More Alarming Inflation Data Undercut the Progressive ‘Greedflation’ Narrative
Progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren argue that “profiteering” and “price-gouging” are the cause of inflation. New data undercut this argument.
There's no doubt that at least right now, inflation is a huge problem. The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is 8.6% year over year meaning prices have risen, on average, about that amount over the past year. Even worse, the PPI (Produce Price Index) is 10.6%. Whereas the CPI covers typical consumer goods, PPI covers items that are inputs to business expense like energy costs and warehousing. Both of these values are at 40 year highs. I doubt many salaries have risen nearly that much and even if they did, that would put a further upward pressure on prices.
Critics of free markets point to greed as the reason that prices have risen. In addition to more obvious reasons why this isn't true (including the fact that businesses haven't magically become vastly more greedy over the past couple of years), the difference in PPI and CPI indicates that businesses have actually raised their prices to consumers LESS than their expenses have grown.
Inflation is a problem but it is due to the vast increase in the money supply along with shortages created by restrictions put in place by governments in response to COVID. It has little or nothing to do with greed. Unless we are talking about government greed anyway.
