People can live quite well without Pepsi-co and Coca-Cola products.

Cell phone companies and internet providers also need antitrust laws applied to them.

While I'm not disagreeing with the primary argument, inflation going down does not equal deflation. Only with deflation will prices justifiably go down. Lower inflation just means they're going up more slowly.

So tired of the lies and greed. I have stopped buying certain items due to price gouging and will not buy until prices go down

George Carlin’s album, “A Place for My Stuff,” is structured like an hour of radio programming, with various sketches and fake commercials scattered throughout. In one, the fictional Dempsey’s Department Store pledges, “Everybody’s talking about inflation, but Dempsey’s is doing something about it: we’re raising prices!” It’s amazing how flagrantly corporate America is using that exact strategy today, and how many people blame everyone except the people who actually set the prices.

Some years ago, about a half a dozen gas stations near me were charged with price fixing, and forced to pay thousands of dollars each in fines. Why aren't the giant corporations charged when they do it? Because they are the government, really.

Just returned from England and was surprised at how much less the British pay for groceries, in a country that has much less farming than here. It's not hard to figure that we've been had by the concentration of industrial power into just a few hands.

So Starbucks isn’t really being so ethical, the chickens didn’t unionize and I’m not loosing my mind when I go grocery shopping every week? This is good to know….because I’m currently skipping meals to save money. Save money to pay the rest of my bills 🥴

I stopped drinking sodas years ago. I don't eat mainstream brand chips either. Working on changing to local farm meats entirely.

I've decided not to play! It's easy, find alternatives, read labels, go directly to producer, it's more time consuming but worth it. You'll probably even enjoy finding new tastier things.

I wish main stream media would stop ignoring this. Thank you for not giving up, Robert. You and Bernie seem to be the lone voices out there. Keep shouting!

Once prices went up, I knew they would never come down. 😢

I can tell you, as someone who worked in a supermarket, Coke and Pepsi are colluding with each other. It's chronic in the food industry.

What you said about the meat industry hit home, because near me is a place called "Scott's Meats". They source their meat locally, pay a bit more than the big corporations and sell to customers for much less. For example, I recently got a semi-boneless Rib roast for $6.49/lb. Walmart had the same thing "on sale" for about $11/lb. The only real difference in the model is that Scott does not have a slaughterhouse - the farmers have to bring the animals already dead and skinned, etc. But he pays them enough to be worth it. And there is a companion business (you might say) not operated by Scott that makes things like leather goods , so the farmers selling to Scott also get to sell the hides and other "by-products" for a profit.

Every product from Coke and Pepsi is unhealthy.

Shareholder greed is killing our society.

Also a big problem in Canada. Unfortunately, many Canadians have bought into the idea that it's all the governments fault for giving COVID stimulus, creating a national dental care plan and helping families with childcare. This is despite the fact that several experts in our country cite a lack of competition as a key driver to high prices.

Did anyone notice a few days ago there was a recall on laundry pods. There were at least 10 different brands with the same recall. Hence one manufacturer but distributed under 10 different labels

Soda is such a great example of the problem. Prior to 2020, a 12-pack of soda was about $5 and was regularly on sale for $4 or less. Today, the same 12-pack runs $10 and only occasionally goes on sale for about $8.

Is it any wonder that a certain French owned grocery store chain have kept Pepsi controlled products from their shelves?

Before anybody says "But they spend their profits on R&D, so those aren't their REAL profits", that's wrong. R&D is an expense, profit is revenue minus expenses. These companies make double-digit billions after all expenses are removed. They keep breaking their own profit records, year after year. They can lose plenty of money and remain profitable.

We need to aggressively enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act

What we have is an oligopoly is a market in which control over an industry lies in the hands of a few large sellers who own a dominant share of the market. Oligopolistic markets have homogenous products, few market participants, and inelastic demand for the products in those industries.

If their demand suddenly fell off because people stopped buying due to their shenanigans, prices would come down.

We let grocery companies buy up other grocery chains and then they pass on the cost of the loans they take out to finance the buyout on to their customers. And any perceived or real "food chain issue" is used as excuse to price gouge - not just reacting to shortages.

We as a Country need to "PAY ATTENTION" to what is going on! We all have ability to Fact Check on Real issues causing INFLATION so do it!🗽⚖️🗳️🌊

Its both. But consumers are their own worst enemies. Prices go up and they just keep paying them. Idiots, just say no. We don't need half the crap we buy anyways. Try saving some money for a change and secure your future.

I think the current soda strategy is to price high and frequently have on sale for a special price which makes people think they’re getting a deal if they buy two or whatever

“Inflation is dropping but prices aren’t coming down” well no shit nobody is seriously claiming there is deflation. Prices will continue to rise overall as they have for decades because inflation is viewed as necessary.

I get annoyed whenever anyone talks about inflation, because this has all *very obviously* been price fixing the whole time. I don't care about products like pop or other junk food, because those are non-essentials. I _do_ care about regular food, car (or more specifically car part) prices, gas prices, utility prices, housing prices, etc. because _those_ are essentials that I can't just boycott like the junk food or other "want" items. All the executives at these companies should be facing hard jail time.

i truly hate corporations for the simple fact that they NEVER eat the cost of lowering prices for even a short time, even when they have constantly reported disgustingly high profits year after year after year. "raise min wage? we'll raise prices." when quite frankly, they don't NEED to raise them.

Stop drinking soda... I went to coffee during the week and I've stopped ordering soda at restaurants for $4 a glass that servers don't want to refill anymore.

Inflation rate going down does not mean prices will go down. Even from the get go this video is incredibly deceptive. For the people that actually care about objective reality at all. When people say "inflation is going down" they are talking about inflation rate. Inflation rate is simply the speed at which the currency is inflating. Even if the inflation rate was zero prices would not decrease. Deflation is when our currency increases in value.

Since the increase in prices, I’ve reduced my consumption of soda and snack foods and just about everything really. Drink water instead. Stop paying $10 for a 12 pack of soda.

Other things they can do if possible is to stop consumption.I have not drank a sip of those two drinks and similar others for more than a decade ago because they are not healthy.Learn to cook healthy foods that are plant based.The list can go on and on as per the personal preferences and choices.

Or you could stop buying their products. Since 2021 MacDonalds have increased quarterly profits from around 10 billion per to the current 14 billion per quarter. However this year their sales started to drop, which created a feedback loop for them, raising prices to make up the difference which makes sales fall faster. It's to the point now that shareholders are questioning the CEO over falling sales and revenue. We don't need Coke, or Pepsi or MacDonalds so stop using their products. There are some products that we can't just stop buying, and we still need the Feds for those, but we need to stop being manipulated by businesses and be a self-correcting market too.

Sad when they're are laws to stop this but not enough people know about price gouging, similar products but marked up 20% or more! A gallon of water varies 20-50% more than store brand.

Right. It all boils down to a handful of conglomerates owning 95% of all retail.

The fact people haven't switched to water, or tea, or literally anything else that won't inflate you with blubber says more about the people buying than the greedy corporations.

Ive know for a long time you cant fix greed. Its literally no different thsn a bad alcohol or drug addiction literally very similar

Sick of all the greed, it is disgusting and we are all sick of the lies. We are are drilling more domestic oil right now then in the past 40 yrs, and the gas companies keep hiking the prices higher weekly. It is disgusting and we know what they are doing.

Though based on greed, hopefully, the higher prices will reduce the consumption of Pepsi and Coke ultra-processed junk foods. America desperately needs to lose weight.

"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality for others feels like oppression."

But lower inflation doesn't mean lower prices, unless it actually goes negative; it's the rate of increase. He does explain this later in the video but the beginning part is a bit misleading.

I love how this guy is wrong on the first 5 seconds. >inflation is dropping. No its not. Inflation rate is dropping. You still have inflation. If I start walking instead of running I am still moving forwards.

Shared as always. And I put a link to your channel in every video I have made for quite some time now, and I do a video every day. Getting kind of tired but I can't stop going. We need more empathy and awareness in our voting and we need it at every level of government and beginning locally, to lay the ground work for the statewide and national elections.

So tired of "greed-flation". It used to be mainly gas, but now it has reached into everything. Food costs under all these corporate farms is insane. I am just one person, but when I notice this happening I just don't buy. No extra traveling, switch products. I love certain brands, but not buying. If each one of us "quit" supporting this, set up more ride shares, bought generic brands it would send a message. Simple supply and demand. We are not demanding, companies aren't selling. Lowering earnings. I mean really. How many houses, yachts, fancy cars does one person need? Raise your employees wages instead, share the wealth.

Robert is the master of objective empathy. GO ROBERT! May your voice be heard across the U.S. and the world.

inflation is the autocracy of the capitalist class.

I’ve been talking a lot about this lately. Everybody needs to stop buying from these billionaire companies, only buy what’s necessary, stop eating overpriced fast food and such. We need to shut them down, force them to offer normal prices. Get yourself a cheap used hybrid, a grill to cook your own burgers, make your own desserts, don’t go to the movies, ect. Find alternatives, this is nuts. Here in California I’m not going to pay the ridiculous prices for unnecessaries anymore.

As a Canadian retailer when our dollar would drop more than $0.04-5 suppliers would react instantly and even print new catalogues. When our dollar recovered or ever excelled the prices never came back down. They even told me once “we buy currency constantly so can’t actually drop prices due to what we paid”. Why would you buy currency when it’s not advantageous, and why can’t you weather the storm when the dollar drops?

“It’s a paradox: Inflation is dropping but prices aren’t coming down.” Do you even know what inflation is?

Buy alternatives whenever you can, or nothing at all. If enough people hit their bottom line, they will have to listen. Until then,consumers will save some money.

My son is a doctor who says soda is one of the worst things you can drink. None of our family members have had any soda in 20 years. Haven't missed it a bit...

Its time to quit playing the consumerism game. The consumer has the power to choose not to buy. Yes, there are some things we NEED, but soda is not one of them. I dont even buy juice anymore because it is so unreasonably priced. We need to be more conscious of how we spend our money, and make ourselves as sustainable as possible. Force them to drop their prices.

So what happened? How can big corporations get away with this? It's not the president's fault. It's Congress' fault. Congress COULD pass legislation to stop corporate greed but the republicvnts & the corpo democrats won't pass any type of legislation that does that. Additionally, republicvnts spent DECADES deregulating corporations. Get $$$ out of politics (make lobbying ILLEGAL), enforce the laws we have against monopolies & corporate greed & it would go a fair distance to help us, the regular American citizen.

Thank you Mr Reich you are truly an American treasure. 👍🏻👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿👍🇺🇸

I’m so thankful that I know about your podcasts. Thank you for what you and your team do. 😊

Thank you for this. I encourage everyone to do what he says and share it. I'm tired of the way this country is allowing these greedy monsters to continue business as usual and keep our wages down with higher-than-ever prices. We need to do something and we needed it done yesterday.

Congress needs to TAX these thieves....called them and expose them!!

Bob, what about a windfall tax when companies make huge profits?

So true! I've been thinking about this for last 4yrs & slowly trying to reduce where & how much I spend. I've even gone shopping with friends who have a costco(& other warehouse stores) to buy in bulk Canceled Amazon 4yrs ago. While I still order, it's maybe twice a year & use the free shipping (arrives in 5days instead of 2)

Thank you for posting Robert, I may have been tricked into thinking it was increasing wages that was contributing but it’s all a scam by these big companies. I’m buying even less and trying to be more mindful to buy from small businesses instead.

Watch mentis wave, political checkmate,mrh legacy.They have completely demolished this dude

Channel GodChristLord: Thank you Dr. Reich. As I have stated before, I believe that greed is the biggest problem in America. For example, Pizza Hut which has been around for over 50 years raised its price for a 'personal pan pizza' from $4.80 in February to $5.90 in March. Now, I went for lunch and the same pizza is $6.85. Why the increase in over $2.00? The result, goodbye Pizza Hut!!!!

I own Pepsi and Cocoa Cola stock. I like this guy even if I don’t always agree with him. He is right on the money here.

Corporations are ridiculously greedy and the so-called leadership of them ought to be ashamed of themselves. I stop buying things when I think the prices are too high.

It’s absolutely greedflation. There is no reason many companies couldn’t roll back the pandemic pricing that they pushed on us but they didn’t need the increased pricing any longer.

Greedflation won't go away. At best what it is now is the new norm. At worst it'll just continue at the cost of the livelihood of the average American (so basically everyone and anyone who doesn't squeeze into the upper class) 😞

Good job Robert, more of this needs to be exposed, it’s so evident when you go grocery shopping. Greed has taken over AMERICAN CORPS.

Another way to make a difference is with our spending habits. Save your money and healthcare costs and don't buy coke and pepsi products, fast food or any other non-essentials products that are engaging in price gouging. When demand goes down, prices will follow.

I just lost my Washington state medicaid cause i "make too much" but the new plan i had enrolled in wants me to pay like $30/month as a premium but pay more in taxes. I had to go buy medical supplies out of pocket cause of my "new insurance" taking "exactly 10 business days" to put me into the system before i can then pay to activate said plan. My ostomy bags are like $44.90 for a 2 month supply (not bad) and i can talk to the skyrizi nurses for a reduced cost plan to get my very necessary medication. Even healthcare is price gouging us

A few oligarchs shouldn’t own and control the means of production, distribution and exchange. Workers make the world run, workers should run the world.🇨🇦🇺🇸🌎

Pepsi only gets away with this because we as consumers think we need Pepsi I don't need Pepsi products I chose to pay more if I change my choices they would reduce the price to get me back sooo it's up to the consumers to actually think about how and what we spend our hard earned money

Their soon will come a day where we'll have one telephone company, one or 2 banks so on and on with trucking airlines. MONOPOLY.

You badly need an education in economics, its fine sharing your opinion though. Prices are set by supply and demand, and companies compete against each other for customers. If lets say toiletpaper maker 1 increases the price of his or her toiletpaper he will actually make less money because now people choose to buy toilet paper from toiltpapare maker 2,3,4 and 5 instead. They cant do that that would make them lose money. Nor do you need any laws against them trying to work together to increase the price either, because if 1,2,3,4 and 5 all start to collaborate it just takes one of them to realize "we would make more money if we lowered our price, we would be supplying almost everyone with toiletpaper" and the whole thing collapses again. What you actually need is less government involved in the economy, most of their laws are a hindrance to the economy functioning well. Inflation is caused by an increased money supply, just study economics a little bit im not speaking years, im speaking 6 months of a college course should get you that far and a lot further. Inflation is when the money supply expands leading to increased prices due to supply and demand again. Increased supply of money higher prices. You can easily look at many many many examples of this, from around the world today. Sweden printed money and didnt even shut down their economy and wow inflation. Like in every other single country on earth that printed a lot of money during this period. Or and you are perfectly free to look this up for yourself, which you have to do for your hypothesis to hold true, why was it only the countries that printed money that saw a high inflation, did the greedy in exactly all those countries get greedier in accordance to how much money was being printed, and the countries that didnt print money they didnt get any greedier. But if it is greed, all you need to do in order to make money is start selling a product, whatever it is, and then you get greedier and then you also get richer too. Because that is what you are actually saying. Start a lemonade stand and become as greedy as you possibly can ever be and you should be a millionaire in a week, yet while you run said lemonade stand you quickly realize that your greed has nothing at all to do with how much lemonade you sell.

That is why I don't buy soft-drinks any more. They are way overpriced. And for something like soft-drinks, we can easily chose not to consume them. Other items may be more difficult to abstain from.

Inflation is a monetary event. Blaming "greed" is just a lame excuse for reckless monetary policy. The FED doubled the money supply in 10 years. Companies have always been greedy yet we had 2% inflation for years. Companies didn't change- the money supply did.

Tap water and store brands. The price differential on Lays is not justified by a difference in quality. Store brands are better value in many cases.

So the money printing has nothing to do with inflation? Fr Fr? By God?

My fave is Goya. The can of beans I bought for $.79 eight months ago now cost $2.50. It doesn't cost me that much because I won't buy at that price especially as I know that Goya is reporting, very proudly announcing all time record profits. I live in a community that is heavily weighted to recent Hispanic immigrants. They literally don't know any alternative products. Robert Unanue, the CEO of Goya was borne in Wykoff, NJ. An affluent town in Bergen Co NJ and is a close friend and supporter of Donald Trump

If inflation is caused by corporate greed, are you seriously implying that companies just suddenly became greedy recently and it's just a big coincidence its happening at the same time as the biggest increase to money printing we've ever had?

Thank you for addressing this. Bain of my existence for the past couple of years. I have stopped buying the products that keep rising in prices. I was glad to hear at Biden’s last state of the union that he intended to put together a committee. Thanks!

Great video.

I have written this many times in the comments sections of other channels. The consumer has the ultimate say. Don't buy their products. They are not good for you--they taste good to some people so they sigh and complain and buy the products anyway. I haven't had a Coke in years. In fact, I don't drink any soda. I stopped buying Doritos after I gained weight during the lockdown due to boredom eating Cheetos and Doritos and sitting on my butt. I lost the COVID 15 and then some, but it has taken me a solid year to do so. So my take on this is don't buy the items. You will save some money and may just live a few more years because you did.

Will you please tell people how they can fight investors stealing what is left from our buying power? they've got most of it from the 60s. Younger people say there's nothing they can do

I think a lot of people forget that dropping inflation means the speed at which prices go up has dropped. Not that the price is dropping. You need deflation to see prices dropping. But Corporations have hidden their price increases behind reported inflation.

We need to transition to a system where the workers own the companies they work for, and elect their management. It could be done smoothly, too.

Started buying more store brands again. Maybe, I'll stick with them this time...The quality of most store brand items are just as good and meet my needs. If I owned a a backup freezer, (and a place to put it), I'd approach buying meats from Local producers/farmers. I'm not there yet. Can't store a whole butchered pig, or cow. The DNR sells half deer in Poynette.

Sticking with speaking about soda, we could just not buy those or their products. Just a thought.

CORPORATE GREED INDEED. It's the real problem!

This all started with citizens united. Corporations should not be able to support/buy politicians. We need to bring back Eisenhower levels of taxation. The monopolys need to be broken up. Good luck with all of that. What we have is people praying on other people.

there is nothing, no law, no agency to slow this down. lets have lengthy discussions on corporate profit, executive compensation and stock buybacks. never hear much about that.

Why would corporations drop prices when they’ve already seen people will continue to pay?

Even Wal-Mart continues to charge exhorbitant prices for their Pepsi products. Two big corporations making a killing off of us at once. Sorry! Sorry as heck!

"Inflation is dropping, but prices aren't going down" *Shows the inflation rate* my brother in Christ that does not say what you think it says Serious question though, does ANYBODY consider this guy a serious economist?

One month ago, a cheap bag of vanilla wafers was $1. The day before Easter, I had to pay $4 for that cheap off brand cookie!!!

It's greed-flation. Corporations are keeping prices high to maximum profit. We had supply chain problems during covid. Everything's back to normal now, except prices of goods.

So tired of these corporations and their elitist ways. Unionize.

The same people setting wages are also setting prices. Fair wages, fair profits and a fair playing field. Vote Blue