Word: middlemen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...seems to have got around. Alfredo has also impregnated the daughter of some big back-country honcho (Emilio Fernandez), who happens to be the fellow looking to have him done in. Bennie does not find this out until practically the last scene, when he has eliminated a lot of middlemen, mostly by gunfire. For the balance of the action, blistering jealousy and outright greed suit him as motivation just fine...
...immediate-delivery price for flour fell as low as $9.60, reflecting declines in wheat. Also, some agricultural prices have kept on rising: sugar recently hit a record 26? per lb., boosting prices of goods ranging from Life Savers to Kool-Aid soft drinks. But the biggest reason is that "middlemen" (a term covering bakeries, canners, meat packers, supermarket chains and trucking firms) are not passing along to housewives much of the decline in farm prices...
...housewives pay for food and what farmers get for the same goods has widened markedly (see chart). Last August farmers were getting an unusually high 52? of every dollar that the housewife spent for food; in May their share was down to 40?. The remaining 60? went to the middlemen...
...Middlemen are quick to argue that they are merely regaining their traditional share of the retail food dollar -but in doing so at a time when farm costs are still high by historic standards, they are adding substantially to food prices. Food processors and retailers assert that they need the money to pay steadily rising bills of their own. Atlanta-based Colonial Stores, for example, reports that its wage costs have risen 10% to 12% in the past year. Gasoline and electric costs have shot up as much as 50% in the past eight months; and for some food processors...
Less Capital. But there is also some suspicion that middlemen, especially grocery chains, have been adding un-warrantedly to their profits. Last week Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz set a panel of experts to studying why retail meat prices remain high despite drops at the farm level, and the Federal Trade Commission launched a study to determine how the size and market share of major store chains affect competition and prices. Supermarket chiefs insist their profits are still low. The chains are earning only 9? profit on each $10 of sales, v. 7? last year. "Food retailers of this country...