Key Points
- As shoppers await price cuts, retailers like Home Depot say their prices have stabilized and some national consumer brands have paused price increases or announced more modest ones.
- Yet some industry watchers predict deflation for food at home later this year.
- Falling prices could bring new challenges for retailers, such as pressure to drive more volume or look for ways to cover fixed costs, such as higher employee wages.
This is an over-simplification, but consider this:
A farm has to sell their produce/livestock below their cost-price, because demand has dropped and the resulting over-supply has caused a race to the bottom as producers try to recoup as must value as possible.
This leads to less funds available to produce the next round of crops (further negatively impacted by economies of scale), cover operating expenses and pay staff wages.
People lose their jobs and livelihoods, causing a negative feedback loop resulting in less demand overall… repeating the cycle. The Great Depression of a century ago was an example of a similar scenario.
How’s this for an over simplification: we should find the guy who got the big bag of money that started the whole thing open that bag.