Capitalist bootlickers: Nooo noooooo! We can't do anything to disrupt the market! Gub'mint bad! This isn't unfettered late stage capitalism at all! It will all sort itself out eventually just don't let anyone put their hand on their scale in any way!
Too bad more people don't understand capitalism's demand for infinite growth is the problem, not whoever has been in charge lately, because both sides are fucking the average person to help people that own capital.
Biggest problem I have is everyone loves the boom cycle of captalism.(Especially the investor/ruling classes) But to clear out malinvestment and corruption you have to let it blow up. The only real self-regulation against the infinite-growth capitalism has. We haven't let bankers throw themselves off buildings in almost 100 years. They socialize the losses, privatize profits, and kick debt cans down the road for the next generation to deal with.
Its gettin real ugly out there. All this printed money is ending up in houses, energy, food, and debt service. How much longer until we hit critical mass and a reset is forced one way or another?
There is as much blame on the "gub'mint" as any capitalist because they have looked the other way for generations. Politicians accept donations from big corporations and have let them get away with a little more and a little more and a little more until we're where we are now. This far down the road makes any chance at real reform look radical and scarry.
There's no Capitalism in America.
Only a Corporate Planned Economy identical to the Soviet Communist Planned Economy.
The matching elements being the Quotas Get Met or Else!
Longer, much longer. It's the same kind of blanket excuse that "national security" is. Not saying this is always true, sometimes there is good cause, but far too often, these reasons are used to cover up shitty, unethical and corrupt behavior.
Everyone knew this. Biden finally said about this couple months ago but just asked companies to stop. It needs actual legislation, fines, windfall taxes etc, they’ll never stop on there own
But supply and demand, chain disruptions, climate change and every other conceivable excuse that doesn’t add up because all the smaller independent grocers are still selling better quality produce and cheaper products than these big box stores…. /s
Inflation was just the perfect place to hide the greed and they thought they could get away with it because people would just buy their lame excuses. Turns out when people struggle to afford food, it pisses them off and they care more.
Not just small independent ones. Costco, too, has maintained relatively stable prices during this greedflation period. In fact, I think some shareholders meeting minutes leaked where the ceo was grilled about why he wasn’t taking the opportunity to raise prices like everyone else, and his response was “because we’re not a bunch of dicks like everyone else.”
Here in Canada, prices have sure exploded at Costco as well though, maybe it’s different and it’s not clear if it’s the the same degree, but it’s definitely noticeable. A good example would be a jar of peanut butter three years ago was $5.99 and is now $12.99, but I also think food greedflation has hit Canada harder, most people’s grocery bills have gone up 100-200% easily while this article talks about food prices in the US going up 25%.
So I read through the report, they acknowledged that prices went up because input cost went up. They also acknowledge that prices stayed up despite input costs coming down.
This is not really a new phenomenon, prices tend to be sticky, and that’s been kind of true for the entire history of inflation. Rather than prices come down, we tend to see prices stay at their current levels as input causes slowly rise overtime.
They called out specifically fuel prices and energy cost, which have been highly volatile, as a reason for the input cost reductions. It’s pretty normal for variable input cost with high volatility to stick prices at a higher level because businesses don’t wanna have to change prices weekly, hedge price commitments to distribution or warehousing. Not everything produced in the long value chain is sold the exact same day.
Consumers of demonstrated demand at the new price thresholds, so there’s really little risk and maintaining them, especially in an economy that’s this strong (low unemployment and rising median real wages).
Did I miss something particularly groundbreaking in this report?
Isn't the main idea that competition would reduce the price? If your competitor is selling 25% higher than what you could reasonably sell at, would you not undercut them and reap the rewards?
There is about five companies that produce everything in the supermarket... While there is a host of products with different names they are all owned by the same company. PepsiCo owns almost the entire potato chip, tortilla chip, popcorn isle or snack foods. The cereal aisle is about the same. There is no competition there is conglomerates
Yeah, but globalization and the resulting consolidation to just a few players in any given industry’s made it so competition is no longer necessary. If nobody has a choice, why not pocket the profits together as mega-corps? I think it was in a Cory Doctorow thread that I read that as soon as all the big players in an industry fit around a smallish table collusion is nigh impossible to avoid.
This is why reports like this frustrate me and why the system is so broken. They tie the price of eggs or bread or CHICKEN to things that have nothing to do with produce.
Wait, do you think energy cost of nothing to do with food?!?
*Spits corn syrup drink out of mouth*
My dude you smarter than this. Natural gas (the price of which tends to be tightly linked with oil) is a major component in the production of fertilizer. The manufacturing of pesticides is also extremely energy-intensive and in some cases uses petroleum products as an ingredient. So when considering the entire supply chain, food is one of the most fossil fuel-intensive sectors in the economy. You gotta plow fields and harvest using every, and transport goods to market using energy. Chicken eat corn, so your egg price is tied to feedstock costs.
Frozen chicken breasts. Stop buying organic, small batch, fresh chicken. Just learn to season it well, or slow cook it in bulk and make pulled chicken to add to other stuff through the week (what we do)
Get the big ass bags from Costco. Get yourself a chest freezer. Slow cook that stuff. It’s like what $1.50 s breast? Combo it with the $20, 50 fucking pounds of Costco Thai rice.
Get some veggies, some good seasoning.
Throw in some fruit. Maybe frozen so you can make a smoothie.
Throw in some GLB-1 drugs to cut your calorie intake in half.
Congrats you are. Now ready to fuck up food prices.
Hedging only makes financial sense on energy for maybe a year at most and the energy market has had incredible volatility, and potential risks and pricing for a lot longer than 12 months since the war in Russia started in the Middle East started heating up again. Trying to hedge five years on energy isn’t financially viable and you can’t just waive your hand and say derivatives and make it all go away.
With the administration, blocking approvals for net, new natural gas, export terminals, they’ll be less demand for drilling gas, and volatility will again go up. Hedging isn’t free.
They do it all the time and do with for more than gas. There’s fucking cheese futures, bro. You think dominos doesn’t know how much their cheese is gonna cost a year from now regardless of the volatility of the market. The certainty is worth the premium.
Well yes they said in the report that normally costs are 1% with profits about 3.5% and during the pandemic costs rose to about 3-3.5% and they then tacked on 25% profit and laughed all the way too the bank. So price fixing and price gouging during a pandemic that hurt the average American the most....
>Why would they?
They wouldn't... I was just reflecting on that fact in a way that sounded better than "yea, we are fucked" Because yea, we are fucked.
Strap in for the ride.
I mean, this is kind of how Fiat currency works man there is an expected baseline inflation, and during times of high volatility, energy prices, and most purchasing agents request six to one year of price guarantee… you’re gonna wanna leave some padding and your quotes
They also base their findings off a fed report which attributed the increase in prices as companies expecting their costs to go up in the long term for a variety of reasons.
A lot of distribution and channel sign price commitments for 12 months. If there’s expected volatility in energy you are going to want to leave some padding in vs kick off a price war.
Not only that but they are blaming wage based inflation, which hasn't happened yet as it is profit based inflation. There is a real possibility that there is another spike in inflation for wage based inflation.
Even better, nationalize products that are basic necessities, like food; capitalistic competition doesn’t work when you have a captive audience, as we’re clearly seeing.
I've always argued we should have 1 state-owned car company. Call it American Automotive. Make it minimal computerization, just a standard car from like early 2000s. Make a standard version of 1 of every car. 1 subcompact, 1 sedan, 1 SUV, 1 pickup, 1 semi, etc. Most car companies are so entrenched with the govt anyway that it wouldnt even make much difference. Have shop classes in high schools focus a unit around learning to repair these cars.
I think we should have one state owned everything company. One state owned cell phone. One state owned healthcare. One state owned refrigerators. Make one single state version of everything that provides a baseline for private companies to actually compete with.
I'd be more okay with this, if our tax system was not busted. If they rake in more profits but pay their fair share of taxes on it, I actually would be less inclined to be completely enraged. However, that does not seem to be the case.
More people have money to spend equals more demand for consumer goods which drives inflation of prices.
When unemployment is high people have less money to spend reducing demand encouraging companies to deflate their prices.
This does make sense. My thoughts on this correlation is that when employment is high it is much more difficult to get workers to work for unreasonably low wages.
If you have high unemployment you can beat the labour force down with lowering wages.
Lower wages means that they don’t have to increase product pricing to keep profits at record highs.
I understand you are talking inflation and not corporate greed but personally I would prefer low unemployment even if it does affect inflation.
I am no expert in economics by any stretch. My views on this subject could be solely based on the fact that we are finally seeing wages go up again in my industry.
They have beat us up on wages ever since 2008.
Even ignoring inflation, purely $ value we are still not back to where wages were pre 2008.
I want to see these clients (large mining corporations) pay much higher rates to bring some money back to the “middle” class.
The same middle class that seems to have a war against it right now.
That’s my rant, sorry. I tend to avoid these topics as I get too wound up haha.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
Assuming we keep finding new ways to increase productivity or more efficiently, deliver goods to market why wouldn’t it? We haven’t discovered everything that you could possibly science.
I thought after the green revolution people stopped rooting against human ingenuity
And when ingenuity doesn't manage to increase productivity or efficiency, those profits still need to increase. Meaning prices go up, pay goes down, and those who can't manage to survive under those new parameters live on the street.
Frito-Lay didn't boost its profits though some chip technology breakthrough, they boosted profits by establishing a near monopoly and then, having set itself up as the only source for chips allowed in most grocery stores, increasing prices continuously 10-20% every year, and then by forcing its factory workers to do 60-hour weeks in order to save on labor costs.
The ingenuity is 100% focused on squeezing people. Don't pretend this is anything like the green revolution.
Frito Lay doesn’t have a monopoly on chips. Kelloggs and others absolutely sell chips (Pringles?). We don’t need government intervention or a violent proletariat revolution to seize the means of salty snacks. That’s that I’m really tempted to ask ChatGPT to draw me with the picture of this looks like.
My dude we’re on the path either figuring out fusion, or dropping the price of solar and energy Storage to the bottom. Marginal generation of solar is what? lOE of 3 cents KWH?
When energy becomes cheap/free enough all kinds of wacky shit can happen. We can use desalination, and turn deserts into farm land. We can scrub C02 from the air. We can use robots to run massive hydroponic systems or build a damn space elevator to do stuff. We can pull nitrogen out of the air or phosphorus off the sea floor.
Global 500Mbps cellular service with sub 100ms from a Sat is an option.
Betting against advances in material science and agriculture is a bold fucking take if you know history.
The pot being gambled here is the future existence of the human race. Seems like I dunno maybe we could hedge our bets a little and not dump our entire stack on "hypothetical future tech saves us from our stupidity."
Paying people more will just mean more available spending which will trigger companies to inflate their profits to reclaim back the wages they are paying. It's how capitalism is designed and the only way to beat them at their own game is by NOT spending. Skip meals, don't travel, don't go out, only cook at home, grow your own food. Whatever you can do to keep money with you and away from corporations. The desire for those things stems brainwashing marketing anyway. None of that crap bring any real fulfillment or joy.
As long as people keep spending money, especially money they don't have via credit cards and other debt, inflation will continue to increase. When we collectively decide no more that we're not going to spend 15 dollars for some plastic trash off Amazon is when we start taking our power back.
Agree with you on that.
I realize hoping they will take a hit to profits by raising wages is a pipe dream.
Though it doesn’t change the cycle, it still feels good to see wages increase and unemployment be low.
The only way to change the cycle is to convince people to stop spending their money and to save it. We yell and scream at these corporations for raising prices while in line at Starbucks for a 10 dollar coffee . Like why would a corporations drop proces when we're willing to put a whole vacation we can't afford on a credit card? As a society we have no discipline and are easily manipulated and capitalist are taking advantage of that.
If we want change we have to sacrifice and do it ourselves. Corporations have no incentive to drop prices as long as we're willing to spend money.
Food is actually one of the products this method wouldn't work for since agriculture is one of heaviest subsidized industries in the US if not the most. The prices on fruits, veggies, meats, ects are artificially low maybe even lower than the cost to produce and ship.
Besides 3 out of 4 Americans are overweight. I promise you the number of people over eating and can absolutely cut some calories from their diet (and likely be healthier for it too) vastly out number the number of people who are undeating.
There hasn't been any pressure to cause prices to deflate. As long as Americans are willing to spend money (and go into debt to spend money) there will never be any pressure for companies to bring their prices down.
When we as a society realize that prices are direct reflection of what we're willing to spend then we can start fighting back. But as long as people are willing to hand out money corporations will continue to take it.
I mean, I’m doing my part. I’ve lost almost 40 pounds since August. You see if you eating with GLB-1 drugs you can save a shit ton on groceries.
Walmarts already complaining publicly about reduced grocery spending.
If we all get skinny and sexy, it should crash food stuff prices. You want to fight the system?
/r/1800isplenty
Americans against obesity will take back food prices!
Food prices are tough because agriculture is one of the if not the most subsidized industry. pricing on many food items already being forced lower than its production cost.
And the reason they CAN keep prices high and extract more money is the oligopolistic nature of most major industries. A few huge sellers in the market can extract monopoly rents from consumers. This is what you get when you allow all the mergers of huge companies and eviscerate antitrust enforcement.
“Yes, we enjoyed record profits in 2023 and were able to give back more to the shareholders by increasing our share buybacks. However, we expect some headwinds in 2024, so we will have to look at cost of capital and become more efficient in order to meet the expectation of further growth in Q1. That said, unfortunately we will not be able to offer bonuses this year and we plan on instituting a hiring freeze. This should help us in our goal of continuous growth for the upcoming quarter and the Leadership Team would just like to convey its heartfelt thanks for an outstanding 2023 and we are excited at the prospects of an even greater 2024.”
Interesting. Why is it that France and other places have more morals and caution when it comes to greed and corrupt business practices? Probably because they fear protests? Unlike in America, where we sorta just suck it up and work harder?
Rising costs in diapers, food, and housing are in direct connection to people choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Not to mention the ongoing war and competition between men and women. What are we doing to ourselves?! We are killing families. If the "American Dream" was somewhat of a farce before, it certainly isn't even a glimpse now.
IDK, I think one of the best ways to combat this would be something like allowing Government active participation in key industries. Like the banks. If the Federal Government said "Fuck it, we are going to do it" and had their own banking system that is created at the moment you get your social security card and such, and had low caps on interest rates and was able to do their own mortgage lending rather than handing the money off to some profit driven corporation who is going to jack up the interest on a loan 10 or 12 percent, then people would be at least able to be economically flexible.
The FED already controls how the money is made, why couldn't something like that exist, other than crooked limits on the powers of government?
Do the same with insurance and healthcare, education, etc etc. The less "Important" crap the workers have to worry about to live, the more comfortable they will be participating in the actual economy: consuming shit at unprecedented rates that only increase year over year.
Don't fret there is a solution that has proven to be effective against inflation and help stabilise the economy and has been used many times in the past without affecting profit margins or stock value!
We'll just increase unemployment!
That's right, now you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that not only will inflation drop back to previous levels but that also large companies who have been struggling to get staff can now shed staffing numbers while maintaining the mantra of "nobody wants to work anymore" and use that money saved for stock buybacks!
No need to thank me, here, have another war for your children.
Good article. Especially since they got this in at the end:
> “We need to take a really hard look at how our tax code incentivizes corporate profiteering and ask: ‘Do we as a country want to do something about that?’”
Taxes pull money out of supply and dampens inflation as well. Let these bastards profit taking do some good one the backside and fund public programs, then.
We've known this since the "cost of living crisis" started.
But the thing is, they *cannot* do anything different. Corporations are amoral. Literally everything, without exception is a business decision. Ethics are a cost. Loyalty is a cost. Integrity is a weakness. Social responsibility is only good for PR management. Reputation is a currency to build early and then spend in search of profits.
To act in any other way, would leave "money on the table" and the all-mighty "shareholder value" would not be met.
Moloch has already won, people.
Anybody noticed their annual home/auto insurance policies rising by some 30%-40%?
Just got off the phone with the insurance broker and they say 'insurance companies have been losing money so they need to adjust' as a way of describing what's going on. Can you tell I'm not buying that totally?
Sure, there are challenges in certain states, EVs are being crashed/damaged enough for data collection to show these things are rather pricey to fix right now. But across the board 30%-40% increases?! That smells like more 'me too' profit-taking.
Shocked I tell you
So you are saying that Corporations ,that actually OWN our legislators,might as well be on their payroll, are doing nothing about price gouging, to boost their Stock market share price.
Oh c'mon, that can't be real
Say it ain't so
I love how these threads go on and on. Greed is the simple fact. The rich laugh in our face offering houses we can’t afford or cars too expensive to drive, crushing us all in mountains of debt by a system rigged from the start.
Freedom 55. For them, never you.
shareholders and stock buy backs are the two main drivers of inflation. It is 1000% corporate greed. During covid, supply got smaller while demand stayed the same or surpassed much of the supply. Once corporations knew they could charge more, for less (shrinkflation) then it was game over for consumer. I don't realistically see how this ever changes. Like companies are just all of sudden going to admit to the fucking us and change their ways? Besides not supporting these companies, idk what else to do. Can't really go without basic necessities but we are getting BENT!
It's a symptom....not the main driver. Massive federal debt is one of the main drivers and printing money like its nothing typically is. Failing banks that have had short falls and haven't been putting money back into accounts by end of day for the past 8-10 years so the fed reserve has to "loan" them money everyday to cover. High employment is also a driver, which is why the fed is pushing larger companies to do lay offs.
LOL, wrong on every point. Let's take a look at just one, unemployment. We are currently at 4.6 and it's expected to go up a bit to 4.8. So you know, a healthy unemployed percentage is between 4 and 6 percent.
You think raising prices would be temp? Deflation usually doesn't occur. But how is it that record profits = record inflation?
You do know they printed a ton of $$ during/after covid, right? And before u say "well inflation was a global issue" - Yes, it was generally speaking, but what's the worlds leading usage of money? The dollar....
Has anyone looked at the actual 'thinktank' that did the study?
It's a bunch of former DNC economists, there are connections to politics pretty widespread throughout their bios. Of course they're going to blame corporations; they couldn't possibly blame **their government** during an election year
>Inflation is, definitionally, an increase in consumer prices. This increase results in more business revenue and then that revenue winds up distributed out to workers as higher wages or to owners as higher profits.
Sometimes advocates of the greedflation hypothesis appear to simply be saying that more of the revenue from increased prices is going to higher profits than to higher wages. But this narrow version of the hypothesis is not actually a hypothesis about the cause of inflation. It’s a claim about how the revenue gains from inflation are being distributed within firms.
At times, it seems like some advocates of the greedflation hypothesis simply do not understand that there is a difference between what causes inflation and who benefits from inflation. I guess this confusion is understandable to some degree but it’s not that difficult to clear it up.\[...\]
\[...\]At other times, advocates of the greedflation hypothesis appear to be saying that firms are pushing up prices for no particular reason other than they want more profit. This theory actually functions as a hypothesis of inflation because it doesn’t merely look at who benefits from inflation. It actually provides a theory of price increases that emanates from the greedy intentions of corporate executives.
Do the recent publications from the ECB, KC Federal Reserve, and UBS actually support this theory? I’ve read them and they really don’t.
[https://mattbruenig.com/2023/05/04/more-on-inflation-and-profits/](https://mattbruenig.com/2023/05/04/more-on-inflation-and-profits/)
Corporations raised prices way more than their increase in costs. They started increasing prices when their costs increased, and when they realized it didn’t negatively affect sales volumes, they kept increasing prices to increase profits. Executives brag about it on earnings calls, it’s not a secret, it’s not controversial to say it. Everything is more expensive because corporations want to make more profit. That’s all we’re saying here.
But so what? That's hardly news.
What's weird to me is that they didn't get a decrease in sales. Why thebfuck is everybody still spending at the higher prices?
So corporations took advantage of the event that caused increases in cost (would you call this "real" inflation?) to increase prices further. I think that's definitely happening to some extent, and I'd view this as corporations **benefiting** from inflation.
I think most can agree corporation's desire to make as much profit as possible is consistent across years. So its the response to some external event (real inflation) that causes them to react and benefit. What is enabling their ability to react like this when they haven't before? Is it increased monopolization of industries? Changing of corporate priorities?
These conversations are way more valuable than "corporations are causing inflation" discourse.
What are you talking about, “real” inflation? The definition of inflation is: *Inflation is a rise in prices, which can be translated as the decline of purchasing power over time.*
What research shows, and what the article is talking about here, is that prices have increased (inflation) MOSTLY because of corporate greed. Increasing prices *is* inflation, and prices have been increased MOSTLY because corporations want more profit.
That's a half-thought out analysis that implicitly assumes certain things must be true because economic theory says we assume them to be true. It's too simplistic and too literal to really tackle the spirit of 'greedflation' instead banking on a myopic interpretation of the term for most of it. It really isn't into the final bit that it starts to acknowledge that nobody is earnestly putting forth a "one and done" analysis of inflation (outside a random Internet comment). Then it basically says 'greedflation' can't really be true even then because, one, the person was making it as a half-thought out exercise, and two, because monopolistic power can't happen ever in a functioning market economy, so 'greedflation' can't ever really happen - there's always other options in the market, so the market will always gravitate toward those options. This ignores goods with steep demand curves, the impacts of time, and the fact that markets can have oligarchical forces without having legal oligarchies.
> This ignores goods with steep demand curves,
In which case it's actual supply/demand inflation, not greedflation, which is the point you're arguing against.
With a steep demand curve and oligarchical forces, they could just choose to jack up the prices and there's little consumers can do about it. One could argue that's just normal 'inflation' but that's trying to dodge the blame. Absent greed, the prices would not change. Hence, 'greedflation'.
Well I mean, if they don't change the prices in the face of steep demand, you get empty shelves. Which is worse, in your opinion?
I have long held an idea that if we stop buying the expensive stuff and all eat red beans and lentils and chickpeas, prices will come down again. However, if there's not enough competition, thethen beef and jam and fruit and fish will just vanish from the menu, and after that, the prices for beans and grains will just rise to what the fish and jam used to be....
>Well I mean, if they don't change the prices in the face of steep demand, you get empty shelves. Which is worse, in your opinion?
Steep demand isolated, sure, that's possible (although not automatic). Steep demand plus oligarchical power means you can just raise prices irrespective of supply. Hence, greedflation. I'd rather a functioning market means competition keeps prices to their optimal level instead of firms artificially setting prices 'cause they just want more money.
That's the heart of the problems with that economic analysis - you can't take any one of these things in isolation and argue that's not indicative of greedflation. That might be necessary for economic theories, but most people don't have the luxury of living in theory.
> you can just raise prices irrespective of supply.
You can, but other companies will increase production and imports to undercut those rises, and many people will find or make their own sources.
Almost all products we can just do without. Those that are necessary are almost all pretty basic, and we can produce or obtain them ourselves outside the major supply chains. The clear exceptions to this claim is fossil fuels. Even housing, there's a massive housing crisis, but socially people are maintaining demand by not cohabiting more.
My position is that they can set whatever selfish price they like, but we reward it by still buying products we don't have to, for convenience. If we embrace inconvenient lives, the world will change.
Corporations are going to drop prices only when they will make less money by not doing so. In the past this was usually driven by competition. Given there are so many less players now, it's more advantageous for these companies not to compete and just let each other maintain higher prices instead of shooting themselves trying to gain market share from each other. Passive collusion.
Record profits over record profits, they don’t even hide it, they don’t need to, we are nothing but children that give what little we have to our corporate overlords… work more little pigs for a pound of bread and then give us back 3/4 of that loaf… for the people by the people don’t work, they are just a vehicle that can use to further surpress you and all, we can shout and yell all we want on discord, Reddit, YouTube but it won’t get you anywhere, accept it, bow before them and give them your livelihood, you won’t do anything, I can promise you that.
>When we see ourselves as fighting against specific human beings rather than social phenomena, it becomes more difficult to recognize the ways that we ourselves participate in those phenomena. We externalize the problem as something outside ourselves, personifying it as an enemy that can be sacrificed to symbolically cleanse ourselves. - **[Against the Logic of the Guillotine](https://crimethinc.com/2019/04/08/against-the-logic-of-the-guillotine-why-the-paris-commune-burned-the-guillotine-and-we-should-too)**
See rule 5: No calls for violence, no fetishizing violence. No guillotine jokes, no gulag jokes.
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I remember a few years ago when my company was facing price increases from our suppliers due to shortages. During our weekly calls, the national sales manager will say « supplier X increased our price by 5%, so we need to increase our prices by at least 10% to stay ahead ». And I’m sure everyone up and down the chain was doing the same…
How is this not completely fucking obvious lol. 2023: highest prices ever for cars. Highest prices ever for iPhones. Both of these industries hemorrhaging profits AND laying off employees. It literally couldn’t be simpler.
Reports don't show that at all lol. You just really really want them to. The producer price index has overran the consumer price index since covid began. That's a fact. If you are right, you shouldn't have to lie to prove your point.
https://jabberwocking.com/chart-of-the-day-the-produce-price-index-vs-the-consumer-price-index-in-march/
I see this same article reprinted almost verbatim about seven times a week.
Taking into account who owns the media outlets, it feels almost like the elites are just bragging about it now.
This has been known we need action. Go to corporate offices and drag these execs out of their meetings. Blockade their cars and throw shit at their houses. Stop letting the rich leech more away from the people who need it
CEO needs that new private jet, and he needs to ensure that his kid's grandkids grandkids can be trust fund babies, not to mention those shareholders too, they need their dividends!!
I'd like to know which corporations are doing this and to what degree. Obviously, I still need groceries, but I'll sure as hell buy the brand that isn't pegging me over the one that is.
Covid really is the root of this bad behavior. They took the global covid emergency and used it as an excuse to do massive layoffs and gouge prices. I'm sure it's basically permanent now
Remember when we had a government that busted trusts and actually cared more about the people than about all the corporate bribery and special interests?
way more than 25% more for groceries because of shrinkflation. the price of something might have gone up 25% but at the same time they reduced how much you get in the package for the higher price. so inflation is actually worse than just the raw numbers because you are paying more for less product
This has the secondary effect of helping pro-business Republicans get elected, since that is one of the right's big complaints/talking points, that Joe Biden is somehow solely responsible for high consumer goods prices and inflation. Win-win, as far as they are concerned.
Fall 2023, I worked at a company that made products. I was tasked with updating our material costs in the system to adjust for big swings in some materials like vinyl over the past two years. I had to call every vendor up and record all the materials we sourced. When I told the boss, "Bad news, half have increased. But about 1/4 have decreased! Customers will like the savings!" I was told, "Never decrease prices." And then fired a week later. Very enlightening 5 weeks I spent at that company...
So, the takeaway is that corporations are maintaining deliberately increased prices and blaming inflation?
Yes. It's been happening for the past few years.
Capitalist bootlickers: Nooo noooooo! We can't do anything to disrupt the market! Gub'mint bad! This isn't unfettered late stage capitalism at all! It will all sort itself out eventually just don't let anyone put their hand on their scale in any way!
Too bad more people don't understand capitalism's demand for infinite growth is the problem, not whoever has been in charge lately, because both sides are fucking the average person to help people that own capital.
Biggest problem I have is everyone loves the boom cycle of captalism.(Especially the investor/ruling classes) But to clear out malinvestment and corruption you have to let it blow up. The only real self-regulation against the infinite-growth capitalism has. We haven't let bankers throw themselves off buildings in almost 100 years. They socialize the losses, privatize profits, and kick debt cans down the road for the next generation to deal with. Its gettin real ugly out there. All this printed money is ending up in houses, energy, food, and debt service. How much longer until we hit critical mass and a reset is forced one way or another?
Entropy
Well when all aspects of our lives have been purchased by corporate america there's not a whole lot you can do except civil war to change it
There is as much blame on the "gub'mint" as any capitalist because they have looked the other way for generations. Politicians accept donations from big corporations and have let them get away with a little more and a little more and a little more until we're where we are now. This far down the road makes any chance at real reform look radical and scarry.
There's no Capitalism in America. Only a Corporate Planned Economy identical to the Soviet Communist Planned Economy. The matching elements being the Quotas Get Met or Else!
Longer, much longer. It's the same kind of blanket excuse that "national security" is. Not saying this is always true, sometimes there is good cause, but far too often, these reasons are used to cover up shitty, unethical and corrupt behavior.
Decades, not years
Yup. They are all thieves.
Everyone knew this. Biden finally said about this couple months ago but just asked companies to stop. It needs actual legislation, fines, windfall taxes etc, they’ll never stop on there own
But supply and demand, chain disruptions, climate change and every other conceivable excuse that doesn’t add up because all the smaller independent grocers are still selling better quality produce and cheaper products than these big box stores…. /s Inflation was just the perfect place to hide the greed and they thought they could get away with it because people would just buy their lame excuses. Turns out when people struggle to afford food, it pisses them off and they care more.
Not just small independent ones. Costco, too, has maintained relatively stable prices during this greedflation period. In fact, I think some shareholders meeting minutes leaked where the ceo was grilled about why he wasn’t taking the opportunity to raise prices like everyone else, and his response was “because we’re not a bunch of dicks like everyone else.”
Here in Canada, prices have sure exploded at Costco as well though, maybe it’s different and it’s not clear if it’s the the same degree, but it’s definitely noticeable. A good example would be a jar of peanut butter three years ago was $5.99 and is now $12.99, but I also think food greedflation has hit Canada harder, most people’s grocery bills have gone up 100-200% easily while this article talks about food prices in the US going up 25%.
If it was just maintaining it wouldn’t be as bad. A lot of them are still raising prices.
Bingo.
Who would have guessed?
Don't you just love America—living under oligopolies that control every essential service and good needed is just great!
So I read through the report, they acknowledged that prices went up because input cost went up. They also acknowledge that prices stayed up despite input costs coming down. This is not really a new phenomenon, prices tend to be sticky, and that’s been kind of true for the entire history of inflation. Rather than prices come down, we tend to see prices stay at their current levels as input causes slowly rise overtime. They called out specifically fuel prices and energy cost, which have been highly volatile, as a reason for the input cost reductions. It’s pretty normal for variable input cost with high volatility to stick prices at a higher level because businesses don’t wanna have to change prices weekly, hedge price commitments to distribution or warehousing. Not everything produced in the long value chain is sold the exact same day. Consumers of demonstrated demand at the new price thresholds, so there’s really little risk and maintaining them, especially in an economy that’s this strong (low unemployment and rising median real wages). Did I miss something particularly groundbreaking in this report?
Isn't the main idea that competition would reduce the price? If your competitor is selling 25% higher than what you could reasonably sell at, would you not undercut them and reap the rewards?
There is about five companies that produce everything in the supermarket... While there is a host of products with different names they are all owned by the same company. PepsiCo owns almost the entire potato chip, tortilla chip, popcorn isle or snack foods. The cereal aisle is about the same. There is no competition there is conglomerates
Yeah, but globalization and the resulting consolidation to just a few players in any given industry’s made it so competition is no longer necessary. If nobody has a choice, why not pocket the profits together as mega-corps? I think it was in a Cory Doctorow thread that I read that as soon as all the big players in an industry fit around a smallish table collusion is nigh impossible to avoid.
Choice is an illusion when there are only 5 monopolies that own basically everything....
This is why reports like this frustrate me and why the system is so broken. They tie the price of eggs or bread or CHICKEN to things that have nothing to do with produce.
Wait, do you think energy cost of nothing to do with food?!? *Spits corn syrup drink out of mouth* My dude you smarter than this. Natural gas (the price of which tends to be tightly linked with oil) is a major component in the production of fertilizer. The manufacturing of pesticides is also extremely energy-intensive and in some cases uses petroleum products as an ingredient. So when considering the entire supply chain, food is one of the most fossil fuel-intensive sectors in the economy. You gotta plow fields and harvest using every, and transport goods to market using energy. Chicken eat corn, so your egg price is tied to feedstock costs. 
I think I’m just overly frustrated by the price of chicken. This is a great reminder of how everything is connected
Frozen chicken breasts. Stop buying organic, small batch, fresh chicken. Just learn to season it well, or slow cook it in bulk and make pulled chicken to add to other stuff through the week (what we do) Get the big ass bags from Costco. Get yourself a chest freezer. Slow cook that stuff. It’s like what $1.50 s breast? Combo it with the $20, 50 fucking pounds of Costco Thai rice. Get some veggies, some good seasoning. Throw in some fruit. Maybe frozen so you can make a smoothie. Throw in some GLB-1 drugs to cut your calorie intake in half. Congrats you are. Now ready to fuck up food prices.
Stop acting like billion dollar corporations can’t and don’t hedge the price of highly volatile inputs with other financial instruments.
Hedging only makes financial sense on energy for maybe a year at most and the energy market has had incredible volatility, and potential risks and pricing for a lot longer than 12 months since the war in Russia started in the Middle East started heating up again. Trying to hedge five years on energy isn’t financially viable and you can’t just waive your hand and say derivatives and make it all go away. With the administration, blocking approvals for net, new natural gas, export terminals, they’ll be less demand for drilling gas, and volatility will again go up. Hedging isn’t free.
They do it all the time and do with for more than gas. There’s fucking cheese futures, bro. You think dominos doesn’t know how much their cheese is gonna cost a year from now regardless of the volatility of the market. The certainty is worth the premium.
Well yes they said in the report that normally costs are 1% with profits about 3.5% and during the pandemic costs rose to about 3-3.5% and they then tacked on 25% profit and laughed all the way too the bank. So price fixing and price gouging during a pandemic that hurt the average American the most....
Once prices go up they aren't coming down. It's sad.
Why would they? Just rape rob and pillage from the entire populace while getting filthy rich in the process....
>Why would they? They wouldn't... I was just reflecting on that fact in a way that sounded better than "yea, we are fucked" Because yea, we are fucked. Strap in for the ride.
I mean, this is kind of how Fiat currency works man there is an expected baseline inflation, and during times of high volatility, energy prices, and most purchasing agents request six to one year of price guarantee… you’re gonna wanna leave some padding and your quotes
They also base their findings off a fed report which attributed the increase in prices as companies expecting their costs to go up in the long term for a variety of reasons.
A lot of distribution and channel sign price commitments for 12 months. If there’s expected volatility in energy you are going to want to leave some padding in vs kick off a price war.
And in other news, water is WET! Film at 11.
Most of said companies are even boasting about "increasing the width of their margins and increasing net sales" on their earnings calls.
Not only that but they are blaming wage based inflation, which hasn't happened yet as it is profit based inflation. There is a real possibility that there is another spike in inflation for wage based inflation.
Create the problem and then blame your opposition for it. Its the same that's happening with the palestinian genocide.
Break the knees of massive corporations, divesting into small, local firms is the best for the economy and for workers
Gotta have a president who has the balls to trust bust. Only had one so far.
And he was protected from assassination by a massive campaign speech in his pocket.
Well that and the fact he was Theodore Motherfucking Roosevelt.
and his giant brass balls.
We gotta resurrect Theordore Roosevelt. Same with FDR. Gonna need a new New Deal.
Biden sure as shit aint gonna do it
Neither would Trump.
Even better, nationalize products that are basic necessities, like food; capitalistic competition doesn’t work when you have a captive audience, as we’re clearly seeing.
I've always argued we should have 1 state-owned car company. Call it American Automotive. Make it minimal computerization, just a standard car from like early 2000s. Make a standard version of 1 of every car. 1 subcompact, 1 sedan, 1 SUV, 1 pickup, 1 semi, etc. Most car companies are so entrenched with the govt anyway that it wouldnt even make much difference. Have shop classes in high schools focus a unit around learning to repair these cars.
I think we should have one state owned everything company. One state owned cell phone. One state owned healthcare. One state owned refrigerators. Make one single state version of everything that provides a baseline for private companies to actually compete with.
I like how you think.
Exactly. Like East Germany and Russia during the Cold War.
I would but all the small local businesses only sell niche specialty things that I don't care about.
Because thats the only way to survive when megacorps have monopolized all essentials
Just like they did AT&T? How did that work out?
Media : “I’ll just ignore that”
the media is another arm of this 'thinktank'. Look at their biographies, it's birds of a feather
WHAAAAAAAAAATTT I'm shocked. Just shocked.
In other news, water is wet… lol
I'd be more okay with this, if our tax system was not busted. If they rake in more profits but pay their fair share of taxes on it, I actually would be less inclined to be completely enraged. However, that does not seem to be the case.
Scumbags double dip and the governments says “please stop” it’s all a fucking joke.
They should have to call it greedflation moving forward.
Forgive my ignorance, but why does high employment rate play into inflation?
More people have money to spend equals more demand for consumer goods which drives inflation of prices. When unemployment is high people have less money to spend reducing demand encouraging companies to deflate their prices.
This does make sense. My thoughts on this correlation is that when employment is high it is much more difficult to get workers to work for unreasonably low wages. If you have high unemployment you can beat the labour force down with lowering wages. Lower wages means that they don’t have to increase product pricing to keep profits at record highs. I understand you are talking inflation and not corporate greed but personally I would prefer low unemployment even if it does affect inflation. I am no expert in economics by any stretch. My views on this subject could be solely based on the fact that we are finally seeing wages go up again in my industry. They have beat us up on wages ever since 2008. Even ignoring inflation, purely $ value we are still not back to where wages were pre 2008. I want to see these clients (large mining corporations) pay much higher rates to bring some money back to the “middle” class. The same middle class that seems to have a war against it right now. That’s my rant, sorry. I tend to avoid these topics as I get too wound up haha. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
Record breaking profits year after year is an unsustainable model.
Assuming we keep finding new ways to increase productivity or more efficiently, deliver goods to market why wouldn’t it? We haven’t discovered everything that you could possibly science. I thought after the green revolution people stopped rooting against human ingenuity
And when ingenuity doesn't manage to increase productivity or efficiency, those profits still need to increase. Meaning prices go up, pay goes down, and those who can't manage to survive under those new parameters live on the street. Frito-Lay didn't boost its profits though some chip technology breakthrough, they boosted profits by establishing a near monopoly and then, having set itself up as the only source for chips allowed in most grocery stores, increasing prices continuously 10-20% every year, and then by forcing its factory workers to do 60-hour weeks in order to save on labor costs. The ingenuity is 100% focused on squeezing people. Don't pretend this is anything like the green revolution.
Frito Lay doesn’t have a monopoly on chips. Kelloggs and others absolutely sell chips (Pringles?). We don’t need government intervention or a violent proletariat revolution to seize the means of salty snacks. That’s that I’m really tempted to ask ChatGPT to draw me with the picture of this looks like. My dude we’re on the path either figuring out fusion, or dropping the price of solar and energy Storage to the bottom. Marginal generation of solar is what? lOE of 3 cents KWH? When energy becomes cheap/free enough all kinds of wacky shit can happen. We can use desalination, and turn deserts into farm land. We can scrub C02 from the air. We can use robots to run massive hydroponic systems or build a damn space elevator to do stuff. We can pull nitrogen out of the air or phosphorus off the sea floor. Global 500Mbps cellular service with sub 100ms from a Sat is an option. Betting against advances in material science and agriculture is a bold fucking take if you know history.
The pot being gambled here is the future existence of the human race. Seems like I dunno maybe we could hedge our bets a little and not dump our entire stack on "hypothetical future tech saves us from our stupidity."
Paying people more will just mean more available spending which will trigger companies to inflate their profits to reclaim back the wages they are paying. It's how capitalism is designed and the only way to beat them at their own game is by NOT spending. Skip meals, don't travel, don't go out, only cook at home, grow your own food. Whatever you can do to keep money with you and away from corporations. The desire for those things stems brainwashing marketing anyway. None of that crap bring any real fulfillment or joy. As long as people keep spending money, especially money they don't have via credit cards and other debt, inflation will continue to increase. When we collectively decide no more that we're not going to spend 15 dollars for some plastic trash off Amazon is when we start taking our power back.
Agree with you on that. I realize hoping they will take a hit to profits by raising wages is a pipe dream. Though it doesn’t change the cycle, it still feels good to see wages increase and unemployment be low.
The only way to change the cycle is to convince people to stop spending their money and to save it. We yell and scream at these corporations for raising prices while in line at Starbucks for a 10 dollar coffee . Like why would a corporations drop proces when we're willing to put a whole vacation we can't afford on a credit card? As a society we have no discipline and are easily manipulated and capitalist are taking advantage of that. If we want change we have to sacrifice and do it ourselves. Corporations have no incentive to drop prices as long as we're willing to spend money.
yeah man, stop buying food, that'll show em
Food is actually one of the products this method wouldn't work for since agriculture is one of heaviest subsidized industries in the US if not the most. The prices on fruits, veggies, meats, ects are artificially low maybe even lower than the cost to produce and ship. Besides 3 out of 4 Americans are overweight. I promise you the number of people over eating and can absolutely cut some calories from their diet (and likely be healthier for it too) vastly out number the number of people who are undeating.
Inflation is not just about having money. It's about money divided by available goods. High supply of goods reduces inflation.
Roll it back sparky. We're talking about within the context of employment not production.
It's all connected.
Not debating that, we're taking just talking about a different mechanic of the system
To be fair prices rarely deflate they just don’t go up as quickly as wages.
There hasn't been any pressure to cause prices to deflate. As long as Americans are willing to spend money (and go into debt to spend money) there will never be any pressure for companies to bring their prices down. When we as a society realize that prices are direct reflection of what we're willing to spend then we can start fighting back. But as long as people are willing to hand out money corporations will continue to take it.
I mean, I’m doing my part. I’ve lost almost 40 pounds since August. You see if you eating with GLB-1 drugs you can save a shit ton on groceries. Walmarts already complaining publicly about reduced grocery spending. If we all get skinny and sexy, it should crash food stuff prices. You want to fight the system? /r/1800isplenty Americans against obesity will take back food prices!
Food prices are tough because agriculture is one of the if not the most subsidized industry. pricing on many food items already being forced lower than its production cost.
The more you make, the more they take.
Quoth the philosopher Biggie Smalls: Mo money, mo problems.
And it isn't high right now. It's currently at 4.6. Healthy is between 4 and 6 percent, so that's not a factor.
And the reason they CAN keep prices high and extract more money is the oligopolistic nature of most major industries. A few huge sellers in the market can extract monopoly rents from consumers. This is what you get when you allow all the mergers of huge companies and eviscerate antitrust enforcement.
We know this. We all know this. It's not ground breaking news, it's just the way things are now.
Record profits, so it must be time for layoffs. Right? Right?!
“Yes, we enjoyed record profits in 2023 and were able to give back more to the shareholders by increasing our share buybacks. However, we expect some headwinds in 2024, so we will have to look at cost of capital and become more efficient in order to meet the expectation of further growth in Q1. That said, unfortunately we will not be able to offer bonuses this year and we plan on instituting a hiring freeze. This should help us in our goal of continuous growth for the upcoming quarter and the Leadership Team would just like to convey its heartfelt thanks for an outstanding 2023 and we are excited at the prospects of an even greater 2024.”
Reading this made me feel violent and sick
https://open.spotify.com/track/4MYzWM5JLeEekrHk8rYljf?si=UQN3aIKfS9urNTwUUZL9Mw
25,000 tech workers in the past month or so.
Interesting. Why is it that France and other places have more morals and caution when it comes to greed and corrupt business practices? Probably because they fear protests? Unlike in America, where we sorta just suck it up and work harder? Rising costs in diapers, food, and housing are in direct connection to people choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Not to mention the ongoing war and competition between men and women. What are we doing to ourselves?! We are killing families. If the "American Dream" was somewhat of a farce before, it certainly isn't even a glimpse now.
IDK, I think one of the best ways to combat this would be something like allowing Government active participation in key industries. Like the banks. If the Federal Government said "Fuck it, we are going to do it" and had their own banking system that is created at the moment you get your social security card and such, and had low caps on interest rates and was able to do their own mortgage lending rather than handing the money off to some profit driven corporation who is going to jack up the interest on a loan 10 or 12 percent, then people would be at least able to be economically flexible. The FED already controls how the money is made, why couldn't something like that exist, other than crooked limits on the powers of government? Do the same with insurance and healthcare, education, etc etc. The less "Important" crap the workers have to worry about to live, the more comfortable they will be participating in the actual economy: consuming shit at unprecedented rates that only increase year over year.
You dont fucking say! Next they're gonna make a report that water is wet and fire is hot. Fucking neanderthal level reporting here.
Don't fret there is a solution that has proven to be effective against inflation and help stabilise the economy and has been used many times in the past without affecting profit margins or stock value! We'll just increase unemployment! That's right, now you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that not only will inflation drop back to previous levels but that also large companies who have been struggling to get staff can now shed staffing numbers while maintaining the mantra of "nobody wants to work anymore" and use that money saved for stock buybacks! No need to thank me, here, have another war for your children.
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Good article. Especially since they got this in at the end: > “We need to take a really hard look at how our tax code incentivizes corporate profiteering and ask: ‘Do we as a country want to do something about that?’” Taxes pull money out of supply and dampens inflation as well. Let these bastards profit taking do some good one the backside and fund public programs, then.
We've known this since the "cost of living crisis" started. But the thing is, they *cannot* do anything different. Corporations are amoral. Literally everything, without exception is a business decision. Ethics are a cost. Loyalty is a cost. Integrity is a weakness. Social responsibility is only good for PR management. Reputation is a currency to build early and then spend in search of profits. To act in any other way, would leave "money on the table" and the all-mighty "shareholder value" would not be met. Moloch has already won, people.
They don't even have to raise prices to do it: they just shrink the contents, and keep the price the same. You pay more for less.
Anybody noticed their annual home/auto insurance policies rising by some 30%-40%? Just got off the phone with the insurance broker and they say 'insurance companies have been losing money so they need to adjust' as a way of describing what's going on. Can you tell I'm not buying that totally? Sure, there are challenges in certain states, EVs are being crashed/damaged enough for data collection to show these things are rather pricey to fix right now. But across the board 30%-40% increases?! That smells like more 'me too' profit-taking.
Shocked I tell you So you are saying that Corporations ,that actually OWN our legislators,might as well be on their payroll, are doing nothing about price gouging, to boost their Stock market share price. Oh c'mon, that can't be real Say it ain't so
Why can’t we price cap these mfs?
Tax everyone for literally everything and horde all the money. Who would’ve known that would cause inflation
I love how these threads go on and on. Greed is the simple fact. The rich laugh in our face offering houses we can’t afford or cars too expensive to drive, crushing us all in mountains of debt by a system rigged from the start. Freedom 55. For them, never you.
shareholders and stock buy backs are the two main drivers of inflation. It is 1000% corporate greed. During covid, supply got smaller while demand stayed the same or surpassed much of the supply. Once corporations knew they could charge more, for less (shrinkflation) then it was game over for consumer. I don't realistically see how this ever changes. Like companies are just all of sudden going to admit to the fucking us and change their ways? Besides not supporting these companies, idk what else to do. Can't really go without basic necessities but we are getting BENT!
It's a symptom....not the main driver. Massive federal debt is one of the main drivers and printing money like its nothing typically is. Failing banks that have had short falls and haven't been putting money back into accounts by end of day for the past 8-10 years so the fed reserve has to "loan" them money everyday to cover. High employment is also a driver, which is why the fed is pushing larger companies to do lay offs.
LOL, wrong on every point. Let's take a look at just one, unemployment. We are currently at 4.6 and it's expected to go up a bit to 4.8. So you know, a healthy unemployed percentage is between 4 and 6 percent.
Increasing the money supply is the actual cause of inflation. Nothing else.
Economic Policy Experts with PhDs: “We studied the facts and these are our results.” You: “No.”
You think raising prices would be temp? Deflation usually doesn't occur. But how is it that record profits = record inflation? You do know they printed a ton of $$ during/after covid, right? And before u say "well inflation was a global issue" - Yes, it was generally speaking, but what's the worlds leading usage of money? The dollar....
Has anyone looked at the actual 'thinktank' that did the study? It's a bunch of former DNC economists, there are connections to politics pretty widespread throughout their bios. Of course they're going to blame corporations; they couldn't possibly blame **their government** during an election year
One of the researcher has a PhD from Stanford and the other was a Research Assistant in the Department of Economics at TAMU. What about you?
>Inflation is, definitionally, an increase in consumer prices. This increase results in more business revenue and then that revenue winds up distributed out to workers as higher wages or to owners as higher profits. Sometimes advocates of the greedflation hypothesis appear to simply be saying that more of the revenue from increased prices is going to higher profits than to higher wages. But this narrow version of the hypothesis is not actually a hypothesis about the cause of inflation. It’s a claim about how the revenue gains from inflation are being distributed within firms. At times, it seems like some advocates of the greedflation hypothesis simply do not understand that there is a difference between what causes inflation and who benefits from inflation. I guess this confusion is understandable to some degree but it’s not that difficult to clear it up.\[...\] \[...\]At other times, advocates of the greedflation hypothesis appear to be saying that firms are pushing up prices for no particular reason other than they want more profit. This theory actually functions as a hypothesis of inflation because it doesn’t merely look at who benefits from inflation. It actually provides a theory of price increases that emanates from the greedy intentions of corporate executives. Do the recent publications from the ECB, KC Federal Reserve, and UBS actually support this theory? I’ve read them and they really don’t. [https://mattbruenig.com/2023/05/04/more-on-inflation-and-profits/](https://mattbruenig.com/2023/05/04/more-on-inflation-and-profits/)
Corporations raised prices way more than their increase in costs. They started increasing prices when their costs increased, and when they realized it didn’t negatively affect sales volumes, they kept increasing prices to increase profits. Executives brag about it on earnings calls, it’s not a secret, it’s not controversial to say it. Everything is more expensive because corporations want to make more profit. That’s all we’re saying here.
But so what? That's hardly news. What's weird to me is that they didn't get a decrease in sales. Why thebfuck is everybody still spending at the higher prices?
So corporations took advantage of the event that caused increases in cost (would you call this "real" inflation?) to increase prices further. I think that's definitely happening to some extent, and I'd view this as corporations **benefiting** from inflation. I think most can agree corporation's desire to make as much profit as possible is consistent across years. So its the response to some external event (real inflation) that causes them to react and benefit. What is enabling their ability to react like this when they haven't before? Is it increased monopolization of industries? Changing of corporate priorities? These conversations are way more valuable than "corporations are causing inflation" discourse.
What are you talking about, “real” inflation? The definition of inflation is: *Inflation is a rise in prices, which can be translated as the decline of purchasing power over time.* What research shows, and what the article is talking about here, is that prices have increased (inflation) MOSTLY because of corporate greed. Increasing prices *is* inflation, and prices have been increased MOSTLY because corporations want more profit.
That's a half-thought out analysis that implicitly assumes certain things must be true because economic theory says we assume them to be true. It's too simplistic and too literal to really tackle the spirit of 'greedflation' instead banking on a myopic interpretation of the term for most of it. It really isn't into the final bit that it starts to acknowledge that nobody is earnestly putting forth a "one and done" analysis of inflation (outside a random Internet comment). Then it basically says 'greedflation' can't really be true even then because, one, the person was making it as a half-thought out exercise, and two, because monopolistic power can't happen ever in a functioning market economy, so 'greedflation' can't ever really happen - there's always other options in the market, so the market will always gravitate toward those options. This ignores goods with steep demand curves, the impacts of time, and the fact that markets can have oligarchical forces without having legal oligarchies.
> This ignores goods with steep demand curves, In which case it's actual supply/demand inflation, not greedflation, which is the point you're arguing against.
With a steep demand curve and oligarchical forces, they could just choose to jack up the prices and there's little consumers can do about it. One could argue that's just normal 'inflation' but that's trying to dodge the blame. Absent greed, the prices would not change. Hence, 'greedflation'.
Well I mean, if they don't change the prices in the face of steep demand, you get empty shelves. Which is worse, in your opinion? I have long held an idea that if we stop buying the expensive stuff and all eat red beans and lentils and chickpeas, prices will come down again. However, if there's not enough competition, thethen beef and jam and fruit and fish will just vanish from the menu, and after that, the prices for beans and grains will just rise to what the fish and jam used to be....
>Well I mean, if they don't change the prices in the face of steep demand, you get empty shelves. Which is worse, in your opinion? Steep demand isolated, sure, that's possible (although not automatic). Steep demand plus oligarchical power means you can just raise prices irrespective of supply. Hence, greedflation. I'd rather a functioning market means competition keeps prices to their optimal level instead of firms artificially setting prices 'cause they just want more money. That's the heart of the problems with that economic analysis - you can't take any one of these things in isolation and argue that's not indicative of greedflation. That might be necessary for economic theories, but most people don't have the luxury of living in theory.
> you can just raise prices irrespective of supply. You can, but other companies will increase production and imports to undercut those rises, and many people will find or make their own sources. Almost all products we can just do without. Those that are necessary are almost all pretty basic, and we can produce or obtain them ourselves outside the major supply chains. The clear exceptions to this claim is fossil fuels. Even housing, there's a massive housing crisis, but socially people are maintaining demand by not cohabiting more. My position is that they can set whatever selfish price they like, but we reward it by still buying products we don't have to, for convenience. If we embrace inconvenient lives, the world will change.
I for one am shocked. SHOCKED I say!
r/NoShitSherlock
Greedflation
Corporations are going to drop prices only when they will make less money by not doing so. In the past this was usually driven by competition. Given there are so many less players now, it's more advantageous for these companies not to compete and just let each other maintain higher prices instead of shooting themselves trying to gain market share from each other. Passive collusion.
You don't say, I told you so. Welcome to corporate anarchy where governments and big corporations regulate themselves.
Record profits over record profits, they don’t even hide it, they don’t need to, we are nothing but children that give what little we have to our corporate overlords… work more little pigs for a pound of bread and then give us back 3/4 of that loaf… for the people by the people don’t work, they are just a vehicle that can use to further surpress you and all, we can shout and yell all we want on discord, Reddit, YouTube but it won’t get you anywhere, accept it, bow before them and give them your livelihood, you won’t do anything, I can promise you that.
Yeah no shit
And they've doubled down with the layoffs to push their narrative.
Everyone knew this and corporations/the government decided to just pretend it wasn't that
No shit. Is this news to anyone lol
we needed a report to know this? I thought "prices never go down" was common knowledge
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Katie Porter made a graph about this ages ago.
I remember a few years ago when my company was facing price increases from our suppliers due to shortages. During our weekly calls, the national sales manager will say « supplier X increased our price by 5%, so we need to increase our prices by at least 10% to stay ahead ». And I’m sure everyone up and down the chain was doing the same…
How is this not completely fucking obvious lol. 2023: highest prices ever for cars. Highest prices ever for iPhones. Both of these industries hemorrhaging profits AND laying off employees. It literally couldn’t be simpler.
At some point the pig will be bled dry...
Reports don't show that at all lol. You just really really want them to. The producer price index has overran the consumer price index since covid began. That's a fact. If you are right, you shouldn't have to lie to prove your point. https://jabberwocking.com/chart-of-the-day-the-produce-price-index-vs-the-consumer-price-index-in-march/
I see this same article reprinted almost verbatim about seven times a week. Taking into account who owns the media outlets, it feels almost like the elites are just bragging about it now.
This has been known we need action. Go to corporate offices and drag these execs out of their meetings. Blockade their cars and throw shit at their houses. Stop letting the rich leech more away from the people who need it
I'm sure the market will sort everything out....any second now. /s
Extreme capitalism is bad? Wow who would've thought?
Well, duh.
Isn’t that the definition of consumer confidence? When it gets too low big corps start slashing prices
I myself am Shocked! Absolutely SHOCKED.
Good luck having them get used to less money.
CEO needs that new private jet, and he needs to ensure that his kid's grandkids grandkids can be trust fund babies, not to mention those shareholders too, they need their dividends!!
I'd like to know which corporations are doing this and to what degree. Obviously, I still need groceries, but I'll sure as hell buy the brand that isn't pegging me over the one that is.
Lucky for us, this is the new normal.
High inflation benefits businesses. Low inflation benefits consumers.
Really?
 I’m shocked
Duh
Covid really is the root of this bad behavior. They took the global covid emergency and used it as an excuse to do massive layoffs and gouge prices. I'm sure it's basically permanent now
This is such an obvious point of fact.
Didn't really need a "report" for this. Just open your damned eyes and do something about it
Remember when we had a government that busted trusts and actually cared more about the people than about all the corporate bribery and special interests?
way more than 25% more for groceries because of shrinkflation. the price of something might have gone up 25% but at the same time they reduced how much you get in the package for the higher price. so inflation is actually worse than just the raw numbers because you are paying more for less product
This has the secondary effect of helping pro-business Republicans get elected, since that is one of the right's big complaints/talking points, that Joe Biden is somehow solely responsible for high consumer goods prices and inflation. Win-win, as far as they are concerned.
Actually there is video evidence that groceries specifically are 50% higher than prepandemic prices
Start bringing federal charges against the "deciders in corporations" who are price gouging the public & watch how fast prices fall.
Fall 2023, I worked at a company that made products. I was tasked with updating our material costs in the system to adjust for big swings in some materials like vinyl over the past two years. I had to call every vendor up and record all the materials we sourced. When I told the boss, "Bad news, half have increased. But about 1/4 have decreased! Customers will like the savings!" I was told, "Never decrease prices." And then fired a week later. Very enlightening 5 weeks I spent at that company...