{"id":1518066,"date":"2022-06-16T07:19:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T11:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1518066"},"modified":"2022-06-16T07:19:51","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T11:19:51","slug":"more-alarming-inflation-data-undercuts-the-progressives-greedflation-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/more-alarming-inflation-data-undercuts-the-progressives-greedflation-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"More Alarming Inflation Data Undercuts the Progressive\u2019s \u201cGreedflation\u201d Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmore-alarming-inflation-data-undercuts-the-progressives-greedflation-narrative%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1518066&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><span>Another day, another disturbing price <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/how-inflation-drinks-your-milkshake\/\">inflation<\/a> metric.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The federal government just released the latest <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/ppi.toc.htm\"><span>Producer Price Index<\/span><\/a><span> (PPI), an index that tracks the prices of a basket of the typical inputs businesses rely on, like energy, warehousing, etc. It finds that prices rose 0.8% from April to May, and a whopping 10.8% from May 2021 to May 2022. The PPI is the Federal Reserve\u2019s preferred metric of price inflation, and this latest update keeps it near a 40-year high.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>To see just how extreme this trend continues to be, just check out this <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/economy\/wholesale-inflation-climbs-in-may-remaining-near-40-year-high\"><span>graph<\/span><\/a><span> from Fox Business:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/media\/41783\/screen-shot-2022-06-14-at-103959-am.png?width=600&#038;height=419.29824561403507\" alt=\"\" data-udi=\"umb:\/\/media\/069aaa4a0c4c4800a1f13642ca201bf8\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>Of course, this latest update comes just one day after another alarming inflation update. Released Monday, the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/cpi.nr0.htm\"><span>showed<\/span><\/a><span> an 8.6% year-over-year increase in consumer prices. That metric imperfectly measures prices for a basket of consumer goods a typical US household might buy, and it too remains near 40-year highs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What\u2019s the significance?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Well, these updates offer more proof that rising prices are hurting American families, eroding paychecks, and bursting budgets. But we already knew that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The really interesting insight here comes from comparing the producer price data to the consumer price data. Contrasting the two undercuts the progressive \u201cgreedflation\u201d narrative that argues rising prices are in large part due to corporate greed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cInflation first rose because of other factors, like Covid and economic stimulus bills,\u201d the <\/span><em><span>New York Times<\/span><\/em><span> writes in an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/06\/14\/briefing\/inflation-supply-chain-greedflation.html\"><span>article<\/span><\/a><span> explaining what \u201cgreedflation\u201d advocates believe. \u201cBut companies raised prices more than necessary to net higher profits. They knew they could get away with it because consumers no longer had a benchmark for what prices should be. And they did not face enough competition to keep prices down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Or, as Senator Elizabeth Warren <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/why-elizabeth-warrens-new-anti-inflation-plan-would-fail-miserably\"><span>argues<\/span><\/a><span>, \u201cprofiteering\u201d and \u201cprice-gouging\u201d have driven higher prices because \u201c<\/span><span>they [can] get away with it because our markets lack competition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But this narrative has never made any sense. For one thing, corporations are no more \u201cgreedy,\u201d aka profit-seeking, than they were 5 years ago or 10 years ago, when inflation wasn\u2019t surging. What\u2019s more, some sectors have seen much bigger price hikes than others. Are companies in some industries just less greedy than in other sectors?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cGreedflation\u201d conspiracy theorists cite market concentration, i.e. monopoly power, as why companies can supposedly be what\u2019s driving this. But, as MIT economist David Autor <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.based-politics.com\/2022\/01\/28\/80-percent-of-top-economists-disagree-with-democrats-inflation-narrative-new-survey\/\"><span>notes<\/span><\/a><span>, market concentration hasn\u2019t meaningfully shifted in the last two years\u2026 while inflation most certainly has!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That\u2019s why a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.based-politics.com\/2022\/01\/28\/80-percent-of-top-economists-disagree-with-democrats-inflation-narrative-new-survey\/\"><span>survey<\/span><\/a><span> of top economists found that the vast majority reject the \u201cgreedflation\u201d narrative out of hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What\u2019s this have to do with PPI, CPI, and other inflation metrics?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The new data set put the nail in the coffin for the \u201cgreedflation\u201d narrative. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Why? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Well, if companies were truly being greedy and just jacking up prices to make money, we would expect them to be hiking prices for consumers at a rate higher than their own production costs are going up. But these data sets actually reveal the opposite: consumer prices rose 8.6% while producer prices rose 10.8%\u2014suggesting that, roughly estimating, companies haven\u2019t jacked up prices to even fully match the increase in their costs, let alone exceed them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Where\u2019s the evidence of this rampant special surge in \u201cgreed\u201d we keep hearing about?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s nowhere to be seen, of course, because the \u201cgreedflation\u201d narrative was always a political talking point simply meant to deflect blame away from the federal government and onto Big Business, a popular boogeyman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n[embedded content]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another day, another disturbing price inflation metric. The federal government just released the latest Producer Price Index (PPI), an index that tracks the prices of a basket of the typical<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}