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Why couldn’t this happen before? Competition. If you raised your prices, your competitors would see an opportunity and you’d lose market share Now competitio

Why couldn’t this happen before? Competition. If you raised your prices, your competitors would see an opportunity and you’d lose market share Now competition has been consolidated away. With the pandemic, corporations have accidentally entered into an experiment leading to new price discovery. Without competitors, all that’s in the way of increasing prices is consumers’ willingness to buy.

fuzzfactor 3y ago
>Why couldn’t this happen before? That's exactly what happened before. During the Nixon recession, leading up to the wage & price freeze. And after the freeze was lifted, the financial power imbalance was no different so inflation went even wilder due to pent-up un-fulfilled greed among the financial leaders whom had to do without growth for a little while there. Even though the value of the dollar was declining due to destabilization, there were less available for the majority of workers/taxpayers, but financialists still needed more of them or the math would have made them look like their greed had failed like never before. They are rewarded on greed numerically in ways that everyone else can not compare. The freeze worked to cement the imbalance leading to the exaggerated wealth inequality we have now. The more apparent income inequality today is minor by comparison, but they were both locked in like never before mainly by pure unchecked greed. Freezing prices didn't help much, but freezing wages even for a little bit was completely counterproductive by setting the workers/taxpayers back many more years by comparison to capital. Those years have grown to generations now.
mitthrowaway2 3y ago
It does seem that the corporate landscape is less competitive than it once was. If two brands of cereal are owned by the same parent company, they aren't really competitors. If one hundred parent companies are owned by the same investment index fund, whose management votes on behalf of its investors, are those hundred companies really competitors with each other?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Go look at your cleaning products aisle in your local grocery store. Every single item is created by one of two brands, with a couple items from tiny, niche, lifestyle brands. Every other aisle is the same story. Two or three companies, with a few small groups also throwing a hat in the ring. The grocery store is also owned by one of two companies, with again, a couple small time competitors that haven't been purchased yet.
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    Indeed -- but even those two or three companies might not compete so hard with each other when they are both controlled by the same investment group, whose interest is in seeing the index go up.
kibwen 3y ago
Trustbusting is one of the most crucial roles of government, and the US government has utterly failed in this duty.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The US government willingly gave up this duty by popular vote, through politicians promising it would all "trickle down".
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    I'd guess Robert Bork had more to do with it than the popular vote. Nixon might have promised him a Supreme Court seat for his other famous historical service, but his nomination was famously shot down on a somewhat bipartisan basis (Biden was the Judiciary Chairman at the time).
    - RickJWagner 3y ago
      The action was vicious enough that the term 'Borked' was coined for it.
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        If putting it to a full senate vote is vicious, then you might need to find some even stronger words for what happened to a few other nominees.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    > "When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."[0] You can't blame the voters for this, the institutions are long ago corrupted. [0]https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/ https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-...
- 3y ago
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
Adtech wasn't always good enough to drive demand on its own, and the markets weren't always so noisy that you could get away rebranding and ripping off the same stooges a second time.
vasco 3y ago
I've tried to search a bit and all I can find are statistics on new business formation in the USA which shows a 2x rate than 10 years ago - twice more businesses started per year. This doesn't mean there isn't more consolidation at the top, but do you have any link to statistics showing less competition?
- octobus2021 3y ago
  New business formation numbers are utterly meaningless. I can "start a business" by filing an application with the State and paying $100/$200 fee. And don't do anything with it. There is plenty of evidence of consolidation. For most recent one look up analysis on spike of price of eggs. The egg production turned out to be controlled by just a few conglomerates. Which were able to take advantage of (small to almost non-existent) loss of chickens and voila. Price of eggs is non-elastic; that is, you can't easily replace it with other products and it is an important part of Western diet, so people didn't have a choice but to pay up.
  - sudobash1 3y ago
    I have heard one or two other similar explanations for the price increase in eggs. But I have not been able to find any sources for them. Everything I can find suggests that the increase is truly because of loss of hens. Do you have a source for the "small to almost non-existent" loss of chickens?
    - vidanay 3y ago
      188.5 million chickens are slaughtered DAILY. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-many-chickens-are-in-the-world https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-many-chickens-are-in... Approx 58 million chickens have been culled in the United States due to bird flu. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm The first link seems to be specific to meat birds, but I think the concept stands for layers too.
      - 3y ago
rcktmrtn 3y ago
Yes, exactly. The "greedflation" label definitely has an element of truth to it, but it strikes me as misleading. Why is everything so expensive? Oh, it's greed. Guess we'll just have to either shrug and live with it or dismantle everything and go to a centrally planned economy. Greed is part of the human condition that will rear its ugly head whenever you allow individuals or groups freedom. Not something that could have been easily foreseen and dealt with by good governance. Something like "trustflation" would be a better name. Want to reduce prices by allowing/encouraging corporations to consolidate their supply chains? Maybe that's a good short term trade off. But prepared for the inevitable trustflation when your too-big-to-fail, risk-averse monster can now hike prices as it sees fit.

fuzzfactor 3y ago

>Why couldn’t this happen before? That's exactly what happened before. During the Nixon recession, leading up to the wage & price freeze. And after the freeze was lifted, the financial power imbalance was no different so inflation went even wilder due to pent-up un-fulfilled greed among the financial leaders whom had to do without growth for a little while there. Even though the value of the dollar was declining due to destabilization, there were less available for the majority of workers/taxpayers, but financialists still needed more of them or the math would have made them look like their greed had failed like never before. They are rewarded on greed numerically in ways that everyone else can not compare. The freeze worked to cement the imbalance leading to the exaggerated wealth inequality we have now. The more apparent income inequality today is minor by comparison, but they were both locked in like never before mainly by pure unchecked greed. Freezing prices didn't help much, but freezing wages even for a little bit was completely counterproductive by setting the workers/taxpayers back many more years by comparison to capital. Those years have grown to generations now.

mitthrowaway2 3y ago

It does seem that the corporate landscape is less competitive than it once was. If two brands of cereal are owned by the same parent company, they aren't really competitors. If one hundred parent companies are owned by the same investment index fund, whose management votes on behalf of its investors, are those hundred companies really competitors with each other?

mrguyorama 3y ago
Go look at your cleaning products aisle in your local grocery store. Every single item is created by one of two brands, with a couple items from tiny, niche, lifestyle brands. Every other aisle is the same story. Two or three companies, with a few small groups also throwing a hat in the ring. The grocery store is also owned by one of two companies, with again, a couple small time competitors that haven't been purchased yet.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  Indeed -- but even those two or three companies might not compete so hard with each other when they are both controlled by the same investment group, whose interest is in seeing the index go up.

kibwen 3y ago

Trustbusting is one of the most crucial roles of government, and the US government has utterly failed in this duty.

mrguyorama 3y ago
The US government willingly gave up this duty by popular vote, through politicians promising it would all "trickle down".
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  I'd guess Robert Bork had more to do with it than the popular vote. Nixon might have promised him a Supreme Court seat for his other famous historical service, but his nomination was famously shot down on a somewhat bipartisan basis (Biden was the Judiciary Chairman at the time).
  - RickJWagner 3y ago
    The action was vicious enough that the term 'Borked' was coined for it.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      If putting it to a full senate vote is vicious, then you might need to find some even stronger words for what happened to a few other nominees.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  > "When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."[0] You can't blame the voters for this, the institutions are long ago corrupted. [0]https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/ https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-...
3y ago

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

Adtech wasn't always good enough to drive demand on its own, and the markets weren't always so noisy that you could get away rebranding and ripping off the same stooges a second time.

vasco 3y ago

I've tried to search a bit and all I can find are statistics on new business formation in the USA which shows a 2x rate than 10 years ago - twice more businesses started per year. This doesn't mean there isn't more consolidation at the top, but do you have any link to statistics showing less competition?

octobus2021 3y ago
New business formation numbers are utterly meaningless. I can "start a business" by filing an application with the State and paying $100/$200 fee. And don't do anything with it. There is plenty of evidence of consolidation. For most recent one look up analysis on spike of price of eggs. The egg production turned out to be controlled by just a few conglomerates. Which were able to take advantage of (small to almost non-existent) loss of chickens and voila. Price of eggs is non-elastic; that is, you can't easily replace it with other products and it is an important part of Western diet, so people didn't have a choice but to pay up.
- sudobash1 3y ago
  I have heard one or two other similar explanations for the price increase in eggs. But I have not been able to find any sources for them. Everything I can find suggests that the increase is truly because of loss of hens. Do you have a source for the "small to almost non-existent" loss of chickens?
  - vidanay 3y ago
    188.5 million chickens are slaughtered DAILY. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-many-chickens-are-in-the-world https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-many-chickens-are-in... Approx 58 million chickens have been culled in the United States due to bird flu. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm The first link seems to be specific to meat birds, but I think the concept stands for layers too.
    - 3y ago

rcktmrtn 3y ago

Yes, exactly. The "greedflation" label definitely has an element of truth to it, but it strikes me as misleading. Why is everything so expensive? Oh, it's greed. Guess we'll just have to either shrug and live with it or dismantle everything and go to a centrally planned economy. Greed is part of the human condition that will rear its ugly head whenever you allow individuals or groups freedom. Not something that could have been easily foreseen and dealt with by good governance. Something like "trustflation" would be a better name. Want to reduce prices by allowing/encouraging corporations to consolidate their supply chains? Maybe that's a good short term trade off. But prepared for the inevitable trustflation when your too-big-to-fail, risk-averse monster can now hike prices as it sees fit.