Canadian chocolate companies are being charged with "price fixing", meaning they colluded and artificially increased the price of chocolate in Canada. Now there's a class-action lawsuit. I heard that the people who can enter the lawsuit are Canadians who spend $1000 or more in less than two years. It must be for personal consumption and they must provide receipts. I doubt many Canadians could enter the lawsuit.
But the irony is that the charge against these companies is that they "conspired, agreed or arranged to fix prices of chocolate products." Well, that's such a crime! You can easily find chocolate bars for $0.75. So how much were the prices increase? 10¢, 20¢? Oh, the humanity! But the irony is that the GOVERNMENT price fixes ALL THE TIME! Now, they turn around and get upset because some chocolate company is doing the same! How hypocritical!
The government doesn't add 10 or 20% to the price though, they commonly DOUBLE the price! Look at milk. It's controlled by the milk marketing board, and the price is about double. Look at cigarettes, even worse. A carton of cigs costs $29 before taxes. After taxes, it's $94! That's over triple!! Alcohol also has some crazy taxes on it, as I discussed yesterday.
Now the government has the gall to act all indignant that a company dares rip people off. GIVE ME A BREAK.
But the other side of the story is that this sounds awfully suspicious to being with. Most of the time these anti-trust or similar lawsuits are manufactured by competitors in the industry who are unable to compete. Apparently in this case, the suit was brought on by Hershey.
So I'm suspicious to begin with, but even if it's true, the government has no moral authority to condemn this activity.
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