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I am constantly baffled at the sheer volume of people who believe the president controls the prices of anything!! The president does not set the prices of eggs, or bacon, or fruit or oil or electricity or ANYTHING!! I’ve been “screaming” this at people since the pandemic. How on earth did the majority of people come to the conclusion that the president sets prices??

Does no one learn anything in school anymore? Capitalistic systems allow the market to drive the price of things based upon supply & demand. Communist systems (an economic system not a governmental one) set the prices of all goods. Oh! The Irony!!!

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"By their assessment, as much as 53 cents of every dollar spent can be attributed to corporate profit-taking.

Corporations are entitled to make profits, of course. Indeed, in our economic system we need them to be profitable. But how much is too much —"

Competition is supposed to keep corporate profits in line, is it not? So where's the competition? Is there collusion, monopoly, territory splitting?

Seems as though one of the conundrums of capitalism is if we have pure competition, it becomes a race to bottom in which no one wins. If we have a monopoly, then we have high prices, poor service, and wealth inequality.

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I just can’t. My opinion? This is (unfortunately) uncharted yet potentially horrific terrain. I got nothin’.

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Thanks Dan,

Some magas are starting to realize just where the buck stops, tRumps bank account. I started to laff about the time magazine article and tRump actually telling the truth about prices for groceries not coming down. Till I realized it just wasn't funny. To bad the magas are going to learn a hard and expensive lesson.

I read another piece about the median income for buying a house is now just over 100,000 to even consider it. How are two income families supposed to afford this. Kamala had a plan, tRump doesn't even have a concept of a plan for this 🤔.

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It is tiresome to read that Trump is a liar and then paragraphs of examples. That is the least of Trump's nasty tactics. He is a convicted felon, that America seems prepared to look the other way about, which makes America a lawless republic. That is how you got to where you are. Many laws were broken by people who are not held accountable. Write about that Dan. Please. Write about how deep the rot goes in this Republic. It is too late to do anything about it. Write about that too. Sadly that is the truth. America is stuck now. A floundering republic. And Biden and Harris sit silently by. Their silence is shocking.

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Yes, I remember trump saying last time “who knew health care could be so complicated.” Something like that. And that was after he kept promising he had a much better plan than The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). We are yet to see that. Talk, talk, talk. The man is a crazy fool who many fell for😒.

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I can't believe stupidity of the voters who put Trump in based on his promises to bring prices down. He spoke the truth when he said he loves the poorly educated. I've tried to explain to many of them who seem sternly unbelieving or embarrassed once they see the fallacy of his vision of how groceries are supplied. Neither cattlemen, butchers, grocers nor bag boys are responsible for the difficulty some have affording groceries. Could it be that of all the condiments of food in this country the top 1% have over 30% of ALL the wealth leaving the rest of us eaters only 60 odd % of the money to buy with? The same goes for all other items the 99% are buying. There's just so much crazy about this picture.

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Your average trump supporter is not voting for him because he will make their lives better, they want him to make others lives worse.

They will support him and return home to higher inflation, prices, perhaps even a worse job market and they will rest on the thought that everyone has it bad.

Its that anger unleashed effect. So, when you see that trump supporter prancing around with glee, remember, they really don't want better for themselves.

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I wish all of his loyal followers could see and understand that he is a LIAR and CONMAN! We can discuss this with each other but until his followers can comprehend this we are still a minority. His followers drank the koolaid and are addicted to this sick sociopath.

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They were mostly uneducated and some were paid to vote by Elon Musk and some can’t bear to vote for a woman.

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All of this sounds exactly like his last time in office. He is a serial liar and I don't understand why people thought he would be any different.

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Thanks for the truth and for this common sense about Dump. The ironical thing is that the people of this country like being conned by a criminal whose allegiance to this country is also in doubt. The Founding Fathers must be twirling in their graves. As Ben Franklin suggested keeping a republic may be harder than we expected with the Mad Hatter back in power.

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What a "smuck" Trump is! Of course he cannot lower prices in this inflation period! Don't the MAGA group realize that it's the focus on GREED that now is part of industries, shipping, the health such as our hospitals and the pharmaceuticals. The gasoline prices go up when the industry knows that's when people take vacations by driving. The worrisome effect will be when the other countries have tariffs and people here in America may have to wait months to get a stove, a refrigerator, parts for our automobiles, etc. Someone in MAGA please explain that to Trump

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Let me make this comment. To all those who chose to believe, who wanted to see MAGA rise again, and knew 45 would make the economy better. ENJOY your ride, he has not even taken office, and he is back peddling all those big electioneering promises. I have no tissues for your tears....

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Regarding inflation, most people reading this are aware that official inflation numbers don't include food or fuel prices, so any talk about lowering inflation doesn't relate to grocery bills or gas prices. Besides, whether or not prices have plateaued, they're still outrageously high compared with a few years ago. Our grocery bill has gone up by almost two-thirds since before the pandemic. And really, everything we buy, from picture frames to craft supplies to lumber, has gone up significantly. Meanwhile, my husband hasn't gotten a raise in years, and healthcare through the ACA continues to zoom up. The damage has been done---prices aren't coming down. The best that could be done would be to rein in the rapacious corporations, but that ain't happenin' under drumpf. He'll find a way to blame the Dems, though, and his cult will believe it.

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Dan—great article!

Is there a way to graphically illustrate the paragraph on corporate profit-taking with an explicit definition of the term? Would love to share it with others who may not understand the term and/or understand how it works.

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Trump’s the world champion of grifters, and a huge portion of our populace swallowed his lies. He had great assistance from Fox “News” (what a joke!) and all right wing media. Now he’ll take the oath of office, swearing on the Bible to uphold our constitution. I can’t bear to watch, & I won’t. Can’t wait until the midterms. Maybe then there’ll be at least a bit of a guardrail.

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I wonder if the Bible will be right side up?,

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Sheep

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