Everyone, stop staying “duh” to research outcomes. Research takes time to design, fund, run and analyze and it’s purpose is to scientifically prove something we all “felt” a while ago.
Our feelings don’t mean too much because they are often wrong, data backed fact means something. Start being happy about these validation posts and hold off on the pickachu face memes.
data backed fact means something
What does it really mean here? You really think anyone will actually take action based on this data? You think it will convince anyone that didn’t already know it was the case? You think companies are magically going to stop overcharging us?
No, companies will keep lying, politicians will keep lying, and consumers will keep getting screwed.
And the “science” don’t need to take long. When companies claim they are raising prices due to increased costs while simultaneously recording record profits, it is obvious what’s going on. Yeah, economists will make excuses, but that is only because they work for the wealthy.
What action would you want taken?
Anti-trust suits, windfall profits taxes, and perhaps some good ol’ French Revolution justice.
Your absurd call to violence aside, windfall taxes have to be passed through Congress, and every single member of the House majority has signed a literal contract vowing to fight any tax increase.
Sorry I think these thieves should be punished. Guess you don’t care. But yes, put me in a room with most mega corporation CEOs, and it would take incredible self control to not personally beat them to death due all the suffering they willingly choose to cause.
And, yeah, exactly my point, this study accomplishes nothing. Republicans and plenty of Democrats will happily run interference for greedy corporations.
It gives institutions the CYA to act with less fear.
I mean, I literally have the data. It’s not like my business doesn’t keep records. Anyone could have just asked me.
I’ll ask. Please send me your business data?
Yeah send it to me too please
It doesn’t take research to understand that overwhelming demand + lots of cash-on-hand yields inflation.
Literally everyone expected inflation after COVID.
“Greedflation” is just a manipulative way to describe the mechanism of inflation itself, which is price rising to the natural limit the market will bear.
This is all extremely well-understood.
Meanwhile companies are posting record profits from from raising prices above the cost inflation… Greedflation
All inflation is caused by people seeking to make more money.
That’s what inflation is
What’s really manipulative is describing any of this as “natural”. People also expected complete stock market collapse during the pandemic but when it comes to rich people’s money, various parts of the government spring into action, and that was completely averted. Turns out what “the market will bear” is pretty damn high when industries are dominated by 2-3 large companies at most, the government fully supports them, many of the goods (e.g. food) are essential, and consumer spending is helped along with credit.
There are many things that can be done to resolve this, like the government breaking up these conglomerates. It’s down to greed, pure and simple. In fact, you basically admit this when you say it’s the price rising to the limit that the market will bear, but you sprinkle in “natural” and “the market” to abstract away the fact that these massive corporations are putting the squeeze on people.
While the defence for science is nice (wasn’t attacked here), outrage is allowed on public discourse. I think most people are outraged for the lack of inaction of regulatory bodies at the sight of extreme price fixing when everyone and their mother had at least the gut feeling that it is all bullshit.
I didn’t need a study to tell you that. In my industry the costs of all my goods are up roughly 30% since 2020, but my margins have gotten thinner at the same time so my revenue somehow managed to magically remain exactly the same. And it’s no coincidence, I’m sure, that the manufacturers are the ones who determine the Minimum Advertising Price I’m supposed to be selling at.
If that 30% number sounds awfully familiar, you’ll find it in the linked article. So, profits for megacorporations rose 30%, and my costs rose 30%, too. Gee, will you look at that. Those two numbers are the same. That’s a fuckin’ puzzler, isn’t it?
So some asshole somewhere in that supply chain pyramid is making a lot of money off of this “inflation” excuse, and it sure as hell isn’t me.
It’s because there hasn’t been any meaningful anti trust enforcement for decades. Every industry is basically an oligopoly at this stage, so they can set whatever price they want, because they know their competitors will do the same (because they face the exact same pressures from the exact same shareholders to increase profits).
If it was a free market, you could’ve found a different supplier, but obviously there was no alternative, or you would’ve done just that.
Oligopolies that run both horizontally and vertically up the supply chain.
This is what happens after decades of mergers and acquisitions in the name of diversification, and corruption of regulators and governments — a small number of multinationals, owned by an even smaller number of oligarchs, reach a point of control where it is relatively easy to collude with the handful of others that collectively own 90% of every market and sector, and operate as a functional monopoly.
It’s the OPEC-ification of the entire global economy. It is of no surprise that fossil fuel oligarchs applied that model to everything, nor that the governments they own continue to enable their crimes. We’re all hostages to the economic terrorists of capitalism.
free markets build monopolies, the only reason we are only at oligopoly is that we still have some regulation on the market (that inherently makes it not free btw)
True, without regulation the market will always trend towards a monopoly.
In almost all cases I buy manufacturer direct. You are correct that there is no alternate supplier.
The only viable plan B is to start my own manufacturing company and make my own damn products, which is a capital expense I strongly suspect most players in my industry will not be able to afford. I certainly can’t.
Ayyyy I got most of my price lists in for next year and it’s like 5% across the board which is pretty typical. Some raw materials have come back down and ocean freight is reasonable again.
I got one of the last pricelists in today and it’s like 30% increase over this year 😂 I’m gonna put in one more PO at '23 prices then I’m dropping their shit.
I’m sure you get to be the grief sponge from people upset about higher costs and lower quality, too. I had the hardest time getting Levi’s to honor a warranty for two pairs of jeans that fell apart after three months. The whole time I was getting more frustrated with the company while feeling terrible for their customer service meat shields who weren’t allowed to resolve it.
Literally anyone with a functioning brain already knew this. And yet, there will be no penalty for this bullshit.
Eh with how this conversation has been evolving lately I’d say this is the worst time to be pessimistic about the possibility of regulation. Is a good time to be loud and angry about it tho
I can be pessimistic AND loud & angry.
Loud pessimist is pretty much my entire state of being.
My friends and family must find me exhausting.
no, be pessimistic, the optimistic stance is that hey will magically self regulate
They’re not going to change anything because people still need to buy stuff.
Oh no, this is such a shock. No shit they were lying about inflation. Those bastards were reporting record highs while the average Joe was struggling to pay rent.
To be pedantic, a business that’s keeping the same percentage margins will always post record profits in an inflationary economy.
To be pedantic, all other things being equal, like quantity sold. Riiiiiight?
The best kind of correct.
Well they got told to knock it off nicely. So I guess they will lower prices now. 🙄
The egg producers already have.
The “bird flu” was nowhere significant enough to cause the price spike on its own. It was an attempt to determine “what the market will allow”. And it turns out people can do without eggs quite comfortably.
I know I did. Those eggs went sky high and I didn’t buy them for months.
Pretty please? And no crossies!
The beginnings of a list:
“The biggest perpetrators were energy companies like Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, which were able to enjoy massive profits last year”
If you can find any way to go electric, use petrol less, ride a bike, walk, use a train, avoid a plane, etc, go for it. Prolly the petrol corps won’t notice your individual actions, but the carbon you’ll keep out of the atmosphere might just help to keep our planet’s ecosphere viable.The Study itself: INFLATION, PROFITS AND MARKET POWER TOWARDS A NEW RESEARCH AND POLICY AGENDA - https://www.ippr.org/files/2023-12/1701878131_inflation-profits-and-market-power-dec-23.pdf - Jeebus, 32 pages!
but the carbon you’ll keep out of the atmosphere might just help to keep our planet’s ecosphere viable.
This is only if nations stop burning oil even if it’s cheap.
That’s why oil should have the cost of climate change and healthcare from pollution added to it. If oil was as expensive as the true cost, we’d have ditched it decades ago.
I totally agree, but the people we put in power don’t care about the true cost because we don’t.
Collectively speaking, anyways.
I drive electric and in my home state of Georgia, USA they have an ad valorem tax of 239 dollars or there abouts for people that drive Evs and plug in hybrids.
My theory is that they’re missing out on the taxes I would normally pay if I bought gas and need to recoup their losses.
My theory is that they’re missing out on the taxes I would normally pay if I bought gas and need to recoup their losses.
I don’t think you need to refer to that as a theory. Taxes on fuel for motor vehicles go towards road maintenance. Vehicles that drive on the roads but don’t burn gas or diesel, don’t pay their share of the road maintenance costs. That’s why states want to tax EVs.
I used to live in Texas and they did the same shit there. Tax EVs more because their owners weren’t “paying their fair share on the highway tax”
Removed by mod
They needed studies for that? Shoot they could have just asked me!
Me after reading the headline, “duh?”.
Capitalists? Lying about literally everything?
Who coulda thunk it?
But …? But market forces! Free market! The public will decide! No? Oh well, let’s do nothing and see if it changes for the better.
“If you don’t like their prices go next door where it’s more expensive! If things are so tight why are you spending on luxuries like food anyway?”
Raising interest rates is very much not “doing nothing”
Removed by mod
Duh. Finance bros will still tell you different though.
They will tell you it’s because of the increase in wages, and then refuse to believe the data when you show them that wages have stagnated.
Surely it’s not the shambolic government monetary policy of the same period, the companies were just being way greedier than normal. This study was run by the IMF.
I want a well curated list of the worst offenders so I can figure out who to stop giving my money to.
Bingo! Boycott time!
You will be surprised how difficult that plan is to implement. Pretty much everything is owned by a few mega corporations.
Vive la révolution. 🏴☠️
The title of this post might as well be “Water is wet, the sky is blue, ice is cold”
Of course corporations are lying to have a reason to raise prices when they don’t need to.
They will raise it to whatever people will pay. Always. I don’t understand why anyone would even consider what they claim they did it for. They did it for more money, which is exactly what I would do if I ran a for profit business too. If I wanted to help people out of the goodness of my heart, I’d volunteer at a food bank, not start a grocery chain.
“Hey maybe we should hold corps accountable and stop letting them influence politics–”
“NO. BYDUN”
So you’re telling me it doesn’t cost twice as much to make and ship charcoal. It doesn’t cost three times as much to grow a head of lettuce? Those sneaky snooks who make house paint have some 'splaining to do too.
For lettuce, the cost of fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides etc, rose significantly this year. At least in Europe.
They were also lying about closing stores because of too much shoplifting
What do you mean?
Probably something like this.
Also Walgreens.
Walmart claimed it as well.
Ah, gotcha. That’s pretty fucked up
In a market that expects infinite growth in a finite reality, I can assure you that I’m not the least bit surprised that companies are using “inflation” as an excuse to gouge their customers for what increasingly little they have
and what are we doing about it?
Upvoting.
I feel so empowered.
