9 ms·

I don't think it's a soft landing because the economy wasn't really crashing to begin with. Inflation was up largely due to Covid issues and some panic around

by treis 4y ago

I don't think it's a soft landing because the economy wasn't really crashing to begin with. Inflation was up largely due to Covid issues and some panic around Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Both have eased on their own. It really does look like this was an opportunity for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. But not really what the Fed should be enabling.

imglorp 4y ago
Plenty of sectors are seeing record profits, such as energy. It's simply price gouging.
- throwaway9870 4y ago
  With as large of economic disturbance we have seen in the last 3 years, you will find examples of almost anything. However, I can assure you as some who was in manufacturing during this period, it was not just price gouging. There were true shortages up and down the supply chain, supplier quotes that used to be good for 30 days were good for 24hrs, and distributors that thought they had plenty of stock found themselves cleaned out by companies panic buying. It was incredibly hard to run a supply chain and for smaller companies, almost impossible to predict the cost of good sold (COGS). If you can't predict the cost to make something, you better raise the price enough to be sure you don't lose money. Many companies had to hire extra people just to track price changes and manage the supply chains. Building anything efficiently was crazy hard. On top of that, in certain markets, people were spending like crazy which made it very hard to stay stocked. This whole idea of "simply price gouging" is completely inaccurate for many industries.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Given that the purchasing power of money is constantly decreasing, why would you not expect to see record profits, especially after the most annual inflation in decades? Changes in profit margin would be the relevant metric to see if a business has gained or lost pricing power.
- boringg 4y ago
  Correction. oil and gas. Solar and wind aren't seeing record profits - though they are seeing record installa.
  - coffeebeqn 4y ago
    Hard to ship Solar And wind overseas where the need is
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Do solar panels not fit in shipping containers?
      - coffeebeqn 4y ago
        Manufacturing solar panels is an entirely different industry from running a solar farm.
        kevviiinn 4y ago
        Right and shipping them is yet another industry Maybe I don't understand the point you're trying to make
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Back when the inflation hoopla started I watched the newshour desk (Amna, looking at you) very poorly hype it up. They had economists on to talk about it and they shrugged it off as corporate profiteering. You can always tell when they don't want to hear the truth. I yelled out the answer a few minutes before the economist did. They didn't invite her on to talk again. For some reason they just froth at the mouth at the prospect of systemic inflation. They will grab the reigns of the culture war and flog it mercilessly to the finish line but will never call out corporate collusion against workers nor the abuse of consumers lest Facebook or Walmart ease up on the "donations."
hourago 4y ago
> for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. Capital has way more, by a large margin, leverage than labor. Big technology companies were far from have less leverage that tech workers. Why do you think that it is fair that a reduction in that difference is ended?
- uxp100 4y ago
  I don’t think this comment was about capital and labor, but instead between capital and management. Maybe there is a better phrase. Finance capital and business? The idea is that capital has had very little control the operations of business over the past 10 years, due to low interest rates. This leads to businesses that don’t make money continuing to grow, and bubble conditions, is more or less the idea. I’ve also seen this idea of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy also being related to interest rates.
  - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
    Management are the (mostly-unwitting) foot soldiers for capital. Generally they either come from capital already, or are labor attempting to jump into the capital class. The petite-bougeoise [1] as they were once known [1]https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100320389;jsessionid=E732C3A7A828236EDFD4B2E4AFA9C2C7 https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...
blululu 4y ago
>> It really does look like this was an opportunity for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. But not really what the Fed should be enabling. Railroad workers had to strike to get a single sick day. Across the board American labor has been getting flogged for years. Maybe Google's people should be flogged a little, but not because of the financial balance.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Let's not wish any workers to be "flogged." Google workers deserve their pay and others deserve more. What happens to them happens to me. Don't take the "divide and conquer" bait.
  - spacemadness 4y ago
    It gets me that there are so many people on HN against labor, then I remind myself that the site exists due to founding tech companies and that there are folks on here that just want a bigger whip.
    - treis 4y ago
      Or some of us see echoes of Detroit 1950 in today's tech industry.
      - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
        I'm curious which specific aspects you are referring to that have echos?
        treis 4y ago
        Companies that dominated their sector, got fat and lazy, and then were disrupted by foreign competition.
naasking 4y ago
> Inflation was up largely due to Covid issues I don't know why people still believe this. Supply chain issues account for 2-3% of inflation immediately after COVID restrictions eased. The other 6-7% is corporate profiteering off of the perception of supply chain issues. You can see this clearly from the record profits being reported.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Why would you say it's they and not the tremendous amount of money pumped into the economy through COVID programs and artificially low interest rates?
  - naasking 4y ago
    That money is included in the 2-3% I mentioned, the remainder is showing up on the corporate balance sheets as profits because they jacked up prices. For instance, see: https://youtu.be/udITRL9-t08 https://youtu.be/udITRL9-t08
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Back when the inflation hoopla started I watched the newshour desk (Amna, looking at you) very poorly hype it up. They had economists on to talk about it and they shrugged it off as corporate profiteering. You can always tell when they don't want to hear the truth. I yelled out the answer a few minutes before the economist did. They didn't invite her on to talk again. For some reason they just froth at the mouth at the prospect of systemic inflation. They will grab the reigns of the culture war and flog it mercilessly to the finish line but will never call out corporate collusion against workers nor the abuse of consumers lest Facebook or Walmart ease up on the "donations."
  - dasil003 4y ago
    Agree with all of this, and it's even worse because collusion is not necessary. The profiteering requires no coordination at all. Just the narrative of inflation alone creates the smokescreen for individual corporations to all do this in lockstep without needing to so much as make eyes at each other across a tradeshow floor. Perfect deniability.

by treis 4y ago

imglorp 4y ago

Plenty of sectors are seeing record profits, such as energy. It's simply price gouging.

throwaway9870 4y ago
With as large of economic disturbance we have seen in the last 3 years, you will find examples of almost anything. However, I can assure you as some who was in manufacturing during this period, it was not just price gouging. There were true shortages up and down the supply chain, supplier quotes that used to be good for 30 days were good for 24hrs, and distributors that thought they had plenty of stock found themselves cleaned out by companies panic buying. It was incredibly hard to run a supply chain and for smaller companies, almost impossible to predict the cost of good sold (COGS). If you can't predict the cost to make something, you better raise the price enough to be sure you don't lose money. Many companies had to hire extra people just to track price changes and manage the supply chains. Building anything efficiently was crazy hard. On top of that, in certain markets, people were spending like crazy which made it very hard to stay stocked. This whole idea of "simply price gouging" is completely inaccurate for many industries.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
Given that the purchasing power of money is constantly decreasing, why would you not expect to see record profits, especially after the most annual inflation in decades? Changes in profit margin would be the relevant metric to see if a business has gained or lost pricing power.
boringg 4y ago
Correction. oil and gas. Solar and wind aren't seeing record profits - though they are seeing record installa.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Hard to ship Solar And wind overseas where the need is
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Do solar panels not fit in shipping containers?
    - coffeebeqn 4y ago
      Manufacturing solar panels is an entirely different industry from running a solar farm.
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        Right and shipping them is yet another industry Maybe I don't understand the point you're trying to make
datavirtue 4y ago
Back when the inflation hoopla started I watched the newshour desk (Amna, looking at you) very poorly hype it up. They had economists on to talk about it and they shrugged it off as corporate profiteering. You can always tell when they don't want to hear the truth. I yelled out the answer a few minutes before the economist did. They didn't invite her on to talk again. For some reason they just froth at the mouth at the prospect of systemic inflation. They will grab the reigns of the culture war and flog it mercilessly to the finish line but will never call out corporate collusion against workers nor the abuse of consumers lest Facebook or Walmart ease up on the "donations."

hourago 4y ago

> for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. Capital has way more, by a large margin, leverage than labor. Big technology companies were far from have less leverage that tech workers. Why do you think that it is fair that a reduction in that difference is ended?

uxp100 4y ago
I don’t think this comment was about capital and labor, but instead between capital and management. Maybe there is a better phrase. Finance capital and business? The idea is that capital has had very little control the operations of business over the past 10 years, due to low interest rates. This leads to businesses that don’t make money continuing to grow, and bubble conditions, is more or less the idea. I’ve also seen this idea of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy also being related to interest rates.
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago
  Management are the (mostly-unwitting) foot soldiers for capital. Generally they either come from capital already, or are labor attempting to jump into the capital class. The petite-bougeoise [1] as they were once known [1]https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100320389;jsessionid=E732C3A7A828236EDFD4B2E4AFA9C2C7 https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...

blululu 4y ago

>> It really does look like this was an opportunity for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. But not really what the Fed should be enabling. Railroad workers had to strike to get a single sick day. Across the board American labor has been getting flogged for years. Maybe Google's people should be flogged a little, but not because of the financial balance.

datavirtue 4y ago
Let's not wish any workers to be "flogged." Google workers deserve their pay and others deserve more. What happens to them happens to me. Don't take the "divide and conquer" bait.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  It gets me that there are so many people on HN against labor, then I remind myself that the site exists due to founding tech companies and that there are folks on here that just want a bigger whip.
  - treis 4y ago
    Or some of us see echoes of Detroit 1950 in today's tech industry.
    - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
      I'm curious which specific aspects you are referring to that have echos?
      - treis 4y ago
        Companies that dominated their sector, got fat and lazy, and then were disrupted by foreign competition.

naasking 4y ago

> Inflation was up largely due to Covid issues I don't know why people still believe this. Supply chain issues account for 2-3% of inflation immediately after COVID restrictions eased. The other 6-7% is corporate profiteering off of the perception of supply chain issues. You can see this clearly from the record profits being reported.

darkerside 4y ago
Why would you say it's they and not the tremendous amount of money pumped into the economy through COVID programs and artificially low interest rates?
- naasking 4y ago
  That money is included in the 2-3% I mentioned, the remainder is showing up on the corporate balance sheets as profits because they jacked up prices. For instance, see: https://youtu.be/udITRL9-t08 https://youtu.be/udITRL9-t08
datavirtue 4y ago
Back when the inflation hoopla started I watched the newshour desk (Amna, looking at you) very poorly hype it up. They had economists on to talk about it and they shrugged it off as corporate profiteering. You can always tell when they don't want to hear the truth. I yelled out the answer a few minutes before the economist did. They didn't invite her on to talk again. For some reason they just froth at the mouth at the prospect of systemic inflation. They will grab the reigns of the culture war and flog it mercilessly to the finish line but will never call out corporate collusion against workers nor the abuse of consumers lest Facebook or Walmart ease up on the "donations."
- dasil003 4y ago
  Agree with all of this, and it's even worse because collusion is not necessary. The profiteering requires no coordination at all. Just the narrative of inflation alone creates the smokescreen for individual corporations to all do this in lockstep without needing to so much as make eyes at each other across a tradeshow floor. Perfect deniability.