What is being to address the price gouging by companies? Oil and gas companies are seeing record profits, how can it be just inflation that costs are going up?
If the barriers to entry are too high, then price controls or nationalization.
Or remove the barriers, like regulation/licensing/taxation.
Besides, any competitor entering the market would be expected to make just as much or more profit as the existing companies. Which means they would price their product just the same as the existing companies.
I don't think you can just decide by fiat that things like regulation and licensing aren't barriers. Taxi medallions before Uber comes to mind.
>Besides, any competitor entering the market would be expected to make just as much or more profit as the existing companies
You also cannot just decide by fiat that adding more competitors mean the same amount or more profit. I don't think it is a very popular economic opinion to believe that adding more competition raises the profit. I do not understand why any rational competitor would expect their profit would be higher with more competition, unless they have some kind of edge.
And the only thing that prevents the above from being true, is oppressive government policies that undermine the freemarket, which are sold to the people as "for their protection".
As Tesla likes to point out, they are one of 2 car companies formed in the last century.
The free market is not free. It's a myth. It's a lie.
(And before you say Tesla or some other electric car, remember that they are a luxury and priced as such, not to mention that most Americans can't even charge them at home.)
While it is definitively a free market, it isn't in practicality.
We don't have a free market.
What do you define as a free market?
There is an argument they are turning a profit. Which is true.
But when oil prices are low they lose money hand over fist and lay off most of their workforce.
They have to make enough money in the good years to cover the bad years.