It’s a chicken and egg problem here. You’re saying that prices never fall because people don’t lower demand, but I would instead argue that Americans don’t seem to understand that reduced demand lowers prices simply because we have literally never once seen that actually happen in practice due to corporate greed.
I would say that’s only really become the norm in the last 15-20 years at most. That’s when giant corporations had fully gobbled up smaller companies and have such large warchests of money that they moved from “we’re selling less, we need to drop prices to unload product” to “we’re selling less, we need to raise prices to increase profits on the small amount we actually sell.” That was what famously recently motivated McDonald’s to raise prices, they were actually aiming at chasing fewer customers with higher prices to offset the lost sales.
So, I’d say in the modern era of giant consolidated food corporations, and giant consolidated corporations in general, sadly, you’re correct.
It’s a chicken and egg problem here. You’re saying that prices never fall because people don’t lower demand, but I would instead argue that Americans don’t seem to understand that reduced demand lowers prices simply because we have literally never once seen that actually happen in practice due to corporate greed.
I would say that’s only really become the norm in the last 15-20 years at most. That’s when giant corporations had fully gobbled up smaller companies and have such large warchests of money that they moved from “we’re selling less, we need to drop prices to unload product” to “we’re selling less, we need to raise prices to increase profits on the small amount we actually sell.” That was what famously recently motivated McDonald’s to raise prices, they were actually aiming at chasing fewer customers with higher prices to offset the lost sales.
So, I’d say in the modern era of giant consolidated food corporations, and giant consolidated corporations in general, sadly, you’re correct.