Michael Hiltzik: These companies cynically used global crises to juice profits — and inflation

Throughout all the debate in the last year over what has caused higher prices and how to remedy them, one term hasn't received the attention it deserves, given how well it explains the trend:

"Greedflation."

The term defines as what happens when businesses raise prices higher and faster than is needed to cover increases in their costs. We've reported before that soaring corporate profits have contributed more to inflation than the Federal Reserve Board's preferred targets, wages and consumer demand. Two recent papers, however, measure their impact and identify some of the leading culprits by name.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City calculated that in 2021, when inflation reached an annualized rate of 5.8%, corporate markups grew by 3.4%. The upshot: Markups "could account for more than half of 2021 inflation."

In other words, during a period in which consumer demand largely cratered because people were staying home, businesses jacked up prices so far and so fast that they more