NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money I'm Darym Woods.

There is a well-known saying that you don't want to see how the sausage gets made.

And this is particularly true in the world of capitalism, it can be a pretty messy place.

Doctors are jacking up prices everywhere from gas stations to supermarkets and we're seeing

especially big jumps in the price of meat.

So we thought what better place to learn about the current state of price rises than

a visit to a literal sausage factory?

So we've got beef, pork, combined spices.

Sean Smith is the director of sales and marketing at WA Bean & Sons.

That's a meat purveyor based in Bangalore, Maine.

There you go, let's go turn into more of a batter.

It'll come to McRind and go right into the linker.

The reason we wanted to speak to Sean is because prices are rising super fast.

Inflation in the US is a vertigo-inducing 7.9% according to today's consumer price index.

And over the last few months, Democratic politicians have been fueling a narrative, blaming

high inflation, partly on greedy businesses in uncompetitive markets.

In fact, President Joe Biden used the example of the meat industry and his state of the

union speech earlier this month.

You got four basic meat packing facilities.

That's it.

You play with them, you don't get to play at all.

...