treasury secretary janet yellen on tuesday refused a chance to blame corporate greed for causing high inflation a view championed by many progressive democrats during a senate finance committee hearing yellen was asked by sen charles grassley an iowa republican if she agreed that corporate greed explains the surge in prices yellen replied that the “bulk of inflation” reflected supply and demand factors on the supply side there was a shift in the pattern of consumption to goods and away from services she said and food and energy prices partly reflect russia’s war on ukraine she added at this point grassley cut her off “you are answering the question in a way that i’m glad you answered it because i think your answer rejects the corporate greed argument that we’ve been hearing” grassley said later in the hearing sen sherrod brown a progressive democrat from ohio defended the view that corporations have taken advantage of circumstances brown said that that while yellen perhaps was not saying corporate greed was a “main driver of inflation” a number of american industries including oil pharmaceutical and shipping companies “have used the pandemic and used the war with russia to raise prices and have seen gargantuan profits from a number of those industries that are not by accident” yellen was peppered by republicans on the committee about inflation the treasury secretary who has said her view that inflation was going to be transitory was a mistake said her earlier estimate didn’t factor into covid variants and the war in ukraine yellen says she does expect inflation to remain high but hopes that it is coming down the white house had previously forecast that inflation would run at a 47 annual rate in 2022 yellen said this estimate was likely to be revised higher in the administration’s midyear economic review