Joe Biden is turning to anti-trust authorities in order to tackle rising inflation, which he believes is driven by lack of corporate competition.
The rising inflation in America is attributed to the surging supply chain crisis and the shortage of workers in many industries, for which Biden is about to take anti-trust actions.
Democrats asked relevant authorities to clamp down on industry giants
President Biden asked the Agriculture Department to dig deeper into the rising meat prices by investigating meatpackers’ heavyweights, which control a big chunk of the poultry and pork meat industry.
The president accused them of causing price hikes and underpaying farmers to triple their profit during the coronavirus pandemic.
Similarly, in order to tackle the rising gas inflation, the president advised the Federal Trade Commission to investigate oil giants, accusing them of artificially keeping prices up.
The administration has even portrayed that oil companies are deliberately keeping the prices up, despite a global decline in gas prices in recent weeks.
As prices rise, President Biden turns to antitrust enforcers https://t.co/zPxMseVPGr
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) December 26, 2021
This anti-trust effort does not end here, as the administration reached the Federal Maritime Commission, asking the department to look into the behavior of large shipping companies causing supply chain disruptions.
According to the New York Times, Biden is of the view that a few large industries in every sector are controlling prices, keeping them above the level the competitive market allows.
Biden is using anti-trust measures to increase government outreach
Experts believe Biden is taking it as an opportunity to increase government overreach in the country, which is helping him in promoting anti-trust efforts, which he always wanted to pursue, even without inflation.
For instance, in July, Biden signed an executive order consisting of 72 directives for independent agencies to pursue anti-trust laws. This was done before any rise in inflation.
The president also nominated anti-trust people for key positions, including the nomination of Lina Khan for the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, coupled with Jonathan Kanter, an ardent advocate of breaking Facebook and Google, for the anti-trust wing of the Justice Department.
Similarly, Tim Wu, who is a famous advocate of breaking big tech giants into smaller companies, was brought into the administration as Biden’s adviser on competition issues.
Brain Deese, the head of the White House National Economic Council, indicated Biden’s attempt to increase competition in the United States market would encourage innovation, which would help start-ups in the country to thrive.
Likewise, he added doing this will automatically bring prices of basic commodities down.
These anti-trust efforts of Joe Biden angered many big players of American industries, which according to them, will worsen the supply chain crisis by further intensifying labor shortages.
It is always good to tackle issues that could improve the RGDP/inflation split, but fundamentally the pace of nominal spending that we saw in 2021 is not sustainable and it needs to come down. https://t.co/qq4890MrU9
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 26, 2021
For instance, the US Chamber of Commerce blamed the Biden administration for interfering with the job of independent agencies.
Neil Bradley, a senior-level official of the chamber, noted these sorts of measures would hardly do anything to control inflation in the country.
