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Same thing happening in Canada https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-loblaw-earnings-q4-2022-grocery-profits/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busine

• refurb 4y ago
  Its called a scapegoat. The Canadian government massively expanded the money supply and took on a ton of debt giving payments during Covid. Even the BoC was caught off guard when they said “inflation was transitory”. Rather than admit it was their own policies that caused inflation they’ve decided to blame industry. Don't get me wrong, profit is going up for these industries, some of it driven by supply issues. You could argue that higher profit is helping sustain inflation (costs go up -> wages goes up -> costs go up -> etc), but higher profit is NOT the reason why inflation spike in the first place. Its quite entertaining to see but no doubt it’ll work on most of the population.
  • Fervicus 4y ago
    I agree that the government deciding to recklessly print money and not raising interest rates when they should have is the primary cause of the inflation. But are the two reasons mutually exclusive? Bad policies and corporate greed? Agree with your point about the scapegoat and the media spin too.
    • opportune 4y ago
      Corporations are motivated by profit, why would they not raise prices to reflect demand? If 100 people showed up to some guy’s hot dog stand and he periodically ran out of hot dogs everyday/had so many people in line that people didn’t even line up, he’d make more money if he raised prices until he stopped running out of hotdogs or had shorter lines. That’s because his hot dogs were mispriced relative to demand: at that price quantity demanded exceeded quantity supplied. If I were that hot dog guy I’d feel no guilt in raising the prices of my hot dogs 20% so I could make more money. Corporations work exactly the same way.
      • Fervicus 4y ago
        I agree with this in principle. In reality, these grocers have been caught fixing bread prices[0] and not a single person has gone to jail. The dairy industry is also a cartel. Of course, they can keep doing this because the government is in bed with these corporations, and so we come full circle to bad policies. [0] - https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/still-no-answers-on-yearslong-bread-price-fixing-scandal-law-professor-1.6253803 https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/still-no-answers-on-yearslon...
        • opportune 4y ago
          That’s a fair point. Collusion and price fixing should be prosecuted and investigated to the fullest extent since it harms the general public so much. What I am describing would apply absent of collusion though - collusion is not necessary for this to occur
  • drdec 4y ago
    This sounds like the same script was used in America.