February 15

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 Half past February. Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day. Ours was nice and quiet.

Robert Reich has another interesting post on his substance: Fake Brand Competition, Monopoly Power, and Inflation. He makes an interesting case that the more powerful driver of inflation is the power of monopolies (or near monopolies) to increase prices but the usual focus on for blame, by the media and government, is labor costs. He asks why and I can think of a couple of reasons. Concentration in various industries are often hidden. Reich mentions Molson Cours, Unileaver, and Pepsico by name. Cours owns over 100 brands. Back when I did drink beer regularly I stopped drinking a couple of the brands listed because I was aware of Coors had bought them. Needless to say, I don't like Coors as a company. But what do you do when only four companies control meat packing control 54% of chicken processing, 66% of pork packing, and 85% of beef? Consumers have few choices and there is little pressure to keep prices low. But another reason is labor costs are more visible than corporate profits derived from a multitude of brands. Also, the money the industries pour into lobbying and political campaigns far outweighs the contributions of both consumers and workers. Follow the money!!

I found this article on Aeon by way of Naked Capitalism that has been fermenting in my mind along with the articles I mentioned yesterday about proposals to roll back child labor laws. We often make the mistake of considering the social/economic situation we have now as if it were what always existed. However, it has developed over the last three centuries. Before that time we had a "household economy" where most necessities were produced in the home. If you ate something, you probably grew all the ingredients (not many used exotic spices). If you wore something, you probably harvested the fiber, spun the thread, wove the fabric, cut and sewed the garment. If you were ill and took a medicine, you many have made it yourself or consulted a local herbalist. In this kind of economy, children contributed from an early age. A four old could carry a basket to the hen house and collect eggs. A five year old could herd the geese or start learning to spin and a six year old could tend sheep with an adult. Almost all production has moved into the money economy. We can call a number of companies to deliver complete dinners to our door. We can go to Walmart if we need a shirt. At the same time we have become segregated both by age and gender. Children went to school. Men went to work. Women joined them in the workforce later unless they never married or were widowed. Old folks moved into nursing homes or assisted living homes. Maybe we should step back and question our social and economic arrangements. But that will only happen when and where the current system breaks down.