A Kroger-Albertsons merger could bring even higher food inflation

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Timesmerger of supermarket behemoths Kroger and Albertsons“We will take the learnings from each company to bring greater value and a better experience to more customers, more associates and more communities,” Kroger Chief Executive Rodney McMullen told analysts and investors after the deal was announced last week.

Cable, media and telecommunications companies always promised that their mergers would bring lower prices and more choices for the audience.in 2018, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pledged that the deal would allow the companies to “offer customers a differentiated, high-quality, mobile-first entertainment experience.... We’re going to bring a fresh approach to how the media and entertainment industry works for consumers, content creators, distributors and advertisers.

Back in 2004, the merger of Woodland Hills-based WellPoint into Indianapolis-based Anthem was to produce immense savings from combining the health insurance companies’ computer systems and allowing customers’ medical data to be exploited for their benefit across the new company’s vast reach. “With 60% of grocery sales concentrated among just five national chains, a Kroger-Albertsons deal would squeeze consumers already struggling to afford food, crush workers fighting for fair wages, and destroy independent, community stores,” Miller says. “This merger is a cut-and-dry case of monopoly power, and enforcers should block it.

“Firms in the U.S. increased their markups and profits in 2021 at the fastest annual pace since 1955,” economists Mike Konczal and Niko Lusiani of the Roosevelt Institute reported in June. But the companies said they would also pay a $4 billion special dividend to Albertsons shareholders when the deal closes, so it would seem that shareholders will be getting most of the gains.where their merger would otherwise shrink competition. For anyone curious about how that may work out, notwithstanding the promises of the executives who are flogging it via press releases, there’s a precedent. It’s about as sickening as finding a nest of spiders in your banana bunch.

Corporate greed is not inflation. Record profits all over the place, but yea it's inflation.

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Tim Steller's column: Tucson shoppers would suffer from Kroger-Albertsons mergerFor Star subscribers: The two giant supermarket chains say they'll spin off a few stores, as Albertsons did with Haggen in Tucson back in 2015, to preserve competition. Regulators should reject this trick. Albertson's has already ruined the once great Safeway chain. They are now expensive, rude, uncaring just like Albertson's has always been. Now they will ruin Kroger and price everybody out of eating altogether. 🤨 This will probably result in the closure of Fry's at Grant and 1st Avenue. The area just lost CVS on Grant Rd East of 1st Ave. Residents North of Drachman between 1st Ave and Oracle Rd are already underserved. Where is Mayor Romero!!!!! DBChirpy I don’t think any western state wants kroger
Source: TucsonStar - 🏆 339. / 59 Read more »

UK inflation back at 40-year high as food prices soar | CNN BusinessRising food and housing costs drove UK inflation back to a 40-year high of 10.1% in September Cost of living crisis for so many people everywhere.
Source: cnni - 🏆 326. / 59 Read more »