The Post-Pandemic Price Hike Conspiracy

During the height of the Covid lockdown, prices for all sorts of things skyrocketed -- global supply chains broke, numerous companies (and, more importantly, families) struggled to survive. Economists, CEOs and politicians alike assured the public that after the pandemic passed, prices would return to 'normal.' Fast forward to 2025: it's post-lockdown... and, if anything, prices have continued to rise. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel ask what's going on -- and discover a very real conspiracy at play.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Apologies for my intro there, guys,
I'm laughing because I'm imagining how this episode will go.

(00:51):
We travel a lot. We're just regular entities, like we
were saying in an early episode, I don't know about you, guys.
I wake up a sunset just like everybody else, put
my skin on one leg at a time, and venture
off into the night. Like we're approachable entities.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Right, So it's sun sets, got it? Okay? Venturing into
the name yeah, because of the you know how it
is picture in your routine? Do you do a skincare
regimen before you because you're an.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Ancient vampire, so it's been around before, You've crossed oceans
of time.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Before. The thing is before you put the skin away
right for your torpor stage. You gotta wash it first,
so everybody remember that.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Okay, just a little.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
It starts to smell. Right. So what we're saying is
we're approachable regular entities, and we go to the grocery
store like anybody else. We go buy a gas station,
we get the usual things. Do you guys have a
ritual like when you go to the grocery store aside
from dice rudo vegas, do you buy uh damn where

(02:00):
you get a bad things? Matt figured it out.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Okay, Wow, that's a pro tip.

Speaker 5 (02:05):
I love a kinder Bueno if I if I'm being
honest about a thing I like to get during the
checkout process, that's yeah, that's a staple.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay. Yeah, when you go to the gas station, you
get a you get a kendri Bueno. I get a
I'll get like a bottle of water or iced coffee,
you know, if I'm filling up the tank. But let's
say we're in that moment and we're walking in the
grocery store or the gas station or the cafe or

(02:34):
what have you, and for some reason you notice that
everything is several dollars more than it was last week.
Have you guys run into this.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Kinder buenos are going through the roof man, No, nothing
is spared.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, it generally doesn't go up that quickly right overnight,
going up a dollar or two. But people, including myself,
notice that over time it seems to be going up
and up and up and up and up and up
by these tiny little increments.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
M m.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
You might be in a situation where you have that
that moment of lucidity and revelation and light bulbs where
you say, I remember vaguely hearing news about inflation, but
now I'm seeing it in action. And right now, of course,
the COVID pandemic is still very much in place. Some

(03:27):
new variants just dropped. The coolest name for one of
those is Nimbus, which is way cooler than Razor Blade.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Sorry, I keep thinking of that Bush album Razor Blade suitcase.
That is scary.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
What a horrible name.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
And like you said, Ben, I think it's describing the sensation,
which sounds awful.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, yes, it sounds non ideal. The but we're this
person in this moment like you fellow listeners. And the
lockdown is lifted, supply chains are back and so you
have that moment you're at the counter, you know you're
at the checkout, you look at your coffee. I should

(04:05):
have had a better example. I have a mason jar
of coffee. I made it home because I'm a cheap skate.
But you ask yourself, why haven't prices returned to normal?
Didn't they just accelerate because of an emergency? And aren't
they supposed to go back down to something that fits
my budget and allows me to survive. As we're going

(04:27):
to find out, there is a post pandemic price hike conspiracy,
and some people think there's something much darker at play.
Here are the facts, all right. The rise of the
current ongoing pandemic led to serious acute supply shortages, not

(04:52):
just in the United States but across the planet, and
we saw multiple instances of price gouging. Guys think this
was primarily free market reacting stuff.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
It's that supply chain they were talking about. Yeah, it
was disrupted.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, how do you get all the stuff you need
to create a big mac? How do you get all
of the things and we're not talking just the meat
and the bread and all that stuff, all the supplies
you need to create one of those things right. The
same way with all the packaging that we talked about
previously in episodes with cardboard cartels, there's also plastics involved.
Think about all of the components you need to create

(05:30):
one box of cereal that is not just oats.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
I think about that pretty constantly. You're walking around in
your neck of the global woods, and I think a
lot of us have that moment where you say, hey,
something that was used to make this or something that
is a part of this end user product has traveled
the world more than I ever. Will you know what

(05:54):
I mean? The palm oil is from Indonesia, right, the
packaging is from a factory that has a lower price
point than a domestic US factory. And also with the
palm oil, sure the world has agreed that orangutang suck
apparently and should not be left alive anyway. This in

(06:17):
some cases, these price hikes are to your points, they're
a legitimate free market reaction SACRASANCT mechanism of supply and demand.
SOMA first, right, that's the idea, that's one of the branches.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
I was just in Germany and I was in this
little shop selling that sells like bags and stuff. It
was like leather, and I, you know, like a good
American tourist, was like, are.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
All these items local?

Speaker 5 (06:41):
And no, there is no local leather, idiot, it all
comes from India only.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
He said it very charmingly, And I did not know that.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
And it's actually kind of counterintuitive considering how much India
values the cow. It's very interesting. I don't know, maybe
I'm being hyperbolic. I guess I just I was surprised
by this fact. But sure enough, it is the largest
exporter of cow leather in the entire world.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
That's an awesome statinel. That feels like an episode my
spidy sense is tingling. We know that during the during
the throes of lockdown and things leading up to it,
members of Congress got super crooked and we're definitely doing
insider trading, and people on the ground, non politicos, non

(07:31):
business tycoons were saying, wait, what happened to my siracha?
Stuff like that, and then you would get a message
where someone in the community would let you know you
could find some siracha, but it's going to be way
more expensive. And if there are concerns about the global
energy network, the constant hunger of the fossil fuel economy,

(07:56):
you'll see that gas prices spike up and down and
they're just like pachinko or a better pinball, like how
a pinball machine bumps around.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
And it's funny.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
I like, you know, certain political kind of temperature checks
revolve around prices of stuff like groceries.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
And all of that.

Speaker 5 (08:18):
And depending on who you ask, prices or way up
or depending on who you ask, prices or way down.
They've never been this good ever, and it kind of
makes your head spin a little bit.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, depending on who you ask too, which which economist,
which adherents and disciples of the dismal science you ask,
they might even hit you with a little bit of
parkour and say prices are way up and that's very good,
and you'll be like, not for me, man, I had
to buy gas. Why do gas stations have digital readouts
of price per gallon?

Speaker 5 (08:49):
Well, and it's also like inflation is bad, right when
people say we're having inflation, that's not a good thing.
And yet we're constantly on our other show, in this
show Ridiculous History, having to adjust prices for inflation. It
is a constant. It is a thing. There will be inflation.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Right, and then also deflation is bad or disinflation. I
don't want to get to into the economic weeds, but
it feels like a kobyashi maru, which is the Star
Trek reference to an unwinnable scenario. This isn't a great situation.
You know, the gas rises, the prices on everything pop

(09:25):
up incrementally. As you were saying, Matt, the public hates it,
and honestly, in most cases, businesses do not care for
it either, because you might get a customer at your
gas station who says, hey, why is the canned iced
coffee four dollars? Now? Sorry? And on I was having
a bad, bad day. I should have approached you differently.

(09:47):
But you're not trying to make any extra money you
were in this case of a supply chain breakdown. You
are just trying as a business to stay afloat like
everybody else. What we're really talking about when we get
into the malevolent aspect of this conspiracy is the concept
of price gouging. I think we all know the term.

(10:09):
Can we just kick a quick definition?

Speaker 5 (10:12):
Well, I mean, it's just isn't it just intentional manipulation
of prices that would be considered in poor taste, right,
I mean, it's as simple as that, kind of like,
it's not illegal either technically, or is it?

Speaker 4 (10:25):
And what constitutes it? Is it a range?

Speaker 5 (10:27):
I mean, aren't people always trying to make a little more,
you know, year over year? Isn't that sort of the
nature of our economy is constant growth?

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, it's so it's so weird. I really like
the phrase our good friend Robert Evans from Cracked and
Behind the Bastards uses when he goes to a sponsor break.
It's like, and now we'll hear about some goods and services.
Price gouging is where some individual or institution or entity

(10:57):
providing goods, services, or commodities skyrockets the price of something
way higher than what is normally considered reasonable. And price gouging,
as we know, is usually going to be short term.
It's usually going to be localized, at least here in
the United States, and it often happens directly after a

(11:20):
natural disaster. It often targets basic necessities, but.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
Again not illegal, perhaps in poor taste, not a good look.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Right, guys.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
The way I understand this, this is more of something
that occurs at the place of purchase, the point of
purchase rather than you make the manufacturer making the good
or certain exactly.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
You nailed it.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, it's not Nike raising the prices of the shoes.
It's your local shoe store today. Yes, raising the prices
because there was a flood a couple of days ago.
Now everybody needs new shoes.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, nailed it. And I love that example. That's perfect
met So consider the chaos of Hurricane Katrina right out
there in New Orleans. Various local businesses were accused of
and rightly accused of gouging the prices on things like food, clothing, water, shelter,
medical supplies, fuel, and they were doing it because of

(12:18):
the inherent what we call supply and demand shock. All
of a sudden, the demand outstripped the supply.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
And can I just say, to answer the question that
I posed a couple of times, there are situations where
price gouging is illegal.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
There are anti price gouging laws, and we'll get.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
To it there in the thirty seven states, and they're
only in times of emergency.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (12:40):
It's not completely cut and dry as to what constitutes that.
There's a version of it that could probably fly under
the radar.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah, in peacetime when the swords
have turned to plowshares for a moment. In some places, yes,
in the US, specifically, price gouging is a specific crime
only during civil emergencies. But even these laws, these emergency
economic laws, are controversial for some of the boffins because

(13:09):
they'll tell you with a straight face that what is
called gouging is really just people who don't understand supply
and demand. And they will tell you the free market
will come through for us, very atlas shrugged. They'll say,
after things settle down, we'll get back to a state
of normalcy supply and demand, they'll balance out, prices returned

(13:32):
to their normal, predictable patterns. Yet is that correct?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
May It always makes you think about hotels and just
how the price of a hotel room over one night,
a one night's stay can change so wildly depending on
what's happening in a town or a city, you know,
over the weekend, or something that's happening during the week,
or the difference when you get that hotel room like
a month in advance versus time to happen. And it's

(14:00):
just basic supply and demand stuff. But when you look
at it and you're looking to get a hotel. It's
wild how different the price can be.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Yeah, and that's not even with a natural disaster, you know,
going back to shelter post Katrina or Hurricane Helene, you
can see egregious price rises in all surrounding states as
people tried to GTFO. We also we see this another example.

(14:30):
A plane flight is not usually considered a basic necessity,
but as the lockdown occurred, plane flights just the ticket
for a seat, it absolutely skyrocketed because everybody tried to
get somewhere safe.

Speaker 5 (14:46):
In my hometown where I'm heading to you after this podcast, Augusta, Georgia,
when the Hurricane Helene came through and devastated that town.
When that happened, the cost of tree removal was it
was obscene, y'all, like ten x you know what it
would normally cost. And that's why it's tricky, because you

(15:07):
could argue there's more trees that need removing than there
are tree removal companies, so therefore the demand is so
high that it warrants a price increase. But it really
was in poor taste. I keep using that term because
at what point does it cross over into illegality. None
of these companies got brought up on any charges or

(15:29):
anything that I'm aware of.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
What would that even look like.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
That we know of? Yeah, like what law? Under what
law would these entities be prosecuted? Now we're going to
in this discussion, we'll get to tariffs. But let's put
the issue of tariffs in the modern era aside for
a moment and acknowledge it's an extra variable. But for

(15:52):
this conspiracy, which is not a theory, we are going
to focus on what went wrong with the pandemic first
and then get into the tariff aspect. For now, let's
cast our memory back collectively. We're journeying back to the
days of the lockdown and right after, and we're doing this.

(16:13):
We're recording this in October of twenty twenty five, October third.
It's lovely day here in Atlanta. The lockdown has ended,
right but people across the country, across our city, across
the country, across a lot of the world, honestly, are
still confronting higher prices on what seems like darn near everything.

(16:34):
You're housing, your transit, your groceries, your healthcare, your childcare,
your restaurants, your concerts, you name it. Prices rose overall
nineteen percent between February twenty twenty and November twenty twenty three,
and there has not been a correction on that, it
has not gone down. Oh and by the way, nobody's

(16:56):
getting a raise.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
Yeah, and like a thing like cost of living rays,
isn't that meant to be tied to inflation? Yeah, that
the dollar doesn't go as far as it did last
year or the last time you got one of these.
And it certainly again not like required that companies do this.
It's sort of like a courtesy if you're lucky enough
to get it, get it.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
And the shareholders may object, right, so you may end
up paying the blood price of a layoff.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
According to CBS News, Americans on average or earning one
point two percentage points below the rise and the cost
of living over the past four years.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
So just underneath there are again professional economists with way
much more expertise than us, who will argue that nothing
is amiss. They'll tell you the market, like some mysterious
animal deep in the ocean, simply moves as it will.
There are a growing number of other economists, to be fair,

(17:54):
including government experts, regulators, politicians, journalists, critics, and the public
who don't buy this. Instead, they say, yeah, the pandemic
did screw everything up, and yeah, COVID is definitely still
around today, shout out nimbus. But they will tell you
those businesses that were forced to raise prices amid the

(18:16):
lockdown were not acting in good faith. Instead, they were
opportunistic predators, scavengers, taking advantage of all this pandemonium to
up their profit margins under the big leaf of necessity,
and then conspiring to keep those profits the same even

(18:36):
as the cost of acquiring supplies decreased or returned back
to pre pandemic levels. They were like, screw you, Ben,
that iced coffee is still four dollars. I'm sorry. I'm
not making it about me. I was just mad about
the coffee anyway. The question is could this be true?
What say we pause for a word from our sponsors.

(19:04):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, post pandemic price hike conspiracy.
It is absolutely true. Maybe not across the board, but
some companies definitely seem to have taken advantage of the situation.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
And why wouldn't they.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
Nobody wants to give money back once they've got where
they are.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
I can't imagine that's a.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Hard sell for the shareholders. For the brass well, they
won't notice. They're used to it, now, what you know,
that's the idea.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Right In March of twenty twenty four, I think we
all read this report with great interest. The Federal Trade Commission,
or FTC, which is currently closed, by the way, due
to the government shutout, they put a hit out of
multiple grocery store chains. In particular, this is our best
example of the post pandemic price hike conspiracy, because the

(19:58):
government proved the was afoot. Their report is called Feeding
America in a Time of Crisis. Maybe we talked a
little bit about what they figured out.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Well, they figured out that, yes, it was true that
prices were more expensive for most grocery chains because they
were paying more for the products that they were stalking
their stores with. However, those individual grocery chains, many of
them the popular ones that you're probably thinking of were
just went to, were actually raising the prices of those

(20:30):
goods at that point of sale much higher than necessary
to cover the cost of those goods plus the operating
costs of their stores.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, and this happened with blood banks as well as
a few of us know, so they never walked back
to that price increase, that grift that you described there, Matt.
The FDC specifically deems several large companies that will be
recognizable to US residents Walmart, Kroger, Tyson Foods practic gamble,

(21:06):
the usual suspects right shout out Kaiser, so say, And
earlier in twenty twenty one, the FTC had ordered these
folks to give more information about their business practices. What
are your operating cost? What is your usual revenue? What
is your usual profit margin? And this is where we

(21:29):
go to a statement that accompanied the report from the
FTC chair at the time, Lina Kahn. And it's a
quote that's honestly pretty blunt from a government agency.

Speaker 5 (21:42):
It sure is so con said, as the pandemic illustrated,
a major shock to the supply chain has cascading effects
on consumers, including the prices they pay for groceries. The
FTC report examining US grocery supply chain finds that dom
minute firms used this moment to come out ahead at

(22:03):
the expense of their competitors and the communities they serve.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
So non falcon, non falcon.

Speaker 5 (22:11):
It's very non falcon. It's also very like dry the
way the way this is written that it almost doesn't
sound as like shocking as it actually is when you
drill down into.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
What's being said. It's and it's also like I said,
it's just unsurprising.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, and they have the receipts udt because it's a
it's a grocery store joke.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
Oh yeah, with the really long receipts the right aid.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
There.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, any time you buy a pack of gum or
iced coffee at CVS, uh, it looks like the receipt
is a very long, angry text message. It should just
start first off, and they go for what two feet footnets?

Speaker 4 (22:52):
It's wild. I guess it's a survey or something.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
I don't know it is, And we're not detegrating. The
people work at CV they need They have to deal
with it all the time.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
How many times they have to change out that roll
of paper for the.

Speaker 5 (23:08):
Receip massive inside those little kiosks. No, the reality is
it's probably the same size as it is that other
places where the receipts aren't that long.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
So you're you're totally right. Then it's probably a real pain.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
I mean no, maybe they have to pay more for
the receipt rolls. The blood price, the blood price. In
twenty twenty one, food and beverage retailers saw their revenue
increase to six percent, or more than six percent above
their total cost. This is per the FDC's report. That

(23:41):
was a huge breakthrough because the similar numbers from twenty
fifteen or only five point six percent. This sounds small
and hair splitty, but we'll get to why it's important.
In the first three quarters of twenty twenty three, profits
continue to rive and sales were topping the operating costs

(24:04):
by something north of seven percent. So the FTC says,
we're not buying this smoke and mirror, shuck and jive
narrative where the grocery stores say, oh, you know we were.
Things are just more expensive. I got paid more of
these pie apples they got. You know, this coffee won't
ice itself, you know what I'm saying, which is a

(24:26):
perfect impression of the CEO of Kroger.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
And with the price of eggs going through the roof,
I can pass it half a dozen out myria. Remember
that guess with the dude from the soprano. It was
like a yeah, yeah, where he can lay his own eggs.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
That was a thing.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Do you guys think any of this has to do
with some of the major mergers between grocery chains that
were occurring around twenty eighteen onward to like last year, Absolutely,
of course, because there were so many any of them,
And I imagine that thing that happens when a company

(25:04):
wants to get acquired, how they will goose their numbers
a little bit in order to look really good and
really like you've got it. This is a good company.
Look how much money they're making. You're gonna need to
pay a lot.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
For if you own all the companies. Is it still
price fixing? Is it still collusion if they're all.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Under your umbrella, or is it just the price that's yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
The Kroger Albertsons thing was in twenty twenty two. That
was when it was announced, right October twenty twenty two,
which means there were people, you know, executives and board
members and all of those groups probably talking for over
a year about the potential to be acquired. Let's say
Albertson's or Kroger looking for someone to acquire so I

(25:55):
can only imagine that in this timeframe we're talking about,
there's all kinds of shenanigans going on that don't actually
have to do with the prices you know, coming in
from the manufacturer.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like we're very bullish on AI
or in their case, we're very bullish on self checkout,
which helps us slim down the human expenses of employees. Also,
it's me from the C suite at Albertson's. I had
a great conversation with the C suite guy from Kroger

(26:26):
over at the golf course, right, and yeah, it's insidious, Yeah,
but it's okay.

Speaker 5 (26:32):
We still need one human to oversee the twelve checkout kiosks,
and then maybe we slim down the actual checkout checkouts
to like three instead of the usual like ten. Like
I was at a Walmart yesterday and I think there
were only three active checker outers and then the rest
were automated and that was all overseen by one employee.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Dude.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Oh, one more example to dovetail that one. Just debate
the picture here. You guys may have seen it. I remember, Oh,
I can't remember which country it was, but I was
I was in an airport for a thing, and I
found an Amazon store that didn't have employees. It was

(27:14):
uh yeah, it was a thing where you.

Speaker 5 (27:15):
Just heard about the walk in and then it scans
it's like myometrics or something.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, you have to say like a little prayer to
Jeff and h then you get your overpriced pack of combos.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Uh special knowledge about those stores, Ben, there is one employee.
He's he's up like above in the ceiling. Yeah, he
has a high powered sniper.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
I also heard that in.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
The early days of Amazon rolling those out, there was
this illusion that it was all automated, but it was
actually somebody like watching everybody and like entering it in manually,
just from a remote location. And it was like sort
of like almost like trying to trick people into thinking.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
That it was all completely automated.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
Sure, those are those Tesla robots that are like remote
control from another room.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
I know that is true. Nol and Thatt, I one
hundred percent love your sniper idea. I think podcasting doesn't
work out, We're going to be for Amazon snipers, Dylan,
are you in.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, it's just their trank darts.

Speaker 6 (28:19):
By the way, I have I have a miniature conspiracy
theory about this. Oh allay, Yeah, so I have first
experienced thes in New York where you can't get in
and out of somewhere without a debit card a credit card,
and I think it's to keep on house people out.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Really, I agree with that one hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (28:36):
Yeah, whether that's the primary driver, it's certainly a positive
byproduct for those in charge.

Speaker 6 (28:43):
Yeah, it just it feels bad, man.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah it should because it is unclean. You know. It's
like it's like purposely putting in uh little dividers on
benches so you so people can't sleep.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
There all right, like the pigeon spikes, but like humans.
And that's another product of the pandemic, y'all.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Cashless that really.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
Took off after the pandemic because there was this like
reason to do it at the time.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
And then you'll notice a lot of people just stuck with.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
It because it's all e coin. Now evil corpse taken
over it. Oh wait, sorry, no, that's a fictional reality.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Okay, everything is only fiction until it's fact. Also, also,
we are we are four duncleheads who look increasingly paranoid
and weird when we counting. I'm looking through the various
currencies and bills that I found in this jackets so
much cash, ben, it's too suspicious, they're gonna get me.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
But some of it under your hat.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Geez, it goes in the sock, you guys, don't.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
I do kind of hang on the euros now.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Like I actually found like a decent amount a stash
in my drawer from a previous trip that I obviously
was like, well, I've got another trip this year, so
I'll just keep this and then I end up like,
you know, having it so I don't have to deal
with you know, getting it later.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
M m.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah. And cashless society, that what a what a phenomenal observation.
Cashlest society increases surveillance, right. I would also argue it
decreases the momentum of an ownership society, pushing a civilization
further into subscriber mode.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
The FDC, as we said, they're not buying the grocery
store narrative, and when they came out with this report,
it was one of those kind of nerdy things that
doesn't make a national public splash, but absolutely rocks the industry.
It's addressing. So trade groups like the Food Marketing Institute,

(30:49):
what do we say about innocuous names. They represent the
big chains and the wholesalers, and at first when this
came out this accusation of conspiracy, grift FMI said, we
have no comment as they frantically checked with their legal
team and their stakeholders. But other groups really liked it.

(31:13):
The National Grocers Association, they rep smaller indie food sellers,
you know, the co ops, the moms and pops, and
they loved the study. We've got a statement from their
CEO at the time, Greg Ferrera. Ferrera said, this study
confirms what independent grossers and their customers experience firsthand. Dominant

(31:35):
national chains or so called power buyers, are abusing their
immense economic power to the detriment of competition and American consumers.
So I'm sorry it'll be so cynical about this, but
I just feel like this.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
Is how, you know, free market capitalism is supposed to work,
Like there are no checks or balances in place to
prevent this kind of thing from happening.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, son, how why it would you be? Why would
we expect that it wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Right because everything is precedent. So yeah, we get how
this can feel dry, sort of like our our surprisingly
not dry farm subsidies episode. Do you guys remember that
we all got heated up about so wet It was
so wet dog anyway, so the grocery store conspiracy does
not face does because he's thinking of the word moist.

(32:31):
The grocery store conspiracy does, per the US government appear
to be true, and we get how that move from
five to six to seven percent over cost may seem small,
but we get to remember the sheer scale of these enterprises.
This is we're talking millions upon millions of dollars, and

(32:51):
it's loose price fixing as well. To the earlier point
about monopolies, right, if you own enough of the things
that like fingers on a and appear to be distinct,
if you get enough of the other big players to
go along with your secret game, customers don't have a
realistic option. They have to figure out how to readjust

(33:11):
their own budget and just pray to whatever god they
admire that they can hold on until prices go back
to normal. But then more and more industries start pulling
a similar grift. We've all seen the added obscure fees
at restaurants or at coffee chains or on your monthly bill,

(33:32):
you know, for like your phone bill. Have you guys
checked out the weird they're positively cryptic the fees that
are item line listed on your phone bills.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
I should, I don't, and I'm sure that I would
be surprised at what I might find.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Oh yeah, dude, phone bills and your I don't know
for me, Mykexfinity bill, like anything you get Internet through
that ends up being bundled with other things because it's
actually cheaper somehow for like six months to a year,
and then it balloons again. You got to figure out
what the heck to do.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
At that point, you got to call him back and
learn about a new weirdly named plan, like, oh, well,
your Exfinity Signature Plus Premium, but you really want to
go with Exfinity Signature Plus Premium Pro Classic Edition blast.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
They always put blast in.

Speaker 5 (34:25):
Is there a level up from blastmat prolapse.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, that's when you've just been obliterated.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
So yeah it souh.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
Please fill me up, daddy, fill me with your glorious Internet,
give me your obscure Sorry, please take out filming up, daddy.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
It was for y'all's benefit.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Please keep it in, all.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Right, Gonna clip it kinda loop it.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
You gonna keep it, loop it, publicize it at the
cashless Amazon store. But Matt, as you're as you're saying,
I think this goes back to our earlier point of
the incremental increase. Right, you can do it by adding
an extra fee, adding an extra expense that's usually going
to be on its own, a relatively small amount of money.

(35:15):
But it's death by a thousand paper cuts.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
It is.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
We live in the era of death by a thousand cuts.
We live in the era of like a what is
it a frog boiling? You know, it doesn't know it's
dead or it's dying until it's way way too late
because of how slow and gradual it happens.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
It's so funny.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
I was talking to somebody about this, how like I
literally got like rocket money so I could find some
of these little things, and now I can't figure out
how to cancel rocket money, and it's become one of
those things.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
It's just outrageous.

Speaker 5 (35:49):
It is like this, this subscription fatigue, and the point
of it gets such developed, such critical mass that it
almost becomes like this demon in your closet that you
don't want to even mess with.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
It becomes another job just to keep an eye on it.
It's your side gig, right, what are these big companies
trying to get me on today? You know?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Well, dude, so okay, let's talking about side gigs. Budgeting
for groceries now, and when you're talking about that incremental increase,
you won't notice usually if it's a couple of cents more,
unless you're one of those people that I used to be,
where you actually write down the individual prices of each thing.
So when you're you're budgeting out what can I go

(36:32):
get at the grocery store for this week, you actually
can calculate the whole thing and figure it out and
I'm out the door, you know, at this price. I
stopped doing that a long time ago, but I used
to do that, and I know a lot of people
who still do that.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Sure, eighty nine cents to ninety three cents as an increase,
right is for a small can of tomato paste, for instance,
that will that may seem negligible to portion of people,
But for the folks who get that extra few petties,
that's huge because they do that scalions of time.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yes, yes, yes, So not only are they profiting like that,
you are sometimes not even going to be aware that
it's happening, right, And not until you get to the
checkout and you look at that final number, you go, well,
how in the heck did I spend that much money?
That like, I can't spend that much money?

Speaker 4 (37:28):
What?

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Oh, holy crap, and that shock that you feel.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I was.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
I was listening to talk about all this stuff, and
I went, man, you know what, the us needs some
kind of Department of Food to regulate this kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
But they're closed.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Well yeah, so I thought, oh, there is a USDA,
there's a Department of Agriculture. They can help out with
this stuff. I went to their website. Have any have
you guys seen the giant things that are written on
the front of websites now for all these government agencies.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Yeah, is it like we're working on it.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Gift No, under construction.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
We'll give you a quote from the FTC. So I
can't wait any any time, and it's going to be
this similar quote from the from the USDA and so
many agencies. The one you'll see at the top of
the still free online report that we referenced earlier is

(38:24):
this the FTC is closed due to the lapse in funding.
Learn more about the status of FTC online services and
website information updates during the lapse in funding. So if
you go there, you'll see you'll see that they close
like so many other things, on midnight of October first,

(38:45):
twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Well, well, let me read this one to you from
the USDA's website. Due to the radical left Democrat shutdown,
this government website will not be updated during the funding laps.
Has made it clear he wants to the government open
and support those who feed, fuel and clothe the American
people put in the chatnel.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, I see it.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
I believe.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
That is. I mean, they passed the loyalty test, right,
It's a real red wedding for professional about employees. Yeah, yeah,
I mean this. Also, these problems are going to get worse,
you know, aside from other industries doing it. We have

(39:29):
to add to the fact here that there are multiple
layoffs hitting multiple industries. There are people, fellow conspiracy realists
listening to the show right now, who are tremendously skilled,
phenomenally so, but have been forced to search for months
upon months upon months for a job. And we're with you.
We're here, we live here, and we wish you the best.

(39:51):
You know, we have to also add the majority of
people lucky enough to keep their employment are constantly here,
and talk of furloughs more layo added responsibilities in the
case of federal agencies, loyalty test that supersede meritocracy or acumen.
Forget about a promotion, a bonus or raise.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
It's one of those things where it becomes this whole like, well,
I'm just glad to be in the room, you know,
I'm just glad to be here. And there's no upward
mobility or there's no even promise of that anymore. People
are so scared about losing this stuff or about not
being able to afford to live that they're just like,
stay the course, you know, keep your mouth shut, don't
make a fuss.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Time. Privatized healthcare to employment was a brilliant and evil move,
you know what I mean. There's a really solid argument
that that's part of why protests and strikes and power
to the people movements are so stymied here in the
United States. Not great, not great, Bob or whatever that

(40:54):
reference is. Eighty stand up comic voice. Let's see what else?
What else?

Speaker 4 (40:58):
What else?

Speaker 3 (41:00):
What if we take a break for a word from
our sponsors and get further into this because I think
there are some other industries we wanted to talk about
as well.

Speaker 5 (41:14):
And we've returned and y'all, just a full disclosure here,
I have to pop off for a parent teacher conference.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Situation parenting.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
It's such as life.

Speaker 5 (41:24):
But this has been thus far and incredibly thought provoking
and galling conversation and I'm sure it's going to continue
a pace. But I'm glad to be back up and
traveling a bit. And apologies for my absence from the show,
and I'm excited to jump back in.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
And I'm excited. We got this cruise thing coming up.
You all have the Sudden Can Spira, a cruise.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
That's next week. Yeah, no kids allowed on that sucker.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Make sure you establish that at the conference, Principal Smith.
One thing I want to be clear on is I
had an international waters later. Okay, so I'm sure that
won't stress out the teacher, but no. Yeah, it's so
good to have you back.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Man.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
We're catching up off air about some of your ventures.
We can't wait to share more of it with our
fellow listeners.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah yeah, but is there anything you want to leave
us with about your adventures before you take off.

Speaker 5 (42:18):
Just an exciting show that I'm working on about the
Cold War, about human trafficking, people being smuggled across the
Berlin Wall from east to west. And there's also a
death at the center of the story and it is
involved sexual assault survival. There's just a lot going on.
I'm hosting the show and working on it and been
on the road for it and also doing the music

(42:39):
for it. I'm gonna get to do some like craft worky,
tangerine dreamy kind of stuff. It's based in the exact
era of music that is my utter wheelhouse. And yeah,
we've got this amazing on the ground team in Berlin
and in London and it's a year out.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
So I'm very very excited.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Man. This show so phenomenal, fantastic, well safe travels man.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Thanks y'all, see ya, And you.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Can hear a little more about that show in an
upcoming episode of Ridiculous History, Matt, you would have dug
that when it's the Ridiculous History of North Korea, it's
the origin story thereof wow. So of course Nole's work
in this new project comes to bear in that conversation.

(43:23):
Right now, we're talking about other industries. We're talking about
problems with big laws, like how could you fix price fixing?
How could you fix price gouging?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Punish you punish these evil corporations? No't, I don't know.
How would you do it?

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Ben?

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Oh? Oh, I'm unqualified. That's crazy. I basically one suit
of magic armor away from doctor Doom. So I don't
think my solutions would be democratically platable and I wouldn't
agree with them.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I like forced all of the companies that have profited
from price gouging to invest that money and some kind
of fund that would eventually pay for Oh, I don't know,
groceries or healthcare for everybody.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Well, what are some other I gotta ask you, Matt,
what were some other industries that stood out to you
when we were researching this.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Oh, the biggest one for me was the cost of
construction materials, and a huge one. That's primarily because I
went through the process of attempting to sell it and
buy houses in that time because of you know, personal
life stuff and just seeing how much it costs to,
you know, for me to make repairs on my house

(44:43):
and just to buy small amounts of construction materials to
make repairs and then how much it costs to then
purchase a home. So then it became the housing market
mixed in with the construction market, mixed in with all
of these rising costs and creating a huge I think
is another housing bubble. Uh, And we're still in it currently,

(45:05):
just kind of hanging out in these massively inflated prices.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
I hope it pops real soon.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
No, well, I mean, god, that's the crazy thing. You
hope it pops. But what does that actually mean and
what are the consequences of that?

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Getting getting back, a normalization of prices often ends up
meaning disaster for most of us.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Right, right, because we have to remember again the Kobyashi
Maru reference I was making earlier is nerdy, but not
without sand because deflation created the Great Depression, yes, which
is still just a terrible name.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah yeah, but but just sorry, I'm not even answering
your question fully, ben.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
The construction sector, right, raw materials that are purchased often
from overseas, that again that then get brought over here
and then you make let's say a house or a
huge building that's going to house Oh, I don't know,
AI infrastructure. The cost of those raw materials has gone
up something like it's wild.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, you can see it. You can see even as
just a person renovating your home on your lonesome. Right,
you go to home Depot, you go to Low's, you
go to Ace Hardware. Uh, the things that you might
have budgeted out or spect out for, you know, your
new deck, for instance, decks need a lot of wood. Right,

(46:32):
you're now the price of all those planks has absolutely escalated.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Dude, the cost of a new deck, It's not possible.
It's not gonna happen, sorry in this economy. Sorry, nope.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Such we're talking to like, so, what's talking to their
child that are saying, look, yes, you could have made
it to Harvard, but daddy needs a deck, yeah, for.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Real, and a green Egg. I guess so, well that
was the college one. There it goes, there, it goes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Big companies are a prime target for these accusations, and
it's mainly because price gouging is a thing big companies
logically love to do if they can get away with it.
But we can't forget that this system is so interconnected.
You know, the price of a two by four or

(47:27):
the price of a sheet of plywood, right, or a
bag of concrete mix that goes up and everything else
goes up as well to the end user. We also
can't forget individual drifters got in on this too. Matt Dylan,
Do you guys remember the story of the Colvin brothers
some a Tennessee zone.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
I've never heard this.

Speaker 6 (47:50):
Were they the anti bacterial soap guys?

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (47:54):
They are, Yeah, I remember that. Wait what we're talking about?

Speaker 3 (47:58):
All right? So this guy, Alan Wang journals allowing over
at the Brown Political Review, wrote this excellent, insightful piece
on the dangers of price gouging in post pandemic America,
and he opens up with the store of Tennessee's own
mattin Noah Colvin. It reads like a parable Maybe we
pulled just directly from him. According to Wig, It's March

(48:21):
twenty twenty. The Colvin brothers gain some local, then regional,
the national controversy because they stockpiled over seventeen thousand bottles
of hand sanitizer. And they were doing the thing that
scalpers do when they buy a bunch of tickets. They

(48:41):
wanted to kick up the price make a hefty profit.
The quote goes like this, the brothers Matt and Noah
Colvin had driven across Kentucky and Tennessee, buying out hand
sanitizer and anti bacterial wipes from virtually every store they
could find. Their operation, however, was almost immediately stopped by
Tennessee's then Attorney General, Herbert H. Slattery. The third.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Amazing the name, Herbert H.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Slattery. The third, Yeah, it feels like something you and
I would make up if we were.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Improving herbity Slattery. The third.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
This goes into the legality that we were foreshadowing earlier.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Well, how did the how did the attorney general even
stop it? Where were they what were they doing? Did
they set up shop somewhere in the center of all
of these stores where they bought from and it just
it just says hand sanitizer here.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
M hmm.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
It's got a digital readout like a gas station. Yeah,
the price increases by a penny every time someone buys something. Uh,
Our buddy, Herbert looked into this, and Tennessee is one
of those states that does have a law against price
gouging during emergencies. So due to the terrible pr due

(50:00):
to the legal consequences they faced, the Colvin brothers eventually
settled their case and they stayed out of jail or
serious legal consequences by donating all those hoarded supplies to
nonprofits and to the Tennessee government, says one parable, that's

(50:21):
one case where it worked out. That's a case where
the law did help stop the conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Isn't it interesting though, because not only did all of
the local shops that had those hand sanitizer wipes and
all that stuff, they profited right at the moment that
the Colvin brothers purchased it. Then through all of this,
the government itself profited because it was like they got
it for free.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Exactly right. So it's just a grift gone down, and
you kind of have to figure out which grift is
most ethical to you, which grift.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Is going to be more okay with the powers that be.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
That's another way to put it. Yeah, for sure, I
mean this is one case in a vast ocean. If
we combine this with the good old fashioned inflation of
the pandemic era, which hit eight percent inflation in twenty
twenty two, that's the highest since nineteen eighties, we see
that price gouging on small and large levels through multiple

(51:27):
industries absolutely wrecked people's day to day lives. It accelerated
the cost of living to such a cartoonish degree. But
the legal beagles are going to say and a national
anti price gouging law would allow much more leverage in

(51:48):
investigating this Shenanig and re But the laws as they
exist now are state by state. If you think you're
Kroger or Albert Sins or whatever is ripping you off,
the law that might help you, or the law you
could refer to, only applies in a time of crisis,

(52:08):
only during an emergency. So if there's not stuff going wrong,
these laws don't matter. They may have well been just
traced into the water of a rising tide.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
All you need is an official emergency. Then all you
gotta do is declare that I don't know, there's domestic
terrorism occurring in cities across the country and it's a
state of emergency.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
And asking how terrorism is defined? Is itself an act
of terrorism and sedition?

Speaker 4 (52:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (52:40):
So, but all you need to know is that it's
an emergency. Okay, that's all you need to know. And
any these companies can charge whatever they want because we're
in an emergency.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
And we're not taking questions. By the way, because did
you guys not just hear us say it's an emergency.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
We're in our gotta go.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Bananas are ten dollars, deal with it. This conference is over.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Good luck, stay safe.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Right, and God bless America. These laws happen used to
help consumers. We know that New York cracked down on
a couple of people, notably Hill and Dale Farms, because
they had raised prices on eggs right at the beginning
of the pandemic. And this lawsuit, similar to the Colvin thing,

(53:27):
resulted in a settlement where Hill and Dale Farms said,
all right, we're going to stop ripping people off on eggs.
We're also, get this, going to donate one point two
million eggs to food banks across New York the state.
That's kind of cool, but also reminds me of God,

(53:48):
where were we? Where was I? Okay, So, Matt, do
you remember when eggs were gold?

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Apparently this year or during the pandemic during Yeah, no,
I do, I do. And now if you go and
look at the price of eggs, it really is insane,
And it's so funny how it becomes an ethical choice
in some way because of what we learned about factory farming.

(54:16):
We all all of us learned about what it means, right,
So then you want to make the choice to buy
eggs that have those words on them, like free range
or case. Yeah, you want to do that, But then
you realize, oh, that that's like seven dollars twelve dollars
for twelve eggs. How could I possibly afford that and

(54:38):
make that make sense for me and you?

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Producers are often lying purpose or being purposely misleading with
those phrases. If your day is going too well, if
your evening's going too well, folks, check out our farm
factory episodes.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Or yeah, or just don't, cause there're so many of
our episodes are just straight up. But we always try
and put this little positive thing in the end. But
sometimes sometimes it's just it's kind of like this episode.
For me, I don't see a way to force companies

(55:14):
that engage in this kind of price gouging, this kind
and even it's not officially price gouging, it's inflating their
own prices artificially because it's going to be way better
for them on a quarterly basis, or it's going to
be way better for them in some kind of merger
or acquisition deal in the near.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Future, right, And I love that you're bringing that up,
because here's why it's a sticky wicket, folks. Here's why
people have to be careful about the legislation. It becomes
a bag of badgers incredibly quickly price gouging laws, which
would be defined as government regulation on how much a
good or service is allowed to cost, usually putting a

(55:54):
ceiling on it. Right, That is a huge hot button issue.
Companies obvious generally hate this idea. Makes sense from their perspective,
they got to pay the blood price every quarter, but
a ton of consumers are also icked out by this
because it can be seen as a slippery slope into
a world of Big Brother encroaching on the market. You know,

(56:16):
it could become a distant cousin of a command economy,
which leads to rationing and privation. It just I'm not
saying that it's absolutely correct, but I am saying I
get where they're coming from.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well, yeah, because it ends up putting constraints on the
folks that actually generate the food, right, or whatever it is.
But the people who own the farms, who actually have
the chickens and take care of the chickens that get
the eggs and now you can only sell those eggs
for a certain price, and you can only make a

(56:51):
certain amount of money, right, no matter what happens, unless
you get government subsidies, which again go to our government,
our subsidies. Episode, was that part of that farm subsidies.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
Farm subsidies? Yeah, yeah, which still like, if you haven't
heard it, you're not ready, by the way, just dive
in blind. We promise it's not as boring as it sounds.
You'll be kind of upset at the end.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Actually, yeah, Well, and I think the problem with regulation
like that is because it is all this connected ecosystem,
and each part affects another part, and each the whole thing.
Get if you alter it just a little bit, and
you try and do something like put a ceiling on
the price of something, it's gonna affect everything else down
the line, which then makes another problem that somebody has

(57:36):
to step in and fix.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Yeah, it's like pooping in the ocean. Beat me hereor Dylan,
that goes somewhere else. So great, best, oh god, best,
I can't believe it. We can vote geez all right, Well,
we know exactly what you're describing their Matt, because during
the last presidential campaign, the then Vice President Harris floated

(58:02):
the idea of national price gouging laws. She was also adamant,
like so many others in Washington, that this could only
apply during an emergency, because everybody kind of agreed tacitly
that a non emergency, peacetime price gouging law could really complicate,

(58:22):
as you described, an already unwieldy economic structure.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Because that's how we do things round here.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Just band aid it, just band it ship a thesis,
this thing all the way to the horizon.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
I'm just saying, temporary price gouging is just how It's
how the sausage is made.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
The game's the game, you know what I mean, what
are you going to do? The game's a game. So
most economists, also, despite their differences, which are quite strident
at times, they concluded a plan like what the Harris
campaign proposed probably wouldn't work, also in that it would

(59:00):
not lower grocery prices. It's so difficult to claw back
those tasty year over year profits. And if the religion
of capitalism has a prime commandment, it's that profit shall
increase at a constant rate quarter over quarter, year after year,
by hook or by crook, one way or another.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Well, because you need dividends. What would the shareholders think
if you did not increase quarter over quarter. Well, and
that mostly applies to public companies, companies that are big
enough to be shared within the stock market, where everyone
gets a bit of that sweet sweet ownership.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
I picture the we might get in trouble for this one,
but just fictionally, I'm picturing the shareholders who are often
on multiple boards, right, the board members. I picture them
as purposefully not being experts nor particularly intelligent, Like they're
Cla lloy at Morlocks in the time machine. They're a

(01:00:03):
class that's been bred to just agree to this crazy grift.
So the CEO walks in and says, all right, we've
got our Q three numbers. And then it's a bunch
of very strange, habsburg looking baby people like wear babies,
and they're just going farem divvys were my dvvs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
There's much ivy. You gotta get them their divvy's dude,
I know, I was imagining the folks over it. What
was the name Hargill Farms, So oh yeah, Hillendale, Hillendale Farms.
And they're like, oh man, guys, Vita Farm is on
the line and they're they're looking to acquire another Company're like, oh,

(01:00:46):
I've got Cargill on the line over here. They're looking
for somebody. Oh oh, what are we gonna do. We
got to raise the price of these eggs a little bit.
We need to get the profits up by at least
one and a half percent by next Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Just oh no, the Habsburg baby he's calling. Oh man,
I hope we okay, I hope that. Surely after all
these years, that's not the joke that's going to black
bag us. But we do have to take a moment here.
We have to emphasize this is not a hip piece

(01:01:18):
on small business owners right. Just like how the US
socioeconomic hierarchy has a pyramid structure with a very few
people at the top doing very well and most other
people encountering some degree of challenge. Industries have that too.
Industries have strange pyramid structures. And if you are the

(01:01:41):
owner of a small business, first off, congratulations and we
wish you well. We know it's a very difficult environment.
We also know that you're often going to be struggling
to keep your head above water as the big dogs
relentlessly leverage power to drive the smaller operations into extinction
or like you said, Matt, buy them out completely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Yep, y yep.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
And this leads to you know, this leads to things
like food deserts. This has knock on consequences. We know
there are various predatory processes that predate the pandemic, but
it's no secret the pandemic massively accelerated these conspiracies, these shenanigans,

(01:02:26):
this big business corruption, I mean business is one big
during the pandemic, and they did so at the cost
of the average customer, which leads us to I don't know, man,
what do you think a couple of things we can
laundry list toward the end here.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Yeah, I'll give you one. Okay, changing climates and the
way a lot of food crops in particular have been
affected everywhere from Brazil to Mexico to places where a
lot of American produce is produced.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Eastern Europe as well, you know what I mean, the
African continent.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Yeah, that kind of thing. When crops are destroyed and
now you don't have as much, then the prices of
those crops, those goods, when they get sent somewhere else
become more expensive. Right then what if man, what do
you say, we've already got that issue happening. What if
there was a problem with I don't know, shipping costs.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Yeah, there we go. Yes, because what we're seeing is
compounding factors. That's a great point. Yeah, we mentioned tariffs
briefly at the top, and like Jack White said, once
upon a time, I said it once before, but it
bears repeating. Learn more in our episode. The trouble with
tariffs that was from March I think of earlier this year,

(01:03:46):
and that's that's one of the big divisive, controversial additive
shipping cost right. It's directly impacting end users. Even as
arable land is increasingly less arable, this is all pressing
domestic companies. Those costs rolled down the hill to consumers

(01:04:08):
buying their stuff, just like when you're looking at house construction.
As you said, logically, this makes a second opportunity for
price gouging. This has not been conclusively proven yet, but
I would say, Matt and Dylan, all of us at home,
it is not unreasonable to assume at least a few
companies will act on the opportunity if they have the means. Well,

(01:04:34):
let's imagine there's a tariff that increases the material cost
of something like steel, and you're a company that builds
stuff from steel, and you say, oh, our price went
up x percent, so to make money, we would have
normally sold this for a y percent increase. But now, guys,

(01:04:58):
Q three numbers are coming up. Uh, let's sell it
for z percent and just see how long we can
let it ride.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Hmic, way to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
I think that's what's happening. And I like that we're
using our sexy radio voices on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Oh yeah, I think of the Porsches Man.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
You're listening to the Quiet Crisis Solution. Yeah, welcome back
to blood price. Then we got to mention shrinkflation. I'm
still so Larry David Levell irritated by this where prices
appear to stay the same but the amount of actual
stuff you're purchasing gets smaller and smaller. Do you guys

(01:05:38):
have examples of that? You ran into? I don't know,
cereal boxes. Do you guys mess with cereal?

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:05:46):
Yeah, Well it's weird because there's like giant size now
and you just can't really get some cereals and a
container that makes any sense.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Hmmm. I'm genuinely racking my brain if I know. We've
talked about several examples in the past. They've been alleged, right, yeah,
but I don't know if there's one. I don't know
if there's uh orange juice. I know, for a while there,
I thought I was buying the same amount of orange
juice when I bring it home because my son loves it.

(01:06:18):
But it was a smaller container and I had no
idea because it looked really similar when it's all lined
up in the shelf like that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Incremental changes, yeah, or even if you look at the
bottom of some especially with beverages, the bottom of some
of those, the little scoop at the at the butt
is going to be bigger, so that there's actually less
juice now currently, at least back when they were open.
The FDA require I hate that we have to say

(01:06:47):
that the FDA required manufacturers to put the actual measurements
on stuff, but they're not a big part of the branding.
So you have to actually pick it up and look
and say, oh, this used to be twelve ounces. Now
for some reason, it's eleven point three. And that's happening.

(01:07:09):
That's happening across the grocery store.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
If you head to the FDA website FDA dot up.
It says mission critical activities of FDA will continue during
the Democrat led government shutdown. Please use the site as
a resource as the administration works to reopen the government
for the American people.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Cool, go hustle, guys.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Thanks uh not not politicizing anything about that, nopebody.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Congrats on passing that loyalty test. So there is one
scary thing. I don't know if we've really gamed this out,
and I don't know how many of us have thought
about this, but price gouging had an extra hidden cost
that went well beyond finances. It literally spread COVID. This

(01:07:55):
is the most lethal, if unintentional, hidden cost of the conspiracy.
So let's think about it. Various groups or companies are
gouging prices. Consumers who have the means decide to travel
to another place. Maybe you live in a neighborhood that
has two grocery stores and you say this is way
too much for a pack of bacon. They're also selling

(01:08:18):
less bacon than they used to. So I'm gonna go
to the other store across town, right, I'll get bacon there.
What this means is that people are traveling more to
logically search for alternatives, which rapidly, which means they rapidly
increase their chances of both contracting and spreading COVID nineteen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
Hopefully that wasn't what they were going for.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Hopefully it was not the intent. You know what, I mean,
we can forgive a up, we just don't like to
forgive malevolence.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's not cool. Well man, what if that
was the plan, We'll use the grocery stores.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Yeah, it's so straight forward, right, nothing mousetrap or rupe
goldberg about that. But it's still no matter what their intent,
it is very non falcon of them. I mean, this
tells us it is provable that price gouging practices, whatever
the intent, did have a cost beyond financial profits of corporations.

(01:09:20):
It was a cost in human lives. That's a debt
that you can't really repay. I don't know. Yeah, we're
fun at parties. I mean, but what happens, Matt. Do
we push for a law that says this thing, these
eggs can only be this price forever and ever and ever. Amen, No,

(01:09:42):
you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
I don't think you can do that. Man. I don't
know how you fix this, and I don't even have
some fun, silly, creative way to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
I genuinely don't I feel you. I remember I was
in gosh, I must have been in Europe at that time.
Maybe I was kicking around Belgium during the egg crisis,
or as you said, one of the egg crisis moments.
And I remember being stunned and having such a It's

(01:10:11):
like a kid who leaves the cult compound and learns
there's a better world outside. I remember walking into a
supermarket in Western Europe generally is going to be more
expensive than a lot of parts of the United States.
And I had this thought Matt Dylan in my inner monologue.
I remember thinking, these people are so loose with their eggs. Oh,

(01:10:37):
it didn't apply anywhere like the United States. Concern was
not universal, was not global. It makes me wonder whether
the problem had been manufactured for a profit motive and
a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Well, maybe I did find a solution, and it's because
of something that you said, Ben. You start a cult
compounds get around all this, all right, I mean, excuse me.
Our community, a small community of you and like minded
people others who are agree with the same stuff. You
start a cult and you buy some land and then

(01:11:14):
you just make your own eggs and milk and all
other necessities. You chop down your own wood and you
do it sustainably by planting more trees. And you could
do this. You just you don't get things like the
Internet and stuff like that. And that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Well, yeah, you know, you're it's funny you say that
map because that we all admire self reliance, right, that
is also kind of beat for beat what Kim mill
Sung said when he founded the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea and it worked out for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
That sounds amazing. I'd like to check that place out.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
Yeah, oh my god, all right, we gotta end this.
We gotta end this. This is the issue. The brightest
minds of the dismal science or worried that legal means
to enforce regulations on accusations of price gouging during peacetime,

(01:12:08):
during non emergency situations will wreck the economy, cause deflation,
maybe another great depression. But we have to ask, at
this point, is there not already an emergency afoot, not
counting the false flag stuff that is probably on the
way right to prevent the next election, not counting that

(01:12:29):
stuff is there not already a silent disaster. It's not
as cinematic as a hurricane or a tornado. It's taken
a longer amount of time. But small towns are dying,
people are going hungry in this country. Education is going
into the toilet. And I would say it is a

(01:12:50):
silent emergency, but an emergency nonetheless. I don't know, man,
I don't know how we're gonna feel about this one
five or six years from now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
What do you think, Well, when the food starts getting
divvied out in portions, you know, because we're in that big,
grand emergency that we're all kind of just holding our
breath until it comes. When that happens, I think we'll
look back at this and say, oh, remember the fanciful
times of price gouging, and how great that was. Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Remember we used to have those fun hangouts where we
would all get in the car together back when it
was legal to drive, and we would try to find
the grocery store with the cheapest eggs.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Yeah, and it was it was a struggle to figure
out how to pay for some of those essentials, but
at least you could get them, and at least they
weren't you know, rotten.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
Yeah, it's not necessarily when the prices skyrocket. It's when
the price doesn't matter because the thing is not there.
There you go, shout out to very crisises in Latin America.
Everybody who's listening here affiliated with Venezuela. Be safe, dude.
There's a coup in the wind, and I know we've

(01:14:09):
been tracking that pretty closely.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Yeah, it's there either. And if there's not a you know,
an active coup happening from an outside source, the young
people are starting to get pretty angry across the world.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Yeah, and the world is ending for someone somewhere every day.
This is going to be the end of our show
for now, for this episode. Are there certain entities and
institutions benefiting from this silent disaster? Yes, that is the
stuff they don't want you to know. And you know
what we want to know, folks, Your thoughts, your opinions,

(01:14:48):
your inspiration for previous episodes, your experience on the ground
in your neck of the global woods, what do you think?
Let us know. You can find us online at all
the usual social meds that may. You can also call
us directly on a telephonic device.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Use that device to translate this into numbers one, eight,
three three st d WYTK. When you call in, find
yourself if you will in a quiet place, find yourself
in a good space to tell us what you think.
Give us a suggestion for another episode that's related to
this topic. What else do you want to learn about?

(01:15:26):
What do you think about this stuff? Anything you want
to say, call and tell us. If you'd instead like
to write us an email.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
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Yet I'm afraid Sometimes the void writes back. We can't
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something useless for your dex, shindig or soiree, just hit

(01:15:55):
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Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
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