The root of what’s going on here can feel obvious: blame inflation, which picked up in mid-2021 and throughout 2022. But that isn’t really the issue anymore, at least not at the current rate, because inflation is coming down. The actual problem here is prices.
They’re not going up nearly as much as they were in, say, the middle of last year, but they’re by and large not declining en masse, either. And in most cases, they won’t get back to where they were in the Before Times.
This is a great example of why completely de-regulated markets don’t work. It’s the government’s job to ensure that consumers have choices and prevent both regional and outright monopolies.
Provision of choice allows consumers to vote with their wallets unless firms collude to fix prices.
Either way, this is the fault of government regulators.
I do believe market economies are still the most efficient means of managing resources, but there have to be guardrails. Free Market implies that consumers are free to choose, but that choice shouldn’t come down to Option A or Nothing.
Republicans have spent decades hindering federal regulatory bodies when they can’t order them to stand down completely. It may be regulatory failure, but it isn’t all their fault. It’s the fault of free market cultists who were inadvisably given the power to keep the government from doing its job.
I think this is moreso the case of how economics works. Inflation is a one way street because deflation is so much worse. The Great Depression saw -7% deflation.
The free market is like a horse–powerful, but only useful to us when we’ve put proper bounds on it. An untamed market is more likely to kick us in the head than give us a ride.