Corporate greed, not wages, is behind inflation. It’s time for price controls | Robert Reich

Corporations are using rising costs as an excuse to increase their prices even higher, resulting in record profits. We need limited price controls to break this cycle

On Wednesday, policymakers at the Federal Reserve - America's central bank - continued their battle against inflation with a third straight supersize interest-rate increase. And they warned that they're not done. They'll continue to raise borrowing costs until inflation is tamed.

They assume that the underlying economic problem is a tight labor market, causing wages to rise - and prices to rise in response. And they believe interest rate increases are necessary to slow this wage-price inflation.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com