Joe Biden’s economic worldview is proving to be a grand illusion. Spending trillions of dollars to “stimulate” the economy has done nothing except stimulate inflation. And at least part of the reason for America’s supply chain bottlenecks is due to the administration’s green policies and overregulation of ports.
But Biden’s presidency depends on finding scapegoats to blame for the nation’s economic woes. So he has directed the Federal Trade Commission to “investigate” why prices at the gas pump are so high and also why the supply chain is such a mess?
It’s desperation time for the White House, and using the FTC to find something that the president can use to blame others for his problems is about all Joe Biden has left.
Now, Biden has ordered the FTC to investigate the “profit margins” of major retailers. He wants people to believe that retailers are taking advantage of inflation to raise prices unnecessarily. “Excess profits” for the oil companies are also under FTC review.
Are we detecting a pattern here? The easiest charge to level is that companies are “greedy” and overcharging for their products. No real proof is needed. Consumers have been programmed by left-wing media to believe it since birth.
Biden wants to take an out-of-the-box villain like big business and present the American people with a culprit for their pain.
Sorry to say, but it works almost every time a Democrat tries it.
The Federal Trade Commission is asking Amazon, Walmart and seven other retailers and wholesalers for internal documents, as a part of a newly launched investigation into supply chain disruptions.
The FTC said Monday that it’s looking into supply chain bottlenecks that have plagued companies large and small since the coronavirus pandemic began. As part of its investigation, major companies are being asked to surrender what would normally be considered proprietary data. Each has 45 days to respond, the FTC said.
Retailers don’t own any of the scores of ships waiting to unload their cargo at various ports around the country. They don’t run the longshoreman’s union or manage any of the ports of entry. It’s ludicrous for Biden to be investigating retailers and trying to make them responsible for the supply chain crisis when it is they who are losing money because of the supply chain snafus.
The FTC investigation is a fishing expedition hoping to find something — anything — that the administration can use to blame retailers for the supply chain problems.
The supply chain problems facing the U.S. will likely continue into 2022, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN last month. Suppliers continue to experience staff shortages and, in some cases, missing shipping containers, further hampering how quickly the problem can be resolved, University of Miami business school dean John Quelch told CBSN’s Lana Zak.
The FTC is asking companies to detail the major factors disrupting their access to products, including the items most affected and company responses to these challenges. The agency is also asking for company strategies on pricing, sales volumes, selection of suppliers, market share and product promotions.
It’s difficult to find any legitimate reason why the government should be interested in individual company strategies “on pricing, sales volumes, selection of suppliers, market share and product promotions.” Most of that is proprietary information, and what the government is going to do with it is unclear.
More likely, the request for sensitive information is a not-so-subtle threat to other industries that they must toe the line on prices or spend time and money fighting off government investigations into normal business practices.
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