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Fetterman Calls for Prosecution of Corporate Executives 'Gouging Consumers'
"It's gross, and deeply unpatriotic, for the big corporations to be rolling around in cash while charging us record-high prices for gas and groceries," said the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.
Aug 22, 2022
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman made the case Sunday for prosecuting corporate executives as part of a broader government crackdown on unlawful price gouging and other business practices that have driven up the costs of medicine, groceries, and gas--padding company bottom lines at the expense of consumers.
"Take the massive oil companies, for example," the Democratic candidate wrote in an op-ed for the Pennsylvania Times Leader. "Chevron, Exxon, and Shell have seen their profits increase 200% since last year, but they're still charging us sky-high prices for gas. Companies like Tyson posted over a billion dollars in profits last quarter, while raising prices on meat products our families depend on."
"Out-of-touch politicians got us into this mess, we can't trust an out-of-touch millionaire TV doctor to get us out of it."
"It's gross, and deeply unpatriotic, for the big corporations to be rolling around in cash while charging us record-high prices for gas and groceries," wrote Fetterman, who is currently Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor. "We'll crack down on this by prosecuting the executives of these huge corporations, including the Big Oil companies and meatpacking companies who are artificially driving up prices, gouging consumers at the pump and at the grocery store."
Fetterman's op-ed comes just over a week after he held his first major public event since suffering a stroke in mid-May, days before the Democratic primary contest that he won handily.
The Democrat's general election campaign in the critical battleground Pennsylvania--a state that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year--currently enjoys a double-digit polling lead over his Republican opponent, the former celebrity television personality and ultra-millionaire Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Fetterman is looking to press his advantage by continuing to deploy populist messaging that presents Oz as a carpetbagger whose extreme wealth and ties to corporate interests such as Big Pharma render him unfit to deliver for the working class, whose earnings are being eroded by surging prescription drug prices, housing costs, and other inflationary trends.
According to one recent analysis, pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. have raised drug prices more than 1,100 times so far this year.
"Let's be clear: Dr. Oz just isn't connected to the struggles that Pennsylvanians are facing every day," Fetterman wrote in his new op-ed. "While he's been complaining about rising prices from his New Jersey Mansion, I've been meeting Pennsylvanians on grocery store runs, speaking with them about the challenges they're facing, and finding real policy solutions that get stuff done and make their lives better."
"Working Pennsylvanians are getting screwed," he continued. "While costs are rising and wages are failing to keep up, too many of our leaders in Washington simply aren't doing enough. Out-of-touch politicians got us into this mess, we can't trust an out-of-touch millionaire TV doctor to get us out of it."
In addition to prosecuting corporate executives for price-gouging and other abuses, Fetterman voices support for a range of policy solutions aimed at tackling rising costs and inequality, including:
- Enacting a financial transaction tax on trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives;
- Ending the stranglehold of healthcare costs on American families by instituting a cap of a thousand dollars per year on out-of-pocket costs;
- Passing legislation to allow for the importation of lower-priced prescription drugs from other countries; and
- Putting a cap on prescription drug costs.
"If we start getting stuff done, starting with these priorities I've listed," Fetterman wrote, "we can make real change for the towns, cities, and people of Pennsylvania."
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Data Highlights 'Egregious' Pandemic Profiteering by US Food and Oil Giants
On the eve of a congressional hearing on corporate price hikes, a new analysis shows that "companies are hiding behind the pandemic and supply chain disruptions as an excuse to gouge consumers."
Feb 01, 2022
A new analysis released Tuesday ahead of a congressional hearing on pandemic-era price gouging shows that U.S. corporations in the food and energy sectors--from Tyson to Exxon Mobil--are pushing higher costs onto consumers while raking in ever-increasing revenues and handing executives massive pay packages.
Conducted by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW), the analysis spotlights the fact that skyrocketing food and energy--specifically gasoline--prices have been major contributors to the overall rise of inflation in the U.S. Between December 2019 and December 2021, the nation's Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped by 8.5%.
"Many companies have subsequently fattened executive compensation while worker wages have stagnated."
According to FWW, overall energy costs rose 20% over that period while the price per gallon of unleaded gasoline increased by 31.7%.
Meanwhile, FWW found, "the cost to feed a family of four on a 'thrifty' food plan has increased by 33.5%," driven by the rising prices of ground beef (+19.2%), bacon (+31.7%), chicken breasts (+19.7%), milk (+17.4%), and eggs (+16.5%).
The analysis emphasizes that such "egregious" price increases come as leading corporations in the U.S. food and energy sectors are reporting growing revenues and huge profits. Tyson Foods--the second-largest chicken, beef, and pork processor in the world--has seen its revenue grow 11% above pre-pandemic levels.
The corporation also rewarded its top executives with higher pay in 2021 even as it raised prices for consumers, blaming supply chain issues.
Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food & Water Watch, argued in a statement Tuesday that "companies are hiding behind the pandemic and supply chain disruptions as an excuse to gouge consumers."
"In reality, 2021 revenues among the largest food and energy corporations topped pre-pandemic levels," said Starbuck. "Many companies have subsequently fattened executive compensation while worker wages have stagnated or even dropped."
FWW's analysis was published on the eve of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing scheduled for Wednesday titled, "Pandemic Profiteers: Legislation to Stop Corporate Price Gouging."
"We spent a half-century allowing business executives and financiers to take control of our supply chains."
One of the witnesses set to testify at the hearing is Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Rakeen Mabud, who on Monday co-authored an article in The American Prospect arguing that recent product shortages and price hikes were "brought to life through bad public policy coupled with decades of corporate greed."
"We spent a half-century allowing business executives and financiers to take control of our supply chains, enabled by leaders in both parties," wrote Mabud and David Dayen, the Prospect's executive editor. "They all hailed the transformation, cheering the advances of globalization, the efficient network that would free us from want. Motivated by greed and dismissive of the public interest, they didn't mention that their invention was supremely ill-equipped to handle inevitable supply bottlenecks."
"And the pandemic exposed this hidden risk," they added, "like a domino bringing down a system primed to topple."
Mabud is expected to reiterate that conclusion before lawmakers at Wednesday's House hearing. According to her prepared testimony, Mabud will contend that "big corporations have taken advantage of shifting demand to raise prices on essentials like Covid tests, masks, and hand sanitizer, all to generate record profits."
"Our economy works best when it works for all of us, but deeply entrenched concentrated corporate power has systematically stripped down supply chains and undermined consumers' bargaining power," Mabud plans to say. "The path towards an inclusive, resilient economy must include policies that foster competitive markets where consumers, working people, and smaller competitors all have meaningful bargaining power."
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Dr. Rakeen Mabud of the Groundwork Collaborative.
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Agro-Imperialism in the Time of Covid-19
All this greed at the top leaves devastation and little to trickle down to the bottom, where its consequences are deadly.
Jul 14, 2020
Nestle, the world's largest food company, is known for scandal. It earned the nickname "babykiller" in the 1970s for causing infant illness and death in low-income communities by promoting bottle feeding of its infant formula and discouraging breastfeeding. In recent years, similar charges have been made against the company for contributing to soaring rates of obesity and diabetes in poor communities by targeting them for sales of ultra-processed junk foods. But there's another scandal of equally grim proportions that is contained within the company's accounting sheets.
On April 23, 2020, with the world in the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic and the FAO warning of a looming global food crisis, Nestle's shareholders and executives awarded themselves a record dividend payout of US$8 billion. In a time of a global health and food crisis, this handout is worth more than the entire annual budget for the UN's World Food Programme and would be enough to cover the average annual expenditures on health care for more than 100 million people in Africa.
Nestle's massive 2020 dividend payment was, in fact, just a fraction higher than the previous year's. Such large payouts for shareholders and executives is standard practice for the company-- as it is for all the big transnational food and agribusiness companies, even at times of global health catastrophes. Other notable shareholder dividends, announced in April this year, include a US$2.8 billion payout by the world's largest seed and agrochemical company Bayer AG, a US$600 million payout by the world's largest poultry producer Tyson and a US$500 million payout by the world's largest pork company, the WH Group. Cargill, the word's largest agribusiness company, is on track to top last year's record payout of US$640 million, which it makes to just a small number of Cargill family members. Increased e-commerce, particularly of food items, during the Covid-19 crisis increased the net worth of Jeff Bezos, the founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, by a shocking US$24 billion. It is even a rich time for the shareholders of smaller players in the industry, like the oil palm and rubber plantation company SOCFIN. The two French and Belgian families that essentially own the company, received EUR20 million (around US$22.5 million) in dividends and remunerations from SOCFIN's group operations while communities where it operates in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon cannot access clean or safe water.
All this greed at the top leaves devastation and little to trickle down to the bottom, where its consequences are deadly.
A powerful industry in the midst of a "perfect storm"
The labourers in the corporate food system, those who are quite literally dying on the frontlines to sustain the lifestyles of shareholders and executives, are not faring well. The supply chains of the big food companies, which have always been dangerous places for workers, have now become hotspots for Covid-19 infections and transmission. Across the world, there have been deadly outbreaks in meat plants, port facilities, warehouses, fish canneries, oil palm plantations, fruit farms, supermarkets and all other points along the chains that these companies command-- with the exception of their office towers, of course.
The big meat companies have perhaps been the worst offenders. With the Covid-19 pandemic in full bloom, they aggressively sped up their assembly lines to ramp up exports to China, where meat prices are unusually high. This decision was taken in full knowledge that these increases in processing made social distancing impossible and put their workers and the surrounding communities at risk of mass virus outbreaks. By the end of May, the results in the biggest meat exporting nations were horrific: hundreds of migrant meat plant workers sick with Covid-19 in Germany and Spain, thousands of cases of workers ill with Covid-19 in Brazil's meat packing industry, and over 20,000 workers infected with Covid-19 in US meat packing plants, with at least 70 deaths. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of animals are being culled, under atrocious conditions because these massive plants have had to shut production down, and the small abattoirs that could have taken in the livestock, have long since been forced out of business.
The carnage in Latin America, the new epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been particularly severe. With the global economy at a near standstill, agribusiness in the region has continued functioning with total impunity, deepening its impact and harm on communities and ecosystems. In almost all the countries in the region, agro-industrial activities have been exempted from quarantine, as they are considered "essential", even though their focus is on exports, not on providing food to local people.
For example, Ecuador's government issued a state of emergency decree paralysing the country, but ensuring that "all export chains, agricultural industry, livestock [industry] ... will continue to function." As a result, workers in the banana and palm plantations, seafood factories, flower farms, and many more, were forced to continue working as if the country was not under a health emergency, thereby exposing themselves to the risk of contracting Covid-19.
Similarly, the Bolsonaro government in Brazil declared that the production, transport and general logistics of export food chains were essential activities that must continue functioning without restrictions. In this context, exports of meat, soybeans and other commodities are surging - as are the numbers of people exposed to Covid-19 along the export chains. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, a meat export hub, more than a quarter of the confirmed novel coronavirus cases in May were among meat plant workers. Labour prosecutors are now fighting to close infested plants and force companies to implement even basic measures to protect and care for their workers during the pandemic.
Brazil's soybean exports, which are up 38 percent from last year, are another potential hotspot for Covid-19, especially at the ports where trucks and workers are constantly circulating. When the local government of the port town of Canarana in Mato Grosso tried to take action by issuing a decree to pause the export of soybeans and other grains in the absence of proper health and safety conditions, the agribusiness giants Louis Dreyfus and Cargill intervened and were able to reverse the decree within a few days. Canarana is now, in early June, seeing a surge in Covid-19 infections.
All this export frenzy has a tremendous impact on the ground. According to Deter, the real-time detection system of the Brazilian national space research institute, deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil has increased by more than 50 percent in these first three months of 2020 - at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, in comparison to the previous year's first quarter. Taking advantage of the pandemic smoke screen, with fewer inspection agents able to carry out inspection, agribusiness and mining operations are advancing on protected areas and indigenous territories, increasing the contagion of Covid-19 in indigenous populations. Many observers fear a genocide as a result of these reckless advances of agribusiness and mining operations during the pandemic.
Such brazen corporate profiteering is creating a legitimacy crisis for the corporate food system.Amidst the national quarantine in Argentina, soybean exports and forest clearings have not ceased either. In one of the most preserved forests in the entire Gran Chaco ecosystem, an area of 8,000 hectares is being prospected for clearing. Furthermore, based on monitoring with satellite imagery, Greenpeace denounced that almost 10,000 hectares were cleared in the North of the country since the lockdown began.
Such brazen corporate profiteering is creating a legitimacy crisis for the corporate food system. Although the lockdowns make it difficult to measure, the ground appears to be shifting: we see workers in the food industry speaking out, organising and getting more support and solidarity from others; we see increasing interest among consumers in healthy, local foods and the well-being of food producers and farmers; and there's been an undeniable boom in community-oriented efforts to get food to where it's needed through solidarity, mutual aid, volunteer work and cooperatives. There's even been some victories at the policy level, such as the German government's recent decision to ban sub-contracted labour in meat plants and another to prevent companies taking public aid from paying out dividends.
But this is a powerful industry, with ample amounts of cash and political connections at its disposal, and there is no doubt that it will do everything it can to use this moment of confusion and lockdowns to advance its interests. We have already seen this with the executive order that US President Trump issued at the behest of JBS, Tyson, Cargill and other meat corporations to keep their Covid-infested plants running. We have also seen it in Brazil where the Bolsonaro government approved a record 96 new pesticides in the first months of 2020, more than all the approvals for 2019. The same government deliberately used the cover of the pandemic to try and pass a law that would legalise land grabs and deforestation covering 80 million hectares in the Amazon and Cerrado regions. The pandemic has also been used as an opportunity to rapidly expand e-commerce in food retail and push ahead with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Ethiopia and in Bolivia, where the de-facto government claimed that the Covid-19 health emergency made GM seeds a necessity for the country.
Agribusiness as big winner from new wave of structural adjustment
Worse is yet to come. Many governments are employing global consulting firms, like McKinsey, to shape their plans to open their economies back up. These secretive firms which are deeply connected to the world's largest corporations, including those from the food and agribusiness sector, will no doubt influence who emerges as winners and losers from the pandemic responses-- workers or bosses, farmers' markets or e-commerce giants, fisherfolk or the trawling industry.
We are also seeing the IMF and World Bank use their Covid-19 emergency funds to push countries into implementing agribusiness-friendly reforms. In the Ukraine, for example, a law privatising farmland was implemented despite the opposition of a majority of Ukrainians. In the coming months, such pressures will escalate. Dozens of countries are heading for defaults, and those debts will have to be negotiated not only with the IMF and bilateral lenders, but also with private creditors who have already indicated that they are not interested in even delaying debt and interest payments during this health crisis. A new wave of structural adjustment is on the way that will focus heavily on increasing foreign agribusiness investment and exports of agricultural commodities to pay off the vultures.
This time, however, governments are going to find it incredibly difficult to impose a new round of agro-imperialism on populations that have already had more than enough of it, and that are increasingly hungering for the alternatives that social movements have been advancing for decades.
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