Think of how the telcos and cable companies divided up America like the Pope dividing up the "New World" into non-overlapping, non-competing exclusive territories. The less they had to compete with one another, the less they had to spend on their infrastructure. That's how you get companies like #Frontier, who draped their lines over shrubs or let them drag on the ground:

stopthecap.com/2019/01/07/minn…

19/

Minnesota Regulators: Frontier is a Shoddy, Criminally Rogue Phone Company

Minnesota regulators slammed the performance of Frontier Communications in a highly critical 133-page report released Friday, describing a rogue phone company that appears to have knowingly violate…

^{Stop the Cap!}

Global supply chains have the same pathology. Global shipping is controlled by three cartels, and for years, their regulators warned them that making their ships bigger and bigger risked disaster, like, say, a ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal:

pluralistic.net/2021/03/29/eff…

20/

But bigger ships meant higher margins, and the concentrated shipping sector was unified in its devotion to those margins. Not only did the ships get bigger and bigger, but regulators were powerless to stop it, because the sector spoke with one voice, as the three cartels converged on a single lobbying position.

21/

Off-shoring was "efficient": if a corporation's goal was to destroy its union and set up shop in a territory where they didn't have to worry about workplace safety or pollution, the offshoring was a *very* efficient way to accomplish that goal. Offshoring works well, but fails badly.

22/

With supply chains stretching across continents and oceans, and with production concentrated into a few massive factories, all it takes is one storm, one ransomware attack, one disease outbreak to disrupt whole sectors.

Some inflation is unarguably the result of supply-chain problems, but we can't fix those problems by raising interest rates and slowing domestic investment.

23/

To add resiliency to supply-chains, we need to move production closer to home, and replace single points of failure with robust networks of suppliers:

pluralistic.net/2022/06/01/fac…

But the inflation hawks didn't want to talk about any of that. For them, the equation was simple: inflation started when workers gained bargaining power and were able to secure higher wages and favorable political outcomes (that is, relief checks).

24/

The only solution was to put workers back in their place: hike interest rates to cause mass unemployment and acellerate offshoring, in order to "reduce demand."

25/

Late last year #JosephStiglitz and #RegmiIra published a thoroughgoing analysis of the causes of inflation, finding a mix of price-gouging, capacity failure, supply chain problems, higher rents (thanks to work-from-home) and shifts in the kinds of goods in demand (hand-santizer, home exercise equipment, etc):

pluralistic.net/2022/12/14/med…

26/

None of these problems can be addressed with #InterestRateHikes, and many of them get worse when interest rates go up. But as Stiglitz and Ira write, monetary policy is like medieval bloodletting: if the patient gets worse, it's because you didn't do enough bloodletting. If the patient recovers, it's because the bloodletting worked.

27/

This didn't make a dent in the inflation hawks' rhetoric. Instead, they insisted that greedflation was impossible. How, they asked, could supposed monopolists suddenly acquire the ability to raise prices? Did the pandemic increase the amount of greed somehow?

28/

If only they'd bothered to listen to the greedflationists, they would have had their answer. As #KenJarosch, owner of Chicago's #JaroschBakery told investors, "Whether it’s rye flour, or bird flu that impacts eggs, when it makes national news, just running a business, it’s an opportunity to increase the prices without getting a whole bunch of complaining from the customers":

bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

But who are we going to believe: neoliberal economists, or our own lying ears?

29

Transcript: What a Bakery Can Tell Us About the Economy Right Now

The owner of a baked goods business on inflation, jobs and more.

^{Tracy Alloway (Bloomberg)}

Writing for *Lever News*, #AndrewPerez, #MatthewCunninghamCook and #DavidSirota count the cost of greedflation denial:

levernews.com/how-pundits-infl…

30/

How Pundits’ Inflation Myth Crushed The Working Class

After corporate media lied America into a war and a financial crisis, data show they lied about a main source of price hikes — and brutal policies followed.

^{The Lever}

Before pundits, CEOs and orthodox economists started ringing the alarm about inflation's origins in greedy, powerful workers, America was on track for some profound, long overdue reforms: $2T in climate retrofits and infrastructure, another round of pandemic relief, and a minimum wage increase.

Also on the table: anti-price-gouging legislation, new taxes on the ultra-rich, and a windfall profits tax targeted at pandemic profiteers.

31/

But once the inflation hawks started going on national TV, holding flashlights under their chins and intoning "Inflaaaaaaaation," all that died.

A year later, even the *#WSJ* has to admit "Businesses are using a rare opportunity to boost their profit margins":

wsj.com/articles/why-is-inflat…

32/

Why Is Inflation So Sticky? It Could Be Corporate Profits

Some companies might have been raising prices faster than their costs have increased

^{Paul Hannon (The Wall Street Journal)}

The *Washington Post* and *Bloomberg* concur, writing, "The idea that corporate profit expansion has been a big driver of inflation was once mostly confined to trade unions and left-wing academics, but it’s now taken seriously":

washingtonpost.com/business/20…

But it's too little, too late. The Fed just hiked interest rates again:

apnews.com/article/federal-res…

33/

Fed raises key rate but hints it may pause amid bank turmoil

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve reinforced its fight against high inflation Wednesday by raising its key interest rate by a quarter-point to the highest level in 16 years.

^{Christopher Rugaber (Associated Press)}

And they'll keep doing it, too - bleeding the patient until they recover, or die. The bloodletter is never wrong, and meanwhile, there's no end to the fortunes to be made from raising prices and blaming inflation.

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Mosaic 36 (modified)
flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/142…

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blood spatter pattern

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