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"The biggest study of ‘greedflation’ yet looked at 1,300 corporations to find many of them were lying to you about inflation" – https://fortune.com/europe/2023/

"The biggest study of ‘greedflation’ yet looked at 1,300 corporations to find many of them were lying to you about inflation" – https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/08/greedflation-study/ https://fortune.com/europe/2023/12/08/greedflation-study/

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Doesn’t everyone sell at the highest price they can, without regard for their COGS? I don’t break out my household expenses when I negotiate pay at a new employer.
- gruez 2y ago
  The meat of the article is basically "profit margins went up". The same arguably happened for software engineers. By the same logic, there should be headlines of "The biggest study of ‘greedflation’ yet looked at 1,300 software engineers to find many of them were lying to you about inflation".
- sgarland 2y ago
  Imagine you own a grocery store in a small town. The only one, in fact, and the nearest competitor is a 30 minute drive. You, being a free market enthusiast, decide to test how much the market will bear, and raise your prices across the board. Your customers, who are also your neighbors and friends, respond by socially ostracizing you. This doesn’t exist at scale, because the people responsible for the unnecessary price hikes live far away from their customers, and do not intend to ever meet them, much less explain themselves. People should price products to make a fair profit, one where both parties are satisfied. I don’t begrudge a car salesperson for selling me a car at above their cost, but I do if it’s wildly marked up.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    I don’t have to imagine, I do it every day. I sell my services for the most amount of money I think I can get. Of course, if I am selling services or goods with lots of repeat business, it might behoove me to not piss off the customers and hence incentivize me to keep my price lower (which is still optimizing for the most money I think I can get, just over the long term rather than short term). If I am selling land or a business, then I am maximizing for that specific transaction, even if my profit margin is 100,000%. When you get a job offer, and you respond back with a request for an additional $20k per year or whatever, that is doing the same thing. > make a fair profit What is fair is an opinion. For people living in huts, a 1,000 sq ft Soviet style apartment bloc with plumbing is unfair. And for people living in Soviet style apartment blocs, a modern 5 over 1 apartment building is unfair. And then you might find a detached single family home unfair. And then you might find a 3k sq ft home unfair. And so on and so forth.
gruez 2y ago
headline: "many of them were lying to you about inflation" actual article: >A joint study by think tanks IPPR and Common Wealth found profiteering by some of the world’s biggest companies forced prices up significantly higher than costs during 2022. >[...] >While this obviously contributed to rising prices, the report finds that company profits increased at a much faster rate than costs did, in a process often dubbed “greedflation.” Where's the "lying"?
sofixa 2y ago
> The biggest perpetrators were energy companies like Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, which were able to enjoy massive profits last year as demand moved away from Russian oil and gas. > Food producers including Kraft Heinz realized their own profit surges. The war in Ukraine rocked global grain supplies and fertilizer prices, significantly increasing the cost of food, which remains sticky. Funny, in both cases external causes made the global prices go up, so specific companies used the opportunity to increase their prices because there was less competition on the market.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lotsofpulp 2y ago

Doesn’t everyone sell at the highest price they can, without regard for their COGS? I don’t break out my household expenses when I negotiate pay at a new employer.

gruez 2y ago
The meat of the article is basically "profit margins went up". The same arguably happened for software engineers. By the same logic, there should be headlines of "The biggest study of ‘greedflation’ yet looked at 1,300 software engineers to find many of them were lying to you about inflation".
sgarland 2y ago
Imagine you own a grocery store in a small town. The only one, in fact, and the nearest competitor is a 30 minute drive. You, being a free market enthusiast, decide to test how much the market will bear, and raise your prices across the board. Your customers, who are also your neighbors and friends, respond by socially ostracizing you. This doesn’t exist at scale, because the people responsible for the unnecessary price hikes live far away from their customers, and do not intend to ever meet them, much less explain themselves. People should price products to make a fair profit, one where both parties are satisfied. I don’t begrudge a car salesperson for selling me a car at above their cost, but I do if it’s wildly marked up.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  I don’t have to imagine, I do it every day. I sell my services for the most amount of money I think I can get. Of course, if I am selling services or goods with lots of repeat business, it might behoove me to not piss off the customers and hence incentivize me to keep my price lower (which is still optimizing for the most money I think I can get, just over the long term rather than short term). If I am selling land or a business, then I am maximizing for that specific transaction, even if my profit margin is 100,000%. When you get a job offer, and you respond back with a request for an additional $20k per year or whatever, that is doing the same thing. > make a fair profit What is fair is an opinion. For people living in huts, a 1,000 sq ft Soviet style apartment bloc with plumbing is unfair. And for people living in Soviet style apartment blocs, a modern 5 over 1 apartment building is unfair. And then you might find a detached single family home unfair. And then you might find a 3k sq ft home unfair. And so on and so forth.

gruez 2y ago

headline: "many of them were lying to you about inflation" actual article: >A joint study by think tanks IPPR and Common Wealth found profiteering by some of the world’s biggest companies forced prices up significantly higher than costs during 2022. >[...] >While this obviously contributed to rising prices, the report finds that company profits increased at a much faster rate than costs did, in a process often dubbed “greedflation.” Where's the "lying"?

sofixa 2y ago

> The biggest perpetrators were energy companies like Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, which were able to enjoy massive profits last year as demand moved away from Russian oil and gas. > Food producers including Kraft Heinz realized their own profit surges. The war in Ukraine rocked global grain supplies and fertilizer prices, significantly increasing the cost of food, which remains sticky. Funny, in both cases external causes made the global prices go up, so specific companies used the opportunity to increase their prices because there was less competition on the market.