Let’s Price Gouge and Recommend Cereal for Dinner

Times are hard for many Americans even though we’re technically not in a recession.

The explanation given by President Biden, economists, and others who watch the economy, for why so many Americans are feeling a crunch in their finances, even though we’re not in a recession, is inflation and price gouging. While inflation, particularly due to supply-chain issues that arose during Covid, is unavoidable if undesirable, price gouging is not. As Nerd wallet reports, “food prices have risen steadily since 2020 thanks to a combination of factors, including inflation, labor costs, the supply chain and the war in Ukraine.” Price gouging is a choice that companies are making to fatten their pockets while cheating American citizens out of the money in theirs. Price gouging, by the way, is not federally prohibited even though it should be.

Democrats have attempted to pass bills that would make the price gouging of gas and consumer goods illegal at the federal level. Senate Democrats introduced the Gas Price Gouging Prevention Act in March of 2022 and the Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2022 in May of 2022. House Democrats introduced a bill called the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act in May of 2022 that received a lot of press. None of these bills were passed.

Recently, in the midst of all this the CEO of Kellogg, Gary Pilnick (who is worth 15 million dollars), thought it was a bright idea to say that struggling Americans can make ends meet by eating cereal for dinner. That’s right. Cereal. I know that the food pyramid has been replaced with MyPlate, but there’s no way that a bowl of cereal gives a growing child, or an adult, the proper nutrients they need for dinner. No way.

In an interview with CNBC, Pilnick said “the price of a bowl of cereal with milk and with fruit is less than a dollar.”

Pilnick thought his comments would be well received. A CNBC reporter deliberately asked him if he thought there was “a potential for that to land the wrong way.” Pilnick confidently responded, “We don’t think so. In fact, it’s landing really well right now.”

Not only was the CEO tone-deaf, but to add insult to injury, Kellogg is one of the companies that has used inflation, and the aftermath of the beginning of the pandemic, to price gouge. As reported by Quartz, “Kellogg’s has repeatedly hiked prices in the last couple of years — even more so than other brands. The company’s average price per unit (box of cereal) was up 17% at the end of 2023, while General Mills, Quaker, and store brand prices were up 12%, according to data compiled by the Star Tribune. That paid off for Kellogg’s, and its profits rose 540% in 2023.”

And this is America. The rich get richer. And the poor get poorer. Elected officials are owned by lobbyists and corporations, and that is who they look out for. The best interest of the average American citizen is never considered. In fact, you would think there isn’t enough money in America to go around, but that’s not the case. The country would rather see all the money concentrated in the hands of a select few, instead of paying workers what they’re worth, and creating a government that supports the wellbeing of the majority of the citizens. In fact, it was just revealed that “the nation’s millionaires and billionaires are evading more than $150 billion a year in taxes, adding to growing government deficits and creating a “lack of fairness” in the tax system, according to the head of the Internal Revenue Service.”

It’s gotten so bad that multi-millionaires think it’s okay to get on the news and tell struggling Americans that they should eat cereal for dinner.

Last November, during the first meeting of the new White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience President Biden said, “any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price gouging. Give the American consumer a break.”

At least consumers are fighting back. Food is 19% more expensive than it was before the pandemic, but it feels like it’s more expensive than that. Food costs are still rising, but at least they’re starting to rise at a slower pace because consumers “shift[ed] away from name brands to store-brand items, switch[ed] to discount stores or simply [bought] fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.” I know this is what I did.

Jeffrey Harmening, CEO of General Mills, which makes Cheerios, Chex Cereal, Progresso soups and dozens of other brands, has acknowledged that his customers are increasingly seeking bargains.

And McDonald’s executives have said that consumers with incomes below $45,000 are visiting less and spending less when they do visit and say the company plans to highlight its lower-priced items.

“Consumers are more wary — and weary — of pricing, and we’re going to continue to be consumer-led in our pricing decisions,” Ian Borden, the company’s chief financial officer, told investors.

I guess that’s a win…

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