4 ms·

There are tons of reasons just in the last few years that I don't believe have anything to do with corporate consolidation: the war in Ukraine, the rise and fal

by NickM 3y ago

There are tons of reasons just in the last few years that I don't believe have anything to do with corporate consolidation: the war in Ukraine, the rise and fall of the pandemic causing rapid unexpected swings in consumer spending patterns in a wide variety of ways, healthcare workers burning out and quitting (resulting in more pressure and burnout in remaining workers), factory shutdowns overseas affecting chip supplies (affecting supplies of cars, among other things), a bad bird flu season drastically reducing supply of eggs, etc. etc. I could go on. I agree consolidation is a problem, but it's certainly not the only one.

camgunz 3y ago
The argument is that consolidation (and various neoliberal stalwarts e.g. Larry Summers) are the reason these companies are getting away with it. If the market were more diverse, you wouldn't have confident oligopolies raising prices with impunity. I would add on class warfare. There's not really any such thing as corporation vs corporation anymore, it's class warfare with capital vs not, and capital knows it. All the X companies just raise prices uniformly because why would anyone not do it and ruin the party?
- NickM 3y ago
  Okay, so when the bird flu hit and suddenly there were way less eggs to go around, what if companies had kept egg prices exactly the same? The result of that would be that all the eggs would sell out and we'd have empty shelves, since there literally weren't enough eggs to go around. But that didn't happen. Eggs became more scarce, and therefore more valuable, and thus prices universally went up. People who still wanted eggs badly enough and could afford the high prices paid a premium for them. Other people bought and ate something else instead. And then when the supply came back up, egg prices came back down. This is how the system is supposed to work, and it's exactly what I would expect to happen in a situation like this. You're saying you really think that whole story had nothing to do with supply constraints, and it's all a big corporate class warfare price fixing conspiracy?
  - camgunz 3y ago
    Netflix' prices have dramatically increased. Did a container ship full of bandwidth get trapped in a canal again? Tech vendors are increasing prices "to keep up with inflation" :eye_roll: [0]. Nothing at all to do with supply and demand here. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/16/tech_vendor_price_hikes/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/16/tech_vendor_price_hik...
  - makomk 3y ago
    Actually, what you're describing pretty much did happen in the UK (which is where this blog post comes from). British supermarkets are generally less willing to raise prices than elsewhere in the world and certainly didn't increase egg prices to anything like the levels seen in the USA. As a result, during the rough time period where the US had really high egg prices, the UK had egg prices that were more or less normal but the shelves were usually empty.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > Okay, so when the bird flu hit and suddenly there were way less eggs to go around, what if companies had kept egg prices exactly the same? The result of that would be that all the eggs would sell out and we'd have empty shelves, since there literally weren't enough eggs to go around. > But that didn't happen. Eggs became more scarce, and therefore more valuable, and thus prices universally went up. People who still wanted eggs badly enough and could afford the high prices paid a premium for them. Other people bought and ate something else instead. So the egg supply went down. Yes, you'd expect to see empty shelves, because there were fewer eggs to buy, and they're useful. Instead what we saw were shelves as full as before, because of prices went up. What that means is, people were already buying fewer eggs, because the supply was so much lower, but because of prices going up, people bought even fewer than that. There were a shortage of eggs, and yet because of prices being raised, they couldn't even sell through on the eggs they had. How much of the reduction in egg consumption was due to reduced supply, and how much was due to raised prices? No idea. What would I expect to see? If the egg supply dropped precipitously, I'd expect a company which makes their money selling eggs to make less money. Or raise prices so that they make the same amount of money. Instead, they raised prices so they made way, way more money.

by NickM 3y ago

camgunz 3y ago

The argument is that consolidation (and various neoliberal stalwarts e.g. Larry Summers) are the reason these companies are getting away with it. If the market were more diverse, you wouldn't have confident oligopolies raising prices with impunity. I would add on class warfare. There's not really any such thing as corporation vs corporation anymore, it's class warfare with capital vs not, and capital knows it. All the X companies just raise prices uniformly because why would anyone not do it and ruin the party?

NickM 3y ago
Okay, so when the bird flu hit and suddenly there were way less eggs to go around, what if companies had kept egg prices exactly the same? The result of that would be that all the eggs would sell out and we'd have empty shelves, since there literally weren't enough eggs to go around. But that didn't happen. Eggs became more scarce, and therefore more valuable, and thus prices universally went up. People who still wanted eggs badly enough and could afford the high prices paid a premium for them. Other people bought and ate something else instead. And then when the supply came back up, egg prices came back down. This is how the system is supposed to work, and it's exactly what I would expect to happen in a situation like this. You're saying you really think that whole story had nothing to do with supply constraints, and it's all a big corporate class warfare price fixing conspiracy?
- camgunz 3y ago
  Netflix' prices have dramatically increased. Did a container ship full of bandwidth get trapped in a canal again? Tech vendors are increasing prices "to keep up with inflation" :eye_roll: [0]. Nothing at all to do with supply and demand here. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/16/tech_vendor_price_hikes/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/16/tech_vendor_price_hik...
- makomk 3y ago
  Actually, what you're describing pretty much did happen in the UK (which is where this blog post comes from). British supermarkets are generally less willing to raise prices than elsewhere in the world and certainly didn't increase egg prices to anything like the levels seen in the USA. As a result, during the rough time period where the US had really high egg prices, the UK had egg prices that were more or less normal but the shelves were usually empty.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > Okay, so when the bird flu hit and suddenly there were way less eggs to go around, what if companies had kept egg prices exactly the same? The result of that would be that all the eggs would sell out and we'd have empty shelves, since there literally weren't enough eggs to go around. > But that didn't happen. Eggs became more scarce, and therefore more valuable, and thus prices universally went up. People who still wanted eggs badly enough and could afford the high prices paid a premium for them. Other people bought and ate something else instead. So the egg supply went down. Yes, you'd expect to see empty shelves, because there were fewer eggs to buy, and they're useful. Instead what we saw were shelves as full as before, because of prices went up. What that means is, people were already buying fewer eggs, because the supply was so much lower, but because of prices going up, people bought even fewer than that. There were a shortage of eggs, and yet because of prices being raised, they couldn't even sell through on the eggs they had. How much of the reduction in egg consumption was due to reduced supply, and how much was due to raised prices? No idea. What would I expect to see? If the egg supply dropped precipitously, I'd expect a company which makes their money selling eggs to make less money. Or raise prices so that they make the same amount of money. Instead, they raised prices so they made way, way more money.