Read The Full Story from The Hill.

WeResistNow.org is centered around individual and local community action. For action on the potato cartel story, I recommend printing copies of this story and spreading them in your community. Personally, when I buy frozen tater tots or fries, I will be leaving copies of this story in the freezer at the grocery store, so other shoppers can learn about the price gouging these massive anti-competitive companies are engaging in.

You can tell your friends and family about this story, after reading it in full. Stories like this are important. We should all be aware of how massive corporations are taking advantage of their power to take money from poor people who just want to eat, while also unfairly driving out smaller businesses that might compete with them.

I do not believe boycotting frozen potato products will help this issue. But, you can surely save money by buying fresh potatoes and making your own tots or fries. This might also be a tastier and healthier option, but it won't work for everybody. You may also be able to grow potatoes on your property, and you may be able to make and sell frozen-products in your community, though you likely still can't beat the prices of large-scale producers.

Some price collusion may be addressable at the state level, but the fed likely has more power on this. There are pre-existing laws against anti-competitive practices like these, but they are incredibly slow to enforce. We've already been paying unfairly high prices for a few years, and will continue into the future.

You can email your state and federal representatives with any of my policy proposals below that you personally support. You can share this article with your friends. You can share it on social media. If you're a policy-maker, you can talk to your colleagues about the policy proposals below.

If you work in government offices, you can talk to your colleagues about it, where you'll likely have more influence than other folks. If you know someone who works in government offices, again you can advocate with those individuals.

Policy Proposals

At the end of the lawsuit, these companies may have to pay some millions of dollars in fines for their illegal practices, but we are unlikely to see any lower prices at the grocery store as a result. And there's almost no chance they'll pay this money back to American consumers - the people who are most significantly impacted by this price gouging.

We need laws that allow for swifter discovery of illegal collusion, immediate enforcement while the case works it's way through the courts, and remedies that benefit us, the people who actually pay the higher prices.

These policies could include supply-chain transparency-requirements for large producers, market analysis by government employees, and transparency-reporting by large grocery chains.

Swift enforcement could involve granting the government the power to enact temporary price controls while the case proceeds through court, though I don't expect this to be a popular idea. Firmly banning these algorithmic price-gouging schemes could also be crucial.

Criminal liability could also play a role for the leaders who run these schemes. If you steal frozen potatoes from your grocery store, you may be held criminally liable. Yet if the frozen potato manufacturers collude to steal money from you, they face only civil liabilities, and they still get rich doing it.

Remedies that benefit shoppers - when these big companies have to pay out many millions of dollars in a lawsuit, much of it goes to the government, to lawyers, or to named plaintiffs in the suit. The money should be returned to the people who bought frozen potatoes. Grocery stores already keep extensive records on what products you buy if you use digital payment or especially if you have a member card (I always scan my kroger card).

If the companies in the potato cartel have to repay the money they stole, the Government could work with grocery chains to return most of this money to consumers automatically, with almost no effort from consumers. For consumers who are not in large grocery-databases, grocery chains could provide an easy way for consumers to sign up to get their money back. This money should be returned to the people, not paid to the government.

To see future articles from WeResistNow.org, add this site to your Feed Reader App. See Get Updates for more information and app recommendations.

File Downloads

Print a few copies of this propaganda to spread in your community, or download and modify the Open Document or DocX version to do with as you please.

• PDF: To print
• Open Document: For use with LibreOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office
• DocX: For use with Microsoft Office. (also works with LibreOffice)
• Image: For sharing on social media