Didn’t you know: markets are flawless!
The UK’s big four supermarkets and dairies colluded to keep the price of dairy goods artificially high, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has said.
The price-fixing deal led to consumers overpaying for milk, cheese and butter by an estimated £270m, the OFT said.
Wow. That’s a lot of grift for dairy. The only reason this was discovered was market regulation, and now the colluders face the possibility of a large fine (British Airways was just fined £121m for collusion in fixing fuel surcharge prices). The defense of the British Retail Consortium?
“What we were trying to do was to ensure that at least we could get the farm gate price up a bit to help preserve the supply line,” BRC director general Kevin Hawkins told the BBC.
The little price chart to the right should dispell that little delusion. Markets: good. Unregulated markets: bad.
