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Cool it with implying bad motives. It's against HN guidelines. Of course corporations will try to raise prices when they think they can get away with it. The

Cool it with implying bad motives. It's against HN guidelines. Of course corporations will try to raise prices when they think they can get away with it. The question is, why did they think they could get away with it? Or, put the other way, why didn't they think they could get away with it before? I assert that what prevented them before was competition - if you raise your price, and the other vendor doesn't, you lose business. Well, what happened? Did that mechanism just take a holiday? Did competitors disappear? Or what? Why did companies think they could get away with it now, when they didn't think that before? That's where all these "greed" explanations fall short. Of course companies are greedy. They were greedy five years ago, too. Why weren't they raising prices then?

stavros 3y ago
The way I heard it, energy prices rose, some companies increased prices in anticipation of much higher costs, everyone followed suit, fearing the increased costs, and the prices all surged.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  And they didn't get punished enough in the market to make them back off? Plausible. That isn't quite "greed", though. That's fear. It also could be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Companies' costs did in fact rise, because all their suppliers raised their prices...
  - didibus 3y ago
    Don't fixate on the term 'greedflation,' as it's based on the widely accepted notion of corporate greed. The primary counterargument to greedflation is that companies have always been greedy; it's not a new phenomenon. The concept of greed is entrenched in capitalist economies. However, the theory is that demand should naturally regulate this greed—if a company becomes excessively greedy, they risk losing customers who may opt to spend less, save more, or patronize other businesses. Thus, there's an assumption that the system self-regulates, allowing only as much greed as the market can bear.

stavros 3y ago

The way I heard it, energy prices rose, some companies increased prices in anticipation of much higher costs, everyone followed suit, fearing the increased costs, and the prices all surged.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
And they didn't get punished enough in the market to make them back off? Plausible. That isn't quite "greed", though. That's fear. It also could be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Companies' costs did in fact rise, because all their suppliers raised their prices...
- didibus 3y ago
  Don't fixate on the term 'greedflation,' as it's based on the widely accepted notion of corporate greed. The primary counterargument to greedflation is that companies have always been greedy; it's not a new phenomenon. The concept of greed is entrenched in capitalist economies. However, the theory is that demand should naturally regulate this greed—if a company becomes excessively greedy, they risk losing customers who may opt to spend less, save more, or patronize other businesses. Thus, there's an assumption that the system self-regulates, allowing only as much greed as the market can bear.