So if I shop at a WalMart (which happens to be the only grocery store still in my area), I am nasty? Don't look know but your ignorant bias is showing.

But I am glad to see that you feel that competition is the best remedy for price and quality issues. Too bad you don't recognize that when government intrudes into that space (i.e. healthcare), competition goes out of the window.

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To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead - Thomas Paine

A lie doesn't become truth, a wrong doesn't become right, and Evil doesn't become good, just because it is accepted by the majority. - Booker T Washington

Yes take the nasty comment to heart if you resemble it.
In this case government should "intrude" to enforce monopoly laws. If they're still on the books. And if not, put some back on those books. With teeth in the bill behind those books.

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On a more positive note, people still can't order dialysis w/o a referral.

You may be misreading my argument.

What you say is certainly correct.

But my point is this: Even when wholesale prices are eventually reduced, retail prices still do not come down.

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"In his second inaugural address, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt sought 'unimagined power' to enforce the 'proper subordination' of private power to public power. He got it…"—George Will, July 8, 2007

bold= truth
The largest companies pay no taxes.

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On a more positive note, people still can't order dialysis w/o a referral.

Yes they have gone up, but nothing like we have been seeing now.

Inflation is being SUPERCHARGED.

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Political Correctness, is Fascism masquerading as manners - George Carlin.

I didn't take it that way as you have never met me and know nothing about me. However, it does reveal quite a bit about you. And let's just say that what it reveals is not flattering.

In which case are you referring, the Healthcare aspect that I brought up or some other boogie man hiding behind a door that you feel is causing prices in general to rise.

Hint: That boogie man you are fearing is the government sticking it's nose into the economy by printing money and driving inflation through the roof.

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To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead - Thomas Paine

A lie doesn't become truth, a wrong doesn't become right, and Evil doesn't become good, just because it is accepted by the majority. - Booker T Washington

Why you ask.....?

Everything starts with co-vid....

Especially construction material prices going crazy....

Some former presidents even brag about it.....

I question whether that's true. I can think of numerous items on which prices have fallen.

I don't know what part of America you are in, but I am in the marketplace everyday. As a buyer and as a seller. Competition is fierce. AS IT SHOULD BE.

You are talking retail only. Everything is more expensive from the source to the shelf. Not because of lack of competition or because of lack of inventory. The shortages are in transportation and asset management because the value of the dollar is dropping before goods can be delivered. Example,,,, I bought a building five months ago. Plenty of lumber available but the manufacturer cannot meet the original contract price until the cost of lumber declines.

The effect of this cascades thru the process of turning raw materials into salable goods long before retailers get the products delivered.

I'm lucky as I had my film supplier buy 12,000 lbs of film last year, at $1.85 a lb. I use it for one customer. Today it would cost almost twice that. And I pay twice for material I need for other customers. Not because of a shortage but because the dollar exchange with the nation where the film is produced has doubled.

My American competition, if they didn't buy right last year, is now at a disadvantage on that one product. But we compete fiercely for other product contracts. All at higher prices. However, countries where the currency is solid, kick my @ss.

That's competition/capitalism suffering the misfortunes of bad government. Not from monopolies.

The only monopoly negatively effecting our economy is the heavy hand of our overblown and reckless government.

To put it bluntly, I cannot buy right with a dollar that has gone wrong.

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I am going to hang a Batman Costume in my closet. .......... Just to screw with myself when I get alzheimer's.
sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura.

I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN, I AM A FREEMAN, THE DEMOCRATS WORST NIGHTMARE