This is true. Large plastic tanks, like 3-5k gallon ones for water storage doubled and potentially heading for tripling in prices because of this simple fact: You can only put like 3-5 on a truck that has to drive from very far away. It makes it so that if your state does not mold plastic, then you are directly paying for the fuel of that truck.

I'd say a cartel works about as well as a monopoly. I think you're right about food, but you can get vertical(? - I can never remember vertical or horizontal) integrations at some points like it seems we have with beef - lots of people can grow cows, but if a cartel gets control of the processing plants, they can squeeze the market at both ends.

> Unless there is a monopoly, companies have to offer the lowest / best deal or they go out of business quickly.

I don't know why you think companies like competition more than they like profits. Companies raise their prices in lockstep a lot: sometimes it is coordinated, mostly its not. Despite your faith in perfect competition: established companies do not want a race to the bottom - which is a classic iterated prisoner's dilemma scenario.

Far from nonsense. Oil is controlled by a global cartel. Everything in your supermarket is made by "brands" owned by a handful of companies, produced from raw materials made usually by a handful of producers. They've each carved up the world between them and sit on unprecedented pricing power. How is the US food market competitive? I also note you didn't actually challenge the fact that US corporate profits rose after the pandemic, with fatter margins despite rising costs.

Sure. Shareholder interests and all that. But regardless of the reason why companies might be fattening up (come on, do you really believe they'd leave money on the table even in the best of times?), the fact is they're doing this at the expense of American households. That doesn't make it hunky-dory. And to bring it back to the original topic, that too is inflationary.