WEBVTT - Greedflation Is Real 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Hey, everybody, guess what if you didn't hear already, it's 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.680 time you knew. We're going back on the road doing 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:09.200 live shows somewhere near you. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.600 That's right. May twenty ninth, thirtieth, and thirty first, we 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.800 will be in Medford, Mass then Washington, d C. Then 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.200 New York City, New York City, that's right. Following that up, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.880 we're going to be in Chicago on the seventh of August, 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.680 Minneapolis on the eighth of August, and Indianapolis on the 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.880 ninth of August, and then we're gonna wind out the 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.080 year in September in Durham, North Carolina in the fifth 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.400 and then right here in Atlanta on September seventh. Please 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.440 come out and see us live. It's a great show. 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.960 You're gonna have a great time, and we look forward 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:40.880 to seeing everybody. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.840 Yes, And for tickets and information, just go to link 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.240 tree slash SYSK live or go to stuff youshould Know 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.360 dot com and click on the tour button and we'll 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:51.400 see you guys this year. 0:00:54.560 --> 0:01:00.320 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:06.759 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.080 Chuck and Jerry's here somewhere and this is stuff you 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.880 should know. The Timely Topical Edition. I haven't done one 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:15.600 of these in a while. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.440 Job. Yeah, Fight the Power Edition. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.720 I guess. So kind of seems that way, doesn't It 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.640 Like there's really very few ways to discuss this and 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:27.560 not kind of come out on that side. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.080 Yeah. I'm kind of glad you picked this one because 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.399 with all the talk of you know, food grocery store 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.479 prices and stuff, in the back of my mind, I've 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.720 been thinking, like, all right, I know there were some 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.720 reasons for this, but I also wonder if they just 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:48.040 raised prices a lot because they could, right, and that's 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:48.840 kind of what happened. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.760 Yeah, it true seems that way, Like I think, kind 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.400 of at the end of the day, the discussion over 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.800 what we're talking about, which is called greedflation, which is 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:06.400 a fairly new right. The idea isn't that food companies 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.480 made massive profits over the last few years, starting in 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.200 the pandemic, right, Like, There's just basically no way you 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.920 can argue that that didn't happen. It's been documented. The 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:22.440 issue at hand is whether that constitutes something beyond the 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.640 norm of capitalism, or is that just that's what happens 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:30.040 in the free market when there's you know, weirdness to it. 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.880 You know, that's the that's the question. In my mind. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.600 What it really comes down to is your interpretation of 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.040 whether there's I don't know, maybe some sort of basic 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.760 moral responsibility for certain kinds of companies or companies that 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.519 deal in certain kinds of goods to not just make 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.160 as much money as they possibly can. I don't know. 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.080 I think that's the that's the actual debate over it. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:55.640 Now, let me ask you this, is it possible to 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.840 be a person who says, you know, I'm at that 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.600 percent behind capitalism and let it run amok and that's 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.120 just let it work itself out, and then also complain 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.320 about food prices like can those things co exist? 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.400 Yes? Those people are called the worst. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.040 Okay, so it can co exist. I think so people 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:20.040 you don't want to hang out with. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:21.200 Right exactly? 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:21.720 Okay? 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.839 Yeah. I think conversely too, you can be totally pro 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.600 capitalists and still be like the idea that it's just 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:30.359 business is kind of a moral. 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:30.680 Yeah. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.160 I don't think you have to you have to pick 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.440 one side or the other. I think that it's a 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:36.520 little grayer than that. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.160 All right, shall we jump in. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.720 Yeah, let's so. Ultimately what we're talking about are increases 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.200 and prices at the grocery store on levels that we 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.640 just haven't seen before. Like, you're not crazy, the prices 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.840 at the grocery store are bonkers. Apparently, in twenty twenty 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.640 two in America, the inflation for food at grocery stores 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.600 increased eleven point four percent, and then in twenty twenty 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.480 three it added another five percent, and that was, you know, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.280 half a little a little more than half of what 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.000 the increase had been in twenty twenty two, but it 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.000 was still double with the normal annual increases of two 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.280 point five percent, that's how much food typically inflates year 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.000 over year at the grocery store. Instead, in two years, 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.440 it inflated by almost seventeen percent. Wow. Yeah, And there 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.320 were reasons for this, Like there's a standard narrative, which 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.080 is there's just a handful of reasons that everybody points 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:33.440 to like this is why. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.360 Yeah, and there's you know, we're going to talk I 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.320 guess a little bit about kind of the standard explanations 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.320 that we've been hearing for the past couple of years, 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.400 which we're not saying is you know, bunk or anything 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.919 like that, because, as you'll see, I think is a 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.080 pretty even handed episode. We might get a hot hot 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.919 under the collar, but I think there's reason to be 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.680 So here we go. So one thing you will hear 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.520 and have heard a lot is, you know, the pandemic's 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.800 obviously a big reason for all this, the biggest driver 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:09.200 of it, and the disruptions to the supply chain. Whether 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.200 you were building a house or whether you were a 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.760 food company marking up your goods, the supply chain squeezed out. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.800 It seems like everything on the planet, and there were 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.960 food item shortages, there were ingredient shortages, and that was 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:27.920 one of the drivers for inflation. 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.880 Yeah, even packaging shortages. Like a good example is that 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.520 caffeine free coke was temporarily discontinued because there was a 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.520 shortage of aluminum, which meant that coke had to basically 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.799 ration their cans, and regular coke sells more than caffeine 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.760 free coke, so they just basically focused on coke for 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.960 a little while. Yeah, that caused a shortage. It was 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.159 just that sort bizarre and meandering in some cases, right. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.280 Yeah, which had nothing to do with raising prices, But 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:55.920 that's just a side. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.880 Note, right, it's true. Yes, you're right. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.480 So people ate at home a lot more during the pandemic, obviously, 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.840 so there was more demand that you know, these goods 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.120 were in shorter supply, and all of a sudden, there's 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.039 more demand for fewer those goods. And that is just 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.040 inflation one on one as far as how things get 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:14.719 out of control. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.719 Right. And then so if you are a processed food company, 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.120 you have to use ingredients, and a lot of ingredients 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.680 were scarcer, and the cost of the ingredients went up, right, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.960 So that means that they raised their cost because they 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.440 raised the prices of their products because their costs increased, 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.159 So their marginal cost, which is the cost to put 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.840 everything together and deliver it and all that stuff package 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.840 it increased, which means they increased their markup their profit, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.040 which means you put those two together, the price increases 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.480 in unnecessary clue GI economic terms. 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.559 Yeah, and we're going to talk more in depth about 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.760 this stuff, obviously, but you know, usually if there's like 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.360 if it's you know, if it's not a pandemic, and 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.799 they're just happens to be an ingredient that is getting squeezed, 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.120 and so the cost of making a bag of Cheetos 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.280 or something costs more. They're not gonna companies aren't gonna 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:09.600 be like, oh, we've got to raise a price. Then 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.160 they'll just sort of absorb that to keep the prices 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.080 kind of steady and keep things flowing. That wasn't the 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:17.520 case during the pandemic. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.800 Though, No, and Chuck, that is that is a key 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.640 thing to understand, is what we are seeing those markups, 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.760 the difference in the price and the cost of the 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:33.560 company's pay to actually produce the product. Like that, that's 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.720 we've just never seen anything like this before. Economists are like, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.920 I've never seen anything like this before in my forty 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.560 years of studying you know, food delivery and food supply 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:45.360 chain stuff. 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.760 Yeah, and then people said, you've been studying that for 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.600 forty years, and. 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.000 The guy's like, yes, someone please let me stop exactly. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.160 And then another thing that we heard here and there was, 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.800 you know, people got stimulus checks. A lot of people 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.960 did when unemployment was just so staggering during the pandemic. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.040 So the government issued these checks. People had a little 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.400 more money in their pocket to spend, which was the idea, 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:19.120 and demand increased and so that push prices higher. The 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.280 thing is though Europe experienced the same inflation we did, 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.920 sometimes even worse as far as food costs go, and 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.119 they didn't get stimulus checks. So that one is a little, 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:32.720 I don't know, confusing. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.320 I guess it is. This way to say it, it is, 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.120 but just based on classic economic theory, there's just no 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.520 way it didn't have some impact, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure, 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.000 in a way. You can also point to it as 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.720 being a very unusual factor that took place within the 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.680 context of a larger unusual period, which was the pandemic. Right, 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.080 you also had other things going on at the same time, 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.120 Like the pandemic wasn't enough. There were tons of bouts 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.880 of Avian flu that was killing hens left and right, 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.520 and I guess friar roasters, Yeah, the kind you eat too, 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.160 those chickens. So there was less chicken to go around 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.200 and less hens to lay eggs, which meant the price 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:20.000 of eggs and poultry would increase. What's interesting about that 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.040 is that as more hens were hatched and started laying 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.559 more eggs and the supply came back, the price of 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.520 eggs went down, And that is weird in the context 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.080 of what's been going on lately too. 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.240 Yeah, absolutely, and we'll talk about eggs more because, believe 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.120 it or not, eggs are a big story yet, you 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.040 know story. And then, of course, the thing we heard 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.040 a lot about was the war in Ukraine. That was 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:50.160 another sort of coexisting situation alongside the pandemic, which disrupted 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.280 wheat exports. You know, when you're a European country the 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.319 United States and you squeeze sanctions onto Russia, there's gonna 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.560 squeeze right back, and well, we've got oil that we're 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.120 not going to supply you anymore, and that's just going 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.160 to that squeezes everything. And all of a sudden, grain exports, 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.760 especially wheat, went up, which affects the cost of a 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:12.679 lot of foods. 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.840 Yeah, because the global economy is so interconnected that like 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.240 if if Europe is paying higher energy prices, that's definitely 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.840 going to affect the price of the things that American 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.280 companies are importing from Europe, right. Yeah, So all those 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.760 things put together added up to that unprecedented increase in 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.320 prices in the grocery store. 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.320 All right. So those are a lot of the reasons 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.000 that we've been hearing about, you know, over the past 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.400 few years. But as far as like, what this actually 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.240 looks like in a grocery store. I thought, you know, 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:43.840 we thought it'd be helpful if we break down just 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.760 what this looks like for just a person walking in 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:47.600 a grocery store. 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.040 Okay, so I'll be that person walking. Yeah, I've got 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.640 a hat on. Just imagine I have a cool hat on. Okay, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.000 I don't I'm walking into the ground. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:55.400 I don't know that I've ever seen anywhere hat. 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.240 Weirdly though, like I look weird right now. 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.320 Well, it's because you're wearing a hat and. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:01.240 I'm walking in place. 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.840 But weirdly, I think I've seen you walk in place, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.160 but I've never seen you where I hat. So if 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.520 you talk to the USDA, they will say the price 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.120 of food in the United States is twenty five percent 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.640 higher this last year in twenty twenty three than it 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.680 was in twenty nineteen. What and that was higher than 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.679 every other category on the planet except for transportation. And 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.240 that's why people are probably like you should also do 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.400 one on why airline by it costs, you know, one 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.960 thousand dollars to fly from Atlanta, New York. Now it 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.880 doesn't really a no, that's not true, but just airline 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.680 tickets are ridiculous now. Yeah. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.280 Do you remember when you used to like get on 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.560 a plane and to be like a third full and 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.560 they'd still take off. They didn't cancel it. 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.040 Yeah, Which that's no good, Like let's fill the planes. 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.480 Up, for sure. But I mean, like, but true. Now 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.560 it's just cutthroat. It's like the oppas. It's like, oh, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.640 you paid for your ticket a month ago, ts you're 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:57.559 off the flight. 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.920 Yeah yeah, and the expense anyway, all that to say 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:05.240 that food food prices rose over that three year period 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.679 or four year period, more than any other category except 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:12.240 for transportation. And I believe you already talked about the 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.280 food increase percentage wise. But if you're in a grocery store, sir, 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.760 with a hat weirdly walking in place, why don't you 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:20.560 start coming forward? 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.280 Okay, here, I come take off. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:24.720 Your hat when you entered like a good gentleman. 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.320 No, I'm going to leave the hat on. Okay, sure, 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:28.480 it's a really cool hat. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.160 And you might notice that that loaf of bread over there, 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.600 just that white sandwich bread is twenty two percent more 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.800 expensive than it was just two years ago. God, and sir, 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.640 I see you're thinking, like, well, forget that I'm gonna 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.160 bake my own bread. Well, good luck with that too, 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.319 because that all purpose flour is twenty one percent more 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:52.520 expensive and butter is thirty one percent more expensive. So 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.320 I don't even think about baking a birthday cake. 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.360 I can't even get a break on butter. 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.640 I can't even I know butter is. I mean that 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:00.720 stuff right off the stick. 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.000 So so okay, I'm still the guy in the hat. 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.319 I'm moving down another aisle. I'm like nuts. To make 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:08.640 it my own bread, I'll just eat a bunch of 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.000 ultra process stuff because that's dirt cheap. Everybody knows that. 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:14.720 Surely that hasn't increased in price. 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.559 No, no, And since you said nuts, why don't you 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:20.800 go ahead and get some of those nuts because they're 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:22.800 about sixteen percent more expensive. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.440 Well, they make me pack on too much weight anyway, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:26.280 so I'm fine with that. 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.360 And by the way, sir with the hat, I want 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.120 to remind you that these stats for process foods are 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.840 just over one year. WHOA, from twenty twenty two to 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.000 twenty twenty three. You're paying sixteen percent more for the salties, 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.679 sixteen percent more for those cookies, eighteen and a half 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:44.760 percent more for that granola bar you think is held. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.880 And if you want a little fruit snack, almost twenty 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.280 four percent more expensive. Not the fruit snacks, yes, the 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:52.199 fruit snacks. 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:54.480 Chuck. This skit has gotten. 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.360 Really dark, as dark as Halloween. 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.480 Pretty dark. Oh actually, no, you're right. Halloween was a bloodbath, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.120 especially if you're talking fun sized Snickers, because get this, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.480 this is crazy. I mean even Halloween. Normally Halloween prices 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.480 are beyond nuts. But this is just really bad. A 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:19.320 bag of fun sized Snickers went from twenty twenty two, 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.280 or sorry, went from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.040 It increased by one hundred and forty percent. You could 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.320 have gotten a bag of fun sized Snickers for five 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.160 bucks in twenty twenty one. You paid twelve dollars the 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:31.880 next year. 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.480 All right, well there's nothing fun about that. 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.720 Okay, So the skits over and scene or end scene, 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.280 depending on your view. And I'm gonna keep wearing my 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:45.480 hat though, Okay, all. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.160 Right, keep that hat on. That's a good setup, and 0:14:47.160 --> 0:15:01.080 we'll be right back with more. 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.880 Okay, So there's something to remember too, Like it sucks 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:22.520 to pay a lot at the grocery store, but if 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.680 you are a low income family or a low income country, 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.960 it hits you even worse because food prices increases in 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.800 food prices are regressive. They have the largest impact on 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.160 the people who have the least amount of money because 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.960 those people spend a far greater proportion of their household 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.920 budget or their national budget on food than wealthier people do. 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.240 They just have less money, so they still need food. 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.040 It's not something that you can skip very easily, and 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.600 eventually you're going to have to eat, so it's an 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.800 essential thing to buy and you don't really have much 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.760 of a say in it if the food prices keep rising. 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.000 So it's really important to keep that in mind that 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.040 it's not just an annoyance, it's not just in your pocketbook. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.640 It actually has pushed people into poverty classes in different 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.920 countries and developed countries because food prices got They were 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.720 kind of close on the border to begin with, and 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.400 then the pandemic came along and as the food prices increased, 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.320 they were pushed into poverty categories. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.440 Yeah, if you look at the Food Price Index, the 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:36.760 five categories meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable, oils, and sugar increased 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.200 fifty seven percent all over the world. Over a two 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.800 year period from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, and 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.120 then a couple of years later here in twenty twenty four, 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.240 some prices have come down some quite a bit, eggs especially, 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.680 and again we'll talk about eggs a little more. They're 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.760 ones that really kind of reset back down again, but 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.760 not everything. And just over a two year period, a 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:07.000 fifty seven percent increase in meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oil, 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.679 and sugar is going to have a real impact, like 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.000 you said, on families in the United States that don't 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.680 have as much money, and certainly hundreds of millions of 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.520 people all over the world in countries that didn't have 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:20.960 so much money to begin with. 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.280 Right, So that's that's one side of it. Like this 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.520 is actually affecting and impacting people in very extreme ways. Yeah, 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.399 So on the one hand, you have people who are 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.920 being pushed into poverty. On the other hand, you have 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:39.159 the food producers who are benefiting tremendously, like again, in 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.120 like record degrees in some cases. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:47.000 You mean these hundreds and hundreds of corporations that own 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:48.440 all these food companies, right. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.080 No, Chuck, do you have five fingers and five toes 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.760 on each hand? And foot still. Yes, well, then you 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.639 can more than count the number of conglomerates essentially running 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.000 the food supply in the developed world. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.040 Yeah. I mean, we were being kind of cheeky there, 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.480 but we've talked about this before the fact that they're 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.480 just a handful of huge corporations that own almost every 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.720 food And you know, this is obviously discounting the little 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.760 indie brands and stuff like that. They're out there doing 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.720 their thing. Most of those are trying to get bought 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:20.720 by one of these companies. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:22.560 Yeah, yeah, I was going to say more and more. 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.000 They're a portfolio of one of these larger brands. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.959 Yeah, looking for that you know, big big money exit 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.000 and you know, good for them. But point is, there 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.280 are just a handful of these big corporations and if 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.840 you ask, if you sit down any of their CEOs 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.440 and grill them over this cost increase, they're going to 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.320 talk about those things we talked about at the beginning. 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.960 They're going to be the pandemic demic. Inflation was out 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:48.879 of control and there wasn't anything we could do. We 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.480 were forced to raise our prices to remain profitable. And 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.840 we're not saying that you shouldn't make a profit or 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.080 anything like that. Like, we get it that these are 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.680 for profit company, and those costs definitely did go up, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.800 and they maybe could not take that all on the chin. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.680 We're not arguing for that. But if they then raised 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:13.159 those costs and said, all right, well we have to 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.920 account for this to so we don't lose our profit margins, 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.960 and they accounted for that, then their profit margin should 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:21.320 have been about the same and they should have been like, 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:22.800 all right, well, we didn't lose a lot of money. 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.320 We stayed about the same because we accounted for those costs. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:26.720 But that's not what happened. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:31.160 Yeah, their profits didn't didn't increase in step with their costs. 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.520 They increased plus some right, plus a lot, right, plus 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.000 a lot. So Tyson Foods a huge producer of chicken 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:44.119 in the United States, and the first quarter of twenty 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.680 twenty one to the first quarter of twenty twenty two, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:52.280 they doubled their profits, not their revenue. Their profits. Yeah doubled. Okay, 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:57.879 one hundred percent times two doubled. Yeah, that's important, and 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.600 that's one year, year over year. Gill another huge conglomerate. 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.640 They had a record six point sixty eight billion dollar 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.560 profit in twenty twenty two, double its profit two years before. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:15.760 Yeah, and overall, food corporations had their largest profits during 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.840 the pandemic, during peak inflation, when everyone was getting squeezed 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.360 and hurt. The most food corporations recorded their largest profits 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:24.600 in seventy years. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.280 Right, And some of them even did while they were 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:33.040 losing sales, like General Mills. Sales were declining by like 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.879 nine percent in twenty twenty one and another four percent 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:37.800 in twenty twenty two, and yet at the end of 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.960 twenty two twenty two, their profits were up ninety seven 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.720 percent over the twenty twenty one I believe. So here's 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.960 where the sticking point is, Chuck, this is where where 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.159 views diverge because this is documented fact. Is that is 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.240 that just to be expected? Like, do people who are 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.400 mad about this greedflation idea not understand and basic capitalism 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.960 or do they have a point in saying like this, 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.520 this is approaching and probably has passed a morality? 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.160 Yeah, I mean that's a question if you look we're 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.919 talking about corporations, but if you look at people. There 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:21.480 were sixty two new new food billionaires over that two 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.160 year span from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, and 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.240 they calculated this is Oxpam who calculated this stuff. That 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.200 the food billionaires, which that those two words is interesting 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:38.080 together food billionaire, those food billionaires made more money during 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.520 the two years of the pandemic than they did in 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:45.200 the previous twenty three years combined. That's I mean, that's 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:46.120 the stat of the show. 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.720 So economists like have started to dig into this, and 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.920