They cannot be serious.
In a tweet Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made on Monday, she blamed giant grocery chains for higher prices. Her remarks were met with plenty of criticism online.
In the tweet, Warren stated that grocery store chains were responsible for forcing high food prices onto American families, adding that these activities coincided with executives and investors being rewarded with “lavish bonuses and stock buybacks.” The Democrat then concluded her statement by demanding that these chains “answer for putting corporate profits over consumers and workers during the pandemic.”
The tweet came after she sent a letter to the heads of Albertsons, Publix, and Kroger, in which she lambasted them for exploiting the pandemic and inflation to increase prices.
In the letter, Warren states that major grocers had “reaped the benefits of a turbulent 2020” and wanted to retain those “pandemic gains” by offloading costs onto consumers, saying they were doing this by “taking advantage of inflation.”
This tweet follows exceptional growth experienced by supermarkets during the pandemic as a result of local and state government mandates that restricted access to restaurants and bars, essentially limiting consumers’ choices to grocery stores.
Warren then blasted the chains for their treatment of workers, referencing a choice companies had between maintaining lower prices for consumers and compensating workers or granting “massive payouts to top executives and investors,” saying it was disappointing that they chose the latter.
Critics were quick to point out that Warren was essentially shifting blame by trying to distract from the impact of inflation under the Biden administration, instead choosing to blame grocers.
Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter at The Washington Free Beacon, pointed to Warren and “her political allies” being the biggest catalysts of current inflation. Ben Shapiro, editor emeritus of the Daily Wire, called her a crazy human.
Pradheep Shanker, CEO of the Neoavatara Foundation, questioned whether Warren was once a serious economist, before calling her a clown.
However, the most significant response came from the FMI. In a statement, the FMI said the current prices could be attributed to supply chain challenges –– such as labor and transportation shortages – fuel costs, and increased demand. Before mentioning that grocers were trying to absorb the costs of these.
