How ‘Excuseflation’ Is Keeping Prices — and Corporate Profits — High

U.S. inflation-adjusted consumer spending rose in March despite intense price pressures, indicating households still have solid appetites and wherewithal for shopping. As Rines sees it, Pepsico consumers all around the world started paying more in order to compensate Pepsico investors for losing the Russian consumer market. “You shouldn’t have Pepsi being able to push price, in theory, right? “Bottlenecks can create temporary monopoly power which can even render it safe to hike prices not only to protect but to increase profits,” Weber says. When the wholesale cost of wings was soaring back in 2021 — it jumped 125% over one 12-month period — Wingstop “began to push price, push price, push price and they had zero pushback from the consumer,” he says.