‘Stop the price-gouging’: Biden hits corporations over high consumer costs

Corporations: "or what?"

He's gonna blast em, and they will officially be On Notice
- Ooo he might even slam them!
He'll make a tweet that starts with "Let me be clear...".

Make them, under force of real economic consequences, or this is just begging.

I thought the President doesn't control the price of goods...
- They don't. Congress with the President could but won't.
  I've no illusions friend. Neither the Republicans nor the Neoliberals aka 90+ percent of Office holding Democrats have the slightest interest in helping anyone, only taking bribes and reinforcing their party's power.
  This nation is over. Reaganomics saw to that and Citizens United dashed the last of the faintest of rational hopes for self-repair. This is just leftover momentum. This labor camp we call the US will eventually collapse under the weight of its own corruption, but until then, we suffer generationally with zero recourse.
  No one with any power, no one from the right families is coming to help their capital livestock. This exploitation machine is exactly what they wanted and spent decades lining pockets to achieve.

Corporations: "Make us."

Biden: "no"

How could Biden make them do it?
- Why would he even be willing to?

Any legislation to go with that or are you just asking nicely?

I'd be surprised if even saying this didn't have political ramifications. There's nothing, besides; military budget, tax breaks to millionaires, and their own pay raises, that would get through both houses of Congress right now.
Asking nicely is at least virtue signaling, maybe it'll be something we can address if a couple R's ever see the consequences of their illegal actions.
- L-O-L
  He could threaten to cancel federal contracts with any vendor found to be price gouging. That would have actual ramifications and doesn't require Congress.
  The president isn't powerless here. He just wants credit for purely performative actions.
In presidential systems like the US has legislation originates from congress. The President only has veto power over legislation, and controls the enforcement of existing legislation. They can't force congress to create new legislation, though of course they can propose legislation (anyone can do that). This is very different from parliamentary systems where the Prime Minister is the head of the majority party of the parliament, and can thus directly propose legislation and get their party to support it.

Actually do something about it you crypt keeper lookin ass fuck

Like what?
- This would be a start.
  https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-legislation-to-reinstate-the-wwii-windfall-profit-tax-to-combat-rising-inequality-inflation-and-corporate-profiteering/
- Maybe add a pretty please in front of the request if he isn't going to take any forceful action.
- Pick the worst offender corporation, invite their whole executive board to DC, and when they arrive, guillotine them on the white house lawn.
  ...then repeat this request.

Dude, they are gouging because they want you gone so they can have more tax breaks. Fuck then over already.

Bad corpos!

*slaps them on the wrist

Corpos = "Slap me harder Daddy Biden! Tell me that I am destroying the middle and the working class for pursuit of increaseing shareholder value and increased profits."

Stop slapping and start jailing. No teeth will never stop this.

You generally want laws to do that kind of thing. Good luck trying to get a price fixing law through the House.
- We have antitrust laws. Republicans and neoliberals have de-funded the agencies that would enforce those laws to the extent that they can't take action on 99% of what's happening.

Corporations after seeing how Black Friday netted over $9.8 billion: Uhhhh...no. According to these numbers, people LoVe the prices!

That’s almost 10 billion of sale prices though, for products they literally needed to offload.
And while a record amount, it was only 7.5% above normal, coming off all this Covid stuff it’s no wonder people are cutting loose and splurging a bit.
- 7.5% ... Wasn't that the rate of inflation recently as well? Not sure what it is at now, but we were getting up there. Higher prices wouldn't necessarily mean a new record, I am guessing.
Or they just know that Americans would rather go into significant debt, than having a lighter Christmas and/or buying less for a year or two.
- I'm glad I have friends who can live without needing presents every year to feel validated on keeping a friendship alive.
  I keep hearing other people just tear themselves apart because they worry about "ohhh I need to go shopping next week!" or "I can't figure out what this person wants who barely gives a shit about me but I need to gift them SOMETHING!"
  Like damn people, is it worth it that much to gift someone things at the cost of your own sustainability?

Corporations: lol no

He probably went to go buy his own ice cream for the first time in 3 years and said "holy shit."

Yeah! Say more words, Joe. That'll teach em.

"If only my donors would pretty please stop that would be great. Consequences? We need to keep the elderly out of government, and ban lobbying. Until we do BOTH of those things, nothing will change and will only get worse. VOTE.

Oh thank god, I was worried brows would continue to remain unfurrowed.

MALARKEY DETECTED

It's class warfare. The rich exploit the poor and middle class. We need comically large cigar tip cutters again.

Kinda late as always, but I guess better than never.

Thanks Biden

Well I am glad he finally said something but it's too little too late. How many more suicides were there this year in the US versus say, 2019? I'll bet those numbers have experienced inflation. All so Walmarts stock can go up by a dollar.

Corporations: https://youtu.be/yWULCfJ2PGA?si=0kL1gFxcjR6HMN1S

I was saying boourns.

Reminds me of this classic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ9K9kpgkzg

I haven't found a comment talking about inflation

If the inflation is even close to the price hike on groceries, we are fucked.
- Inflation rate is the government talking about themselves. So...
They were probably all deleted.

Windfall taxes

Cool. So what’s he gonna do about it? Or was this it?

What can he do about it? We live in a free market society. All he can do is keep talking about it and hope the people get the message. Rebellion will start at the consumer level and go up, not the other way around. Main problem is the millions of people that rely on Fox for their news.
- Use the anti monopoly laws we have in place to prevent price gouging from lack of competition
He'll hire their execs to run various government agencies

A year too late

December 2021
November 2021
July 2021
- You know what’s funny about these kinds of posts is the type of dude you’re replying to literally NEVER comes back to say “shit, my bad”.
  Like, I don’t get it, someone corrects me anywhere and I’m like “thanks, bro, appreciate the correction”…but I’ve never seen these dudes do that.
  Wonder why?

Biden blames someone else for inflation under his administration. I fixed it.

'Stop the money printing': Biden hits Federal Reserve over excessive inflation...

Is what it should say.

What are YOU doing about it? Not Biden -- YOU: the person reading this comment.

I can tell you my overall cost of living since 2020 has plummeted, not because I haven't faced inflation like everyone else, but because I stopped spending on most extra things. For example: not eating out anymore, cancelled all streaming subscriptions, flexed what I eat based upon coupons and deals at the grocery store (still healthy), I drive much less, etc..

If you keep buying stuff when prices go up, this keeps demand high and, therefore, prices high.

Edit: So far people are saying they are doing nothing different... just continuing to blame corporations. It's both greedy corporations and people's fault. If the costs for basic goods and shelter go up, why wouldn't you adjust?

The prices for fixed costs have gone up, too. People need a place to live, the health to keep living, and ways of ensuring access to both, and the costs of all of those have gone up as well. A not insignificant chuck of people don't have discretionary spending to cut (not to mention how stressful living paycheck-to-paycheck on the bare essentials can be). Yes, it is certainly worth reevaluating budgets and determining where expenses can be lowered, but those margins have been getting thinner for a long while.
- No, you don't get it. Corporations aren't greedy, you're at fault for needing food and shelter.
- I agree many things have gone up, BUT over the last couple years people kept purchasing without adjustment. I've adjusted my grocery purchases (and I'm a nerd who tracks this in spreadsheets) to the point where my monthly costs have gone up 4% over the last 3 years.
  New vehicles have shot up in price and people were still waiting in line to buy more! Trillion+ in car loan debt in the U.S.. Many of these folks could have bought a used car, fixed their old car, or just waited and purchased later. The numbers are there and support what I'm saying. I'm still driving a very old car (> 15 years old) because I think it's idiotic to buy another one right now. It sucks, but better than blowing my hard earned cash. This is coming from someone who can afford to ignore interest rates and pay cash and I still won't do it.
  At the end of the day corporations will always be greedy, but only if they can. If people stop buying they can no longer be greedy (supply vs demand). We may be at the point now where people have over extended themselves so much that they simply can't afford the dumb purchases anymore which means corporations have extracted the maximum from people's wallets. Sad situation, but I blame both corporations and people.
I stopped spending on extra things too, and it's really helped. I sold my house so I didn't have to pay a mortgage and moved into my car which I never drive because buying gasoline will keep the price high. I also cancelled all of my streaming services, so I stare at the ceiling to entertain myself. I eat exclusively organic dirt that's on sale because I stopped splurging on food. Why don't people just spend less money?
- This comment made me think I accidentally posted on Reddit. My edit still stands (I was pretty confident it would for a while).
I spent thousands on Black Friday sales to have a good Christmas as a family for the first time in what, four years?
So I guess you can say I’m doing my part to stimulate the economy.
Also I dunno about you, but I think my wife would get depressed if I told her there was no more eating out.
- Black Friday purchases are a good idea. It tells corporations, "I'm willing to spend at this lower price point."
  Maybe try and cook your wife her favorite meal at home or just go out less often? If going out to eat is the only way to keep your wife happy then you could look elsewhere to cut costs if you need to.

Yeah, it's totally nothing to do with his policies.

Give us one fucking Biden policy that caused this
- Shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline and restricting domestic oil leases almost immediately increased the price of gas by 20 or so cents.
You are correct