Senator Elizabeth Warren is attempting to exploit consumer inflation to continue her shopworn brand anti-business attacks – while blissfully ignoring her own role in facilitating record inflation that continues to impact Americans’ pocketbooks.
Warren’s latest claim is that America’s large grocers somehow “hide behind inflation” to increase their profits. What the Senator avoids admitting is that the very policies she supports have forced the cost of goods to skyrocket – including gas, groceries and other essentials.
James Freeman sums it up perfectly in the Wall Street Journal, saying “Mr. Biden and Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren have been trying for months to deflect blame for inflation away from themselves and other Washingtonians (where it belongs) and toward people in business (where it does not).”
Sen. Warren’s Scapegoat: America’s Grocers
In similar vein, economist Wayne Winegarden notes in Forbes that, “Since only government policies can cause prices to rise economy-wide, controlling inflation requires fundamental reforms to the current fiscal and monetary policies. The search for corporate scapegoats distracts from these necessary reforms and, to the extent they delay the implementation of the right policy mix, unnecessarily increases the real economic costs created by an out-of-control inflationary environment.”
As prime examples of what Freeman and Winegarden describe, look no further than Senator Warren’s multiple letters to grocery CEOs and the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) recent investigation into retailers’ higher prices – shifting the blame for inflation away from Washington’s destructive economic policies and onto corporate America.
Contrary to Warren’s claims, supermarket profit margins actually have remained consistent at approximately 2% – well below the retail average. Despite those thin margins, grocers have still managed to provide record increases in wages and benefits to their workers, including even part-time employees.
Labor Unions: Making Matters Worse
Ignoring those significant wage gains, labor unions remain irrationally antagonistic and continue to demand even more. That trend has, in turn, led to needless labor strikes and walkouts across the country, negatively impacting local and national supply chains.
While self-serving union bosses pretend that their actions are somehow inspiring a nationwide labor revolution, they are in fact merely fanning the flames of inflation and making it harder for their own members to support their families.
Senator Warren and union bosses should blame themselves for perpetuating the cycle of consumer inflation, rather than blaming a group that has actually benefitted Americans’ pocketbooks – employers.