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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

Of course they are. There was a much-watched video that went around a few weeks ago that composed quite a few CEOs talking about pushing the pricing envelope to take advantage of inflation news (effectively saying: "People now expect price increases, we can leverage that to our gain!").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psYyiu9j1VI

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There's not really much we can do about this. Artificial price ceilings were tried in Venezuela and it only contributed significantly to their massive food shortages they experienced.

Most notably it resulted in a big reduction in the variety of food available because while some of the biggest companies could survive with the new lower prices (and work with the gov directly to set those prices) the bulk of small/medium sized ones couldn't, often as other expenses eventually increased while prices didn't.

One thing we can do is give the NLRB actual teeth to enforce its laws.

I agree that that would be a good thing, but it won't lower consumer prices.

It would create more competition, and put more money into people’s pockets.

Putting more money in people's pockets will not reduce inflation.

I don't see how it will create more competition.

Indeed, putting more money in people's pockets literally increases prices through higher demand.

Putting more money in people's pockets raises inflation, because they're willing to pay higher prices

There's not really much we can do about this.

Not directly or quickly, no. Fully agreed that price caps and other invasive measures are usually counterproductive.

I was only pointing out that in a market economy led by profit-seeking CEOs, pushing pricing up is expected. Listening to those clips, they sounds downright sociopathic, but it's just another Tuesday in America.

The best way to deal with this is likely ensuring workers are paid a fair living wage. And take the appropriate measures to curb the worst of the inflation.

I don't know. While price controls may not work in the long run, if businesses believe that there's a time-limited opportunity to raise consumer prices, you could try imposing time-limited controls until the opportunity is over. You might very well end up with lower consumer prices and thinner corporate margins, or at the very least, slow the rate at which the price increases occur.

Price controls are a pretty big deal though. Especially in a low margin industry you run the real risk of putting firms out of business and damaging supply. They're very dangerous when done wrong.

Most importantly you communicate to investors that your government does not respect the pricing mechanism of the market. That'll make investors worried about which other norms of economic stewardship your regime will violate. The uncertainty alone will be a heavy burden for the economy of a country that decides to impose arbitrary price ceilings on commodities.

I think the restaurant industry is going crazy with this. Yesterday I stopped at a food cart. The price of a gyro sandwich was $13. It didn't come with fries. I asked how much for a side of fries. $6. Throw in a drink and add another $2. So a sandwich, fries and drink "combo" is over $20.

And this is from a food cart, mind you - not a restaurant. And not a fancy food cart that people drive miles to try their unique food. Just a few years ago that sandwich would have been $8-9.

That's literally how the market is supposed to work and it's not a bad thing. This is not some conspiracy. Companies price test all the time. They will increase the prices until either the consumer won't purchase their product or a competitor comes in and undercuts them. Sometimes the market conditions favor the consumer, sometimes they favor the company.

The problem is companies are so big and consolidated now that competitors can't as easily come in and existing competitors were bought out.

I'm curious what keeps killing competition and incentivizing the growth of mega-corps over smaller companies?

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