Re: Three Body Problem

On Wed, 21 Aug 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Chris Buckley  <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

Please give citations to the studies that prove price gouging has been
done in supermarkets or that it is responsible for inflation of
grocery prices. Lots of accusations, lots of fuzzy thinking and waving
of hands, but nothing that is at all conclusive or even somewhat
convincing. Profits went up very slightly, but that's what happens you
give people hundreds of billions of dollars, directly and indirectly;
they buy more groceries!

>
I don't think the price gouging is happening in supermarkets so much as
in food providers that cater to lower income people in areas without
supermarkets.  (Which is another example here of how competition is a
good thing for markets.)
--scott
>

In sweden there has been a debate about high food prices, and the government analysed the issue and came to the conclusion that price increases was not due to producers, and was not due to supermarkets, but, due to the distributors.
Sweden is a small market, so there are only 3 major super markets, and all three own their own distributors and only 1 out of the 3 sells to independent stores. The other 2 only sell to their own branded stores.
So what the stores did was to say that "we have _not_ increased any prices", while not telling the public that they did increase the prices at the distributor level.
To further add something to this thread, I read in the news the other day that Norway fined 3 major super market conglomerates 500 million USD (approximately) for illegal cooperation around prices.