Dear Editor,

If you’re really interested in where inflation is coming from – look at the stock market. It’s booming, it has been booming. It’s booming because those companies are making huge profits — which means they have been charging prices grossly in excess of their costs.

Their costs include you, as an employee, and if you stay underpaid while their prices keep soaring — that’s inflation. Henry Ford had a maxim: you need to pay your employees enough they can afford to buy your products. But that’s gone by the boards.

Since COVID and the supply chain disruptions and gas price increases, big business has had a perfect cover for gouging. I keep cows. I buy things like buckets and hardware and once in a while a bag of feed at the local warren chain farm store. Since this began, house brand feed has gone up $4 a bag and the $10 bucket is $15. Most of my supplies however come from the local feed mill in Sugar Grove. Feed from them has gone up $1.50 a bag and buckets, once more expensive than the chain, are now $3 less. We – as in we the people — are the ones funding those record profits and are expected to blame it on inflation and chalk it up to Biden or Trump.

It isn’t Trump or Biden, it’s corporate thievery. And one thing we all can do is shop around a bit, particularly if a big chain is involved. Lots of stuff is out there cheaper if we get used to looking again. And don’t buy into the “You’ll never pay less: we match prices’ talk. That only applies if you catch them robbing you.

,

Russell