Australian Shareholders'​ Association’s Post

This is a step forward. But free market doesn't mean monopolies and oligopolies. It means effective fierce competition. Australia's lack of fierce competition has allowed global capital markets to step in an earn outsized yields that would otherwise have gone to consumers and producers. And corruption in Australian politics from too cozy a relationship between politicians and "elitists" is enabling politicians to exert corrupt control over oligopoly's that has meant we have a "managed economy" ... not free markets. The milk price wars weren't the outcome of a free market. They were the outcome of political interference in the economy driven by very serious corruption (an asset stripping agenda that ultimately led to BREXIT). And the attack on our diary farming families is tied back to their rejection of very serious corruption in Australian politics, and to freedom from slavery with links to the British Monarchy (a young Queen Victoria) - https://lnkd.in/gnG5k53G . It is not in our national interest to cover this analysis up. It is only in the interests of deeply corrupt politicians, who are representing a criminal plutocracy.

The blistering report also stated that excessive pricing is not unlawful in Australia and called for the government to act, especially as many Australians struggle with cost of living pressures. "There is currently a gap in government policy," Professor Fels wrote. "It does not pay sufficient attention to high prices. It needs to. "It needs to investigate and expose their causes and, as far as possible, remedy the problems, [which are] ineffective competition, vulnerable consumers, and exploitative business pricing practices." His 80-page report, commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), found that many Australian consumers were being overcharged, and "profit push" pricing had added significantly to inflation in recent times. The report examined various sectors including electricity, aviation, banks, food and groceries, childcare, medical specialists, electric vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and shipping services in far northern Australia. The inquiry found that a rise in corporate profitability in the wake of COVID corresponded with the acceleration of inflation. "The power of corporations to unduly lift prices had been a central factor in the recent cost-of-living crisis affecting so many Australian households," Professor Fels found. "Companies have been able to leverage the disruptions and uncertainty that followed the COVID pandemic into unprecedented profitability. "The ability of companies to charge unfair prices, amidst the unprecedented economic and social dislocation ensuing from the COVID pandemic, has significantly undermined the well-being of the Australians we heard from." "Consumers have been hit twice by the misuse of corporate power. First, they experienced general inflation largely caused by profit-seeking after the pandemic, then were gouged again by financial companies leveraging their market dominance to make extra profits even under higher interest rates." Professor Fels chaired the ACCC from 1995 until 2003 and his inquiry for the ACTU received hundreds of submissions from members of the public – mostly with concerns about prices in the supermarket, energy and banking sectors. "It is a fully independent report, they [the ACTU] have not tried to influence me," Professor Fels told 7.30. "It is my view, and I have been doing price regulation since 1973, continuously." The report recommended policy changes that could remove obstacles to competition, improve information to consumers, make it easier for consumers to switch suppliers and expose or shame exploitative business practices.

Harris To Propose Ban On Price Gouging Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will unveil a proposed ban on “price gouging” in the grocery and food industries, embracing a strikingly populist proposal in her most significant economic policy announcement since becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee. The Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the “first-ever federal ban” on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities. Harris on Friday will also announce plans to lower prescription drug and housing costs, the campaign said. Harris’s plans amount to a sharp escalation in the economic populism even of President Joe Biden, who had already pulled the party to the left on economic policy compared with his Democratic predecessors. While offering some overtures to the business elite, Harris is attempting to respond to intense voter frustration over rising prices with a far-reaching proposal. Harris’s plan will include “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries,” the campaign said in a statement. The exact details of the campaign’s plan were not immediately clear, but Harris said she would aim to enact the ban within her first 100 days, in part by directing the Federal Trade Commission to impose “harsh penalties” on firms that break new limits on “price gouging.” The statement did not define price gouging or “excessive” profits. Republican and many Democratic economists see mandatory price controls as a counterproductive form of government intervention that discourages firms from producing enough supply to meet demand. “This represents a return to the lazy, failed economic policies of the 1970s, when price controls proved to be a disaster for the economy,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “It shows Harris is pandering for easy answers on the economy, even more aggressively than Biden had. Biden had talked about price gouging but was not this aggressive, seeking reforms to actually ban it.” Harris’s policy announcement comes as Democratic policymakers have been looking for clues into her plans for the economy. Biden staffed his White House and key regulatory agencies with appointments significantly to the left of President Barack Obama’s team; and on a range of policies — antitrust, trade, labor rights, industrial policy — he shattered the party consensus that had prevailed since the Clinton administration, pushing for more government intervention in nearly every facet of the nation’s economy. Much of Harris’s approach so far suggests continuity with Biden’s policymaking, including her selection as a running mate of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has enacted a state child tax credit and universal free school lunch, among other liberal policies. ©️Washington Post 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will unveil a proposed ban on “price gouging” in the grocery and food industries, embracing a strikingly populist proposal in her most significant economic policy announcement since becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee. In a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the “first-ever federal ban” on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities. Harris on Friday will also announce plans to lower prescription drug and housing costs, the campaign said. Harris’s plans amount to a sharp escalation in the economic populism even of President Joe Biden, who had already pulled the party to the left on economic policy compared with his Democratic predecessors. While offering some overtures to the business elite, Harris is attempting to respond to intense voter frustration over rising prices — particularly grocery prices — with a far-reaching proposal. Harris’s plan will include “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries,” the campaign said in a statement. The exact details of the campaign’s plan were not immediately clear, but Harris said she would aim to enact the ban within her first 100 days, in part by directing the Federal Trade Commission to impose “harsh penalties” on firms that break new limits on “price gouging.” The statement did not define price gouging or “excessive” profits. Republican and many Democratic economists see mandatory price controls as a counterproductive form of government intervention that discourages firms from producing enough supply to meet demand. “This represents a return to the lazy, failed economic policies of the 1970s, when price controls proved to be a disaster for the economy,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “It shows Harris is pandering for easy answers on the economy, even more aggressively than Biden had. Biden had talked about price gouging but was not this aggressive, seeking reforms to actually ban it."

Investors gave a big thumbs down to chancellor Rachel Reeves and the first Labour Budget for 14 years as the FTSE 100 sank and shares across fmcg suffered a mass sell-off. The Grocer report shows how stocks across the food & drinks industry have fared following the Autumn Statement. No surprises to see groups with thousands of staff - from Tesco, Greggs and M&S to Greencore, Cranswick and Hilton Foods - under pressure. While soft drinks suppliers such as Nichols and alcoholic beverage makers were also hit by measures on the Soft Drinks Industry Levy and excise duty. Read more here... https://lnkd.in/e3Xjx59C

Albo must have been an Arts student at uni. But not an Economics student. Because he's demonstrated he doesn't understand economic history nor the Soviet Union. He's confused. His failure to be willing to break up Coles and Woolworths to increase competition is a Soviet model. Regulation of the market to drive competition, including anti-trust laws, is not "Soviet". That's capitalism! When Australian politicians secretly directed the supermarkets to engage in milk price wars whilst the Dept of Home Affairs was orchestrating a human trafficking, exploitation, and slavery operation using undocumented horticulture workers to undermine the viability of family-owned dairy farms so their assets could be stripped by PEPs (including Labor PEPs) and laundered so they could be acquired by institutional investors, including super funds and princelings and oligarchs, that was Soviet Union. The Sherman Anti Trust Act was not a Soviet initiative. As Joe Biden says, "capitalism without competition isn't capitalism. It's exploitation." Though I'm not entirely confident President Biden supports competitive markets outside the USA (see: https://lnkd.in/eqQTGMsJ), I'm just, hoping. How is it that Guardian Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) haven't called Albanese out for screwing up a line as basic as this one? Are their own economics teams so emaciated? ==> Note the challenges we face with both of Australia's main political parties wedded to monopolistic markets, engineered in the Qantas Chairman's Lounge. We are seeing here the dividend that oligpolies like Qantas, Woolworths and Coles are getting in return for Albo's son's membership of the Qantas Chairman's Lounge. ==> Note the presence of Hong Kong news publisher Li Ka-Shing in Australia's winery market - the Albanese Government together with British Tories, their military and the Murdoch family are using Aussie family owned wine grape growers and family owned wine producers as human shields to fight China. Albo will do the sound and light show, but he won't actually defend Australian markets and family owned businesses. That's the Soviet Union, adorned with oligarchs. 'We’re not the Soviet Union’: PM rules out breaking up Coles, Woolies

New Post: Joe Biden wages war. . . on packaging -Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl... Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl video featuring various offending snacks, including Doritos, Tostitos and Oreos. He called it a “rip off,” and declared that “the American public is tired of being played for suckers.” He may revisit the theme in his State of the Union address. This has to rank as one of the most economically illiterate and juvenile presidential crusades in recent history. Shrinkflation is a symptom of inflation, not a cause. And to the extent it is fooling anyone about higher prices, it is helping Biden, whose economic record has been blighted by persistently high prices, especially for food. A company that is raising its prices can either charge more or reduce the size of its product. What Biden is suggesting is that the former is the best option and companies should always increase their sticker prices. Of course, Biden’s goal is to shift blame, yet complaining about smaller bags is only another way of complaining about higher prices. He might as well be pointing out that beef now costs an ungodly $8 a pound. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, consumers are spending the highest proportion of their disposable income on food since 1991. The focus on shrinkflation is a variant of the corporate-greed argument advanced by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives. It maintains that inflation is an artifact of companies arbitrarily deciding to raise prices to boost their profits. This theory assumes that for several decades during the long period of low inflation in the U.S. corporations didn’t use this pricing power. Then, they suddenly decided to wield it beginning in 2021, coinciding with a period of supply-chain disruptions, loose monetary policy and extravagant federal spending — all of which one would expect to be drivers of inflation. The causes of higher food prices, by the way, aren’t a mystery. Why is the price of beef elevated? The supply of cattle has declined. What’s up with the more expensive Oreos? Cocoa prices, The Wall Street Journal reports, recently passed a 46-year record. And labor costs have gone up with increases in the minimum wage in states across the country.Still, The New York Times reports that the White House is considering new executive actions to crack down on shrinkfla

New Post: Joe Biden wages war. . . on packaging -Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl... Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl video featuring various offending snacks, including Doritos, Tostitos and Oreos. He called it a “rip off,” and declared that “the American public is tired of being played for suckers.” He may revisit the theme in his State of the Union address. This has to rank as one of the most economically illiterate and juvenile presidential crusades in recent history. Shrinkflation is a symptom of inflation, not a cause. And to the extent it is fooling anyone about higher prices, it is helping Biden, whose economic record has been blighted by persistently high prices, especially for food. A company that is raising its prices can either charge more or reduce the size of its product. What Biden is suggesting is that the former is the best option and companies should always increase their sticker prices. Of course, Biden’s goal is to shift blame, yet complaining about smaller bags is only another way of complaining about higher prices. He might as well be pointing out that beef now costs an ungodly $8 a pound. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, consumers are spending the highest proportion of their disposable income on food since 1991. The focus on shrinkflation is a variant of the corporate-greed argument advanced by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives. It maintains that inflation is an artifact of companies arbitrarily deciding to raise prices to boost their profits. This theory assumes that for several decades during the long period of low inflation in the U.S. corporations didn’t use this pricing power. Then, they suddenly decided to wield it beginning in 2021, coinciding with a period of supply-chain disruptions, loose monetary policy and extravagant federal spending — all of which one would expect to be drivers of inflation. The causes of higher food prices, by the way, aren’t a mystery. Why is the price of beef elevated? The supply of cattle has declined. What’s up with the more expensive Oreos? Cocoa prices, The Wall Street Journal reports, recently passed a 46-year record. And labor costs have gone up with increases in the minimum wage in states across the country.Still, The New York Times reports that the White House is considering new executive actions to crack down on shrinkfla

New Post: Joe Biden wages war. . . on packaging -Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl... Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl video featuring various offending snacks, including Doritos, Tostitos and Oreos. He called it a “rip off,” and declared that “the American public is tired of being played for suckers.” He may revisit the theme in his State of the Union address. This has to rank as one of the most economically illiterate and juvenile presidential crusades in recent history. Shrinkflation is a symptom of inflation, not a cause. And to the extent it is fooling anyone about higher prices, it is helping Biden, whose economic record has been blighted by persistently high prices, especially for food. A company that is raising its prices can either charge more or reduce the size of its product. What Biden is suggesting is that the former is the best option and companies should always increase their sticker prices. Of course, Biden’s goal is to shift blame, yet complaining about smaller bags is only another way of complaining about higher prices. He might as well be pointing out that beef now costs an ungodly $8 a pound. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, consumers are spending the highest proportion of their disposable income on food since 1991. The focus on shrinkflation is a variant of the corporate-greed argument advanced by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives. It maintains that inflation is an artifact of companies arbitrarily deciding to raise prices to boost their profits. This theory assumes that for several decades during the long period of low inflation in the U.S. corporations didn’t use this pricing power. Then, they suddenly decided to wield it beginning in 2021, coinciding with a period of supply-chain disruptions, loose monetary policy and extravagant federal spending — all of which one would expect to be drivers of inflation. The causes of higher food prices, by the way, aren’t a mystery. Why is the price of beef elevated? The supply of cattle has declined. What’s up with the more expensive Oreos? Cocoa prices, The Wall Street Journal reports, recently passed a 46-year record. And labor costs have gone up with increases in the minimum wage in states across the country.Still, The New York Times reports that the White House is considering new executive actions to crack down on shrinkfla

New Post: Joe Biden wages war. . . on packaging -Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl... Joe Biden has met the enemy, and it is smaller packaging for foodstuffs. The White House is targeting the practice known as “shrinkflation,” or companies keeping the nominal price of a product the same while decreasing the amount. This, naturally, is just another way of charging more. President Biden slammed shrinkflation in a Super Bowl video featuring various offending snacks, including Doritos, Tostitos and Oreos. He called it a “rip off,” and declared that “the American public is tired of being played for suckers.” He may revisit the theme in his State of the Union address. This has to rank as one of the most economically illiterate and juvenile presidential crusades in recent history. Shrinkflation is a symptom of inflation, not a cause. And to the extent it is fooling anyone about higher prices, it is helping Biden, whose economic record has been blighted by persistently high prices, especially for food. A company that is raising its prices can either charge more or reduce the size of its product. What Biden is suggesting is that the former is the best option and companies should always increase their sticker prices. Of course, Biden’s goal is to shift blame, yet complaining about smaller bags is only another way of complaining about higher prices. He might as well be pointing out that beef now costs an ungodly $8 a pound. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, consumers are spending the highest proportion of their disposable income on food since 1991. The focus on shrinkflation is a variant of the corporate-greed argument advanced by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives. It maintains that inflation is an artifact of companies arbitrarily deciding to raise prices to boost their profits. This theory assumes that for several decades during the long period of low inflation in the U.S. corporations didn’t use this pricing power. Then, they suddenly decided to wield it beginning in 2021, coinciding with a period of supply-chain disruptions, loose monetary policy and extravagant federal spending — all of which one would expect to be drivers of inflation. The causes of higher food prices, by the way, aren’t a mystery. Why is the price of beef elevated? The supply of cattle has declined. What’s up with the more expensive Oreos? Cocoa prices, The Wall Street Journal reports, recently passed a 46-year record. And labor costs have gone up with increases in the minimum wage in states across the country.Still, The New York Times reports that the White House is considering new executive actions to crack down on shrinkfla