Current events: naughty supermarkets in big trouble! What do you lot make of this?

The big 5 UK supermarkets have, according to the OFT, been price fixing in collusion with main suppliers, and slyly overcharging us in a major way. http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/s...

They're all denying it of course, but the OFT have spent 3 years investigating, and the supermarkets are likely to be fined massively.

First - is anyone surprised?! Next, what will this mean for the consumer?

Current events: naughty supermarkets in big trouble! What do you lot make of this?passions soap opera

Price fixing and price gouging have long been a staple of the American corporate world. It's the retailer's version of 'insider trading'. I'm rather surprised at how long it took for UK retailers to follow the US lead. And it is far more prevalent in this country because the corporate world has got a lock on US government oversight. Artificially inflated prices for goods is also driven by the media. As soon as any product makes the headlines for any bad reason, (recall, bacteria, etc.), suppliers immediately jack up prices sighting supply and demand issues. It's their built-in way of recovering from the losses they sustained because of their own screwups. They deliver a bad product and you pay a premium to get a version that is not bad. And then to compound the damage to consumers, Washington turns a blind eye toward it by rationalizing that it's 'just the cost of doing business'.

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Current events: naughty supermarkets in big trouble! What do you lot make of this?

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