You’d be surprised at how few importers actually provide most of the imported foodstuffs in the U.K. - Lamex and IPL for instance. Brexit has made importing untenable for a lot of smaller operations due to the red tape, and many have moved their buying to import agencies or domestic wholesalers.

There are quite a few significant supply bottlenecks in the U.K. food supply chain, from supermarkets to wholesalers to importers, and they do allow for price fixing - demonstrably so in the case of supermarkets and domestic produce.

Not to veer off into the psychology of it, but there's just such an overwhelming desire by most people to place blame for any misfortune on some intentional human behavior.

It's the root of conspiracy theories - it's much easier and nicer to think there's some cartoon villain somewhere making your life miserable; it's much harder to admit that the world is just annoying and painful.

Also with a "big evil" you can tell yourself that removing that evil would solve everything.

A lot of times, the villainy is really the collective self-interest of thousand of people in a supply chain or open market. No one is going to willingly pay more or sell for less than they can get at any step of the way.

I use housing as a good example since it's been a major driver of inflation and most houses are sold peer to peer on the open market. If you're selling your house and you see comparable houses selling for $900K, but you only need $750K to earn enough profit to buy your next house, what are you going to do? Sell for the lowest price you can afford? Or sell for the highest price you can get? You'd sell for the highest price. And that same calculation gets played out at every level of every transaction in every corner of the global marketplace. Yet nobody would think of themselves as being a villain for doing it. Or be accused of gouging.

From that comes NIMBY; everyone agrees that something should be done but nobody wants to do it. We really don't like be presented with 'we cause things too.'

The house sale is a perfect example, and is something to meditate on. (One solution is 'competition' such as making sure new houses are being built, other companies can produce food, etc.)

I see a lot of millenial/gen z commenters complaining that the previous generations were able to build wealth by buying affordable homes and watching them appreciate faster than inflation. And they want in on the same deal. It's simply not possible. For one, we haven't built housing to keep pace with population growth which skews supply and demand. NIMBYs are a big reason why. Secondly, in order for a home to be a valuable investment, it must by definition become less affordable for the next generation. Otherwise, it's not increasing the wealth of the owner. The only sustainable option is to match supply to demand such that houses pace or even lag inflation which makes them no longer be a viable store of wealth and instead remain affordable and available to everyone. The Boomers got a sweet deal and realistically, no one should ever get that deal again.

Well, also, we know from behavioral economics that people behave their most irrationally when they try to perceive value.

When a store runs out of flour, people don't get as mad at the store as if they raised the prices but keeps flour on the shelf. Despite the fact that having an expensive option for flour always leaves you better off than having no option.

After Hurricane Katrina there were some prominent examples of people being arrested under anti-scalping laws for trying to haul in food and generators from other areas to sell.

It's always the case. Someone, somewhere, is taking the opportunity to put prices up. It might be in some cases that it's triggered by a shortage, but they're still putting prices up because they can.

I appreciate the feedback, but I think it's unhelpful to dismiss what I said as "lazy". I have an economics background and am certainly not a "blame corporations" reactionary.

Companies are smart. When news gets spread far and wide about a shortage of eggs or other products due to disease or wars or "supply chain issues", they leap to take advantage of this consumer consciousness by increasing their prices, knowing the consumer will blame the larger macro factor and not the company. This has been well-documented, even in cases where the supply chain issues didn't actually impact the company that raised prices.

The best way to understand what's happening is via corporate earnings calls. They're upfront with their strategy when talking to investors.

For more info I'd recommend listening to this episode: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-09/corporate...

Sure, but firms reacting normally to consumer price inelasticity during supply shocks is not exactly noteworthy. The noteworthy thing here is that there are supply shocks on so many different fronts at once.

I don't deny that corporations will try to make a buck taking advantage of favorable price-over-volume plays when they can, but I think it's crazy that people think during a global energy and fertilizer shortage Walmart just decided to throw out all of their low-price volume corporate strategy just to screw customers over egg prices.

"firms reacting normally" according to who?

I'd expect decent firms to not try to gouge customers who are already hurting at the time when they most are, but maybe "normal" means "sociopathic" in the context of amoral unrestricted capitalism