Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell fielded questions for around 40 minutes on Wednesday following the central bank’s decision to impose another large interest rate hike, but not a single reporter asked about the extent to which record-high corporate profits are fueling inflation even as companies openly boast about their pricing power. Progressive economists have estimated that corporate profits are to blame for at least 40% of price increases during the recovery from the pandemic-induced downturn, a disproportionate contribution to the stubbornly high inflation that is eating away at workers’ wages. Some have put the number at over 50%. The notion…
Windfall profits
Biden’s Critique of Big Oil Won’t Have Teeth Without Windfall Tax, Activists Say
President Joe Biden used a Wednesday speech at the White House to scold fossil fuel companies for raking in huge profits at the expense of U.S. consumers, who are being gashed by high prices at the pump. But instead of calling for a specific policy solution that would force the industry’s hand, Biden asked oil companies to voluntarily stop padding their bottom lines and instead “pass the savings on to consumers.” “So far, American oil companies are using that windfall, the windfall of profits, to buy back their own stock, passing that money on to their shareholders, not to consumers,”…