Sunshine
11mo ago
Just because it's never worked before, that doesn't mean it won't work this time.
That isn't a joke. It's probably true that grocery chains are overcharging a little bit right now. If the price controls are done very delicately, they might be able to reduce prices a little bit without damaging the economy.
The USA is more advanced than Venezuela. There are lots of things the USA can do that Venezuela can't. Successful price controls could be one of them.
Sunshine
11mo ago
To paraphrase Phyrrus, "If the elite are victorious in one more battle with the commoners, they shall be utterly ruined."
All the British political parties are in hot water right now. Granted, the elections aren't for another 5 years, but this was a warning shot to Labour not to get too comfortable in power. The electorate just threw out their last government in a pretty dramatic and coordinated way. They're entirely capable of throwing this one out, too, if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
The danger was never that the angry mob would overthrow the government. The danger is that the current anger will persist for long enough to have electoral consequences. The government has 5 years to improve the situation. If the British are still this mad when the next general election rolls around then the Labour regime might turn out to be very short lived.
This was not the kind of victory the government wants on its record.
Because consumers hate it when prices increase. When inflation hits, grocery stores prefer to raise their prices in one big jump rather than many small jumps - or so I've been told. The idea is that if you increase prices by X 5 times the consumers will register 5 separate increases, but if you raise it by 5X then they'll only register one increase. Because of that, grocery stores (and stores in general) will increase their prices ahead of expected inflation to avoid having to continue to make small price increases over time.
The logic is essentially that stores are currently priced according to next year's inflation. When inflation is low that's no big deal, but when it's high it can be a pretty penny. Continuing that logic, they could be forced to match current inflation rather than preemptively raising prices for future inflation. This would shave a small but meaningful amount off prices.
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