Wall Street Thrives On Inflation As Consumers Suffer

One of the side effects of inflation is that it makes it easier for corporations to justify price hikes, which makes consumers spend more, which fuels – you guessed it – more inflation, Allison Morrow reported for CNN Business.

Photo Insert: The New York Stock Exchange

According to the Wall Street Journal, about two-thirds of the largest publicly traded US companies have reported fatter profit margins in the first nine months of this year than in the same period in 2019.

In other words, even as costs for raw materials, labor, and transportation have increased, big corporations are offsetting those costs by raising prices on consumers.

Hertz isn’t alone in that, of course. Car and truck rental prices broadly surged nearly 40% in October from the year before, according to government data. That’s partly because of resurgent demand combined with a global computer chip shortage that’s made it difficult, if not impossible, to beef up their fleets.

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