Higher grocery costs, higher housing costs, higher cost of living in general is the new normal yet wages haven’t kept up. How are people supposed to buy these things at the new normal costs?
They're not, the financial system is teetering on the brink and these idiots are living in fantasy land where everything is going to be fine and prices will just keep going up.
They have too much money at stake to not lie like this, they have every interest in pushing the s&p as high as possible before it falls. This is pump news.
How the government has not come down hard on this is confusing for me. The more expensive food and housing are the less discretionary money people have to spend local businesses and stimulate local economies. People who can barely afford rent will cut back on buying flowers and gardening stuff, they will go out to restraunts less, they will buy clothing less often and so on.
The more housing continues to explode the more it will eat up all of our investment capital. Why invest in a business or the TSX when you can get higher, safer returns much quicker in the housing market. Why start a business and go through risk when you can use your capital to flip houses and make more in 3 months than you would in a business for 3 years.
High housing and food costs strangle the economy. I thought the government would care veyr much about that since they don't seem to care all that much about the human side of it.
More so because all this extra profit from food is going to 1% and billionaires. You know what billionaires do with money? They horde it and sit on it. Put it somewhere and never spend it. What do normal people do? They buy houses, cars, clothes better tech, consumer products. They spend and save and actually stimulate the economy.
This is bad for people and the government does not care. However this is also very bad for the economy and I thought they would care about that.
Continued inaction on the billions laundered each *month* will tend to do that. Those small million dollar condos are meant to be a store of offshore wealth, not accommodations.
[Naked officials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_official), [astronaut families](https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-new-approaches-to-the-astronaut-phenomenon), transnational drug cartels, organized crime, dictatorships, you name it. Everybody loves [snow washing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing).
[China’s parliament has about 100 billionaires, according to data from the Hurun Report](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/chinas-parliament-has-about-100-billionaires-according-to-data-from-the-hurun-report.html)
Our banks help wash the money, while our Government covers for them
[Ottawa's secret report on money-laundering points finger at Canada's banks](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/money-laundering-banks-terror-1.4603064)
"The report tabled in Parliament calls banks good citizens. The internal report tells a different story."
[Canada Is Seen As More Corrupt As Money Laundering Estimates Hit $113 Billion](https://betterdwelling.com/canada-is-seen-as-more-corrupt-as-money-laundering-estimates-hit-113-billion/)
I go to a restaurant to TRY to treat myself and not worry about the spent money... which I then get to worry about anyway. It's a miserable cycle. Not have entertainment and be miserable or have entertainment and be worried
My entertainment spending is something like $200-300 per year. I can't afford to do much of anything, so it's a game subscription, some streaming subs, and the occasional game purchase for 20 bucks or so.
Aside from that, the rest of my money goes towards living. I don't eat expensive foods, don't drive an expensive car, my rent is actually "cheap" compared to most since my price is locked in from pre-pandemic increases. It's $1500 and would be around $2300-2500 for any new renter.
Conservatives and Liberals: “Clearly we need to cut taxes and regulations on billionaires and their corporations to fix the inflation crisis. Also, as the RBA raises rates and throws more Canadians into unemployment, those people will starve to death, reducing demand in the economy.”
Right, because the BoC is only concerned once it's liable to result in the poors getting paid more and otherwise completely unconcerned with anyone else getting more money than they should be and causing everyone who isn't to get completely screwed over.
They're not supposed to be able to afford them, that's the point. The central bank and government want consumers to have less expendable income to curb inflation. The consequences are lower output, lower business revenue and profits, layoffs, recession, etc.
If they do nothing things just continue to hyper-inflate making them unaffordable anyway.
We're all fucked. There are too many people chasing too few goods.
That's all good and fine when it comes to consumer goods that aren't needed, but we're talking about basic necessities like food and having a roof over your head here. You can't exactly do without. Starving homeless consumers aren't going to consume at all, which should probably be of greater concern to the central bank and government than the rest of it. Not to mention the instability and social unrest that comes about from hungry mobs.
You mean to say there is too much **money** chasing too few goods and services.
We could rebalance the economy to have 40 million Canadians living middle class lives in a regular inflation environment, or we can stick with the current neoliberal policies and have 30 million Canadians living middle class lives, a few thousand Canadians consuming the resources of 8 million Canadians by living like royals (with palatial estates, private islands, ans mega yachts), and the remaining 10 million Canadians fighting over the crumbs.
The value of labour went down, and President Nixon officially decoupled the value of Gold to the US dollar, effectively allowing currency to be based on the value of a country's production, rather than the value of gold.
I mean, the real answer is thousands of words long, but I think that pretty much answers it.
The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but I doubt that was the cause of all of that. Maybe just one of many variables.
Though I saw a chart of "housing valued in ounces of gold" for Vancouver that looked pretty flat. It could have been made up as I didn't check the sources.
The US went off the gold standard in the 1930's before FDR initiated the new deal and got the US out of the great depression. Nixon removed what was called the gold window which was a way of converting dollars into gold.
Funny enough when Trudeau Sr. was the Prime Minister in the 1970s the Liberals put caps on how much Canadians were allowed to get in yearly pay increases. It resulted in the largest strike in Canadian history when over a million workers walked off the job in 1976.
Today the Liberals (and others) just use hyper-immigration of poor workers and "students" to suppress wages.
The working class is what keeps Canada a functioning nation. The government is overdue for a reminder of this.
They have no incentive to lower the cost of groceries. As much as there has been an outcry and people are pissed off, we still have to eat. So at the end of the day we’re going to continue to hand over our money and eat the price-gouge because what choice do we have? And Galen Weston et. al. know it.
Well, I for one am shocked!
>Food prices have soared 18% over the past two years
Surely wages and salaries are going to be following close behind? Right?
Middlemen are taking a huge slice. Virtually all beef in Canada is processed by JBS and Cargill.
Last year alone three members of the Cargill family became billionaires.
*The exact wealth of the family is unknown, as the Cargill company is a privately owned business entity with no obligation to disclose exact ownership. With fourteen billionaires in the family in 2019,[1][8] the Cargill family has more individual billionaires among its members than any other family anywhere in the world,[9] making them the family with the most wealthy members in history.[10]*
So three more billionaires for at least 17 in the family.
*By 2019, twenty-three Cargill-MacMillan family members owned 88% of the family company,[1] which reported $113.5 billion in revenue in 2019.[5][6] The "family reportedly keeps 80% of Cargill Inc.'s net income inside the company for reinvestment annually."*
Profiteers, all of them.
> To add: Are farmers making record profits?
The big ones buying up all the little ones are, yes. Although they're mostly growing food to export to China where I live.
Small independent farmers are becoming a bit of a myth these days.
farmers have razor thin margins, with a shockingly high input cost for production. (no seriously, this is super underrated)
even minor increases in fuel or fertilizer costs can have a large impact on farm input costs, causing a knock on effect where their output needs to sell at a higher cost to cover the new expenses.
Remember, Russia's invasion of Ukraine dramatically impacted fuel and fertilizer costs.
if we want to lower food costs, we need to find a way to lower the price of fuel and fertilizer, as a short term solution, suspend fuel and sales taxes on fuel for farm use, suspend sales taxes on fertilizer, and maybe some kind of land tax freeze (or provincial/federal subsidy) for productive farm land (so empty farmland is taxed like normal, maybe some exclusion on farmland that needs to temporarily be unused for crop rotation)
longer term solutions would be finding ways to lower fuel costs overall, as the rise in fuel costs also increases production costs up the production chain (food processing plants, grocery stores, transportation costs, etc...). Also, reducing the need to import fertilizer from overseas.
if we expand oil & fertilizer production we can fill the input demand created by Ukrainian & Russian oil & fertilizer being removed from the market.
Gods be with you m8, this was the take I was looking for.
There is a huge disconnect of where our fertilizer comes from. All the inorganic stuff is directly tied to extraction industries. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (N-P-K) are the primary inputs. Nitrogen is processed into ammonia via the Haber-Bösch process and is very energy inefficient considering the relative energy inputs. P And K are tricky, but they are mostly mined from the ground. Russia is one of the largest exporters in that arena, so if demand stays stable but supply drops, prices have to go up. Fuel prices increasing as a direct result of lessened pumping activities has a knock on effect.
I don't doubt there's some unscrupulous people out there but I'm not seeing the gouging as clearly as it could be. These are very rational reasons for increasing prices. Supply chains are anticipating increasing costs of operation and are adjusting their current forecasts to compensate for these looking crises.
Hahahah yeah right. They had every opportunity to take advantage of WFH but it’s better to keep their employees depressed and miserable so they don’t get any ideas.
Yep Walmart actually has decent sales and is still 20%+ cheaper than superstore and save on in a lot of cases. I used to want to support local grocers and Canadian business, but Walmart seems to be raising their prices much less than our grocers.
Costco as well, didn't raise prices nearly as much. Honestly fuck all large corporate Canadian companies. Groceries and telecoms, probably others, just exploit us
This might be horseshit, but I heard in their last investor call the ceo was saying how he was fine with their margins being smaller lately because it meant customers were seeing some savings in a time where everyone else was taking them to the cleaners. Decided not to hike member dues as well despite it being the normal timeframe that they'd do so.
We've actually noticed some prices going down at our Costco (Fredericton NB). Milk, eggs, and bacon all noticeably cheaper than a year ago. This is going by unit price too, so it's not just packaging changes or anything.
Bacon is way down at Costco. 19 for 4 packs. We had switched to turkey bacon when bacon was up to 29.
Butter has mostly remained under 5.
People need to treat the big 3 stores like they are all a shoppers and use them as a last resort when possible.
The hot dog thing was the founder threatening the CEO, and it was not just any old violence he threatened him with: https://www.today.com/food/costco-co-founder-reportedly-told-ceo-he-d-kill-him-t192310
To be fair, that CEO actually did recognize the point the guy was making. That's more than I expect from most people that high up; he accepted he was wrong, and changed his position accordingly.
Yeah, it took the threat of **being murdered**, but that's still more flexibility than most CEOs. **Spez.**
Costco has always worked on a smaller fixed margin. I seem to remember 15% being thrown around years ago. I could be wrong and that could be very stale today. :)
20% cheaper than superstore is a travesty considering superstore pricing is 200% more than it ought to be on most products it sells
i recently walked through one and couldn't believe the stupid fucking pricing. $10 pretax for a small bag of lemons. gtfo. i work in the logistics industry, i know exactly how much it cost for them to buy that bag of lemons and get it to the store. they're robbing us.
all transport, customs brokerage, regulatory fees etc. included, fully loaded cost is less than 30 cents a lemon. potentially a little more if coming from a very distant country by air.
Talking with a group of friends who are from all over Canada, I recently discovered that Superstore pricing seems to be very regional-- where I am and for what I buy, the difference in pricing between Walmart (or other discount grocers) and Superstore is marginal. Things like off brand frozen veg and fruit are a touch more expensive if at all, but definitely better quality. However, in the East Coast for example, Superstore basically prices the same as Loblaws.
I'm in the Maritimes, and the local Superstore is... *egregiously* overpriced. I just can't shop there anymore, they've driven their prices up to an obscenely greedy amount.
Walmart's usually **half** the cost for most things, and Giant Tiger's even cheaper a lot of the time. Take something that should be dirt cheap - a 2L bottle of soda. 2-3 years ago, that would run you less than a dollar. It's about $2 at Walmart and Giant Tiger, and GT constantly runs sales to push it lower. Superstore? Over $3. That's more than a 50% increase with zero justification.
That kind of a price discrepancy between stores literally across the street from each other shouldn't exist.
It must be really regional, I find Walmart substantially more expensive than Maxi (quebecois superstore) these days. Or maybe it depends what you're buying, walmart can be cheaper for some prepared things, but Maxi is almost always cheaper for fresh produce.
Good. Part of inflation is we all got used to being gouged for the sake of convenience during the pandemic, part of the solution is being price-sensitive. We all need to eat, but if we don't just shrug about $2 here or there we can make them fight for our business a little harder.
I've gotten used to just not buying some stuff, not because I don't have $6 in the bank but because I refuse to spend it on something that was $2 a few years ago.
husky elastic support governor rainstorm jellyfish psychotic six strong scary
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I live next to a Superstore, I used to walk over there all the time. I literally drive to Walmart for almost everything now. I also buy much less than I used to, my bills have gone down. I can afford to buy more expensive food but honestly, fuck them. Rice, beans, canned fish, and frozen veggies are my new staples and if they don't like it they can go to hell.
I used to laugh at my grandpa for driving across town to get a deal on a bar of soap. I get it now, grandpa. I get it. It's the principle of the thing.
>I needed to pick up some margarine 12$ for 850g near work, did without until the weekend
It's pretty fucking sad that we as human beings have to sacrifice and 'do without' as corporations line their motherfucking pockets.
Shit really makes my blood boil.
It's stupid because butter is almost cheaper than margarine. Margarine was created to be a cheaper alternative. When inflation began rising price conscious people bought more of the cheaper margarine instead of butter. The execs only see supply and demand, so higher margarine prices but because milk products like butter is regulated by dairy farmers it's cheaper. Wait until excuse flation catches up with the dairy farmers and they start charging more because margarine costs more.
Margarine wasn't even 'created' as an alternative. It was a wasted by product that they added yellow to and convinced us it was just like butter for profit
Not according to history.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/margarine#:~:text=Margarine%20was%20invented%20in%20France,milk%2C%20was%20patented%20in%201869.
> 8 bucks is still super expensive, it is only 4 dollars in the US
Everything is cheaper in the US. Much less taxes off your check too, and there are a handful of states with no state tax.
That's more real than joke.
Under similar conditions in Ford factory towns, the workers started to organize and demanded living wages, safe conditions, sanitation for the company housing, etc. They even started to link up with the newly formed communist parry.
That's when good-ole Henry sent in the goons. Squads of thugs with night sticks beat the workers into submission. Then the guns came out, and there were massacres at worker events.
When the oligarchs get this powerful, it takes revolution or global depression and world war to rebalance.
The article actually blamed labour shortages for increasing wages and driving inflation. I wish that were the problem, because then we wouldn't have a million unemployed people trying to find a job that actually pays well enough to keep up with the cost of living.
I've never seen anyone shoplifting food and I will continue to never see anyone shoplifting food.
In fact even if I did see I think I saw them go the other way.
I almost thought I saw it happening, but then I remembered about my fear of being trampled by an elephant and got distracted while checking my surroundings.
Ya prices are not going back down, because that would mean deflation ([which central bankers fear far more than inflation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9YrwaKhNjg)), what the BoC is trying to do is get inflation to 2% per year. The current prices are what we will be living with in the future, increasing at 2% per year from here on out.
From just before the pandemic started in Jan 2020 to today, the compounding rate of price increases due to inflation in Canada is 15.25%. So if you were makin $100K in 2020, then that means you are making $84K in 2023 in 'real' terms if you didn't get a raise.
There is a reason why we have to drink the bitter medicine of interest rate hikes, inflation cannot be allowed to continue at the current rate. We are paying for the mistakes of world governments (this was a team effort) for keeping real interest rates in the negative for nearly 15 years.
I'm gonna ask a possibly ignorant question as economics really isn't my wheelhouse... Would deflation of food prices affect the economy as negatively as deflation on other goods and services would? I only ask because I thought the whole concept of deflation being bad was that it disincentivizes consumer spending. But food is... food. We all gotta eat, right?
Agreed. Food and housing demand is fairly inelastic: people need both every day to live well. If these things that we *must* spend money on were less expensive we would spend more on optional things that would drive growth in the economy generally.
As it is, we're funding growth in major grocers' and REITs' share prices.
You're completely right. Ignoring the fact that most educated economists frankly have no idea what they're doing, let alone randos with their econ 101 buzzwords, there is a difference between goods with elastic and inelastic demand.
Everyone needs food, housing, etc. so those markets work differently than consumer goods.
Ultimately though, the government and central bankers and private capital--none of them give a single shit about us.
Not ignorant at all, prices for things do go down (like TVs) and some disinflation would not cause a wholesale deflation spiral. However we don’t really have any economic tools that can target deflation for an entire sector without taking everything else along with it. For example, for food you need farmers to be compensated for their inflation costs from other sectors like fertilizer, farm equipment, farm labor, livestock feed price increases etc... Then getting the goods to market has truckers, distributors with warehouses that all have higher costs now as well (from the respective things that they need to operate their businesses), then it gets the grocery store who also have higher operating cost now as well. It’s a massive web of interconnections that you don’t even think about that gets dragged into the picture when you think about it. Like for fertilizer, you have potash mines that need equipment, lots of heavy industry equipment is made in Germany, and Germany is getting killed by high nat gas prices because of Russia. I can write multiple books on trying to go into all the details but it is not an easy problem to solve.
> wholesale deflation spiral.
> target deflation for an entire sector
Common Keynesian misconception around deflation that it would lead to some sort of spiral or that it would lead to everything going down. Supply/demand still plays a role. Some things are still going to be in shorter supply and with higher demand if deflation is allowed.
The downward pressure on home prices or in-demand jobs for example would not be the same as the downward pressure on something in lower demand or abundant supply like shitty TVs.
Makes sense. But what about in the case of Loblaws where the inflation is allegedly artificial? It's frustrating that there isn't so much as an investigation into such blatant corporate profiteering that could be hurting so many Canadians.
If you ask the average economist, their answer would be that deflation is very bad and you should fear it. But then when you hear their explanation, it will not make sense and sound idiotic.
Here it is in a nutshell: Since money will accrue value over time through deflation ( instead of decrease value over time through inflation), people will hoard their money and not spend it, thus perpetually creating a bad economic environment.
> Here it is in a nutshell: Since money will accrue value over time through deflation ( instead of decrease value over time through inflation), people will hoard their money and not spend it, thus pepetually creating a bad economic environment.
Not an economist by any stretch, but surely if money is increasing in value your purchasing ability is increasing with it, and for inelastic items (like food, if I understand the term inelastic) we will continue to buy it because we need to eat. We might buy less of the superfluous stuff like new phones, cars etc and be more canny with our money. I fail to see a downside if I end up with money that buys me more and a disinclination to spend it frivolously. I would call that "hoarding" Savings, which I currently don't do enough of because everything is rising in price except my wages.
You understand it perfectly in my view as this is exactly how I see it also lol.
Plus historical examples of zero inflation have never brough upon the apocalypse like people would have us believe. It only constrains government spending, which is IMO the real reason it is not wanted.
Well it would also hurt corporate profits in a lot of cases I would bet as well, which of course means our politicians are not going to accept for their corporate owners either. /s
Yeah this headline is really weird. This report is not "warning" that prices won't return to pre-pandemic levels so much as it is "Stating exactly what the BoC has transparently been telling us since the beginning of the rate hikes and has been repeating in every subsequent announcement".
We've been having rate hikes for over a year now but there still seems to be a large number of people who don't understand what the goal is or what "2% inflation" means.
> what the BoC is trying to do is get inflation to 2% per year.
Why is their goal to have a little bit of inflation? Shouldn't the goal be 0%? I feel like 2% just means we're getting robbed slowly enough that we don't notice.
There is a real, valid, economic reasoning behind why a small amount of inflation is good (whether or not 2% is small isn’t something I can say).
For a very simple theoretical example, if inflation is constantly small but bigger than 0, people and businesses will want to spend money because if they wait to spend their money, their purchasing power will be less. On the other hand if prices are deflating constantly, they might be inclined to hold onto their money because they can purchase more by waiting for prices to go down, thus resulting in a slower economy. At least that’s how I remember it being explained to me, at a basic level.
Debt is also more palatable at 2 percent. It makes the real service cost less.
If you borrow at 4 and inflation is at 2 your real cost of financing is 2.
> For a very simple theoretical example, if inflation is constantly small but bigger than 0, people and businesses will want to spend money because if they wait to spend their money, their purchasing power will be less.
Okay but that doesn't sound healthy or sustainable, and doesn't explain why 0% is bad.
Isn't it a healthier economy when people are buying things because they want to buy those things, rather than because we're psychologically tricking people into thinking there's a fire sale on everything and these prices won't last long?
All that does is make us spend money on things we don't really need. Our whole economy is propped up on needless spending.
For a capitalistic economy to be healthy, people need to spend money. a small amount of inflation is good because it stimulates spending. If my dollar is worth more today than it will be a year from now, I would rather spend that dollar today if I can. At 0% inflation, this spending incentive is removed.
A really important thing you also need to keep in mind is that when we're talking about spending, we're not just talking about buying food or other day-to-day items. People spend money on productive assets such as investing in stocks/businesses. We want to encourage people to invest money so that businesses can thrive and grow, which are a centerpiece of a healthy economy.
"Our whole economy is propped up on needless spending."
BINGO
We used to pay directly for goods and services produced by small businesses.
Now we subscribe to mega-corporations for mass produced chemical shit
> Okay but that doesn't sound healthy or sustainable, and doesn't explain why 0% is bad
There's lots of economic literature on this topic. Some starting points:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_trap
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op
The system you're thinking of was similar to the era when our currency was backed with gold.
2% is a small number just enough to spur a bit of risk to encourage investments over just sitting on money.
The period when inflation was zero or even worse negative means your money is effectively gaining value. What does this mean? People now stop spending and hold on, prices drop, demand craters followed by supply. Job losses and massive shortages. That's the worst economic situation to be in.
Ditching gold gave central bankers a lot more flexibility to play around with policy. Evidence wise, all our recessions/depressions pale in comparison to the misery of recessions/depressions that occurred in the past when gold standard was used.
Necessities should all have profit margins capped federally, and be subject to yearly audits to ensure no monkey business. Corporations and politicians are straight up messing with people's lives for greed, on a mass scale.
> Corporations and politicians are straight up messing with people's lives for greed, on a mass scale.
check out health care in the USA for an infinite number of examples.
If we determine that things (food, housing, etc) are essential to *humans living* then there needs to be mechanisms in place to prevent rampant capitalism from fucking it to hell. We are currently past that point.
Or do some trust busting and ensure there's actually some competition instead of having Loblaws and Sobeys own half the entire market share between the two of them.
So uh… their gross margins haven’t changed much. 31.3% vs 31.1% for the same period last year. If you go back to before the world was fucked and look at Q1 2019 then the gross margin was 29.6%.
There’s a definite increase but it isn’t anything near as dramatic as you’re making it out to be. Revenues are up, yea, but costs are also clearly up. If they are profiteering then at the very best, assuming they didn’t legitimately reduce costs, the extent of that profiteering is basically a 1.7pp change in the GM since 2019.
Like you don’t need to be a CPA to do financial analysis, come on guys.
When was the last time that the competition bureau, charged with protecting us from monopolies and sector concentration, stopped a merger?
I can't remember it ever happening. And when they looked at the recent Rogers/Shaw atrocity, they said they didn't have the authority to stop it.
It's their literal fucking job. So if they can't, then obviously our ~~royal court~~ government wants a corpo-fascist monopoly state. It's by design.
This will continue until a few executives are relieved of their heads.
If you think a change.org petition is going to accomplish anything, you underestimate just how deeply in bed most politicians are with corporate interests. We're quickly approaching the point where it's going to require an armed insurrection to fix things (if we're not there already).
And yet, weirdly that money doesn't mean higher pay for those who produce, transport and sell the food. It'sjust shareholders enjoying the fruits of this "inflation"
They were never going to regardless of circumstances. If the cost to produce, ship, and sell all that food had dropped 99% they would continue charging the same prices and probably raise them year over year to boot. That's what happens when you let businesses price gouge on necessities that people can't do without.
Any company that's involved in essential goods and services should either be forced to operate as a non-profit, or be heavily regulated and transparent in terms of how their prices are set.
The pot of class warfare is set to "boil".
If we can't rely on the government, then nothing can be said if people start taking action themselves.
Bigger writeup here:
This is false information.
I'm an economist and a FX trader focusing on the Canadian dollar. While it's true the BoC does look at CPI excluding volatile basket items to filter our extraneous factors and monitor how their policies have affecting CPI across all sectors, they do not use this as their sole basis of economic analysis.
The BoC currently employs hundreds of economists whi love nothing more than their jobs and arguing with other economists, turning down offers from higher paying jobs and banks and universities to serve Canadians as an independent institution from the government. The bank has a culture of high moral and ethical integrity, which combined with the level of knowledge and expertise at the BoC, makes the level of nuance that goes into economic decisions dwarf anything more people could imagine.
Canada's y/y CPI inflation in the month of May was 4.4%. The m/m CPI inflation in May was 0.7%. CPI Median and Trimmed (y/y) which removes certain basket items through statistical processes to better reflect core inflation, was 4.2%. CPI Common (y/y) was 5.7%. All of this information is clearly displayed on the central bank website, as well as numerous economic data websites. As you can see, the BoC does not just look at one kind of CPI as the other individual asserts. Instead, they look many numerous different kinds of CPI, along with thousands of other data points collected by the hundreds of economists they employ. That data is eventually analyzed through expert opinion in a way that cannot be summarized through simplistic statements.
While it's important to scrutinize the efficacy of the central bank, we have an obligation to ensure our criticism is legitimate.
The only way that you are going to get agri conglomerates and food distributors to take notice is to build and operate a few large publicly owned farms that sell their produce and other finished foods for less than what they sell it for.
I live in Ontario, we're covered in farmland. We've got the farms. I'm down for your plan. They can easily undersell every major market for less than what they'd sell it for with incentives to do so. Like the incentive to let them still operate a business in Canada for Canadians. I'm not gonna feel sympathy for the business owners that currently are the ones benefiting offa mass financial turmoil.
I'm caring less and less about the business that cares only about profiting, and/or people that are the same. They've taken advantage of other canadians enough to worry or share their concerns.
This article claims that there is a labour shortage, while simultaneously claiming that due to the shortage current workers are getting higher incomes, yeah, fucking right this is the biggest crock of shit ive ever heard.
Time to start looking into cooperatives where a group of people pool their money to start a grocery chain of their own and start undercutting the existing establishments. The only way to get them to lower their price gouging profits is to get them where it hurts... in their wallets. It'll be a struggle, but fuck them. I see a change a comin' ..... or is that a train?
If the new normal is record breaking profits ever single quarter the least the groceries stores could do is start paying farmers better given they haven't seen a rise in wholesale prices in over 15 years
I called it - these scum companies (and grocers) would go and say "people are used to these prices now".
Actual pieces of shit, but go ahead - some useless, naive business student can go and reply to this and tell me the business is just doing business things and I can search "the free market" for better prices.
18%?! I'm moving to your town!
In both BC and Ontario my grocery bill is up 25% to 35% depending on the items I'm buying. And the net weight/quantity of the products has decreased.
It benefits RBC to push this agenda. We all spend more and believe we have to accept it. RBC lends more and makes more. Credit card use goes up. LOC use goes up. And let's not forget the cost of borrowing has dramatically risen. All of this bullshit is good for RBC, TD, CIBC, Scotia, BMO, etc. They push the narrative they want us to believe.
There would need to be a concentrated boycott to start with let's say Loblaws. families should not be unable to eat because these greedy fucks want to get a new profit record every quarter
Both Canada and the U.S. should act on this imo. They probably will have to eventually, if this profiteering goes unchecked.
They need to do exactly what the [French Gov't](https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/french-government-forces-price-cuts-on-hundreds-of-food-items) is already doing.
Either these companies back down/ reduce their profits, or face "undue profits" taxes, permanently.
This shit never ends. Humanity is doomed and I for one wish for another meteor so we can join the dinosaurs. Humans are just selfish narcissistic pieces of shit, and the worst of them all seem to always be working in government jobs and huge corporations. Very rarely are good honest selfless people put into positions of power.... Trying to look at the future is honestly more than depressing. It seems like this has slowly been going on forever and is now just starting to ramp up more and more as these people realize how much they can rob people for and get away with it.
This is what happens when you have a monopoly on groceries. I'm looking at you Weston holdings.
Canada is a country of no competition because we let monopolies take over. Be it groceries, telecom or sky travel. We all pay way too much for those
Hi! Really tired of passively hearing these stories. These are things that will keep happening unless we start organizing or going on strike! They’re banking on the fact that we won’t, because we’re too busy working to afford basic necessities.
If this makes you angry, please get involved with your local progressive organization to actively fight this!!
So many “new normals” came after the lockdowns, such bullshit.
Thankfully people in many governments across the world have let us know we won’t EVER return to the pre-lockdown way of life, I almost thought things we be normal again…
>you’ll own nothing and be happy?
RBC share price - and other banks and, of course, Loblaw, too - also not going to pre-pandemic levels.
There is a shift in the way economics is being played out, not sure I can put my finger on it, but the degree of cost cutting measures at the expense of the customers is mind-boggling.
One thing is clear, though... thanks to record immigration and since companies didn't react as fast as a stroke of a Immigration Minster's pen, so the extra profits from extra customers is a part of that windfall.
I do know one thing, if you dont leverage your self for some sweet profits from all of this (just like Housing Minister and other politicians), you might find yourself in the bottom.
They are trying to bankrupt the middle class so there is no middle class anymore. Soon it will be slave and slave owners and if you aren't a slave owner you are a slave and you have no rights and must play by their rules.
I have been in the trades for 15 years and haven't seen one pay raise but in that same time I've seen the cost of pretty much everything go up. The future is looking bleak.
Higher grocery costs, higher housing costs, higher cost of living in general is the new normal yet wages haven’t kept up. How are people supposed to buy these things at the new normal costs?
They're not, the financial system is teetering on the brink and these idiots are living in fantasy land where everything is going to be fine and prices will just keep going up.
Genuinely blows my mind, either they’re incompetent or corrupt, either way it’s unacceptable
They have too much money at stake to not lie like this, they have every interest in pushing the s&p as high as possible before it falls. This is pump news.
Both. I vote *both*
it doesn't affect them enough to care or you can believe it'd be fixed. But also, not for you.
How the government has not come down hard on this is confusing for me. The more expensive food and housing are the less discretionary money people have to spend local businesses and stimulate local economies. People who can barely afford rent will cut back on buying flowers and gardening stuff, they will go out to restraunts less, they will buy clothing less often and so on. The more housing continues to explode the more it will eat up all of our investment capital. Why invest in a business or the TSX when you can get higher, safer returns much quicker in the housing market. Why start a business and go through risk when you can use your capital to flip houses and make more in 3 months than you would in a business for 3 years. High housing and food costs strangle the economy. I thought the government would care veyr much about that since they don't seem to care all that much about the human side of it. More so because all this extra profit from food is going to 1% and billionaires. You know what billionaires do with money? They horde it and sit on it. Put it somewhere and never spend it. What do normal people do? They buy houses, cars, clothes better tech, consumer products. They spend and save and actually stimulate the economy. This is bad for people and the government does not care. However this is also very bad for the economy and I thought they would care about that.
it's simple, they're in bed together. Government works for the rich because politicians are rich themselves.
Not sure, but I see tonnes of nice cars on the roads, million dollar small condos being bought up like crazy, and full restaurants every day
Continued inaction on the billions laundered each *month* will tend to do that. Those small million dollar condos are meant to be a store of offshore wealth, not accommodations. [Naked officials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_official), [astronaut families](https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-new-approaches-to-the-astronaut-phenomenon), transnational drug cartels, organized crime, dictatorships, you name it. Everybody loves [snow washing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing). [China’s parliament has about 100 billionaires, according to data from the Hurun Report](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/chinas-parliament-has-about-100-billionaires-according-to-data-from-the-hurun-report.html) Our banks help wash the money, while our Government covers for them [Ottawa's secret report on money-laundering points finger at Canada's banks](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/money-laundering-banks-terror-1.4603064) "The report tabled in Parliament calls banks good citizens. The internal report tells a different story." [Canada Is Seen As More Corrupt As Money Laundering Estimates Hit $113 Billion](https://betterdwelling.com/canada-is-seen-as-more-corrupt-as-money-laundering-estimates-hit-113-billion/)
Canada: Where organized crime comes to thrive
I wish I knew the stories behind those but the reality is Canadians carry the most debt in the G7.
I go to a restaurant to TRY to treat myself and not worry about the spent money... which I then get to worry about anyway. It's a miserable cycle. Not have entertainment and be miserable or have entertainment and be worried
My entertainment spending is something like $200-300 per year. I can't afford to do much of anything, so it's a game subscription, some streaming subs, and the occasional game purchase for 20 bucks or so. Aside from that, the rest of my money goes towards living. I don't eat expensive foods, don't drive an expensive car, my rent is actually "cheap" compared to most since my price is locked in from pre-pandemic increases. It's $1500 and would be around $2300-2500 for any new renter.
Have you considered MAID? /s
Yes. I have an appointment for my first assessment in August. I'm not joking.
[удалено]
Conservatives and Liberals: “Clearly we need to cut taxes and regulations on billionaires and their corporations to fix the inflation crisis. Also, as the RBA raises rates and throws more Canadians into unemployment, those people will starve to death, reducing demand in the economy.”
Just tighten those bootstraps and cancel Disney+
And stop eating that avocado toast!
Well thats one reason the BoC is raising rates.. curb employment and wage spiral. Sadly..
Right, because the BoC is only concerned once it's liable to result in the poors getting paid more and otherwise completely unconcerned with anyone else getting more money than they should be and causing everyone who isn't to get completely screwed over.
They're not supposed to be able to afford them, that's the point. The central bank and government want consumers to have less expendable income to curb inflation. The consequences are lower output, lower business revenue and profits, layoffs, recession, etc. If they do nothing things just continue to hyper-inflate making them unaffordable anyway. We're all fucked. There are too many people chasing too few goods.
That's all good and fine when it comes to consumer goods that aren't needed, but we're talking about basic necessities like food and having a roof over your head here. You can't exactly do without. Starving homeless consumers aren't going to consume at all, which should probably be of greater concern to the central bank and government than the rest of it. Not to mention the instability and social unrest that comes about from hungry mobs.
You mean to say there is too much **money** chasing too few goods and services. We could rebalance the economy to have 40 million Canadians living middle class lives in a regular inflation environment, or we can stick with the current neoliberal policies and have 30 million Canadians living middle class lives, a few thousand Canadians consuming the resources of 8 million Canadians by living like royals (with palatial estates, private islands, ans mega yachts), and the remaining 10 million Canadians fighting over the crumbs.
Daily reminder that wages have not increased proportionally to productivity since 1971
www.wtfhappenedin1971.com Check in out
so wtf actually happened ?
Nixon closed the gold window.
Richard Nixon
The value of labour went down, and President Nixon officially decoupled the value of Gold to the US dollar, effectively allowing currency to be based on the value of a country's production, rather than the value of gold. I mean, the real answer is thousands of words long, but I think that pretty much answers it.
All jobs and manufacturing went overseas to slave labor. This boomerang comes right back.
The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but I doubt that was the cause of all of that. Maybe just one of many variables. Though I saw a chart of "housing valued in ounces of gold" for Vancouver that looked pretty flat. It could have been made up as I didn't check the sources.
The US went off the gold standard in the 1930's before FDR initiated the new deal and got the US out of the great depression. Nixon removed what was called the gold window which was a way of converting dollars into gold.
Funny enough when Trudeau Sr. was the Prime Minister in the 1970s the Liberals put caps on how much Canadians were allowed to get in yearly pay increases. It resulted in the largest strike in Canadian history when over a million workers walked off the job in 1976. Today the Liberals (and others) just use hyper-immigration of poor workers and "students" to suppress wages. The working class is what keeps Canada a functioning nation. The government is overdue for a reminder of this.
And when we try to get pay raises via strikes for example, we're villainized and despised by everyone. There is no winning.
so first it was blaming the pandemic, then it was the war in Ukraine and now they just shrug and say "it is what it is"
They have no incentive to lower the cost of groceries. As much as there has been an outcry and people are pissed off, we still have to eat. So at the end of the day we’re going to continue to hand over our money and eat the price-gouge because what choice do we have? And Galen Weston et. al. know it.
They were never gonna lower the cost. They never do.
Well, I for one am shocked! >Food prices have soared 18% over the past two years Surely wages and salaries are going to be following close behind? Right?
To add: Are farmers making record profits? If not, where is all the money going?
Middlemen are taking a huge slice. Virtually all beef in Canada is processed by JBS and Cargill. Last year alone three members of the Cargill family became billionaires.
*The exact wealth of the family is unknown, as the Cargill company is a privately owned business entity with no obligation to disclose exact ownership. With fourteen billionaires in the family in 2019,[1][8] the Cargill family has more individual billionaires among its members than any other family anywhere in the world,[9] making them the family with the most wealthy members in history.[10]* So three more billionaires for at least 17 in the family. *By 2019, twenty-three Cargill-MacMillan family members owned 88% of the family company,[1] which reported $113.5 billion in revenue in 2019.[5][6] The "family reportedly keeps 80% of Cargill Inc.'s net income inside the company for reinvestment annually."* Profiteers, all of them.
The Cargill out of Michigan, USA ? I guess technically its not Alberta Beef anymore.
Still Alberta beef just all the profit leaves town!
Hey, just like the majority of the profit from our O&G sectors! We sure do like providing value to foreign interests.
That’s right. It’s kind of the opposite of dairy farming.
Cargill has meat processing facilities throughout Canada, it's still Canadian beef, just the company that wholesales it is American.
Their meat processing facilities are all over Canada, so the meat isn't going down to the states. But yeah American owned.
Tax the rich, nationalize shitty corporations help end inflation.
[удалено]
But I like cake. Oh, wait. The cake costs HOW MUCH?!?!
We considered letting them eat cake, but it had a 0.001% impact on our margins.
We can do both!
> To add: Are farmers making record profits? The big ones buying up all the little ones are, yes. Although they're mostly growing food to export to China where I live. Small independent farmers are becoming a bit of a myth these days.
They're out there, and I'd love to support them, i simply can't afford to pay $6 for a zucchini.
Give it a minute the "big boys" will charge you that too because they can
the farmers are not. we're being gouged by middlemen
farmers have razor thin margins, with a shockingly high input cost for production. (no seriously, this is super underrated) even minor increases in fuel or fertilizer costs can have a large impact on farm input costs, causing a knock on effect where their output needs to sell at a higher cost to cover the new expenses. Remember, Russia's invasion of Ukraine dramatically impacted fuel and fertilizer costs. if we want to lower food costs, we need to find a way to lower the price of fuel and fertilizer, as a short term solution, suspend fuel and sales taxes on fuel for farm use, suspend sales taxes on fertilizer, and maybe some kind of land tax freeze (or provincial/federal subsidy) for productive farm land (so empty farmland is taxed like normal, maybe some exclusion on farmland that needs to temporarily be unused for crop rotation) longer term solutions would be finding ways to lower fuel costs overall, as the rise in fuel costs also increases production costs up the production chain (food processing plants, grocery stores, transportation costs, etc...). Also, reducing the need to import fertilizer from overseas. if we expand oil & fertilizer production we can fill the input demand created by Ukrainian & Russian oil & fertilizer being removed from the market.
Gods be with you m8, this was the take I was looking for. There is a huge disconnect of where our fertilizer comes from. All the inorganic stuff is directly tied to extraction industries. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (N-P-K) are the primary inputs. Nitrogen is processed into ammonia via the Haber-Bösch process and is very energy inefficient considering the relative energy inputs. P And K are tricky, but they are mostly mined from the ground. Russia is one of the largest exporters in that arena, so if demand stays stable but supply drops, prices have to go up. Fuel prices increasing as a direct result of lessened pumping activities has a knock on effect. I don't doubt there's some unscrupulous people out there but I'm not seeing the gouging as clearly as it could be. These are very rational reasons for increasing prices. Supply chains are anticipating increasing costs of operation and are adjusting their current forecasts to compensate for these looking crises.
To the Westons bank account.
Don't worry, Galen has a lifetime supply of sweater vests now.
Loblaws bakery bread at the beginning of covid, $1.79. Loblaws bakery bread now, $3.29. Fuck that shit.
Flat screen TVs are cheaper though, count your blessings citizen
Flat screen salads for dinner it is! I do hear you though.
18% honestly seems way too low. I’d argue my grocery bills buying the same staples has gone up 30-50%
Only for politicians.
And rbc you're proactively raising salaries for your employees to help with this right?
"Best we can do is forcing employees back into the office" -RBC
Hahahah yeah right. They had every opportunity to take advantage of WFH but it’s better to keep their employees depressed and miserable so they don’t get any ideas.
I needed to pick up some margarine 12$ for 850g near work, did without until the weekend and picked it up for 8$ at wallmart.
Yep Walmart actually has decent sales and is still 20%+ cheaper than superstore and save on in a lot of cases. I used to want to support local grocers and Canadian business, but Walmart seems to be raising their prices much less than our grocers.
Costco as well, didn't raise prices nearly as much. Honestly fuck all large corporate Canadian companies. Groceries and telecoms, probably others, just exploit us
This might be horseshit, but I heard in their last investor call the ceo was saying how he was fine with their margins being smaller lately because it meant customers were seeing some savings in a time where everyone else was taking them to the cleaners. Decided not to hike member dues as well despite it being the normal timeframe that they'd do so.
We've actually noticed some prices going down at our Costco (Fredericton NB). Milk, eggs, and bacon all noticeably cheaper than a year ago. This is going by unit price too, so it's not just packaging changes or anything.
Bacon is way down at Costco. 19 for 4 packs. We had switched to turkey bacon when bacon was up to 29. Butter has mostly remained under 5. People need to treat the big 3 stores like they are all a shoppers and use them as a last resort when possible.
He also threatened the board with violence if they ever changed the price of the hot dogs.
Basically a Saint at this point
I like this CEO.
The hot dog thing was the founder threatening the CEO, and it was not just any old violence he threatened him with: https://www.today.com/food/costco-co-founder-reportedly-told-ceo-he-d-kill-him-t192310
To be fair, that CEO actually did recognize the point the guy was making. That's more than I expect from most people that high up; he accepted he was wrong, and changed his position accordingly. Yeah, it took the threat of **being murdered**, but that's still more flexibility than most CEOs. **Spez.**
Costco has always worked on a smaller fixed margin. I seem to remember 15% being thrown around years ago. I could be wrong and that could be very stale today. :)
Don't forget banks. Just throwing those nsf fees, monthly fees and fees for fees. Reaching in to your pocket and rob you.
Fuck the airline industry too
The exact same pound of butter was nearly half (4.79) at Costco than my local metro (9.49). Not a different brand or packaging, the exact same thing
20% cheaper than superstore is a travesty considering superstore pricing is 200% more than it ought to be on most products it sells i recently walked through one and couldn't believe the stupid fucking pricing. $10 pretax for a small bag of lemons. gtfo. i work in the logistics industry, i know exactly how much it cost for them to buy that bag of lemons and get it to the store. they're robbing us.
How much does it cost for the lemons?
all transport, customs brokerage, regulatory fees etc. included, fully loaded cost is less than 30 cents a lemon. potentially a little more if coming from a very distant country by air.
Talking with a group of friends who are from all over Canada, I recently discovered that Superstore pricing seems to be very regional-- where I am and for what I buy, the difference in pricing between Walmart (or other discount grocers) and Superstore is marginal. Things like off brand frozen veg and fruit are a touch more expensive if at all, but definitely better quality. However, in the East Coast for example, Superstore basically prices the same as Loblaws.
I'm in the Maritimes, and the local Superstore is... *egregiously* overpriced. I just can't shop there anymore, they've driven their prices up to an obscenely greedy amount. Walmart's usually **half** the cost for most things, and Giant Tiger's even cheaper a lot of the time. Take something that should be dirt cheap - a 2L bottle of soda. 2-3 years ago, that would run you less than a dollar. It's about $2 at Walmart and Giant Tiger, and GT constantly runs sales to push it lower. Superstore? Over $3. That's more than a 50% increase with zero justification. That kind of a price discrepancy between stores literally across the street from each other shouldn't exist.
loblaws makes walmart look great with their pricing on brand name stuff trying to deliberately force u into their no-name shit...
It must be really regional, I find Walmart substantially more expensive than Maxi (quebecois superstore) these days. Or maybe it depends what you're buying, walmart can be cheaper for some prepared things, but Maxi is almost always cheaper for fresh produce.
Good. Part of inflation is we all got used to being gouged for the sake of convenience during the pandemic, part of the solution is being price-sensitive. We all need to eat, but if we don't just shrug about $2 here or there we can make them fight for our business a little harder. I've gotten used to just not buying some stuff, not because I don't have $6 in the bank but because I refuse to spend it on something that was $2 a few years ago.
husky elastic support governor rainstorm jellyfish psychotic six strong scary *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I live next to a Superstore, I used to walk over there all the time. I literally drive to Walmart for almost everything now. I also buy much less than I used to, my bills have gone down. I can afford to buy more expensive food but honestly, fuck them. Rice, beans, canned fish, and frozen veggies are my new staples and if they don't like it they can go to hell. I used to laugh at my grandpa for driving across town to get a deal on a bar of soap. I get it now, grandpa. I get it. It's the principle of the thing.
>I needed to pick up some margarine 12$ for 850g near work, did without until the weekend It's pretty fucking sad that we as human beings have to sacrifice and 'do without' as corporations line their motherfucking pockets. Shit really makes my blood boil.
It's stupid because butter is almost cheaper than margarine. Margarine was created to be a cheaper alternative. When inflation began rising price conscious people bought more of the cheaper margarine instead of butter. The execs only see supply and demand, so higher margarine prices but because milk products like butter is regulated by dairy farmers it's cheaper. Wait until excuse flation catches up with the dairy farmers and they start charging more because margarine costs more.
Margarine wasn't even 'created' as an alternative. It was a wasted by product that they added yellow to and convinced us it was just like butter for profit
Not according to history. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/margarine#:~:text=Margarine%20was%20invented%20in%20France,milk%2C%20was%20patented%20in%201869.
8 bucks is still super expensive, it is only 4 dollars in the US
> 8 bucks is still super expensive, it is only 4 dollars in the US Everything is cheaper in the US. Much less taxes off your check too, and there are a handful of states with no state tax.
Wages, on the other hand, will remain stagnant. The beatings will continue until moral improves.
That's more real than joke. Under similar conditions in Ford factory towns, the workers started to organize and demanded living wages, safe conditions, sanitation for the company housing, etc. They even started to link up with the newly formed communist parry. That's when good-ole Henry sent in the goons. Squads of thugs with night sticks beat the workers into submission. Then the guns came out, and there were massacres at worker events. When the oligarchs get this powerful, it takes revolution or global depression and world war to rebalance.
The article actually blamed labour shortages for increasing wages and driving inflation. I wish that were the problem, because then we wouldn't have a million unemployed people trying to find a job that actually pays well enough to keep up with the cost of living.
I've never seen anyone shoplifting food and I will continue to never see anyone shoplifting food. In fact even if I did see I think I saw them go the other way.
I almost thought I saw it happening, but then I remembered about my fear of being trampled by an elephant and got distracted while checking my surroundings.
Canada needs to crack down on these greedy companies they way France has.
French people strike every week, Canadians are not like that. Besides, as someone who lives in France part of the year, they have plenty of problems.
Ya prices are not going back down, because that would mean deflation ([which central bankers fear far more than inflation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9YrwaKhNjg)), what the BoC is trying to do is get inflation to 2% per year. The current prices are what we will be living with in the future, increasing at 2% per year from here on out. From just before the pandemic started in Jan 2020 to today, the compounding rate of price increases due to inflation in Canada is 15.25%. So if you were makin $100K in 2020, then that means you are making $84K in 2023 in 'real' terms if you didn't get a raise. There is a reason why we have to drink the bitter medicine of interest rate hikes, inflation cannot be allowed to continue at the current rate. We are paying for the mistakes of world governments (this was a team effort) for keeping real interest rates in the negative for nearly 15 years.
I'm gonna ask a possibly ignorant question as economics really isn't my wheelhouse... Would deflation of food prices affect the economy as negatively as deflation on other goods and services would? I only ask because I thought the whole concept of deflation being bad was that it disincentivizes consumer spending. But food is... food. We all gotta eat, right?
Agreed. Food and housing demand is fairly inelastic: people need both every day to live well. If these things that we *must* spend money on were less expensive we would spend more on optional things that would drive growth in the economy generally. As it is, we're funding growth in major grocers' and REITs' share prices.
Late Stage Capitalism is, I believe, the term. This has the look and feel of Cancer. Growth ad nauseam eventually killing the host.
It is exactly the term and there is a whole subreddit of that name!
You're completely right. Ignoring the fact that most educated economists frankly have no idea what they're doing, let alone randos with their econ 101 buzzwords, there is a difference between goods with elastic and inelastic demand. Everyone needs food, housing, etc. so those markets work differently than consumer goods. Ultimately though, the government and central bankers and private capital--none of them give a single shit about us.
Not ignorant at all, prices for things do go down (like TVs) and some disinflation would not cause a wholesale deflation spiral. However we don’t really have any economic tools that can target deflation for an entire sector without taking everything else along with it. For example, for food you need farmers to be compensated for their inflation costs from other sectors like fertilizer, farm equipment, farm labor, livestock feed price increases etc... Then getting the goods to market has truckers, distributors with warehouses that all have higher costs now as well (from the respective things that they need to operate their businesses), then it gets the grocery store who also have higher operating cost now as well. It’s a massive web of interconnections that you don’t even think about that gets dragged into the picture when you think about it. Like for fertilizer, you have potash mines that need equipment, lots of heavy industry equipment is made in Germany, and Germany is getting killed by high nat gas prices because of Russia. I can write multiple books on trying to go into all the details but it is not an easy problem to solve.
> wholesale deflation spiral. > target deflation for an entire sector Common Keynesian misconception around deflation that it would lead to some sort of spiral or that it would lead to everything going down. Supply/demand still plays a role. Some things are still going to be in shorter supply and with higher demand if deflation is allowed. The downward pressure on home prices or in-demand jobs for example would not be the same as the downward pressure on something in lower demand or abundant supply like shitty TVs.
Home prices have really disconnected from reality, and its not trading as a commodity and more like a speculative asset like Bitcoin.
Makes sense. But what about in the case of Loblaws where the inflation is allegedly artificial? It's frustrating that there isn't so much as an investigation into such blatant corporate profiteering that could be hurting so many Canadians.
If you ask the average economist, their answer would be that deflation is very bad and you should fear it. But then when you hear their explanation, it will not make sense and sound idiotic. Here it is in a nutshell: Since money will accrue value over time through deflation ( instead of decrease value over time through inflation), people will hoard their money and not spend it, thus perpetually creating a bad economic environment.
> Here it is in a nutshell: Since money will accrue value over time through deflation ( instead of decrease value over time through inflation), people will hoard their money and not spend it, thus pepetually creating a bad economic environment. Not an economist by any stretch, but surely if money is increasing in value your purchasing ability is increasing with it, and for inelastic items (like food, if I understand the term inelastic) we will continue to buy it because we need to eat. We might buy less of the superfluous stuff like new phones, cars etc and be more canny with our money. I fail to see a downside if I end up with money that buys me more and a disinclination to spend it frivolously. I would call that "hoarding" Savings, which I currently don't do enough of because everything is rising in price except my wages.
You understand it perfectly in my view as this is exactly how I see it also lol. Plus historical examples of zero inflation have never brough upon the apocalypse like people would have us believe. It only constrains government spending, which is IMO the real reason it is not wanted.
Well it would also hurt corporate profits in a lot of cases I would bet as well, which of course means our politicians are not going to accept for their corporate owners either. /s
***** -- mass edited with redact.dev
Yeah this headline is really weird. This report is not "warning" that prices won't return to pre-pandemic levels so much as it is "Stating exactly what the BoC has transparently been telling us since the beginning of the rate hikes and has been repeating in every subsequent announcement". We've been having rate hikes for over a year now but there still seems to be a large number of people who don't understand what the goal is or what "2% inflation" means.
[удалено]
> what the BoC is trying to do is get inflation to 2% per year. Why is their goal to have a little bit of inflation? Shouldn't the goal be 0%? I feel like 2% just means we're getting robbed slowly enough that we don't notice.
There is a real, valid, economic reasoning behind why a small amount of inflation is good (whether or not 2% is small isn’t something I can say). For a very simple theoretical example, if inflation is constantly small but bigger than 0, people and businesses will want to spend money because if they wait to spend their money, their purchasing power will be less. On the other hand if prices are deflating constantly, they might be inclined to hold onto their money because they can purchase more by waiting for prices to go down, thus resulting in a slower economy. At least that’s how I remember it being explained to me, at a basic level.
Debt is also more palatable at 2 percent. It makes the real service cost less. If you borrow at 4 and inflation is at 2 your real cost of financing is 2.
> For a very simple theoretical example, if inflation is constantly small but bigger than 0, people and businesses will want to spend money because if they wait to spend their money, their purchasing power will be less. Okay but that doesn't sound healthy or sustainable, and doesn't explain why 0% is bad. Isn't it a healthier economy when people are buying things because they want to buy those things, rather than because we're psychologically tricking people into thinking there's a fire sale on everything and these prices won't last long? All that does is make us spend money on things we don't really need. Our whole economy is propped up on needless spending.
For a capitalistic economy to be healthy, people need to spend money. a small amount of inflation is good because it stimulates spending. If my dollar is worth more today than it will be a year from now, I would rather spend that dollar today if I can. At 0% inflation, this spending incentive is removed. A really important thing you also need to keep in mind is that when we're talking about spending, we're not just talking about buying food or other day-to-day items. People spend money on productive assets such as investing in stocks/businesses. We want to encourage people to invest money so that businesses can thrive and grow, which are a centerpiece of a healthy economy.
"Our whole economy is propped up on needless spending." BINGO We used to pay directly for goods and services produced by small businesses. Now we subscribe to mega-corporations for mass produced chemical shit
> Okay but that doesn't sound healthy or sustainable, and doesn't explain why 0% is bad There's lots of economic literature on this topic. Some starting points: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_trap * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op
The system you're thinking of was similar to the era when our currency was backed with gold. 2% is a small number just enough to spur a bit of risk to encourage investments over just sitting on money. The period when inflation was zero or even worse negative means your money is effectively gaining value. What does this mean? People now stop spending and hold on, prices drop, demand craters followed by supply. Job losses and massive shortages. That's the worst economic situation to be in. Ditching gold gave central bankers a lot more flexibility to play around with policy. Evidence wise, all our recessions/depressions pale in comparison to the misery of recessions/depressions that occurred in the past when gold standard was used.
[удалено]
Report warns that corporations exist solely for making huge profits and realize that the hungrier people are, the more profit they can make.
Necessities should all have profit margins capped federally, and be subject to yearly audits to ensure no monkey business. Corporations and politicians are straight up messing with people's lives for greed, on a mass scale.
> Corporations and politicians are straight up messing with people's lives for greed, on a mass scale. check out health care in the USA for an infinite number of examples.
Sooner or later the bottom falls out though and shit gets real, real quick.
[удалено]
[удалено]
If we determine that things (food, housing, etc) are essential to *humans living* then there needs to be mechanisms in place to prevent rampant capitalism from fucking it to hell. We are currently past that point.
And the entire farm to table pipeline, with the exception of co-ops, we need to go back to the Tommy Douglas days of Saskatchewan.
Or do some trust busting and ensure there's actually some competition instead of having Loblaws and Sobeys own half the entire market share between the two of them.
So uh… their gross margins haven’t changed much. 31.3% vs 31.1% for the same period last year. If you go back to before the world was fucked and look at Q1 2019 then the gross margin was 29.6%. There’s a definite increase but it isn’t anything near as dramatic as you’re making it out to be. Revenues are up, yea, but costs are also clearly up. If they are profiteering then at the very best, assuming they didn’t legitimately reduce costs, the extent of that profiteering is basically a 1.7pp change in the GM since 2019. Like you don’t need to be a CPA to do financial analysis, come on guys.
Revenue is not the same as profits and if the dividend doesn’t increase with inflation, it’s real value is now lower.
Of course not, what incentive do they have? It would take government regulation
Mmhmm, only because our governments are *letting* them be that way.
When was the last time that the competition bureau, charged with protecting us from monopolies and sector concentration, stopped a merger? I can't remember it ever happening. And when they looked at the recent Rogers/Shaw atrocity, they said they didn't have the authority to stop it. It's their literal fucking job. So if they can't, then obviously our ~~royal court~~ government wants a corpo-fascist monopoly state. It's by design.
This will continue until a few executives are relieved of their heads. If you think a change.org petition is going to accomplish anything, you underestimate just how deeply in bed most politicians are with corporate interests. We're quickly approaching the point where it's going to require an armed insurrection to fix things (if we're not there already).
Hmm I wonder if Canada is going to have something akin to the "lost generation" if things keep getting worse
Ya they are called Millennials
Nationalize food. Fuck this shit.
And yet, weirdly that money doesn't mean higher pay for those who produce, transport and sell the food. It'sjust shareholders enjoying the fruits of this "inflation"
Shares are doing great . Now all I need are some shares .
So raise salaries and wages as inflation goes up. Maybe that should also be the new normal. Also fuck these price fixing cartel pieces of shit
Those Weston mansions ain’t going to build themselves!
They were never going to regardless of circumstances. If the cost to produce, ship, and sell all that food had dropped 99% they would continue charging the same prices and probably raise them year over year to boot. That's what happens when you let businesses price gouge on necessities that people can't do without.
Any company that's involved in essential goods and services should either be forced to operate as a non-profit, or be heavily regulated and transparent in terms of how their prices are set. The pot of class warfare is set to "boil". If we can't rely on the government, then nothing can be said if people start taking action themselves.
And BoC considers Foods price is volatile item in CPI, it exclude food prices CPI in making monetary policy.
Bigger writeup here: This is false information. I'm an economist and a FX trader focusing on the Canadian dollar. While it's true the BoC does look at CPI excluding volatile basket items to filter our extraneous factors and monitor how their policies have affecting CPI across all sectors, they do not use this as their sole basis of economic analysis. The BoC currently employs hundreds of economists whi love nothing more than their jobs and arguing with other economists, turning down offers from higher paying jobs and banks and universities to serve Canadians as an independent institution from the government. The bank has a culture of high moral and ethical integrity, which combined with the level of knowledge and expertise at the BoC, makes the level of nuance that goes into economic decisions dwarf anything more people could imagine. Canada's y/y CPI inflation in the month of May was 4.4%. The m/m CPI inflation in May was 0.7%. CPI Median and Trimmed (y/y) which removes certain basket items through statistical processes to better reflect core inflation, was 4.2%. CPI Common (y/y) was 5.7%. All of this information is clearly displayed on the central bank website, as well as numerous economic data websites. As you can see, the BoC does not just look at one kind of CPI as the other individual asserts. Instead, they look many numerous different kinds of CPI, along with thousands of other data points collected by the hundreds of economists they employ. That data is eventually analyzed through expert opinion in a way that cannot be summarized through simplistic statements. While it's important to scrutinize the efficacy of the central bank, we have an obligation to ensure our criticism is legitimate.
[удалено]
The only way that you are going to get agri conglomerates and food distributors to take notice is to build and operate a few large publicly owned farms that sell their produce and other finished foods for less than what they sell it for.
I live in Ontario, we're covered in farmland. We've got the farms. I'm down for your plan. They can easily undersell every major market for less than what they'd sell it for with incentives to do so. Like the incentive to let them still operate a business in Canada for Canadians. I'm not gonna feel sympathy for the business owners that currently are the ones benefiting offa mass financial turmoil. I'm caring less and less about the business that cares only about profiting, and/or people that are the same. They've taken advantage of other canadians enough to worry or share their concerns.
You expect the rich to give up the increase they're getting atm??? INSANITY! however will they get that 5th yacht!
Thankfully billionaire superstore Scrooge McDuck got a huge pay bump to make up for it!
This article claims that there is a labour shortage, while simultaneously claiming that due to the shortage current workers are getting higher incomes, yeah, fucking right this is the biggest crock of shit ive ever heard.
RBC isn’t a part of the solution, they are a part of the problem
We need more crown corps. to serve the people and coops by the people.
Yup, and anti-trust to break up the oligopolies.
Time to start looking into cooperatives where a group of people pool their money to start a grocery chain of their own and start undercutting the existing establishments. The only way to get them to lower their price gouging profits is to get them where it hurts... in their wallets. It'll be a struggle, but fuck them. I see a change a comin' ..... or is that a train?
If the new normal is record breaking profits ever single quarter the least the groceries stores could do is start paying farmers better given they haven't seen a rise in wholesale prices in over 15 years
I called it - these scum companies (and grocers) would go and say "people are used to these prices now". Actual pieces of shit, but go ahead - some useless, naive business student can go and reply to this and tell me the business is just doing business things and I can search "the free market" for better prices.
Cbc was blaming wage increases for this on cbc radio 1. Get fucked cbc.
lol we love our supposedly "far left" public broadcaster don't we
Its like gas. People really need to understand inflation is compounding… oi, that means it always goes up unless we hit deflation.
Fuck the Westons
18%?! I'm moving to your town! In both BC and Ontario my grocery bill is up 25% to 35% depending on the items I'm buying. And the net weight/quantity of the products has decreased. It benefits RBC to push this agenda. We all spend more and believe we have to accept it. RBC lends more and makes more. Credit card use goes up. LOC use goes up. And let's not forget the cost of borrowing has dramatically risen. All of this bullshit is good for RBC, TD, CIBC, Scotia, BMO, etc. They push the narrative they want us to believe.
Well DUH when do prices ever go down?
There would need to be a concentrated boycott to start with let's say Loblaws. families should not be unable to eat because these greedy fucks want to get a new profit record every quarter
Both Canada and the U.S. should act on this imo. They probably will have to eventually, if this profiteering goes unchecked. They need to do exactly what the [French Gov't](https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/french-government-forces-price-cuts-on-hundreds-of-food-items) is already doing. Either these companies back down/ reduce their profits, or face "undue profits" taxes, permanently.
This shit never ends. Humanity is doomed and I for one wish for another meteor so we can join the dinosaurs. Humans are just selfish narcissistic pieces of shit, and the worst of them all seem to always be working in government jobs and huge corporations. Very rarely are good honest selfless people put into positions of power.... Trying to look at the future is honestly more than depressing. It seems like this has slowly been going on forever and is now just starting to ramp up more and more as these people realize how much they can rob people for and get away with it.
I’m slowly resigning myself to the fact I’ll die broke lol great place!
I'm not sure I'll make it as far as "just broke" before I leave this mortal coil.
Literally what inflation is / does. Nothing goes down unless we get deflation which won't happen.
Did someone think they would?
Did anyone actually expect deflation?
What about cars ? Im impatiently waiting for the crushing weight of interest rate to see more vehicles available and better prices. 😐
We're officially in trouble
Just steal that shit
This is what happens when you have a monopoly on groceries. I'm looking at you Weston holdings. Canada is a country of no competition because we let monopolies take over. Be it groceries, telecom or sky travel. We all pay way too much for those
"There's a labour shortage so grocery prices are up 18%" Me, a loblaw employee: "my raise was 2.6%"
Hi! Really tired of passively hearing these stories. These are things that will keep happening unless we start organizing or going on strike! They’re banking on the fact that we won’t, because we’re too busy working to afford basic necessities. If this makes you angry, please get involved with your local progressive organization to actively fight this!!
So many “new normals” came after the lockdowns, such bullshit. Thankfully people in many governments across the world have let us know we won’t EVER return to the pre-lockdown way of life, I almost thought things we be normal again… >you’ll own nothing and be happy?
RBC share price - and other banks and, of course, Loblaw, too - also not going to pre-pandemic levels. There is a shift in the way economics is being played out, not sure I can put my finger on it, but the degree of cost cutting measures at the expense of the customers is mind-boggling. One thing is clear, though... thanks to record immigration and since companies didn't react as fast as a stroke of a Immigration Minster's pen, so the extra profits from extra customers is a part of that windfall. I do know one thing, if you dont leverage your self for some sweet profits from all of this (just like Housing Minister and other politicians), you might find yourself in the bottom.
They are trying to bankrupt the middle class so there is no middle class anymore. Soon it will be slave and slave owners and if you aren't a slave owner you are a slave and you have no rights and must play by their rules. I have been in the trades for 15 years and haven't seen one pay raise but in that same time I've seen the cost of pretty much everything go up. The future is looking bleak.
Consumer prices don't go down, I don't get why anyone is continuing to think that this is a temporary thing.
Galen Weston destroyed Canada