Finally, something may be done about corporate price gouging that’s contributing to inflation

Thursday I wrote about how more than 50 percent of inflation is caused by corporate price gouging and wondered why politicians don’t talk about it and news organizations don’t cover it.

Friday I was going to write about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suing Acima and its former chief executive officer Aaron Allred for illegal lending activities in connection with as many as five million consumer financing agreements. 

However, I saw an item that the Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing is going to host its first public meeting on Thursday, Aug. 1 to discuss Strike Force enforcement actions taken to lower prices for Americans.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice will virtually cohost the meeting.

The meeting will open with remarks by FTC Chair Lina M. Khan, Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan S. Kanter, and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Brian M. Boynton. Senior officials from other agencies will then offer comments as well. The rest of the meeting will be a closed-door discussion of enforcement-related matters.

The Strike Force meeting’s open session will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET. The agenda for the public portion of the event will be posted on the FTC’s website prior to the event. A link to view the open virtual meeting will be posted on the FTC’s website the day of the event.

The FTC said in a statement that in March 2024, at the sixth meeting of the White House Competition Council, President Biden announced the launch of the Strike Force “to strengthen interagency efforts to root out and stop illegal corporate behavior that hikes prices on American families through anti-competitive, unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent business practices.”

The Strike Force’s membership also includes the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Transportation and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

Hopefully, positive action will be taken for inflation-weary consumers.