Would you prefer the FTC just forces them to cut prices, and then give both the corporations reason to sue them, as well as more right-wing talking points about “big government stealing money from Ma and Pa grocer”? The unfortunate reality is that if the FTC don’t do this investigation and come back with hard proof, no matter how blatantly obvious what the large grocers are doing actually is, they will play the victim and make it even harder to take any hard action against them.
The other reality is that, even if it’s not actually the case, if it turned out that it was just “inflation” and all those companies did
have to raise prices to stay afloat (again, not saying this is the case at all, just simply playing devil’s advocate), the FTC would face an absolute shitstorm if they took action and it did actually do serious harm to grocers/the broader food supply chain. Again, not a “Oh no, profits were only up 20% YoY instead of 35% because of the FTC action” but a “We will literally be selling all our products at a severe loss and will be bankrupt in weeks”. They have to understand exactly how much they’re fucking people over to take action, because historically there have been plenty of times where a well-intentioned “Stop fucking people over” rule, has caused much greater consequences down the line.
It sucks and is disgusting that in such a wealthy nation that we have people going hungry at all, but at least they’re attempting to finally do something about this specific issue, and hopefully will at least discourage shit like this in the future.
Would you prefer the FTC just forces them to cut prices, and then give both the corporations reason to sue them, as well as more right-wing talking points about “big government stealing money from Ma and Pa grocer”? The unfortunate reality is that if the FTC don’t do this investigation and come back with hard proof, no matter how blatantly obvious what the large grocers are doing actually is, they will play the victim and make it even harder to take any hard action against them.
The other reality is that, even if it’s not actually the case, if it turned out that it was just “inflation” and all those companies did have to raise prices to stay afloat (again, not saying this is the case at all, just simply playing devil’s advocate), the FTC would face an absolute shitstorm if they took action and it did actually do serious harm to grocers/the broader food supply chain. Again, not a “Oh no, profits were only up 20% YoY instead of 35% because of the FTC action” but a “We will literally be selling all our products at a severe loss and will be bankrupt in weeks”. They have to understand exactly how much they’re fucking people over to take action, because historically there have been plenty of times where a well-intentioned “Stop fucking people over” rule, has caused much greater consequences down the line.
It sucks and is disgusting that in such a wealthy nation that we have people going hungry at all, but at least they’re attempting to finally do something about this specific issue, and hopefully will at least discourage shit like this in the future.