Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy

[alwaysinasnit]

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/secret-documents-show-pepsi-and-walmart

The Trump FTC tried to hide a complaint showing Pepsi forced shoppers to pay higher prices everywhere but Walmart. But now it's unsealed. And the politics of affordability are explosive.

Last month, the Atlanta Fed came out with a report showing a clear relationship between consolidation in grocery stores and the rate of food inflation. Unsurprisingly, where monopolies prevail, food inflation is 0.46 percentage points higher than where there is more competition. The study showed that from 2006-2020, the cumulative difference amounted to a 9% hike in food prices, and presumably since 2020, that number has gone much higher.

Affordability, in other words, is a market power problem.

And yesterday, we got specifics on just how market power in grocery stores works. The reason is because a nonprofit just forced the government to unseal a complaint lodged by Lina Khan’s FTC against Pepsi for colluding with Walmart to raise food prices across the economy. A Trump official tasked with dealing with affordability tried to hide this complaint, and failed. And now there’s a political and legal storm as a result.

snip...

[Hugin]

1. Oh, my. n/t

[TheBlackAdder]

6. And it's not just sodas.

[peppertree]

12. Downright dystopian

Reminds me a little of the 2004 film One-Point-O - wherein an all-controlling Farm Corporation monopolizes the sale of nearly all groceries, under anodyne names like "Nature Fresh Milk" and "Farm Fresh Beef."

Not content with its near-monopoly, it resorts to hypnosis and hi-tech means to compel consumers to buy everything from them - and in as large amounts as they can.

It certainly worked with one particular consumer...

[KS Toronado]

29. Still laugh every time I see this picture

If TSF.ucker wanted to treat the national college football champions to a delicious McDonald's meal,
why didn't he take them to a McDonalds so they could have a warm meal? That crap had to taste like
shit being cold.

[peppertree]

30. Reminds me of those pigs who tell their wives they got this or that "because I thought you'd like it"

"No, dear," she'd tell him - rolling her eyes. "You got it because you like it."

[Timewas]

2. Nothing but

Pure and simple greed and fuck the people they are just there to be exploited

[SheltieLover]

3. Shocking

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[malaise]

5. How much is enough for these greedy scumbags?

Rec

[GiqueCee]

10. Too much...

... is NEVER enough for these sociopaths. Their greed has no limits, and they rationalize it with the shopworn excuse, "Our first responsibility is to our stockholders", which is horse shit. Their first responsibility is to be decent human beings, a task at which they have, thus far, failed miserably.

[BurnDoubt]

17. So.........

Is it Stockholders who are fleecing their friends and neighbors and hiding behind a “Board” making the decisions without their knowledge and consent?
This has been my thought for quite some time: they’ve made retirees complicit in the rip-off by tying our retirement to success in the Stock Market.
They have made us ALL “Oppressor Pigs”!!!!! Literally “Eating Our Young!!!!!
There IS a solution for this, but it will never happen as long as we let them make ALL the decisions.
Rise up! Or tumble down.
Poo Tee Weet.

[MLWR]

16. Teddy Kennedy asked that question when he was still alive.

I haven't seen an answer.

[2naSalit]

36. We are seeing the answer...

Here and now.

[Old Crank]

7. No surprise there.

No surprise that Trump would try to hide it.

[Trueblue1968]

8. Lock. Them. Up!!!!!

[Ritabert]

9. I haven't had a Pepsi soda product in 20 years due to high fructose corn syrup

I also stay away from Frito-Lay stuff.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Check The Chart In Post 6

There are many products by PepsiCo that have nothing to do with soft drinks & chips.
It's pretty hard for people to stay away from everything these big companies make.
I don't drink pop because they're all too sweet for me, no matter the sugar used.
One last night: as the perceived sweetness of fructose is higher than that of sucrose, HFCS (granting the health issues around how the body digests the 2 sugars), with It's higher ratio of fructose (white sugar is about 48% fructose, the balance dextrose), it's sweeter. So, they actually use a pinch less than when they used sucrose.
HFCS is a give & take vs sucrose.

[Ritabert]

41. It's a matter of how they produce HFCS and its contribution to belly fat

I read my labels and try to minimize it.

[ProfessorGAC]

42. No It Isn't

Yes, it processes in the body differently and does lead to fat accumulation.
Has nothing to do with how they process ut.
Let's stick to science, shall we.
Not halfway: the whole way.

[Ritabert]

44. You do it your way, i'll do it mine. I don't eat the stuff and I'm old, thin and healthy.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Worth the read. Thanks. ❤️

[jfz9580m]

33. Matt Stoller is always worth a read Lmsp.nt

[littlemissmartypants]

37. ❤️

[littlemissmartypants]

43. TY jfz9580m. Hopefully others will see this, take a chance and be pleasantly surprised. ❤️

[Orrex]

13. I'm shocked just shocked.

[slightlv]

14. They've got both Pepsi and Coke covered...

getting harder and harder for us caffeine junkies! And no... I don't like coffee, strange as it is at 70 yrs old. I prefer my caffeine cold. And often take it in larger doses via 5-Hour Energy... and I know that crap can't be good for me, either! (LOL)

I thought we outlawed monopolies? We have more and larger monopolies now than at any other time in our country, I'd lay odds. Laissez Faire capitalism on it's final legs, I hope...

[tavernier]

18. I only like coffee cold.

Sometimes I’ll throw in some milk and sugar and put a squirt of whipped cream on top to make a frappe with a lot less calories than McDonald’s. But just black with a couple of ice cubes is great.

[slightlv]

21. I worked at my grandmother's beauty salon

for nearly years and years. All that time, she tried to find ways to make coffee palatable to me. I LOVE the smell... just can't stand the taste! And don't even talk to me about adding it to chocolate! YUK! One sip, and I can tell. I know a lot of people say it brings out the chocolate taste in richer tones. To me, it always just dilutes the taste.

I managed, back in my 20's, to switch from regular coke and pepsi, to diet pepsi. And I admit now, I'm hooked. Whether on pepsi, or on the caffeine, I'm not sure. probably a bit of both... oh, well... I made it this many years. And somehow, I don't think my lupus or fibromyalgia can be blamed on either. At least, not from what I've read so far...

[jfz9580m]

34. Lol

Love the stuff..I drink it cold and black now..
You might be the first person I have come across who hates the taste of coffee slightlv..

I could manage without it, but wouldn’t want to..Whether it is 1984 or other apocalyptic fiction, the parts where coffee or chocolate become hard to obtain resonate with me.

[BurnDoubt]

19. I share your Coffee attitude.

I had to discontinue my all-day Cola habit, and I lost about forty pounds in about a year. I went to to the “cheepo” energy shots and, like you I wonder how that ends, but…..
We do need to dust off our anti-trust bonafides and fix some of the things that have been allowed to slide-by. I’m guessing it might be that we’ve allowed the institutionalized watchdogs to "sip the sop’ and ignore their purview in favor of “Favors”.
So… when the Next Purge happens, maybe The People will get a hand on the tiller and we finally get some Economic Justice.
Department of Economic Overlord Re-Education and Neutering??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Yes, Please!

[Sneederbunk]

20. Casablanca shocking.

[OldBaldy1701E]

22. Wake me when there are actual consequences. (n/t)

[BComplex]

46. No shit, OldBaldy!

Unregulated capitalism is legalizing theft and collusion.

[Evolve Dammit]

23. Going on forever, like when everything got jacked up during covid. Any opportunity to fuck people. n/t

[Gum Logger]

24. And Grump still has a 42% approval rating

[luv2fly]

25. Too many looooove themselves some Walmart...

... despite their well established track record of destroying small businesses.

But hey, maybe you saved a dollar so it's all good. Now back to your Facebook account to see your "friends."

[DBoon]

28. you saved a dollar today...

... tomorrow you will pay twice for the same item

[ybbor]

40. Walmart is evil

I did many papers and projects in college dealing with their tactics to decimate mom and pop local stores in small communities. One of my favorite comparisons was, Ford paid his employees well enough so that they could afford his vehicles, Walmart pays their “associates” enough that they can’t buy anything but their products. They also tutor them on how to use federal programs for food aid and other assistance. Not to mention their treatment of their “partners”, ie. vendors, and their demand on local infrastructure.

Don’t shop there! Bad people who care only about their bottom line!

[3catwoman3]

45. Some years ago,I read a story about Walmart putting out bins to collect food at Thanksgiving...

...not for the poor/needy, but for their employees! They don't pay them enough to be able to afford the usual components of a typical TG dinner. Shameful.

The Walmart heirs have more than enough money. They will not be getting a nickel from me.

[snot]

26. Failure on yet another economic issue.

Both parties have both been soft on antitrust enforcement for decades.

[dem4decades]

27. That's why Costco rules and Wal-Mart sucks.

[soldierant]

31. In other news,

water is wet.

[Blue Full Moon]

32. CEO of Krogers during the Albertsons takeover.

Said during an interview that they gave to the republican party because republicans create inflation. Inflation is maximum profits.

[IcyPeas]

38. All that matters these days is the shareholders... and profits.

F the consumers.

[BlueTsunami2018]

35. This is just capitalism acting out its nature.

Buy low, sell high, squeeze every last penny out of everything you can.

What a great system.

[wolfie001]

39. That explains the non-sensical $7.00 bag of Doritos

This makes sense. And they raised the prices when we had a sane and decent man in the White House. I bought my last bag of that crap over 5 years ago.

[Bob_in_VA]

47. The whole idea

that corporations have a legal "duty" to maximize shareholder value is BS. Milton Friedman floated this idea back in the late 1970s/early 1980s but it was never codified into law. Unfortunately, our "regulatory" agencies have never shot it down, like they should have. Yet another example of "regulatory capture".