Price Gouging Prevention Act
congress.gov
congress.gov
The legislation around pricing that I would like to see is for businesses to not be allowed to charge outside of the normal market rate for your area if 30% of their income is from government funded sources. Things such as EBT or Medicare etc...
Because I live in a very small community and somewhat rural Alabama and I refuse to shop at the store in town even though it is a major chain and known throughout the southeast. The reason for this is their prices are on average 25% or 30% higher then the so-called predatory convenience stores that are prevalent. This community is below average income wise and most of the people who have to shop locally do use EBT for their groceries. Driving 15 minutes away you can go to other stores that are much cheaper but when you're locked in the community they're allowed to exploit these higher prices. For example I went there 2 days ago just to revalidate my assumptions on this and they were selling a dozen large eggs for $5.29 all right across the street at the store whose initials are DG a dozen large eggs was $4.25. both are a lot higher than our favorite German grocery store but they're both chains and eggs are a commodity staple item that people need. It's absolutely ridiculous that the FTC isn't cracking down on this kind of exploitation of the taxpayer dollars.
If the store was charging a large markup on non staple items such as Little Debbie snack cakes or alcohol things of that nature I wouldn't have a real problem with it but when you're charging 20% to 30% higher on staple grocery items because you have a community of poor people who are getting their money from the taxpayer and don't have the ability to drive a short distance out of town to get a better deal that seems criminal. Because this kind of ongoing price gouging is hurting the most vulnerable in our nation and reducing their purchasing power for the necessary food items we as a people are trying to give them so they can achieve a better life.
B) Government passes laws to prevent “gouging” by remaining government-funded incumbents, further increasing risk to new market entrants.
C) Remaining providers depart, leaving no service in the area.
D) Government creates new DMV-inspired provider to “help” the populace, which provide acceptable service to absolutely nobody (see: $billions for government provided fast car chargers that were never built)
E) Taxes are increased to support and expand the useless provider.
F) Go to step A for the next market.
For example, even the CPI is not a good source of data - because its an index - and doesn't directly relate to the Human Consumer in a direct manner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySxHud7abko <-- As explained to Eddy Murphy in 1984
Take Juice at Walmart, which was $1.34 ~18 months ago - and it is now $2.16 today. And its not real 'Juice' - its Sugar Water
https://i.imgur.com/mPs35It.png
Minute maid is made by Coca-Cola, and subs to Louis-Dreyfus for a lot of its Juice mfr ops:
>As a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, Minute Maid's juice products are manufactured and distributed through Coca-Cola's extensive network. Here's an overview of the supply chain and manufacturing plants involved: Manufacturing Plants:
Coca-Cola North America (CCNA) operates several juice manufacturing plants in the United States, including:
Atlanta, Georgia: CCNA's headquarters and a major juice manufacturing facility.
Houston, Texas: A large juice plant serving the southern United States.
Los Angeles, California: A juice plant serving the western United States.
Chicago, Illinois: A juice plant serving the midwestern United States.
Coca-Cola Refreshments (CCR) operates additional juice manufacturing plants in the United States, including:
Detroit, Michigan: A juice plant serving the midwestern United States.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: A juice plant serving the northeastern United States.
The point being -- that this act is garbage when price gouging is baked into the entire Supply Chain - whereby Sugar is the True Evil Commodity.
(I met the Sugar Industry's primary Lobbyist on a plane to DC once -- and it was eye-popping on how unbelievably powerful Sugar is in Politics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanjul_family
https://www.promarket.org/2016/09/19/sugar-industry-buys-aca... <-- Story about their political ties, payments.
Now lets look at which congress members are impacted by sugar lobby, based on which committees they may be members of:
https://i.imgur.com/kDwed5Q.png
https://i.imgur.com/VYJK7iD.png
Then lets look at the top donors to those congress members are from the Sugar and sugar adjacent:
https://i.imgur.com/YX1ublY.png
And we can also see that publicly recorded investments are made into said companies:
https://i.imgur.com/13dvCEL.png
https://i.imgur.com/dYW49mc.png
In Summary:
This act will accomplish nothing but drive the Political Sentiment Needle
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Summary of the Act
The Act aims to prevent price gouging during exceptional market shocks, such as natural disasters or national emergencies. It defines key terms, including:
Critical trading partner: a person who can restrict access to inputs, customers, or partners, harming competition [1].
Exceptional market shock: a sudden change in the market due to various factors, including natural disasters, wars, or public health emergencies [2].
Unfair leverage: a person who has dominant market power, discriminates between trading partners, or engages in unfair practices [3].
Prohibition on price gouging: selling or offering goods or services at grossly excessive prices during exceptional market shocks [4].
Affirmative defense: small businesses (less than $100 million in gross revenue) can defend against price gouging claims if they demonstrate increased costs not within their control [5].
Presumptive violations: a person is presumed to be price gouging if they have unfair leverage and increase prices excessively during an exceptional market shock [6].
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