According to figures released today by the U.S. Department of Commerce, corporate profit margins have soared to their widest margins in seventy years. In 2021, corporations had their best year since 1950. This year, profit margins are still on the rise. While the working class has been struggling to get by – especially during the past two years of an economically catastrophic pandemic – massive corporations have been raking it in.
What these figures from the Commerce Department show is that powerful companies have been able to get away with jacking up prices faster than their costs are rising. As a result, we’ve seen that one of the main drivers of inflation is corporate profits. Corporations get away with price gouging because they face little to no competition. They use the specter of inflation as cover to rip us all off. This has got to end. Congress must step-in and pass a windfall profits tax, establish price controls, and strengthen antitrust enforcement to reduce the pricing power of corporations.
Related Off-site Links:
As Inflation Soared, American Corporations Just Racked Up Their Biggest Profit Margins Since 1950 – Reade Pickert (Fortune, August 25, 2022).
“All of Us Are Paying the Price” as Corporate Profits Surge to Record-High $2 Trillion – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 26, 2022).
The March Towards U.S. Fascism Began With the Corporate Hijacking of Democracy – Thom Hartmann (Common Dreams, August 24, 2022).
U.S. Senate Candidate John Fetterman Calls for Prosecution of Corporate Executives “Gouging Consumers” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 22, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• In a Blow to Democracy, U.S. Supreme Court Affirms Corporate Personhood
• Moderates, Radicals, and MLK
• Marianne Williamson and the Power of Politicized Love
• Hope in the Midst of Collapse
• Paul Gilding: Quote of the Day – October 13, 2011
• Rocking the Cradle of Power
• The Neoliberal Economic Doctrine: A View from Australia
• A System That’s Not Going to Survive • John Pilger on Resisting Empire
• John le Carré’s Dark Suspicions
• Capitalism on Trial
• Where Did All the Money Go?
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