If you think profit maximization (aka corporate greed) was responsible for the 7.5% inflation over the last twelve months, what would you say was responsible for the 6.3 million private sector jobs added over the last twelve months?
In some sense both of these are trivially the result of corporate greed in that most of what we see in our economy is an equilibrium that reflects profit maximizing decisions by firms.
The low inflation in the years up to the pandemic was also corporate greed (companies would have lost money if they charged more).
The high real wage increases for leisure and hospitality workers are also the result of corporate greed--restaurants would lose money if they set lower wages because they would not get employees.
Etc.
Etc.
Corporate greed/profit maximization hasn't changed. What has changed, most importantly, is demand. So "corporate greed" should be part of your multiplier for fiscal policy and part of your analysis about how low interest rates translate into inflation.
I'm for more competition policy and love the President's EO on competition and am glad to see it being implemented. But it is not big enough or fast enough to change any of this. Moreover most prices in our economy are not set by businesses which violate competition laws.
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