I thought increased food prices were due to inflation!

I am in the process of reading my first book on American macroeconomics and one thing becomes immediately clear is that the economics of a country is mind numbingly complex. In a freeish market the power of the president is limited. For example what percentage of the food prices today is the president responsible for and how much are the food producers and distributors responsible for?

In a capitalist country the president has some control over food prices but I suspect their influence is not as large as some may think. There are many things that influence food prices even beyond what I am currently aware of. For me to get on the Biden is to blame train will require something more objective than a 500 word article from a partisan news source.

 

The Biden administration just imposed a tariff that will raise the cost of canned goods.

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday said it will impose preliminary anti-dumping duties on tin-plated steel imports from Canada, Germany and China, sparing five other countries in a decision that drew some relief from food can manufacturers that had feared higher tariffs.

The department said the highest preliminary anti-dumping duties of 122.5% will be imposed on tin mill steel imported from China, including the country's largest producer, Baoshan Iron and Steel.

The Can Manufacturers Institute, a trade group, argued prior to the decision that because U.S. steelmakers currently produce less than half of the tinplate needed for domestic can manufacturing, any new import duties will lead to higher material costs and food prices at a time when inflation remains elevated.

A bipartisan letter from members of Congress in June also argued that high anti-dumping duties would raise costs for canned packaging for food and aerosol products and could help Chinese producers of canned goods, leading to increased canned food imports from China.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/com...anada-china-germany-commerce-dept-2023-08-17/

 

I spend a lot of time in Canada where food prices are also on the rise.

 

That makes no sense. Try a different analogy.

 

That damned Biden!!

 

It seems like the Trumpers all forgot about Covid and Trump’s anemic response to it. Increased demand and scarcity = inflation.

 

And which part of India.

 

Yes all media are biased. Who did the rating?

 

That damned Biden!

 

The response to covid did the opposite. It reduced demand. The demand increased after the pandemic was ignored. Biden had nothing to do with prices. Inflation, on the hand resulted from an increase of almost a trillion dollars in the money supply. Monetary expansion is the way government pays down its debts lately. They don't have the money even to cover expenses let alone reduce debt so they make funny money that we pay for by a reduction in the value of our money.

 

Fine people on both sides

 

Some are 'biased' while some others spread Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, Propaganda, Fake News like Newsmax does.

 

What specific fake facts did they report?

 

Of course Biden had nothing to do with inflation. That’s what I said. Inflation will naturally be lower when demand is squelched.

 

That's all I have. It'll have to do.

 

Fail.

 

Remember when Newsmax had to post an embarrassing apology to Dominion? That was quite amusing.

 

They revised the healthy diet guidelines to include more stuff? And as a result, they are handing out more money for beneficiaries to buy an increased amount of healthy food nutrients?

The food prices are higher because people are buying more goods, and the economy can’t absorb the demand.

They always said that capitalism provides a free market where new businesses rise to fill holes in demand and that we are living in the land of plenty.

Is that no longer the case? Have we reached end-stage capitalism?

 

When I look around town, more and more grocery stores have popped up over the years. Multiple stores within blocks of each other. It's sort of extreme. How many food stores does one town need? And prices have gone up the same as everywhere.

 

I believe it has to do with supply and demand. Perhaps free food causes demand to go up and shorten the supply. It is an artificial economy and nothing short of wealth redistribution. This is what the CBO has determined, not NewsMax.

 

You call it "fake news" because I guess you feel the CBO is fake. You prefer stories like " Russian Collusion" or "It was just some terrorists going for a walk one night" or "the laptop is Russian disinformation".

 

So quoting the CBO and reporting it in a news story is conspiracy to you. What about all the findings related to the Biden Crime Family that are ignored by the Main Stream Media that does their own fact checking? That is where you gather the news you want to hear apparently!

 

Corporate profits benefitting rich people explain more about inflation than poor people fighting food insecurity:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2021/03/04/how-much-kroger-profit-during-pandemic/4507949001/

"Kroger's total sales surged 8.4% to $132.5 billion in pandemic-ravaged 2020 – tallying extra receipts to add the equivalent of nearly two Fortune 500 companies to its total revenues.

"The Cincinnati-based grocer also posted a $2.6 billion profit for the year, a 5.6% increase. A key sales metric, identical sales without fuel, increased 14.1% in 2020.

"Kroger's growth was propelled by an epic shift of customers' food consumption habits amid the COVID-19 pandemic: nearly $1 of every $4 that Americans used to spend going out to eat has shifted away to food consumed at home – so that's $162 billion extra mostly going into supermarket coffers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In early 2020, Americans were spending 49 cents of their food dollars at grocery stores, they are now spending about 56 cents."

 

I prefer reality, not straw man and ad hominem.

If you post Newsmax's garbage here, expect a similar reaction to if you'd posted something from Babylon Bee or The National Enquirer.

 

Many would say the same thing about MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, New York Times or Washington Post.