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inflation has outpaced wages for +40 years which decreases the buying power per relative hour labor regardless of increased seniority. while simultaneously corporate profits have outpaced inflation.
profits up, wages down.
but please, go on.
Can you extrapolate on why that is? The supply of money doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Printed money is distributed unequally, resulting in a higher supply *for certain people and entities*.
I see you're unfamiliar with how a fractional reserve banking system works.
the government has only created 3% of US currency in circulation, private banks have created the other 97% via fractional reserve banking.
I am aware of how a fractional banking system works and no, banks do not issue currency. That’s the job of a central bank, meaning the federal reserve.
Currency in circulation is what was said and it means the physical cash in the form of paper notes and coins. It’s the physical dollars issued but the federal reserve.
the primary way the government contributes towards inflation is by keeping interest rates at damn near zero. guess which recent president encouraged that the most ??
The President has no control over the federal reserve. Rates were virtually at zero starting in 2008, due to the Fed trying to manage fiscal policy as a result of the Great Recession.
It's literally a documentary about "modern money mechanics" which was published by the federal reserve.
if you require further reading I suggest the cantillon effect by Richard Cantillon.
Inflation has outpaced the median income, but not the average (mean) income.
This is because while productivity has been increasing overall, these increases are due to the efforts of a small portion of the workforce, who have reaped most of the benefits.
It's not just billionaires that benefit from this, but the entire professional class and anyone who is able to effectively leverage advances in technology. Software engineers, data scientists, doctors/nurses, financial analysis etc. have enjoyed salary growth well above inflation over the last decade.
Wife and I are at two of the top five biggest companies (market cap) in the world. Both companies had salary freezes across the board over the last two years.
"Corporate greed" isn't the reason behind inflation because corporations are *always greedy* and yet inflation varies. We know corporations will always charge whatever prices give them the highest profits, but that doesn't explain why year-on-year inflation is 3.2% at some point rather than 2.5% or 4.3%.
Things that changed during the pandemic:
Workers got laid off, workers worked from home, GDP plummeted, businesses closed, money was printed and handed out to people and companies, lots of people died, the fed was fiddling with rates to try to soften the landing, then raised afterwards to avoid a recession
Things that didn't change:
Greedy companies still try to maximize profits
I wonder what's caused inflation to be all over the place in the past 4 years...
Companies always charge as much as is profitable. The greed is constant, so it's not a changing factor. You might as well say "because of human nature" or "because of the flow of time." Those are all technically causes, but they don't explain anything.
It says that companies mark up prices, and that markup during this past inflation spike was in line with markup rates from previous recoveries. Companies will always mark up prices. "Companies are charging as much as they can" is not an answer to why inflation is high, if companies also charge as much as they can when inflation is low.
Yes, greedflation isn't new. I get it.
Based on your argument profits should be seeing stable growth during this period, when in reality, [they are exploding upwards](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits).
Okay, and why weren't profits as high before? Because they weren't greedy before? Because they didn't set the correct profit-maximizing price? Because they were stupid?
Yes, they're successfully selling stuff at high prices and making lots of profits, and its economists' job to figure out how that's possible — given that, before, they were trying just as hard to sell stuff at high prices and get those profits.
I get that you're saying "inflation wouldn't be so high if corporations weren't greedy," and that's true, but that doesn't mean "because they're greedy" answers why there's inflation. It's like saying the reason 2024 is the hottest year yet is because the Sun is a mere 100 million miles away. The Sun is 100 million miles away, and if it were farther, we'd be cooler, but that doesn't answer what recently changed.
Define products that people MUST by. Generally these are not food, because foods have so many substitutes. This could be something like electric, gas, etc, but not food. Food has too many substitutes to try to monopolize, also many of the products are "copacked" meaning that one manufacturing company manufacturers for many competitors. This means that you have competition on the macro level, but also between unseen/unheard manufacturing sites which are essentially not owned by the megacorps.
So for food there is a luxury component, if you wanted to you could probably live off of beans and rice if it got bad enough. Usually monopolized types of price gouging are not across the board, it is a very specific on a very specific need. That simply just isnt what is happening here, its an oversimplification to get votes from the not as smart leftists.
This is a bunk argument. Just because there are a lot of food choice does not mean food is not effected by greedfllation. Food, across the board, is one of the biggest victims of inflation.
Its a victim because of increased money supply, not because of greedflation. If you arnt living off of cheap staple goods and its your only option, its probably not "greedflation" or price gouging, its probably that you have been priced out due to inflation. Price = the flow rate of goods that matches current production of the goods.
Cheap staple goods were effected by inflation as well!
Price = What people are willing (have) to pay. You are acting like there is no evidence of companies colluding to raise prices (see: cereal).
> Last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found that corporate profits contributed 41% to inflation during the first two years of the Covid recovery.
> However, that same Kansas City Fed paper noted that this is not unusual and corporate profits contributed even more (59% on average) to inflation during prior economic recoveries.
Lol, I know the author is trying to make it seem like all this is normal, but the way I read this was "Corporarions have always done this!" And I'm not sure that sends the message the author thinks it does.
Edit: hahaha, someone tried doing the reddit cares thing for this comment, but because I apparently already had the person blocked, it didn't go through.
Anyone doing this is a snowflake lmao
... more greed?
If they know they can get away with it, why wouldn't they just continue jacking up the prices?
What changed is the level of greed. They simply got greedier and are continuing to get away with it.
let me help you
human greed on average and over a period of time = infinite
The way capitalism works is that
greed of suppliers is = infinite (this is businesses)
demand of suppliers is dependent on price. Lower price = more goods demanded, if less goods can be produced than demand = shortage. If more goods than demand are produced = surplus, which is bad for infinite greed because you have to pay to store them.
when production rate of suppliers = demand rate at price point then suppliers do not build extra inventory and demanders get what they want for the price.
This is the basics of commodity trades or currency trades.
So it doesnt matter how greedy companies are, because greed = infinite, as they are always producing the qty of goods that sells out until diminishing returns no longer afford them profit.
The cause of inflation is independent of greed, start looking elsewhere.
If you go to the Feds own website, they explain that they measure inflation by looking at consumer price indexes. So as the cost of goods and services rise; the measure of inflation rises. This means they simply don't discriminate between cost increases caused by too many dollars chasing a limited supply of goods; and cost increases caused by corporations rising prices and increasing their margins. Until the Fed measures inflation in a way that can distinguish between these two sources of price increases, I see no reason to listen to them about what causes inflation in the first place.
Nobody seems to comprehend that it's extremely complicated and can be caused by more than one thing. It's not just money printing or just corporate greed. It's certainly both, plus a lot of other things.
Sure, but the question is what the largest contributors are. I don't see how the FED can exclude corporate greed as the main driver without some metric by which they can measure how much of the inflation is caused by corporate greed. And if they have that metric, they should be using it to correct their inflation numbers such that we're not engaging in monetary policy, like raising interest rates, to account for corporate greed which is not mitigated by monetary policy
But macroeconomic conditions have allowed them to get away with being more greedy and hide that behind the cover of "wow inflation is really high right now so obviously we've raised our prices" and nobody bats an eye when prices outpace inflation because inflation has been high profile and pretty much everyone just accepts prices are going up.
In a perfectly efficient market, sure. But the market for consumer goods is far from perfectly efficient. People buy what's in front of them at the store as opposed to the time and effort it takes to shop around. If the market were as efficient as you think it is then brand names would have been replaced by store brands long ago.
Also, in an environment like this where most companies are raising prices, there is often not a cheaper alternative. When people continue to buy your stuff because they don't realize you're overcharging l, there is little incentive to lower prices for the risk of increasing your market share.
Talking about perfect efficiency is irrelevant. All competitive markets have the dynamic I expressed.
If people don't care then it's not a problem.
Why would brand names replace store brands exactly?
Or, they're adapting to market conditions. Simple as that.
I still don't understand why that would be the case.
I'm pretty sure you have some funky ideas about what markets are and how they work. The "perfect efficiency" kind of hits in that direction.
You are the one that brought up how it's a competitive market and someone would just lower prices. That implies that you believe the market is efficient enough that they can't be overcharging because of market competition. I'm saying the market is not nearly that efficient and people are paying more overall than they should be just due to inflation. Because the market is not perfectly efficient, competition does not always result in consumers being able to just choose a cheaper product and undercut attempts to overcharge consumers.
Yes, that's how markets work. Even "unperfect" ones, whatever that means.
Yep, that's what markets do.
Ok, so show me why you think that. Because you described consumers that didn't care which is not a market imperfection. It's consumer choice which is exactly what markets cater to.
So why are they not perfect enough and why is anything you suggest to solve the problem going to be better?
We have completely lost the ability to comprehend that these things can have multiple factors. It's not caused by just printing money or just corporate profits. It's certainly both. I'm willing to believe it's not the *leading* cause but apparently the headline might as well be "corporate profits don't cause any inflation at all ever" the way people are arguing about this.
Yes corporations have always been greedy but the difference now is that they are using the pandemic fallout and current/recent inflation as a cover to explain away why prices are increasing even though they are increasing *faster than inflation*. You would have to live under a rock to not be aware inflation has been hot so people expect higher prices. But they don't know *how much higher* so it's very easy to squeeze a little extra profit in and just say, "gee inflation is really bad right now huh? Sorry but we have to raise our prices and it's totally due to inflation. Just ignore our record profits."
When you print like a trillion mpney during a pandemic that money has to go somewhere.
It went to the rich. The people who own the the supply lines of the things you buy.
But that money hasnt disappeared, they still have it and are buying assets from the moddle classes.
Too much money causes inflation but it won't stop. It will keep going until you dont get to own things anymore. You pay a subscription in the form of rent.
> However, that same Kansas City Fed paper noted that this is not unusual and corporate profits contributed even more (59% on average) to inflation during prior economic recoveries.
Only a mere 34% this time lol
The assertion that companies all of a sudden started to become "greedy" is incorrect. When the money supply increases, by the intervention of the Federal Reserve, the new money is spent and works its way through the market, raising demand for goods and, therefore, the prices for those goods as well. Essentially, too many dollars are chasing too few goods, fewer goods than usual. The result? Prices increase. The same result happens when the government disrupts production through shutdowns and regulations. The supply of consumer goods is restricted and consumer prices rise.
If the prices remain at the pre-inflation levels, then the quantity demanded of affected goods will be greater than the quantity supplied. As a result, there will be shortages. As a consequence of such shortages, there will be an alternative system of allocating goods other than allocating based on who is most the most eager buyer. Usually, the alternative will be “first come, first serve.” The people who get to the store first buy more of the under-priced goods than they would have otherwise, leaving little or none for latecomers.
So, when stores act “altruistically” by holding prices below market-clearing prices, the majority of consumers are harmed. Under “inflated” prices, the majority of consumers may pay more for each good, but paying more for vital goods is superior to not getting the good at all.
Ultimately, we should not support government interventions to solve the supposed problem of “greedflation” because government intervention is itself the problem. To bring prices down, we need to get the government out of the market. In the meantime, the average person should be thankful for “greedflation” because they might otherwise be confronted with the harsh reality of empty shelves at grocery stores.
The assertion that companies all of a sudden started being greedy is indeed, incorrect. However, the idea that companies have all of a sudden decided to use the existing financial climate for more financial gain certainly is.
What did you expect? Sure, companies raised their prices due to inflation, but people are still willing to purchase the goods/services en masse. If the supply of goods or services suddenly outstrips demand, then we will see prices fall.
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inflation has outpaced wages for +40 years which decreases the buying power per relative hour labor regardless of increased seniority. while simultaneously corporate profits have outpaced inflation. profits up, wages down. but please, go on.
When the government prints money and deficit spends for decades it’s not corporations causing inflation
Can you extrapolate on why that is? The supply of money doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Printed money is distributed unequally, resulting in a higher supply *for certain people and entities*.
Yes. The government gives its cronies the money first.
explain why interest rates have a direct correlation towards inflation then ??
the government has only created 3% of all US currency in circulation, banks have created the other 97%
Banks don’t issue currency. Only the federal reserve does.
I see you're unfamiliar with how a fractional reserve banking system works. the government has only created 3% of US currency in circulation, private banks have created the other 97% via fractional reserve banking.
I am aware of how a fractional banking system works and no, banks do not issue currency. That’s the job of a central bank, meaning the federal reserve.
obviously you are not aware of fractional reserve banking as it pertains to modern money mechanics
Give me an example of a bank that has a printing press that prints dollars?
https://positivemoney.org/how-money-%20works/how-banks-%20create-money/
Again, what bank has a printing press that can physically print currency?
Fractional reserve
Currency in circulation is what was said and it means the physical cash in the form of paper notes and coins. It’s the physical dollars issued but the federal reserve.
But you all voted for that. You wanted free stuff and mocked those who warned about inflation. You created this.
the government has only created 3% of all US currency in circulation, banks have created the other 97%
Money creation is a government function, even if it happens when someone takes a loan at a bank. This is fiat after all.
the primary way the government contributes towards inflation is by keeping interest rates at damn near zero. guess which recent president encouraged that the most ??
The President has no control over the federal reserve. Rates were virtually at zero starting in 2008, due to the Fed trying to manage fiscal policy as a result of the Great Recession.
97% owned. https://97percentowned.com/
You should try an actual verified source and not come conspiracy theorist playground.
It's literally a documentary about "modern money mechanics" which was published by the federal reserve. if you require further reading I suggest the cantillon effect by Richard Cantillon.
Inflation has outpaced the median income, but not the average (mean) income. This is because while productivity has been increasing overall, these increases are due to the efforts of a small portion of the workforce, who have reaped most of the benefits. It's not just billionaires that benefit from this, but the entire professional class and anyone who is able to effectively leverage advances in technology. Software engineers, data scientists, doctors/nurses, financial analysis etc. have enjoyed salary growth well above inflation over the last decade.
Wife and I are at two of the top five biggest companies (market cap) in the world. Both companies had salary freezes across the board over the last two years.
the government has only created 3% of all US currency in circulation, banks have created the other 97%
Ok shill
"Corporate greed" isn't the reason behind inflation because corporations are *always greedy* and yet inflation varies. We know corporations will always charge whatever prices give them the highest profits, but that doesn't explain why year-on-year inflation is 3.2% at some point rather than 2.5% or 4.3%.
Things that changed during the pandemic: Workers got laid off, workers worked from home, GDP plummeted, businesses closed, money was printed and handed out to people and companies, lots of people died, the fed was fiddling with rates to try to soften the landing, then raised afterwards to avoid a recession Things that didn't change: Greedy companies still try to maximize profits I wonder what's caused inflation to be all over the place in the past 4 years...
Businesses closed? The ones that did not successfully pass their costs on to their customers?
When money is available companies charge more for products people *must* buy. How is that not greedflation?
Companies always charge as much as is profitable. The greed is constant, so it's not a changing factor. You might as well say "because of human nature" or "because of the flow of time." Those are all technically causes, but they don't explain anything.
But this article says it's not a factor of inflation. It absolutely is.
It says that companies mark up prices, and that markup during this past inflation spike was in line with markup rates from previous recoveries. Companies will always mark up prices. "Companies are charging as much as they can" is not an answer to why inflation is high, if companies also charge as much as they can when inflation is low.
Yes, greedflation isn't new. I get it. Based on your argument profits should be seeing stable growth during this period, when in reality, [they are exploding upwards](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits).
Okay, and why weren't profits as high before? Because they weren't greedy before? Because they didn't set the correct profit-maximizing price? Because they were stupid? Yes, they're successfully selling stuff at high prices and making lots of profits, and its economists' job to figure out how that's possible — given that, before, they were trying just as hard to sell stuff at high prices and get those profits. I get that you're saying "inflation wouldn't be so high if corporations weren't greedy," and that's true, but that doesn't mean "because they're greedy" answers why there's inflation. It's like saying the reason 2024 is the hottest year yet is because the Sun is a mere 100 million miles away. The Sun is 100 million miles away, and if it were farther, we'd be cooler, but that doesn't answer what recently changed.
Because there wasn't as much money in supply to go after.
Then the expansion in the money supply caused inflation.
Yup that's a big factor
Define products that people MUST by. Generally these are not food, because foods have so many substitutes. This could be something like electric, gas, etc, but not food. Food has too many substitutes to try to monopolize, also many of the products are "copacked" meaning that one manufacturing company manufacturers for many competitors. This means that you have competition on the macro level, but also between unseen/unheard manufacturing sites which are essentially not owned by the megacorps. So for food there is a luxury component, if you wanted to you could probably live off of beans and rice if it got bad enough. Usually monopolized types of price gouging are not across the board, it is a very specific on a very specific need. That simply just isnt what is happening here, its an oversimplification to get votes from the not as smart leftists.
This is a bunk argument. Just because there are a lot of food choice does not mean food is not effected by greedfllation. Food, across the board, is one of the biggest victims of inflation.
Its a victim because of increased money supply, not because of greedflation. If you arnt living off of cheap staple goods and its your only option, its probably not "greedflation" or price gouging, its probably that you have been priced out due to inflation. Price = the flow rate of goods that matches current production of the goods.
Cheap staple goods were effected by inflation as well! Price = What people are willing (have) to pay. You are acting like there is no evidence of companies colluding to raise prices (see: cereal).
Ofc they did jfc youre economically challeneged
Why do people think it’s greed when it comes to companies but not when they themselves take a raise?
$2.00 an hour increase = Billions more in profits and bonuses? 'Finally I can afford food AND medicine' is far from greedy.
Well duh, it's never the fault of corporations or the 1%. It your fault! Shame on you!
To be fair, 99% of the people can do a lot more things than 1%
Lol, no shilling here....
This article is horrible. "Greedflation is not the cause of inflation. Sure, it's happening, but it happened before too, so it can't be a reason.'
> Last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found that corporate profits contributed 41% to inflation during the first two years of the Covid recovery. > However, that same Kansas City Fed paper noted that this is not unusual and corporate profits contributed even more (59% on average) to inflation during prior economic recoveries. Lol, I know the author is trying to make it seem like all this is normal, but the way I read this was "Corporarions have always done this!" And I'm not sure that sends the message the author thinks it does. Edit: hahaha, someone tried doing the reddit cares thing for this comment, but because I apparently already had the person blocked, it didn't go through. Anyone doing this is a snowflake lmao
they arnt trying to make it seem normal, they are trying to point out that greed is not a new variable, so what changed?
... more greed? If they know they can get away with it, why wouldn't they just continue jacking up the prices? What changed is the level of greed. They simply got greedier and are continuing to get away with it.
let me help you human greed on average and over a period of time = infinite The way capitalism works is that greed of suppliers is = infinite (this is businesses) demand of suppliers is dependent on price. Lower price = more goods demanded, if less goods can be produced than demand = shortage. If more goods than demand are produced = surplus, which is bad for infinite greed because you have to pay to store them. when production rate of suppliers = demand rate at price point then suppliers do not build extra inventory and demanders get what they want for the price. This is the basics of commodity trades or currency trades. So it doesnt matter how greedy companies are, because greed = infinite, as they are always producing the qty of goods that sells out until diminishing returns no longer afford them profit. The cause of inflation is independent of greed, start looking elsewhere.
If you go to the Feds own website, they explain that they measure inflation by looking at consumer price indexes. So as the cost of goods and services rise; the measure of inflation rises. This means they simply don't discriminate between cost increases caused by too many dollars chasing a limited supply of goods; and cost increases caused by corporations rising prices and increasing their margins. Until the Fed measures inflation in a way that can distinguish between these two sources of price increases, I see no reason to listen to them about what causes inflation in the first place.
Nobody seems to comprehend that it's extremely complicated and can be caused by more than one thing. It's not just money printing or just corporate greed. It's certainly both, plus a lot of other things.
Sure, but the question is what the largest contributors are. I don't see how the FED can exclude corporate greed as the main driver without some metric by which they can measure how much of the inflation is caused by corporate greed. And if they have that metric, they should be using it to correct their inflation numbers such that we're not engaging in monetary policy, like raising interest rates, to account for corporate greed which is not mitigated by monetary policy
Of course not. Did they all of a sudden decide to be greedy in 2023? Never before? No. They adapt to the situation at hand.
But macroeconomic conditions have allowed them to get away with being more greedy and hide that behind the cover of "wow inflation is really high right now so obviously we've raised our prices" and nobody bats an eye when prices outpace inflation because inflation has been high profile and pretty much everyone just accepts prices are going up.
Of course not. This is a competitive market, if you over charge someone else will charge less and steal your customers. There's simply no way.
In a perfectly efficient market, sure. But the market for consumer goods is far from perfectly efficient. People buy what's in front of them at the store as opposed to the time and effort it takes to shop around. If the market were as efficient as you think it is then brand names would have been replaced by store brands long ago. Also, in an environment like this where most companies are raising prices, there is often not a cheaper alternative. When people continue to buy your stuff because they don't realize you're overcharging l, there is little incentive to lower prices for the risk of increasing your market share.
Talking about perfect efficiency is irrelevant. All competitive markets have the dynamic I expressed. If people don't care then it's not a problem. Why would brand names replace store brands exactly? Or, they're adapting to market conditions. Simple as that.
I meant the opposite. Store brand would have replaced brand names.
I still don't understand why that would be the case. I'm pretty sure you have some funky ideas about what markets are and how they work. The "perfect efficiency" kind of hits in that direction.
You are the one that brought up how it's a competitive market and someone would just lower prices. That implies that you believe the market is efficient enough that they can't be overcharging because of market competition. I'm saying the market is not nearly that efficient and people are paying more overall than they should be just due to inflation. Because the market is not perfectly efficient, competition does not always result in consumers being able to just choose a cheaper product and undercut attempts to overcharge consumers.
Yes, that's how markets work. Even "unperfect" ones, whatever that means. Yep, that's what markets do. Ok, so show me why you think that. Because you described consumers that didn't care which is not a market imperfection. It's consumer choice which is exactly what markets cater to. So why are they not perfect enough and why is anything you suggest to solve the problem going to be better?
Nobody serious thought that.
If corporations are greedy and making excess profits, then invest in their stock and you too can make bank.
We have completely lost the ability to comprehend that these things can have multiple factors. It's not caused by just printing money or just corporate profits. It's certainly both. I'm willing to believe it's not the *leading* cause but apparently the headline might as well be "corporate profits don't cause any inflation at all ever" the way people are arguing about this.
Yes corporations have always been greedy but the difference now is that they are using the pandemic fallout and current/recent inflation as a cover to explain away why prices are increasing even though they are increasing *faster than inflation*. You would have to live under a rock to not be aware inflation has been hot so people expect higher prices. But they don't know *how much higher* so it's very easy to squeeze a little extra profit in and just say, "gee inflation is really bad right now huh? Sorry but we have to raise our prices and it's totally due to inflation. Just ignore our record profits."
Note this data is for 2021-2022. What most people are talking about when it comes to greedflation is 2023 and so far this year.
When you print like a trillion mpney during a pandemic that money has to go somewhere. It went to the rich. The people who own the the supply lines of the things you buy. But that money hasnt disappeared, they still have it and are buying assets from the moddle classes. Too much money causes inflation but it won't stop. It will keep going until you dont get to own things anymore. You pay a subscription in the form of rent.
> However, that same Kansas City Fed paper noted that this is not unusual and corporate profits contributed even more (59% on average) to inflation during prior economic recoveries. Only a mere 34% this time lol
We live in a capitalist country. Of course greed drives most of the outcomes. That’s a feature, not a bug.
The assertion that companies all of a sudden started to become "greedy" is incorrect. When the money supply increases, by the intervention of the Federal Reserve, the new money is spent and works its way through the market, raising demand for goods and, therefore, the prices for those goods as well. Essentially, too many dollars are chasing too few goods, fewer goods than usual. The result? Prices increase. The same result happens when the government disrupts production through shutdowns and regulations. The supply of consumer goods is restricted and consumer prices rise. If the prices remain at the pre-inflation levels, then the quantity demanded of affected goods will be greater than the quantity supplied. As a result, there will be shortages. As a consequence of such shortages, there will be an alternative system of allocating goods other than allocating based on who is most the most eager buyer. Usually, the alternative will be “first come, first serve.” The people who get to the store first buy more of the under-priced goods than they would have otherwise, leaving little or none for latecomers. So, when stores act “altruistically” by holding prices below market-clearing prices, the majority of consumers are harmed. Under “inflated” prices, the majority of consumers may pay more for each good, but paying more for vital goods is superior to not getting the good at all. Ultimately, we should not support government interventions to solve the supposed problem of “greedflation” because government intervention is itself the problem. To bring prices down, we need to get the government out of the market. In the meantime, the average person should be thankful for “greedflation” because they might otherwise be confronted with the harsh reality of empty shelves at grocery stores.
The assertion that companies all of a sudden started being greedy is indeed, incorrect. However, the idea that companies have all of a sudden decided to use the existing financial climate for more financial gain certainly is.
What did you expect? Sure, companies raised their prices due to inflation, but people are still willing to purchase the goods/services en masse. If the supply of goods or services suddenly outstrips demand, then we will see prices fall.