stores in the same market, there will be no competition in the grocery store level, and then your prices will go way up, and then they'll brag in their new shareholder calls, hey, you know what? There's no competition anymore. [00:07:25] So we went way past inflation and charged them whatever we wanted because it turns out we're selling food and water and they need it no matter what. Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. 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