Dear Capitolisters,

As you’ve probably seen, the Biden administration and various Democratic politicians have pivoted from pretending that inflation is NBD to blaming it on greedy corporations raking in record profits at COVID-stricken consumers’ expense. However, the claims of bad behavior about one industry in particular—U.S. supermarkets—say a lot more about the accusers than the accused, and undermine their broader case for expanding U.S. antitrust laws to attack corporate “bigness.”

Grocery Gouging?

Probably the most prominent example of recent political attacks on U.S. grocery store chains comes from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who not only tweeted about the situation but also sent a sternly worded letter to the heads of Kroger, Albertsons, and Publix about how they reaped “massive profits” and “push[ed] grocery costs increases onto consumers” in 2021: