Letter: Price gouging

Published 12:15 am Saturday, September 28, 2024

People say “price gouging” doesn’t exist. In the last year, looking no further than our grocery stores, I’ve seen bags of potato chips priced at $4.95. Were they all of a sudden made out of plutonium?

Or consider kitty litter. I won’t name the brand, but it doubled in price. It is clay. It’s dug out of certain American dry lakes, broken up and bagged. What in that process or supply chain suddenly cost twice as much?

It’s now gone back down to the same price it had before the pandemic, so I conclude: “Nothing at all.” It’s price gouging.

I could go on, but everybody has seen this phenomenon. Retailers simply say “everybody’s doing it.” That justifies nothing. And the president did not cause it, and can’t fix it. It’s not a political matter. But it’s sure being used as one.

JOSEPH WEBB

Astoria