• iBaz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • WeeSheep@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Use the anti monopoly laws we have in place to prevent price gouging from lack of competition

          • 4am@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Sorry to be pedantic on the internet (lol) but it might be more accurate to say inflation has slowed.

            • protist@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Burn the pedant!

              I still think decreased is accurate though, the rate of inflation is significantly smaller today vs then, so the rate has decreased

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          How would you like the President of the United States to do that? Do you think the President is a dictator that can just unilaterally pass sweeping legislation? How do you think the public would react if the President had the power to directly determine the prices of goods? How do you think that would go in general?

      • Deiv@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Damn there is nothing the government can do. Sorry guys :( You’ll just have to buy less food, and maybe then the corporations will get the hint!

        Regulations? Laws against price gauging? Naw, they can’t do that. It’s the consumers that are at fault!

        • iBaz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Do you think Biden makes the laws? Did you fail civics class? I said nothing about enacting laws making what these companies are doing illegal, I only said Biden can’t do much about it.

      • graymess@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Price controls are well within the president’s powers. It’s not that radical of a concept.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          It’s within congress’s powers for sure. I don’t think the president. Congress has done it in the past though, so they for sure can again.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Price controls are an extremely radical concept, themselves. Last thing this economy needs is further distortion.

          The sucky thing about inflation is you have to run through it like an illness.

          • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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            1 year ago

            Windfall taxes. Let them share their gains, that’s the whole point of taxes since society don’t work otherwise.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That’s vastly different from a direct price control, in both intent and effect.

              I’d love to pass lots more taxes but with the current House that’s completely impossible

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Do you know basic US Civics, or…? Biden has the bully pulpit (basically what he’s doing here), and that’s pretty much it. He can issue executive orders (and has in the past about this), but those are often complete bullshit that’s unenforceable, and will be removed by the next person in the office.

          Take a look at Trump rolling back Obama’s EPA purview over waterways in the US for a recent example that has left over 60% of our nation’s waterways now unprotected.

    • takeda@lemmy.world
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      It will be harder to pass new laws in the current Congress, but he still has control over the executive branch. Hopefully some existing laws could be used.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        He appointed the most aggressive FTC head in decades who is using the antitrust law we have to currently go after Google and Amazon.

        She’s also fighting a merger between Kroger and Albertsons, which would drastically raise grocery prices.

        The FTC is also fighting the hedge fund buyout of preciously independent healthcare clinics, which has massively ramped up medical costs.

        Not to mention breaking the real estate agent fee monopoly.

        His executive branch has been busy as hell trying to help people.

        • Locuralacura@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Don’t tell us facts. We’ve already decided to believe whatever the fuck we want regardless. /s

    • pan_troglodytes@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      that was basically it. short of siccing the irs on them there’s not a lot the executive branch can do about it… of course that’d kill the golden goose named “campaign contributions”, so it wont happen

    • TheDubz87@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean, you wouldn’t want the politicians to lose their legal bribes generous donations over acting in our interests instead of the corporations, would you?

      Will someone please think of the rich folks pockets?

      • forrgott@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        How is it possible that people don’t understand the implied “/s” here??? Or am I missing some other reason for the downvotes?

        FWIW, I thought your comment was great. Gave me quite a chuckle! :-D

        • TheDubz87@lemmy.world
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          It’s because I said bad things about Biden, even though I was talking about politicians as a whole. But you can’t say bad things about Biden or be any kind of critical about the current administration without getting trashed on here.

    • FakinUpCountryDegen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      All he can do is back out his limp-dick economic policies that are destroying the country and creating this problem…but there’s no chance of that.

      This damage is literally the point of the policies. What people don’t understand is that he’s doing this on purpose.

      • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh and passed an executive order, along with having his justice department pursue more antitrust cases than any other administration.

  • _lilith@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So the attorney general can open an investigation on this asshat profiteering off of hand sanitizer but when it comes to companies price gouging in the wake of the pandemic we get this limp dick response? Sure I’m glad he said something but we need more

    • ZombieTheZombieCat@lemmy.world
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      Apparently a state of emergency needs to have been declared for them to actually do anything about price gouging directly.

      I read about it when Southwest airlines went completely down for a week last year over the holidays and I was stranded somewhere. Other airlines had astronomical prices and car rentals were over $500 for one day. It was disgusting. But apparently there was nothing to be done.

      They need to change the rules surrounding it because they’re not working. But any amount of government intervention in the economy gets conservatives screaming about “communism,” or socialism, or whatever scapegoat they’re using that day that they don’t know the actual definition of. And yet, if there’s no government intervention in the economy it’s “Biden’s not doing enough/Biden is personally raising gas prices every week” etc.

      Of course there wasn’t a single peep from them when Trump was fucking shit up, other than those “this is Biden’s America” memes when Biden hadn’t even taken office yet and the photos were a year old. Nothing will get done about it as long as conservatives have any say in congress. But they’ll always be the one’s complaining and pointing the finger at “the libruls” while profiting.

    • Neil@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

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

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    1 year ago

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

    • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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      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.

      • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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        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.

        • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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          As far as I can tell it’s just people being “savvy” and waiting for the big sale day.

          Black Friday e-commerce spending popped 7.5% from a year earlier, reaching a record $9.8 billion in the U.S., according to an Adobe Analytics report, a further indication that price-conscious consumers want to spend on the best deals and are hunting for those deals online.

      • Tygr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Above normal. The data suggests US citizens still have credit limit or not feeling the pinch as all the news articles suggest.

        I was expecting a big decrease this year according to what I’ve seen on lemmy. From now on, I’ll read negative news and say “meh, probably not.”

        • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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          It isn’t just lemmy, there’s plenty of external evidence showing that people think the economy is in a bad state. Changing your entire perspective because of big spending day on black Friday makes no sense.

          • Tygr@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Not just a big spending day, an all-time record-breaking spending day, up 7.5%. That’s absolutely insane and doesn’t jive. If everyone is hurting, can’t pay their rent and bills, credit is maxed out, then how did they also crush this record on inflation-priced “sales?”

            All I’ve said, I’m choosing to go by data, not news agenda. BF helped me realize our economy is thriving. That’s great!

              • Tygr@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Wealth gap. What you are actually saying is everyone is being squeezed, allowing corporations to sell less and make more.

                This is why I’m kinda pissed off about it all. Americans all went shopping and kept spending as per usual, which allows corporations to report “green” to investors and continues to allow unbelievable CEO / executives wildly insane pay to continue.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          First of all “lighter” does not mean “sad”. I remember, growing up, there were a few years where our parents would tell us that Christmas was going to be a little “lighter” this year due to whatever financial reasons that they didn’t want to burden us with. They were lovely every time, and there was absolutely nothing “sad” about it.

          Second, you are presenting a false choice:

          So it’s sad Christmas and lots of debt, or regular to light Christmas and still crushing debt.

          It could just be a financially responsible Christmas where you learn to appreciate your family and loved ones. People will often make homemade gifts instead of buying them, and those are often far more memorable than many pricier gifts.

          As someone who has been consistently been paying down debt (student loans mostly, but some CC thrown in there), it hasn’t ever stopped me from enjoying Christmas.

          And this is coming from someone who isn’t even really a big Christmas fan to begin with. It’s fine. I just think you presented an absurd dichotomy.

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        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?