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As if corporations suddenly became greedy over the last couple of years but haven't been over the previous four decades. Corporations purpose is to maximise pro
by tonyedgecombe 4y ago
As if corporations suddenly became greedy over the last couple of years but haven't been over the previous four decades. Corporations purpose is to maximise profits. To expect otherwise is a fools errand.
- mhoad 4y agoDo you have anything at all you want to propose in the way of a solution here? We don’t have to just accept that you know.
- jabradoodle 4y agoNo one is arguing to the contrary. A functioning market based economy shouldn't tolerate massive inflation fuelled by greed, as your competitors should undercut you.
- tonyedgecombe 4y ago>No one is arguing to the contrary. The original article is. The whole thing is presented as if it's some moral failure on the part of CEO's. Their only solution is price controls. There isn't one mention of breaking up the huge number of monopolies which dominate nearly every area of commerce.
- uncfrj 4y agoWhat is preventing you from opening a non greedy supermarket?
- boffinism 4y agoTaking the question at face value, the answer is: massive amounts of capital. And barriers to entry like that make the 'the free market will solve this' argument less convincing.
- uncfrj 4y agoThe mom and pop grocery stores in your local area do not have massive amounts of capital.
- atchoo 4y agoIf they represent any meaningful profit margin, they get swallowed by capital unless a government prevents it. There are no "mom and pop" grocery stores in my area. We have "Metro" or "Express" versions of the mega chains instead. You can stand outside one and see two others and there won't be a single independent until you get into a different area that the chains don't consider sufficiently profitable.
- someweirdperson 4y agoThey don't have the purchasing powers of their big competitors either.
- kortilla 4y agoThat’s what loans and investors are for. Massive amounts of capital is one of the easiest issues to overcome if the business is actually profitable.
- jensensbutton 4y agoYou would have to overcome the "barriers to entry", including large up front costs associated with a supermarket, before demonstrating profitability.
- Gigachad 4y ago
- qeternity 4y agoWhich is why all of this greed-based hand wringing is absurd. Corporate profits went up bc of transfer payments enabled by the Fed. All of those stimmy checks had to end up somewhere. Classical economics predicted the consequences of the Covid monetary response. It’s been textbook. And yet we want to blame everything else except the actual causes.
- mcapodici 4y agoI assume there is some game theory and psychology going on here. You have to remain competitive and people notice a price hike, but if there is inflation maybe companies can collectively sneak more margin in.
- jaybrendansmith 4y agoThis. There is no point in expecting capitalists to do anything different. This is a failure of regulators. If you want it to stop, you must: a) Break up monopolies, b) Go after collusion, c) Tax excess profits, d) Disallow mergers and industry consolidation. Unfortunately, in the U.S. the regulators have been sleeping for going on 50 years (with only a few exceptions), and now we have major media, broadband, electricity, gas, utilities, and many other industries consolidated to only a few corporations. Capitalism will always be a war of attrition between industrialists and regulators, and anyone expecting different needs to grow up. Further failure to act will allow a corporate state to coalesce with oligopolistic lock-in. We cannot expect Noblesse Oblige or anything like it: The 5-day 40-hour work week, vacation pay, child labor laws, pensions, were fought for and won by Unions and Labor. No greedy capitalist ever had a conscience, only their wives or children gave away money.
- someweirdperson 4y ago> If you want it to stop, you must: a) Break up monopolies, b) Go after collusion, c) Tax excess profits, d) Disallow mergers and industry consolidation. That still allows growth to a dangerous size. A more simple solution tgat avoids worrying about details would be to limit maximum size in general, to guarantee that there is competition.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoPrices are sticky. There were prices that hadn't changed for 20 years. Consumers notice when prices change. In normal times, a small increase in prices can have a massive impact on sales. But when every other price is changing it becomes easier to change your price. And so suddenly you get 20 years of cost increases in a single jump.
- danaris 4y agoExcept that prices, in general, have been rising over the past 20 years. And yes, we've noticed it, and so have people around us. My in-laws have been frequently heard complaining about price increases on products (their grumbling tends to start with how the price has increased since last year, then go on to declare what they remember paying for it in about 1965...). We've also had rampant shrinkflation during that time. Remember, for instance, how ice cream used to be regularly sold in half-gallons? But now is instead sold in 48oz tubs, without any particular acknowledgement of the change. But when the price increases aren't localized to one specific store, it doesn't matter that people get annoyed at it. Worst case, they'll just start buying less of the thing.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoIn 2000-2019 you would complain about one specific product going up in price and adjust appropriately. In 2022 you complain about everything going up in price.
- danaris 4y agoPlease don't try to tell me what my experiences are. Prices have certainly risen across the board more quickly and noticeably in the last year or so than previously. That doesn't mean that I haven't noticed prices rising broadly for the past 20 years. Maybe you haven't. I don't know. I wouldn't presume to tell you what your experiences are.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoPrice stickiness is a well studied area of behavioral economics.