"For every crime, you need means, motive, and opportunity," Rakeen Mabud explained on the Building Local Power podcast. Executives at some of the largest monopolies in our economy are using their market power to jack up prices on consumers. Their means is market power. Their motive is profit. What is the opportunity? The opportunity is for CEOs to pocket the revenue from price hikes while blaming inflation for the increases.
 
 On this episode of Building Local Power, Rakeen Mabud the Chief Economist at Groundwork Collaborative and Ron Knox, Senior Researcher and Writer at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, take us on a riveting journey exposing the story of inflation that most economists don't want to tell.
 
 As workers, citizens, and small businesses are made increasingly vulnerable in the face of rising prices, corporate profit margins are hitting a 70-year high. So, despite real issues with a broken infrastructure, the war against Ukraine, and a fragile supply chain, the recent history of unchecked mergers and corporate greed underlies much of what has left the majority of Americans so vulnerable in our economy today.