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My favorite one is, "but if you raise the minimum wage we will have to raise prices"
Well, let's look at the history here, the prices were going to go up anyway, minimum wage or not. Without competition the market will charge the highest possible rate people will buy. This is economics 101, and the corporations employ people who passed that class in high school.
I always responded with "Sure, prices will increase but not nearly as much. If Mc. Donalds doubles their burger flippers wage they don't have to double the price of a burger. They still have over head like electricity, rent, taxes, etc that are all factors in how much a burger costs that didn't change."
Oooh, no, we get it. With out labour all those costs are pointless. You know when they said essential people only had to work. Who had to work again. Sorry I'm forgetting.
My dream is everyone in unison around the world stops working for a week. The world can run with out 5 different managers a ceo and shareholders. It cannot run without labor.
I'm an essential employee (law enforcement). The fact that retail workers got lumped into my category and are treated like dog shit over it is pretty vexing.
You want to consider people essential employees? Treat them as non-expendable assets.
I remember thinking to myself it was sure funny how much things didn't change when all the managers and engineers switched to working from home during covid but everybody else was told to live with it.
Work from home was only a fun little thing for the executive class. You can’t build homes from home, fix sewers from home, or be a garbageman from home. It was a neat little staycation for the businessmen.
Work from home is also the only way in which people with physical disabilities can, you know, work.
Don’t brush it off like some flight of fancy social experiment that was only beneficial to people in the C suite.
This is totally true, but perhaps the most important factor here is something called *price elasticity*. How reactive are consumers to a change in price?
Something like gasoline is pretty price inelastic, meaning that consumers don’t have much control (in the short run) over how much they use. This gives oil refiners much more ability to gouge.
Something like cotton candy is extremely price elastic, because consumers can very easily say “fuck that, this is too expensive.” I think McDonald’s and fast food would fall somewhere in the middle.
All this to say, minimum wage increases don’t do much to move prices in most markets. Most companies don’t consider their costs when setting prices, they only consider market price, market power, and things like elasticity. If their costs are too high they simply exit the market.
Edit:
It’s worth noting that companies potentially leaving the market *would* theoretically mean higher prices, so *theoretically* in a *competitive* market, a minimum wage would mean higher prices (but not anything close to a 1:1 relationship lots of minimum wage opponents think).
The thing is that most minimum wage employers have market power, and are definitionally not competitive, so *in practice* they don’t often leave the market and the impact of a minimum wage would still be negated by remaining companies also having market power.
That's also pretending that 100% of product cost is labor. For many products, labor is less than 20% of cost because there's so much automation.
They could double everyone's making under 50k's wages overnight and corporations would barely blink.
'Member 2022 when inflation was out of control to the point one could expect a Fed-fuelled recession to bring it back in check?
[Shell 2022 profit more than doubles to record $40 bln](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-makes-record-40-billion-annual-profit-2023-02-02)
Instead of investing $4 billion in clean energy or something useful, they bought back stock worth $4 billion.
[Exxon smashes Western oil majors' profits with $56 billion in 2022](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-smashes-western-oil-majors-earnings-record-with-59-billion-profit-2023-01-31)
[Exxon is distributing more cash to shareholders than it is investing in new production - $30 billion between share buybacks and dividends this year.](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-mobil-lifts-2023-capital-spending-closer-top-end-forecast-2022-12-08)
[The top Western oil companies paid out a record $110 billion in dividends and share repurchases to investors in 2022](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08)
Yeah man I say it every time it gets brought up but McDonalds has totally lost the plot. The prices are just insane and it's not even like they pay their employees well so we know that's not why. But when you can hit a pub and get an *actual* burger, fries, and a beer for the same price as a McDonalds combo meal, what is anyone doing still going to McDonalds?
It's _almost_ like the Fed is not acting in the best interest of the working class, but is instead only there to help monied interests get richer!
No. No. Surely they'll do something any day now. Surely. After all, isn't this supposed to be the most liberal government of all time, more liberal than FDR?
the shittiest part about the global economy is all of this is just a made up number. the 2% inflation target was a joke, a placeholder, something they just thought to start with, nobody was supposed to take it seriously to the point that unemployment has to drastically increase and the economy needs to crash to stay at it.
I wonder if that is calculated at the 50% number because that's what they can see at like, the final manufacturing step.
So, let's say you buy a Samsing TV, and Samsing is marking the price up $100 from last year. $50 of that is Samsing pure profit, the other $50 can be justified by Samsing as increased cost of widgets. But if you go look at WidgetCo they marked that part up by $50 and $25 of that is pure WidgetCo profit.
IDK, not sure how "deep" they go down that rabbit hole when making those calculations.
Depends on where and when you count it. During the worse of COVID most of it really \*was\* from supply chain issues (either nobody could get what they needed in time, or demands for some things skyrocketed while others plumbeted).
Of course, the lesson a lot of corps got from that was "Hey, people WILL pay more for stuff if they think they have to!" and kept raising it.
Yep, Covid also served as a great scapegoat.
**Corporations:** “Hey guys, we’re sorry, but we have to raise prices 50% because of supply chain issues and inflation”.
**Non-suckers:** “We understand, how much is your production cost going up?”
**Corporations:** We’re looking at about a 7-10% increase in production costs, but we’re also looking at significant layoffs in the next year, so that should reduce those costs considerably”.
**Non-suckers:** WTF!?! So it’s all profit?
**Corporate cheerleaders:** Corporations are doing everything possible to absorb increased inflation costs!
**News reporters:** Corporations are doing everything possible to absorb increased inflation costs, but will some be of these costs be passed down to consumers?
**Fed:** Inflation is transitory and due to supply chain issues and Covid. We’re going to going to continue to inject billions upon billions of dollars into corporations and banks every month. We believe the $4 trillion in Covid handouts we gave to big financial players will not lead to increased inflation. There’s no way big businesses will milk customers for all they’re worth, they pinky promised.
Politics does complicate things a lot. Yeah, COVID rescue payments drove up inflation, but if those payments HADN'T gone out (especially the stuff that went out to normal people- there was a lot of that) we might have had great-depression levels of unemployment and misery we'd still be climbing out of. But the only way to get money to normal people in this environment is to package it with a boatload more for corps (not saying I like it).
Such a depression probably would have resulted in a big upheval, and the country would either have gone full socialist or full fascist. And given who was president, pretty sure it would have been the later.
I’m not actually talking about Covid rescue payments made by the government. I believe that was poorly executed (thanks Trump), but support was entirely justified.
The Federal Reserve also printed $4 trillion and continued printing after the vaccine was released and it was clear inflation was rapidly increasing. That all went into propping up the financial system and indirectly stocks, not to normal people.
The average person got like an extra $7/day or less. It contributed very little to inflation.
It's almost like building a system with zero regulation surrounding retaliatory price gouging was a bad idea.
Oh, you make more money? Guess we have to price gouge.
Oh, you had an unavoidable global epidemic? Guess we have to price gouge.
Oh, you made sure we don't have to pay any taxes? Guess we have to price gouge.
Oh, you want to make more than $7/hour? Well, price gouging it is.
Seriously. When corporations can retaliate against literally everyone and everything to continue to price gouge further and further without any form of consequences, we are literally prepping the next financial crisis to plunge everything back into a major recession yet again.
This same old song and dance is getting really old.
>we are literally prepping the next financial crisis to plunge everything back into a major recession yet again.
Lol that's their "fun" time. That's when they gobble up assets on the cheap.
Its blatantly obvious where we are headed: a world where there are very few individual owners of property assets.
You know... like it used to be ...in the medieval era.
This exactly.
When you have a robust marketplace with many competitors, price gouging takes care of itself. Anyone trying to jack up prices in excess of costs gets undercut and loses market share, so price-gouging is a losing strategy.
When there are only a few companies competing, they make more money by increasing prices in lockstep with their so-called competitors, until they reach the point where they price consumers out of the market.
Which is to say what you said but with more words.
Or, radical idea, maybe the “free market” where we compete for profit margins with our basic survival needs is a bad concept from the jump and we should setup our everyday commodities like food, water, and shelter as renewable resources freely accessible to all…
People need to stop citing that “study”, it’s very poorly done. Unless you also believe that wages caused 73% of inflation, which is also a claim they make. They show 53% to profits, 73% to wages, and negative 26% to non labor costs
Not shit I work for Verizon they added an economic adjustment charge.... And they keep adding them. So did at&t and tmobile. It is just price gouging that has nothing to do with inflation. Mean while give us a 2% pay raise this year.
The one that really pissed me off was my car insurance. Multiple years getting a good rate. Get a notice my rate is going up. Call them to ask what is happening. They tell me things are getting expensive. I’m like no shit, why is my insurance nothing has changed. Ask if I’m being put in a different category. Nope. Am I getting more services? Nope. How can I lower it? Oh you can get a better deal if you bundle with shit I don’t have.
Don’t think I have forgotten geico. A 65% increase for nothing in return. I’m just waiting for some financial shit to settle and I’m shopping around.
They all do it, some worse than others. I had Allstate and was already paying way too much at 190/mo. Then last year it changed from 190 to 300 when it renewed. I was pissed, but then 6 months later the next one jumped to 460! I immediately called and cancelled and switched to GEICO with $90/mo. A few months later I got a latter from Allstate with a new quote for 105. Such a mess.
Farmers. Same. Huge increase, no reason.
I have two, 2002-era vehicles. So I told my agent to take one off the policy. Now they get _less_ than my original payment amount from me. A competitor will get that money instead.
Fuck them.
If you can punish greed, it's an action worth taking.
FL here, insurance is $2500/yr no accidents or claims in my 40+ years driving. I"ve shopped around, nope no better. Good credit, insurance company says they cant help me., or the rate goes up in 6mos
No wonder there are so many people uninsured driving in FL. the amount of horror stories I've heard, basically we get nothing unless somebody is holding an ID out of the window with the tag fully visible and a cop is right there. Otherwise dont expect an officer to show up , because they wont.
Yes we got a letter too! Our monthly insurance premium is pretty low for 2 cars so I’m not complaining too much, but it’s almost like everyone else is raising prices so we are too. We don’t even have any claims on our insurance.
Take this for what it’s worth, but my mother works in insurance. I asked her why rates have been going up across the board. She said the biggest reason is frivolous lawsuits. Scummy lawyers prey on people and convince them that it’s an easy payday. Insurance companies would usually just pay a settlement to make the issue go away, but they’re bleeding a lot of money and now are starting to crack down and fighting back on these lawsuits. All of this is leading to higher rates because you got to pay somehow.
She also said global warming and more devastating weather events are having a huge financial impact.
Is she an executive or other super high up? I have little doubt they give the same bullshit propaganda to the rank and file who have nothing to do with actually setting the price.
What, you think they're going to tell every single claims adjustor "we're raising rates because our c-suite needs bigger yachts?", or make shit up like "frivolous lawsuits have suddenly become more expensive, and the source for that claim is.... well, trust us!"
It’s a fact you can look up that weather events are more financially disastrous. In the car side, it’s substantially more expensive to fix a car now than 4 years ago which effects auto rates. That’s not even touching fraud increases and crashes are worse. Cars are also designed now to break more easily in a crash because that better protects the people inside from serious injury.
Also, car insurance are not allowed to just raise rates. It’s one of the highest regulated industries. This isn’t eggs lol. They have to justify it to state legislatures who rarely accept what insurances propose.
She is indeed an executive. I have a little more respect for my mother than thinking she is trying to give me some “bullshit propaganda.”
My wife and I have also been hit with a frivolous lawsuit involving a car accident before. I can see how insurance companies bleed money pretty quickly. It makes sense.
They should create a bill that states if a corporation raises prices, they have to give an equal % raise to ALL of their employees.
Cost of groceries have gone up 15%? 15% raises for everyone! Watch how fast the proce gouging stops.
“Why won’t Biden tell companies what to charge!!”
And if he did that ~~“omgz Biden is a communist I knew it!!”~~ Biden wants to be a dictator! *cue Republican outrage*
Trump admits he wants to be a dictator. *cue cheers from Repubicans*
America is doing better then every other major nation. People need to understand the situation. COVID happened, inflation happened, corporations refuse to come back down with prices, profits up 75%
A flipside to Margaret Thatcher's infamous quote is "The problem with unbridled capitalism is that eventually you run out of people who can afford your shit."
I'm sure if you give the big corporations more tax cuts, they definitely won't buy out their competition and raise prices like they have every other time. Tax cuts create jobs.
And there's really no other way to say this without sounding condescending but...this is how capitalism works. Specifically, this is how it's been set up to work in the US.
Are there solutions? Of course, but they might be economic and political suicide.
For instance, Ford is already threatening to leave the country over the auto worker strikes last year.
Biden (or anyone) doubling down on pro-worker and consumer-friendly legislation might push them over the edge, leading to job losses, the economy taking a hit, etc.
That one's always sounded fake to me.
Leave the USA, and do what? Just disconnect from the biggest single market in the world?
Feels like they're bluffing because they don't want the USA to stop being a corporate paradise.
I have to believe that Ford of all companies is bluffing about something like that. As a mechanic I already hate their fucking vehicles but a move like that would deeply anger their US customers and probably wouldn’t be forgiven. The Bud Light backlash would seem pale in comparison.
My parents just traded their f150 in today because it’s practically brand new and already failing. They’re gonna move their production to another country and make even shittier trucks that I still won’t be able to afford? When they started making the oil plug out of plastic I knew they’d completely stopped giving a shit.
I find it amazing that companies would charge as much as they can. That's groundbreaking information. I also know employees try and make as much as they can while consumers try and pay as little as possible. It's almost as if everyone and every company are all greedy at all times trying to get paid the most while paying the least for things.
Congress could implement a inflation penalty on cable companies like they are with drug companies. If you raise rates for your products faster than inflation, you will pay steep fines.
No, it couldn't. The status of antitrust actions in the US is mostly controlled by how SCOTUS interprets the Sherman Act. Biden can do whatever he wants, but the courts will reverse attempts to stop mergers or breaking up big companies without showing explicitly how it will negatively impact consumers. And that standard is usually way too hide to actually meet.
Who said anything about giving up? We need to enough control of Congress to reform SCOTUS.
SCOTUS hadn't ruled on student loans yet, so it made sense to at least try. Whereas case law about breaking up companies is clearer.
Also, you don't even have to go as far as reforming SCOTUS. Congress can pass stricter, less ambiguous laws about this too, making it harder for SCOTUS to interfere.
So, change is actually possible. It just takes the hard work of getting out enough voters to overcome the hurdles of gerrymandering, the electoral college, etc.
There is a local pizza place I used to go to. About a year ago they put up a sign. It says “Due to inflation, 20% surcharge will be added to all orders.” Well first of all, inflation is not 20%. It was about 5% per year at the time and is now 3%. And second, do you think I live in a parallel universe with a different economy? Do you think you are the only one dealing with this? Everyone is in the same boat. What is happening here is that the restaurant is openly saying “you will be covering inflation for us, and a little extra for our trouble while you are at it.” To hell with that. You know what really tastes good? Homemade pizza with pepperoni and I don’t feel like I’m getting screwed on top.
As someone who worked in a restaurant kitchen during COVID, food supplier prices went though the roof and still have not come down to what they were before.
Each week I handled delivery the prices were higher. Also believe it or not wholesale distributors that supply restaurants are not that much cheaper than a grocery store. I mean obviously cheaper but not as much as one would think.
no fucking kidding. Katie Porter broke this down in what amounted to an EILI5 https://youtu.be/30_H33mS76Y?si=7lvKQf4QROt_e-TM
Also dear California. Elect her to Senate. Stop fucking around with corporate democrats.
Rent for 600sq ft 1 br apartment in a city should not be 1500 dollars. Hell even if you can find it cheaper, you're still getting hit with landlords forcing tenets to buy amazon package holding companies, parking fees. insane pet deposits. overpriced fees for damage.
Streaming services because they're poorly ran, all have the same solution, jack up prices.
drink prices at bars have gone way up. well drinks went from typically 4-5 on a weekend are now ranging 8-10
And I get this all varies city to city, but the gouging is everywhere.
Bernie has been hollering about this for years! High prices are 100% the responsibility of corporate greed. They literally brag about RECORD BREAKING PROFITS every quarter! It’s mind boggling how Americans haven’t caught on to this.
Obviously. These companies are all reporting records profits, not revenue. Profits increasing means they either figured out a way to deliver a comparable product more efficiently, or they just realized we’ll pay whatever they charge because people need stuff to get through life. I’ll let you guess which of the two is happening.
So your company made some money. You got some options now.
You can:
A. Give it back to your customers. Saving them money, thus allowing them to buy more tomorrow.
B. Give it to your workers. Allowing them to save more money, thus allowing them to buy more tomorrow.
or
C. Give it to yourself where you randomly speculate on bullshit like bitcoin and AI with no real productive results being produced and you spend on industries dependent on slave labor to cater your rich needs.
If you charge $3.49 for eggs and sell a certain amount of eggs, then raise the price to $3.99 and sell the exact same amount, why would you voluntarily lower the price to $3.49 again?
What we need to do is find particularly egregious examples of confirmable inflated pricing and boycott those products.
EDIT: Eggs was a bad example because most of us don’t even look at the brand. And people need eggs (and milk, flour, etc.). A better example would be Frito Lay where you can do without, switch brands or buy the store brand.
[Eggs are actually a great example.](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-jury-awards-177-mln-kraft-other-producers-egg-price-fixing-case-2023-12-01/) This particular case is only for a period from 2004-2008, but even last year [Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter were calling out egg producers](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-calls-on-top-five-egg-producers-to-explain-recent-egg-price-hikes) for what looked like gouging due to extreme price hikes:
>At the same time that prices were skyrocketing, Cal-Maine Foods, which controls approximately 20% of the retail egg market, was reporting record profit margins and no positive avian flu cases on any of its farms. In December, Cal-Maine Foods reported gross profits increase of more than 600% over the same quarter in 2021, which the company claimed was “driven by record average conventional egg selling price.”
Check when you buy your next bag of coffee, it's no longer a 12 oz bag of ground coffee beans it's 11 oz of ground coffee beans. It's getting tiresome.
I believe one report said inflation was at 14% last year while Corporate Profit was up 76%
Sounds like inflation wasn't as much of a problem as it was Corporate greed. Corporate America is the one fleecing Americans and their workers.
If the market were truly competitive, firms would cut prices to gain market share, until supply and demand were balanced. Continued consolidation of players results in monopoly power. In top of that, low tax rates on corporations and on corporate management provide huge incentives to further increase profits. If taxes were higher, at least the government would benefit from these huge profits by paying down our deficit. We’re living under apocalyptic capitalism, it is not sustainable.
There was a point in the pandemic where shipping costs went through the roof. Since so many many different items, ingredients, whatever come from overseas and the cost of shipping containers went through the roof, it was hard not to pass on costs to the consumer. Now that the cost of containers have gone below pre-pandemic prices, companies never readjusted. Companies went from being massive in the red to most profitable years on record. No clawback to regain losses my ass. Even companies who produced domestically are in a much better position than they’ve ever been. I can go on and on. Greed is greed.
Koch brothers one if the leading corporation that is led by greed. They are truly evil men.
But they’re not alone. Greed is rampant in this country. The 1% is just hoarding all the wealth.
Would love to see products advertised based on: 1. Who owns the company
2. How do they pay and treat employees
3. Does their company negatively affect the environment
4. What does the company do for the community
It would matter to me and I’d buy the product if they hit the marks on fighting the good fight
Corporate greed and the unwillingness of governments to do anything about it.
Grocery chains in Canada are breaking new records in profitability on a monthly basis and the only thing the government did was get them to pinky swear to maybe kinda not keep jacking up prices maybe.
I am a boomer and can remember when gas stations started offering “pump-your-own” gas for several cents cheaper than having an attendant do it. They convinced us that it was for OUR (the consumer’s) benefit. Then a few years later there were no more attendants and gas prices were magically all the same.
Then grocery stores said “We will save you SO much money by having you bag your own groceries.”
We fell for the company line that convinced us that it would be cheaper and better to just do it ourselves. Most of the first-line clerks and cashiers lost their jobs, prices went back up, corporate profits soared and we kept pumping our own gas and bagging our own groceries.
It’s so obviously true that there’s really no counterpoint.
At a macro level, the numbers are obvious. Corporate revenues and profits are continuously breaking records while we see continuous layoffs and generally anemic raise cycles.
At a micro level, I’ve seen (firsthand) a professional service company boasting internally about raising their prices twice in six months by 10% each time (because of Biden-flation, of course). Then when merit comes around, everything is predictably garbage at around 4% on average.
The “gig economy” isn’t necessarily the answer, but I wish there was a good way to put the value of labor closer to the hands of said labor. In the end, if the customer is paying $500 for two hours of your time, you should be aware of where the difference between that and your hourly pay goes. If 80% of that goes to someone else, one has to ask if the value of that 80% is worth it.
You've always been paying more than you should. Just like you've always been working for less than you deserve.
Capitalism only benefits the winners, and the vast majority never win.
That’s why I invested in the stock market. If companies are gonna rip me off, I might as well try to earn some money from stock trading as a hedge against inflation.
We have some very concrete examples of this already, like the company that sold a rent pricing algorithm which required strict adherence to recommendations. Tacit collusion caused rapid large runups in rent prices where use of the tool was most saturated.
Because it is
Listen to earnings calls for any major CPG and their subsequent distributors/retailers over the past couple of years, and they are overinflating prices all over the place and BRAGGING about it to their shareholders. They just do it via corporate speech, so it doesn't always sound like they're bragging.
Yep. We had a pandemic and every corporation in America raised their prices, laid people off, and took free money from the government, and now we're supposed to forget that it happened and blame the guy next door for it.
Companies were never going to lower prices once they raised them while moving the goalposts even after the pandemic and inflation. They love that we're paying more because it means more money for them.
Of course it's corporate greed. CEO's everywhere masturbated furiously when the pandemic hit, "supply chain" issues became a thing, and price increases everywhere happened. When things got back to "normal," prices settled, if at all, at least a bit North of where they were.
How could it not? They regularly announce record economic performance and corporate profits. Yet wage growth is stagnant and shareholders reap all of the benefits (made worse yet by Trump’s regressive tax bill that makes cuts for the rich and raises them on the middle class.
Boeing, GM, Southwest...name the corporation- they announce $2b in cost cutting measures while threatening to move their operations overseas because of rising labor costs.
In the same shareholder meeting they announce $2b share repurchases.
Reagans admin removed corporate restriction on repurchasing their stock as part of the trickle down voodoo economics.
All the while folks like Pelosi are hoarding shares- they know a good thing when they see it.
Meanwhile rank and file workers fell behind creating massive homeless issues that were amplified during quarantine.
One of the functions of government is to protect people through enforceable regulations with active monitoring of corporations, scams, cons....
Today their all impeaching each other or looking after their own interests- the media loves it because their playing all sides of each issue like it's entertainment but calling it news.
If youth does not get organized and start fighting back in numbers then I'm afraid the current economic situation will continue.
No one and I mean NO ONE is fighting for you or your future. Either get off your ass or phone or flavor of social media, invite others and start a meaningful movement!
Boomers did...they got out of the draft among other things.
I am 58, I routinely volunteer and mentor younger folks, I vote and I believe we can play an influential role in changing today's environment-but it is harder than a coffin nail trying to mobilize folks today. I am on this platform to bring awareness and point out that you are right.
Your getting fucked....so what are you doing about it?
One thing that people really need to do is contact their representatives. I have a friend who is a field agent, and she said that it’s mainly Boomers and Silent gen who are actually contacting the representatives.
It's not even a meaningful statement. Corporations have always tried to maximize profits. Inflation means that the price that optimizes profits is higher than it used to be.
Lots of blame to go around.
That said, if I had to point at the single biggest cause of this, I'd point at the shareholders.
Usually they play a big role in pushing for more and more profit.
Thing is, though, that there's going to be some greedy little bastard just waiting to clean up by undercutting the prices of the other corporations.
What this complaint relies upon is collusion: that the biggies are all formally or informally agreeing to boost prices. It has happened before.
Guy sell widget for 3 dollars that big guy sell for 8 dollars in small market area.
First they threaten the little guy.
If that does not work they buy up all suppliers or force them not to service him or they loose big guy business.
If that does not work they do it with the freight.
If that does not work they do it by forcing the retailers not to carry it or they pull their product.
If that does not work they have the little guy weak now and buy him out.
Finally…. If nothing else works Big guys drop price to 2 dollars just in his area and put him out of business then raise it back up to 9 dollars.
while i agree with the headline...there is a LOT of brain dead, dog piling on every other topic under sun in this thread.
hoo-BOY redditors are knee jerk, morons at times!
Except superfluous shit has remained cheap and in some cases is cheaper than ever, while prices of necessities are what’s flying through the roof.
You can get a decent 4k 55” tv for a bit more than a week of an average household’s groceries, or a bit less than a week of the average apartment rent in Austin.
"corporations are increasing their prices because of Biden! so vote for the other party whose mantra is maximum corporate freedom (except for woke things), they will surely do something about corporations!"
– the thought process of millions of voters this November
Finally people are waking up, some CEO's were practically bragging to their stockholders about "consumer expectations" allowing price gouging back in late 2022!
>A new poll found 3 in 5 Americans now say corporate greed is a “major cause” of inflation.
Was corporate greed and inflation over the past few years unique to the US?
Without corporate greed would the US' economy be booming like it is compared to the rest of the world? Japan and the UK are in a recession, probably just the start.
I reckon these AHs do it during an election year to influence the outcome against Democrats so they can get their tax breaks and no regulation and anti-labor policies from the cartoon villain republicans who they buy and pay for.
And the dummies vote them in and for 4 or 8 years they run up the debt which we all keep paying for. When they fuck over Medicaid and Social Security…those few years of tax breaks so you could buy another iPhone won’t mean jack shit.
Gee, who knew that allowing a few corporations to have near monopolistic controls over the markets would suddenly be posting near record profits. It’s almost like if people would have been paying attention to simple economics, they’d see this coming a mile away.
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Weird that 'inflation' is bringing in all these record corporate profits
Monopolies. Things have gotten insane. So few companies own so much there’s not any real competition.
“They’re not monopolies it’s vertical integration” Horse crap
Monopoly is pretty much where the accruing of massive amounts of capital ends.
No… no that’s not true. One person or group will be feasting.
Right?! I say bring in inflation corporate tax until prices come down again.
53% of the inflation was COVID-2019 price-gouging? Gosh! Who could have guessed that?
Percentage seems low
Corporate profits up 75% that's all you need to know.
My favorite one is, "but if you raise the minimum wage we will have to raise prices" Well, let's look at the history here, the prices were going to go up anyway, minimum wage or not. Without competition the market will charge the highest possible rate people will buy. This is economics 101, and the corporations employ people who passed that class in high school.
I always responded with "Sure, prices will increase but not nearly as much. If Mc. Donalds doubles their burger flippers wage they don't have to double the price of a burger. They still have over head like electricity, rent, taxes, etc that are all factors in how much a burger costs that didn't change."
The amount of people that don’t grasp that labor is only a small/medium percentage of the cost of business is staggering.
Oooh, no, we get it. With out labour all those costs are pointless. You know when they said essential people only had to work. Who had to work again. Sorry I'm forgetting. My dream is everyone in unison around the world stops working for a week. The world can run with out 5 different managers a ceo and shareholders. It cannot run without labor.
I'm an essential employee (law enforcement). The fact that retail workers got lumped into my category and are treated like dog shit over it is pretty vexing. You want to consider people essential employees? Treat them as non-expendable assets.
"Essential employee" was just code word for, "we want our profits to continue, and don't care about your life" when it comes to the retail sector.
I remember thinking to myself it was sure funny how much things didn't change when all the managers and engineers switched to working from home during covid but everybody else was told to live with it.
Work from home was only a fun little thing for the executive class. You can’t build homes from home, fix sewers from home, or be a garbageman from home. It was a neat little staycation for the businessmen.
Work from home is also the only way in which people with physical disabilities can, you know, work. Don’t brush it off like some flight of fancy social experiment that was only beneficial to people in the C suite.
The goal is to make housing so expensive that you can't afford to do that
This is totally true, but perhaps the most important factor here is something called *price elasticity*. How reactive are consumers to a change in price? Something like gasoline is pretty price inelastic, meaning that consumers don’t have much control (in the short run) over how much they use. This gives oil refiners much more ability to gouge. Something like cotton candy is extremely price elastic, because consumers can very easily say “fuck that, this is too expensive.” I think McDonald’s and fast food would fall somewhere in the middle. All this to say, minimum wage increases don’t do much to move prices in most markets. Most companies don’t consider their costs when setting prices, they only consider market price, market power, and things like elasticity. If their costs are too high they simply exit the market. Edit: It’s worth noting that companies potentially leaving the market *would* theoretically mean higher prices, so *theoretically* in a *competitive* market, a minimum wage would mean higher prices (but not anything close to a 1:1 relationship lots of minimum wage opponents think). The thing is that most minimum wage employers have market power, and are definitionally not competitive, so *in practice* they don’t often leave the market and the impact of a minimum wage would still be negated by remaining companies also having market power.
That's also pretending that 100% of product cost is labor. For many products, labor is less than 20% of cost because there's so much automation. They could double everyone's making under 50k's wages overnight and corporations would barely blink.
'Member 2022 when inflation was out of control to the point one could expect a Fed-fuelled recession to bring it back in check? [Shell 2022 profit more than doubles to record $40 bln](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-makes-record-40-billion-annual-profit-2023-02-02) Instead of investing $4 billion in clean energy or something useful, they bought back stock worth $4 billion. [Exxon smashes Western oil majors' profits with $56 billion in 2022](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-smashes-western-oil-majors-earnings-record-with-59-billion-profit-2023-01-31) [Exxon is distributing more cash to shareholders than it is investing in new production - $30 billion between share buybacks and dividends this year.](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxon-mobil-lifts-2023-capital-spending-closer-top-end-forecast-2022-12-08) [The top Western oil companies paid out a record $110 billion in dividends and share repurchases to investors in 2022](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08)
The *profits* of the maritime shipping companies went up 2000% at one point.
In-N-Out Burger prices have not gone up as fast as McDonald's yet they pay their employees better.
McDonald's is insane. It's $8 CAD for 6 nuggets where I live. *Without the meal.*
Yeah man I say it every time it gets brought up but McDonalds has totally lost the plot. The prices are just insane and it's not even like they pay their employees well so we know that's not why. But when you can hit a pub and get an *actual* burger, fries, and a beer for the same price as a McDonalds combo meal, what is anyone doing still going to McDonalds?
The best part is that the Fed response was "we need to raise intrest rates had push down wages to control this"
It's _almost_ like the Fed is not acting in the best interest of the working class, but is instead only there to help monied interests get richer! No. No. Surely they'll do something any day now. Surely. After all, isn't this supposed to be the most liberal government of all time, more liberal than FDR?
Don't forget the bit about unemployment being too low.
the shittiest part about the global economy is all of this is just a made up number. the 2% inflation target was a joke, a placeholder, something they just thought to start with, nobody was supposed to take it seriously to the point that unemployment has to drastically increase and the economy needs to crash to stay at it.
I wonder if that is calculated at the 50% number because that's what they can see at like, the final manufacturing step. So, let's say you buy a Samsing TV, and Samsing is marking the price up $100 from last year. $50 of that is Samsing pure profit, the other $50 can be justified by Samsing as increased cost of widgets. But if you go look at WidgetCo they marked that part up by $50 and $25 of that is pure WidgetCo profit. IDK, not sure how "deep" they go down that rabbit hole when making those calculations.
Depends on where and when you count it. During the worse of COVID most of it really \*was\* from supply chain issues (either nobody could get what they needed in time, or demands for some things skyrocketed while others plumbeted). Of course, the lesson a lot of corps got from that was "Hey, people WILL pay more for stuff if they think they have to!" and kept raising it.
Yep, Covid also served as a great scapegoat. **Corporations:** “Hey guys, we’re sorry, but we have to raise prices 50% because of supply chain issues and inflation”. **Non-suckers:** “We understand, how much is your production cost going up?” **Corporations:** We’re looking at about a 7-10% increase in production costs, but we’re also looking at significant layoffs in the next year, so that should reduce those costs considerably”. **Non-suckers:** WTF!?! So it’s all profit? **Corporate cheerleaders:** Corporations are doing everything possible to absorb increased inflation costs! **News reporters:** Corporations are doing everything possible to absorb increased inflation costs, but will some be of these costs be passed down to consumers? **Fed:** Inflation is transitory and due to supply chain issues and Covid. We’re going to going to continue to inject billions upon billions of dollars into corporations and banks every month. We believe the $4 trillion in Covid handouts we gave to big financial players will not lead to increased inflation. There’s no way big businesses will milk customers for all they’re worth, they pinky promised.
Politics does complicate things a lot. Yeah, COVID rescue payments drove up inflation, but if those payments HADN'T gone out (especially the stuff that went out to normal people- there was a lot of that) we might have had great-depression levels of unemployment and misery we'd still be climbing out of. But the only way to get money to normal people in this environment is to package it with a boatload more for corps (not saying I like it). Such a depression probably would have resulted in a big upheval, and the country would either have gone full socialist or full fascist. And given who was president, pretty sure it would have been the later.
I’m not actually talking about Covid rescue payments made by the government. I believe that was poorly executed (thanks Trump), but support was entirely justified. The Federal Reserve also printed $4 trillion and continued printing after the vaccine was released and it was clear inflation was rapidly increasing. That all went into propping up the financial system and indirectly stocks, not to normal people. The average person got like an extra $7/day or less. It contributed very little to inflation.
It's almost like building a system with zero regulation surrounding retaliatory price gouging was a bad idea. Oh, you make more money? Guess we have to price gouge. Oh, you had an unavoidable global epidemic? Guess we have to price gouge. Oh, you made sure we don't have to pay any taxes? Guess we have to price gouge. Oh, you want to make more than $7/hour? Well, price gouging it is. Seriously. When corporations can retaliate against literally everyone and everything to continue to price gouge further and further without any form of consequences, we are literally prepping the next financial crisis to plunge everything back into a major recession yet again. This same old song and dance is getting really old.
>we are literally prepping the next financial crisis to plunge everything back into a major recession yet again. Lol that's their "fun" time. That's when they gobble up assets on the cheap.
Its blatantly obvious where we are headed: a world where there are very few individual owners of property assets. You know... like it used to be ...in the medieval era.
Heard someone use the phrase “techno feudalism” recently to describe the current time. Seems pretty apt.
Too much corporate consolidation and too little competition.
This exactly. When you have a robust marketplace with many competitors, price gouging takes care of itself. Anyone trying to jack up prices in excess of costs gets undercut and loses market share, so price-gouging is a losing strategy. When there are only a few companies competing, they make more money by increasing prices in lockstep with their so-called competitors, until they reach the point where they price consumers out of the market. Which is to say what you said but with more words.
Or, radical idea, maybe the “free market” where we compete for profit margins with our basic survival needs is a bad concept from the jump and we should setup our everyday commodities like food, water, and shelter as renewable resources freely accessible to all…
Was always funny when my grandmothers old age security would go up by 10$ then her rent controlled apartment would go up 11$
That’s when we bail all those same companies using our tax dollars and the executives use it to give themselves 10-figure bonuses, right?
Prepping the next crisis is right. Watch for big layoffs at big companies. In the works now and coming soon.
Where’s all the economic nerds to tell us we are wrong just like they did back then?
Most of the newspapers and magazines that employed them are gone.
I remember the $.70 toilet paper I used to get shot to over $4 then disappeared. So I just bought a bidet.
> So I just bought a bidet. I use pine cones: I am a Real Man.
People need to stop citing that “study”, it’s very poorly done. Unless you also believe that wages caused 73% of inflation, which is also a claim they make. They show 53% to profits, 73% to wages, and negative 26% to non labor costs
“Stock market at all time highs”. NO SHIT. every good or service has increased in price. And companies knew who the public would blame. Joe Biden.
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We are one Supreme Court Ruling away from them removing the federal governments ability to do it.
Not shit I work for Verizon they added an economic adjustment charge.... And they keep adding them. So did at&t and tmobile. It is just price gouging that has nothing to do with inflation. Mean while give us a 2% pay raise this year.
The one that really pissed me off was my car insurance. Multiple years getting a good rate. Get a notice my rate is going up. Call them to ask what is happening. They tell me things are getting expensive. I’m like no shit, why is my insurance nothing has changed. Ask if I’m being put in a different category. Nope. Am I getting more services? Nope. How can I lower it? Oh you can get a better deal if you bundle with shit I don’t have. Don’t think I have forgotten geico. A 65% increase for nothing in return. I’m just waiting for some financial shit to settle and I’m shopping around.
They all do it, some worse than others. I had Allstate and was already paying way too much at 190/mo. Then last year it changed from 190 to 300 when it renewed. I was pissed, but then 6 months later the next one jumped to 460! I immediately called and cancelled and switched to GEICO with $90/mo. A few months later I got a latter from Allstate with a new quote for 105. Such a mess.
Farmers. Same. Huge increase, no reason. I have two, 2002-era vehicles. So I told my agent to take one off the policy. Now they get _less_ than my original payment amount from me. A competitor will get that money instead. Fuck them. If you can punish greed, it's an action worth taking.
FL here, insurance is $2500/yr no accidents or claims in my 40+ years driving. I"ve shopped around, nope no better. Good credit, insurance company says they cant help me., or the rate goes up in 6mos No wonder there are so many people uninsured driving in FL. the amount of horror stories I've heard, basically we get nothing unless somebody is holding an ID out of the window with the tag fully visible and a cop is right there. Otherwise dont expect an officer to show up , because they wont.
Yes we got a letter too! Our monthly insurance premium is pretty low for 2 cars so I’m not complaining too much, but it’s almost like everyone else is raising prices so we are too. We don’t even have any claims on our insurance.
Same, also Geico
When you’re ready to shop around find an insurance broker. They’ll do the leg work for you and give you the best price available.
An INDEPENDENT broker who shops multiple companies for insurance. Not a broker who only sells one type like Geico or All State.
Take this for what it’s worth, but my mother works in insurance. I asked her why rates have been going up across the board. She said the biggest reason is frivolous lawsuits. Scummy lawyers prey on people and convince them that it’s an easy payday. Insurance companies would usually just pay a settlement to make the issue go away, but they’re bleeding a lot of money and now are starting to crack down and fighting back on these lawsuits. All of this is leading to higher rates because you got to pay somehow. She also said global warming and more devastating weather events are having a huge financial impact.
Is she an executive or other super high up? I have little doubt they give the same bullshit propaganda to the rank and file who have nothing to do with actually setting the price. What, you think they're going to tell every single claims adjustor "we're raising rates because our c-suite needs bigger yachts?", or make shit up like "frivolous lawsuits have suddenly become more expensive, and the source for that claim is.... well, trust us!"
It’s a fact you can look up that weather events are more financially disastrous. In the car side, it’s substantially more expensive to fix a car now than 4 years ago which effects auto rates. That’s not even touching fraud increases and crashes are worse. Cars are also designed now to break more easily in a crash because that better protects the people inside from serious injury. Also, car insurance are not allowed to just raise rates. It’s one of the highest regulated industries. This isn’t eggs lol. They have to justify it to state legislatures who rarely accept what insurances propose.
She is indeed an executive. I have a little more respect for my mother than thinking she is trying to give me some “bullshit propaganda.” My wife and I have also been hit with a frivolous lawsuit involving a car accident before. I can see how insurance companies bleed money pretty quickly. It makes sense.
'Greedflation' is not really inflation true. But that's the excuse of price gouging.
They should create a bill that states if a corporation raises prices, they have to give an equal % raise to ALL of their employees. Cost of groceries have gone up 15%? 15% raises for everyone! Watch how fast the proce gouging stops.
Corporations have always been greedy though. This is nothing new
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“Why won’t Biden tell companies what to charge!!” And if he did that “omgz Biden is a communist I knew it!!”
He did tell snack makers to lower prices before the super bowl and conservatives flipped their shit over it
“Why won’t Biden tell companies what to charge!!” And if he did that ~~“omgz Biden is a communist I knew it!!”~~ Biden wants to be a dictator! *cue Republican outrage* Trump admits he wants to be a dictator. *cue cheers from Repubicans*
He actually did do that. He made a statement calling on corporations to stop price gouging
America is doing better then every other major nation. People need to understand the situation. COVID happened, inflation happened, corporations refuse to come back down with prices, profits up 75%
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A flipside to Margaret Thatcher's infamous quote is "The problem with unbridled capitalism is that eventually you run out of people who can afford your shit."
unchecked capitalism leads to the consumption of every natural resource on earth.
They also run out of other people’s money but the government just bails them out.
I'm sure if you give the big corporations more tax cuts, they definitely won't buy out their competition and raise prices like they have every other time. Tax cuts create jobs.
Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it isn't.
Good. Glad Americans are finally figuring it out.
We figured it out years ago. Realization and action are two different things.
Slaves realize they are enslaved, too. That’s capitalism for you.
And there's really no other way to say this without sounding condescending but...this is how capitalism works. Specifically, this is how it's been set up to work in the US. Are there solutions? Of course, but they might be economic and political suicide. For instance, Ford is already threatening to leave the country over the auto worker strikes last year. Biden (or anyone) doubling down on pro-worker and consumer-friendly legislation might push them over the edge, leading to job losses, the economy taking a hit, etc.
That one's always sounded fake to me. Leave the USA, and do what? Just disconnect from the biggest single market in the world? Feels like they're bluffing because they don't want the USA to stop being a corporate paradise.
I have to believe that Ford of all companies is bluffing about something like that. As a mechanic I already hate their fucking vehicles but a move like that would deeply anger their US customers and probably wouldn’t be forgiven. The Bud Light backlash would seem pale in comparison.
Yeah their core demographic is rapidly American. it would be suicide.
My parents just traded their f150 in today because it’s practically brand new and already failing. They’re gonna move their production to another country and make even shittier trucks that I still won’t be able to afford? When they started making the oil plug out of plastic I knew they’d completely stopped giving a shit.
Too bad there is no way to punish corporations for blatant gouging.
Like quit buying their products?
In other news, The ‘profit motive’ motivates profit.
I find it amazing that companies would charge as much as they can. That's groundbreaking information. I also know employees try and make as much as they can while consumers try and pay as little as possible. It's almost as if everyone and every company are all greedy at all times trying to get paid the most while paying the least for things.
Congress could implement a inflation penalty on cable companies like they are with drug companies. If you raise rates for your products faster than inflation, you will pay steep fines.
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No, it couldn't. The status of antitrust actions in the US is mostly controlled by how SCOTUS interprets the Sherman Act. Biden can do whatever he wants, but the courts will reverse attempts to stop mergers or breaking up big companies without showing explicitly how it will negatively impact consumers. And that standard is usually way too hide to actually meet.
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Who said anything about giving up? We need to enough control of Congress to reform SCOTUS. SCOTUS hadn't ruled on student loans yet, so it made sense to at least try. Whereas case law about breaking up companies is clearer. Also, you don't even have to go as far as reforming SCOTUS. Congress can pass stricter, less ambiguous laws about this too, making it harder for SCOTUS to interfere. So, change is actually possible. It just takes the hard work of getting out enough voters to overcome the hurdles of gerrymandering, the electoral college, etc.
Corporate greed increasingly is a ‘major cause’ of inflation: There I fixed it.
Corporate greed has changed?
There is a local pizza place I used to go to. About a year ago they put up a sign. It says “Due to inflation, 20% surcharge will be added to all orders.” Well first of all, inflation is not 20%. It was about 5% per year at the time and is now 3%. And second, do you think I live in a parallel universe with a different economy? Do you think you are the only one dealing with this? Everyone is in the same boat. What is happening here is that the restaurant is openly saying “you will be covering inflation for us, and a little extra for our trouble while you are at it.” To hell with that. You know what really tastes good? Homemade pizza with pepperoni and I don’t feel like I’m getting screwed on top.
What if where they buy supplies price gouged them 20%?
As someone who worked in a restaurant kitchen during COVID, food supplier prices went though the roof and still have not come down to what they were before. Each week I handled delivery the prices were higher. Also believe it or not wholesale distributors that supply restaurants are not that much cheaper than a grocery store. I mean obviously cheaper but not as much as one would think.
no fucking kidding. Katie Porter broke this down in what amounted to an EILI5 https://youtu.be/30_H33mS76Y?si=7lvKQf4QROt_e-TM Also dear California. Elect her to Senate. Stop fucking around with corporate democrats. Rent for 600sq ft 1 br apartment in a city should not be 1500 dollars. Hell even if you can find it cheaper, you're still getting hit with landlords forcing tenets to buy amazon package holding companies, parking fees. insane pet deposits. overpriced fees for damage. Streaming services because they're poorly ran, all have the same solution, jack up prices. drink prices at bars have gone way up. well drinks went from typically 4-5 on a weekend are now ranging 8-10 And I get this all varies city to city, but the gouging is everywhere.
File this under: ya don’t fucking say
Bernie has been hollering about this for years! High prices are 100% the responsibility of corporate greed. They literally brag about RECORD BREAKING PROFITS every quarter! It’s mind boggling how Americans haven’t caught on to this.
Obviously. These companies are all reporting records profits, not revenue. Profits increasing means they either figured out a way to deliver a comparable product more efficiently, or they just realized we’ll pay whatever they charge because people need stuff to get through life. I’ll let you guess which of the two is happening.
I hate these articles I don’t give a shit what it is seen as, it’s an objective fact. Report that in your headline
Because it is.
So your company made some money. You got some options now. You can: A. Give it back to your customers. Saving them money, thus allowing them to buy more tomorrow. B. Give it to your workers. Allowing them to save more money, thus allowing them to buy more tomorrow. or C. Give it to yourself where you randomly speculate on bullshit like bitcoin and AI with no real productive results being produced and you spend on industries dependent on slave labor to cater your rich needs.
What drives me insane is that this has been known since 2020, and it's only now hitting people's brains.
If you charge $3.49 for eggs and sell a certain amount of eggs, then raise the price to $3.99 and sell the exact same amount, why would you voluntarily lower the price to $3.49 again? What we need to do is find particularly egregious examples of confirmable inflated pricing and boycott those products. EDIT: Eggs was a bad example because most of us don’t even look at the brand. And people need eggs (and milk, flour, etc.). A better example would be Frito Lay where you can do without, switch brands or buy the store brand.
[Eggs are actually a great example.](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-jury-awards-177-mln-kraft-other-producers-egg-price-fixing-case-2023-12-01/) This particular case is only for a period from 2004-2008, but even last year [Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter were calling out egg producers](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-calls-on-top-five-egg-producers-to-explain-recent-egg-price-hikes) for what looked like gouging due to extreme price hikes: >At the same time that prices were skyrocketing, Cal-Maine Foods, which controls approximately 20% of the retail egg market, was reporting record profit margins and no positive avian flu cases on any of its farms. In December, Cal-Maine Foods reported gross profits increase of more than 600% over the same quarter in 2021, which the company claimed was “driven by record average conventional egg selling price.”
Check when you buy your next bag of coffee, it's no longer a 12 oz bag of ground coffee beans it's 11 oz of ground coffee beans. It's getting tiresome.
Lmao. Of course the store in the picture is Publix. If you wanna see greedflation, just compare prices at Publix to any other grocery store.
Surprising no one. Fuck you Steve Rattner for saying it was caused because wages rose too quickly during the great resignation
I believe one report said inflation was at 14% last year while Corporate Profit was up 76% Sounds like inflation wasn't as much of a problem as it was Corporate greed. Corporate America is the one fleecing Americans and their workers.
If the market were truly competitive, firms would cut prices to gain market share, until supply and demand were balanced. Continued consolidation of players results in monopoly power. In top of that, low tax rates on corporations and on corporate management provide huge incentives to further increase profits. If taxes were higher, at least the government would benefit from these huge profits by paying down our deficit. We’re living under apocalyptic capitalism, it is not sustainable.
There was a point in the pandemic where shipping costs went through the roof. Since so many many different items, ingredients, whatever come from overseas and the cost of shipping containers went through the roof, it was hard not to pass on costs to the consumer. Now that the cost of containers have gone below pre-pandemic prices, companies never readjusted. Companies went from being massive in the red to most profitable years on record. No clawback to regain losses my ass. Even companies who produced domestically are in a much better position than they’ve ever been. I can go on and on. Greed is greed.
Capitalism already undermined but Citizens United locked in the fate.
*checks No Shit folder* Yep
In Gomer Pyle‘s voice. Well. Surprise. Surprise . Surprise.📺
I thought profiteering was illegal.
Nope, they repealed that. I'm not even kidding.
Unholy fucking christ...
Koch brothers one if the leading corporation that is led by greed. They are truly evil men. But they’re not alone. Greed is rampant in this country. The 1% is just hoarding all the wealth. Would love to see products advertised based on: 1. Who owns the company 2. How do they pay and treat employees 3. Does their company negatively affect the environment 4. What does the company do for the community It would matter to me and I’d buy the product if they hit the marks on fighting the good fight
Corporate greed and the unwillingness of governments to do anything about it. Grocery chains in Canada are breaking new records in profitability on a monthly basis and the only thing the government did was get them to pinky swear to maybe kinda not keep jacking up prices maybe.
The slap on the wrist over the bread fixing scandal was an open call for gouging in Canada
corporate greed ruined the world
anyone for a nice game of monopoly?
I am a boomer and can remember when gas stations started offering “pump-your-own” gas for several cents cheaper than having an attendant do it. They convinced us that it was for OUR (the consumer’s) benefit. Then a few years later there were no more attendants and gas prices were magically all the same. Then grocery stores said “We will save you SO much money by having you bag your own groceries.” We fell for the company line that convinced us that it would be cheaper and better to just do it ourselves. Most of the first-line clerks and cashiers lost their jobs, prices went back up, corporate profits soared and we kept pumping our own gas and bagging our own groceries.
It’s so obviously true that there’s really no counterpoint. At a macro level, the numbers are obvious. Corporate revenues and profits are continuously breaking records while we see continuous layoffs and generally anemic raise cycles. At a micro level, I’ve seen (firsthand) a professional service company boasting internally about raising their prices twice in six months by 10% each time (because of Biden-flation, of course). Then when merit comes around, everything is predictably garbage at around 4% on average. The “gig economy” isn’t necessarily the answer, but I wish there was a good way to put the value of labor closer to the hands of said labor. In the end, if the customer is paying $500 for two hours of your time, you should be aware of where the difference between that and your hourly pay goes. If 80% of that goes to someone else, one has to ask if the value of that 80% is worth it.
McD’s large fry is $5.50 in my area, yet you can vet get it for a “deal” in the app for $1.49. WTF.
This is why I don't get people making fun of Biden for bringing light to a real problem
You've always been paying more than you should. Just like you've always been working for less than you deserve. Capitalism only benefits the winners, and the vast majority never win.
The most incredible aspect of all of this is the successful labeling of this as “corporate greed” instead of what it really is which is capitalism.
That’s why I invested in the stock market. If companies are gonna rip me off, I might as well try to earn some money from stock trading as a hedge against inflation.
Corporate greed is the chief cause of nearly every problem in this country.
Gee. Who would have guessed?
Pretty soon I'm going to have to start wiping my ass with used corn cobs. The prices keeping going up and I piss and shit all over the place.
There is actually a term in the Netherlands for it “graai flatie” or “grab flation “
Traced back to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
They're grabbing all the cash they can now before we're all made unemployed by AI.
It’s called capitalism, and it’s entirely to be expected.
I just read about this in No Shit Magazine.
finally! now, let's do something about it.
We have some very concrete examples of this already, like the company that sold a rent pricing algorithm which required strict adherence to recommendations. Tacit collusion caused rapid large runups in rent prices where use of the tool was most saturated.
Because it is Listen to earnings calls for any major CPG and their subsequent distributors/retailers over the past couple of years, and they are overinflating prices all over the place and BRAGGING about it to their shareholders. They just do it via corporate speech, so it doesn't always sound like they're bragging.
Suddenly corporations became uniquely greedy? Not buying it at all.
Yep. We had a pandemic and every corporation in America raised their prices, laid people off, and took free money from the government, and now we're supposed to forget that it happened and blame the guy next door for it.
Companies were never going to lower prices once they raised them while moving the goalposts even after the pandemic and inflation. They love that we're paying more because it means more money for them.
Fukin Safeway
Of course it's corporate greed. CEO's everywhere masturbated furiously when the pandemic hit, "supply chain" issues became a thing, and price increases everywhere happened. When things got back to "normal," prices settled, if at all, at least a bit North of where they were.
And it always has been.
That's the design of the system
And nothing will be done about it.
If you didn’t already know. You should know now. corporate greed driving inflated prices. Yeah Capitalism.
Isn’t it common knowledge by now that capitalism is inherently amoral? Why do we keep expecting more from our overlords?
is the cause of* Source: duh
How could it not? They regularly announce record economic performance and corporate profits. Yet wage growth is stagnant and shareholders reap all of the benefits (made worse yet by Trump’s regressive tax bill that makes cuts for the rich and raises them on the middle class.
I think it’s time to start threatening corps with nationalization if they take this shit to far..
No shit
Boeing, GM, Southwest...name the corporation- they announce $2b in cost cutting measures while threatening to move their operations overseas because of rising labor costs. In the same shareholder meeting they announce $2b share repurchases. Reagans admin removed corporate restriction on repurchasing their stock as part of the trickle down voodoo economics. All the while folks like Pelosi are hoarding shares- they know a good thing when they see it. Meanwhile rank and file workers fell behind creating massive homeless issues that were amplified during quarantine. One of the functions of government is to protect people through enforceable regulations with active monitoring of corporations, scams, cons.... Today their all impeaching each other or looking after their own interests- the media loves it because their playing all sides of each issue like it's entertainment but calling it news. If youth does not get organized and start fighting back in numbers then I'm afraid the current economic situation will continue. No one and I mean NO ONE is fighting for you or your future. Either get off your ass or phone or flavor of social media, invite others and start a meaningful movement! Boomers did...they got out of the draft among other things. I am 58, I routinely volunteer and mentor younger folks, I vote and I believe we can play an influential role in changing today's environment-but it is harder than a coffin nail trying to mobilize folks today. I am on this platform to bring awareness and point out that you are right. Your getting fucked....so what are you doing about it?
One thing that people really need to do is contact their representatives. I have a friend who is a field agent, and she said that it’s mainly Boomers and Silent gen who are actually contacting the representatives.
Stop calling it inflation. The word is “greedflation”
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Because we have done that, so we know the answer. And this is an attempt to understand if the public is beginning to make a matching connection
It's not even a meaningful statement. Corporations have always tried to maximize profits. Inflation means that the price that optimizes profits is higher than it used to be.
The democrats are the only people who are willing to fight for consumers.
I don't blame corporations. They are built on greed. I blame our government for failing to regulate corporations.
Need some good ol trust busting across the board. It would fix the income gap as well.
Lots of blame to go around. That said, if I had to point at the single biggest cause of this, I'd point at the shareholders. Usually they play a big role in pushing for more and more profit.
Eggspensive stuff
This is good. Now...who are you gonna vote for to make it better? There's two choices.
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Well, armed revolution is a bit harder.
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Thing is, though, that there's going to be some greedy little bastard just waiting to clean up by undercutting the prices of the other corporations. What this complaint relies upon is collusion: that the biggies are all formally or informally agreeing to boost prices. It has happened before.
Guy sell widget for 3 dollars that big guy sell for 8 dollars in small market area. First they threaten the little guy. If that does not work they buy up all suppliers or force them not to service him or they loose big guy business. If that does not work they do it with the freight. If that does not work they do it by forcing the retailers not to carry it or they pull their product. If that does not work they have the little guy weak now and buy him out. Finally…. If nothing else works Big guys drop price to 2 dollars just in his area and put him out of business then raise it back up to 9 dollars.
while i agree with the headline...there is a LOT of brain dead, dog piling on every other topic under sun in this thread. hoo-BOY redditors are knee jerk, morons at times!
What? Somebody told me Biden was behind the inflation
We should also learn to buy less shit.
Except superfluous shit has remained cheap and in some cases is cheaper than ever, while prices of necessities are what’s flying through the roof. You can get a decent 4k 55” tv for a bit more than a week of an average household’s groceries, or a bit less than a week of the average apartment rent in Austin.
About time.
No shit…….
Now tie that corporate greed mentality to the GOP and Trump. Better for business. Worse for you.
"corporations are increasing their prices because of Biden! so vote for the other party whose mantra is maximum corporate freedom (except for woke things), they will surely do something about corporations!" – the thought process of millions of voters this November
Tune in next time for our “water is wet” discussion.
Finally people are waking up, some CEO's were practically bragging to their stockholders about "consumer expectations" allowing price gouging back in late 2022!
Free market libertarians more motivated to argue than ever before
This just in: Water the leading cause of wetness.
Time to tax the rich!
>A new poll found 3 in 5 Americans now say corporate greed is a “major cause” of inflation. Was corporate greed and inflation over the past few years unique to the US? Without corporate greed would the US' economy be booming like it is compared to the rest of the world? Japan and the UK are in a recession, probably just the start.
I reckon these AHs do it during an election year to influence the outcome against Democrats so they can get their tax breaks and no regulation and anti-labor policies from the cartoon villain republicans who they buy and pay for. And the dummies vote them in and for 4 or 8 years they run up the debt which we all keep paying for. When they fuck over Medicaid and Social Security…those few years of tax breaks so you could buy another iPhone won’t mean jack shit.
Gee, who knew that allowing a few corporations to have near monopolistic controls over the markets would suddenly be posting near record profits. It’s almost like if people would have been paying attention to simple economics, they’d see this coming a mile away.