PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You got four basic meatpacking facilities. WOODS: The reason we wanted to talk with Sean is because meat prices are rising especially fast - so much so that Joe Biden used the meat industry as an example of inflation and corporate greed in his State of the Union speech earlier this month. It'll come from the grind and go right into the linker. It's going to turn into more of a batter. That's a meat purveyor based in Bangor, Maine. WOODS: Sean Smith is the director of sales and marketing at W.A. SEAN SMITH: So we've got beef, pork, combined spices. So we thought, what better place to learn about the current state of price rises than a visit to a literal sausage factory? And we're seeing especially big jumps in the price of meat. Businesses are jacking up prices everywhere from gas stations to supermarkets. ![]() And this is particularly true in the world of capitalism. WOODS: There is a well-known saying that you don't want to see how the sausage gets made. After the break, we'll pick it up with the corporate greed question. The Federal Reserve just started raising interest rates, so we will figure out how mortgage rates get set and how that rate hike changes things, like what we end up paying for housing. We look into one potential cause of inflation - corporate greed and corporate power - and then a solution to inflation - interest rates. I'm Darian Woods, co-host of PLANET MONEY's shorter daily podcast, The Indicator. Corporate profits have hit these 70-year highs, and inflation is at 40-year highs. More and more companies have tried to merge into bigger companies over the last couple of years. WARREN: One reason for this price gouging is that fewer and fewer markets in America are truly competitive. Here she is speaking at a Senate subcommittee in December. WOODS: Senator Elizabeth Warren is particularly vocal about this. So why would greed lead to inflation now?ĮLIZABETH WARREN: Prices are up at the pump, at the supermarket and online. But corporations have always charged more when they could when people would keep buying. The question goes like this - can we blame inflation on corporate greed? Or another version of the question - corporations are making huge profits, and so why do they need to raise prices? Can they just not do that? Sure. Here's a question that we've been getting in the PLANET MONEY inbox - which, by the way, we do read, so please keep them coming. ![]() SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: This is PLANET MONEY from NPR.
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