Prices at the supermarket keep rising. So do corporate profits
vox.com
vox.com
I think that's what laws are for in the end, am I wrong?
Can't you make the same argument for all protesters? Or do also think that when your preferred side is protesting, they should stick to holding up signs in free speech zones?
The protests of the truckers was not the problem. The illegal occupation was.
It was only after they failed to disperse (and due to the incompetence of the municipal and provincial governments) and occupied cities streets for days/weeks disrupting the lives of residents that an emergency was declared.
In other words, they should have kept their protests within free speech zones? Note, my previous comment wasn't arguing for whether their actions were illegal or not, it was to ask whether people would hold up their standards to protests for their preferred side.
The Charter does not grant people the right to set up occupations.
Again, I'm not arguing for unlimited protests, I'm simply expressing skepticism that people are consistently applying their standards for "protests that aren't okay and we should get the cops to crack down on". Based on your responses it seems like you agree that some level of illegality should be allowed, but draw the line at "a day or three". Was this arrived at a principled way? How do you feel about the following protests, which probably lasted more than that?
* Cop City protests in Georgia
* George Floyd protests in the Minneapolis area
* Capitol Hill Occupied Protest
* Hong Kong protests
* Occupy Wall St
* 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44096650
Effective and non-effective tactics—as determined by the historical record of >600 movements over the last 120 years—are discussed, as are all of the above events.
In oz we have a 50yr occupation protest. Maybe the limit reached wasn't so much the time, but more the nuisance.
However, almost any protest could be labeled as a disruption of some sort. Furthermore, when it comes to laws, this was exactly what the protest was about. They were contesting the authority of the government to take certain actions in manners that many perceived as unlawful.
You may want to expand the timeline: They were asked to disperse, they did not. They became an illegal occupation, and still didn't leave when told. Only after they occupied Ottawa for days/weeks, disrupting the lives of residents, was the Emergencies Act invoked and all the above actions taken.
No one forced them to commit illegal acts.
> Campaigns to discredit their grievances such that the population doesn't understand what they were protesting and why.
They were protesting public health measure that were needed to protect the public (quarantines, vaccines).
Probably worth noting that the folks in the convoy didn't have broad support in their industry:
* https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/embarrassment-for-the-industry...
* https://cantruck.ca/canadian-trucking-alliance-statement-to-...
* https://cantruck.ca/statement-by-canadian-trucking-alliance-...
* https://globalnews.ca/news/8635963/south-asian-canadian-truc...
That said, by your logic, any protest can be shut down as soon as it starts to work by declaring it illegal. That's part of why trains keep derailing in the states too - those that care about safety and working conditions, and have the power to change both by striking, cannot legally strike. That's why nurses unions keep getting the short end of the stick: they cannot bargain effectively, because they're chained to the bargaining table due to an inability to legally strike as long as they need to.
Simply declaring protests as illegal can leave us feeling like we took the high road with the Canadian trucker protest, but doesn't lead to a world I especially want to live in.
Yes. The question is: what kind of society do you live in and where do the authorities of said society draw the line on allowing protests/demonstrations? In some societies any opposition to government actions/decision at all is illegal. And when it is declared illegal or you are perhaps asked to stop/disperse, what will your reaction be? How serious is the issue that you are demonstrating about? Are you willing to go to prison for it (e.g., Gandhi was)?
Remember also, it's not just the authorities that you are protesting that you are messaging to, but also to your fellow citizens. Occupying a city and generating noise 24/7 so people can't sleep is not a way to get people onto your side.
I coïncidentally just finished reading a book on the subject:
> Civil resistance is a method of conflict through which unarmed civilians use a variety of coordinated methods (strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and many other tactics) to prosecute a conflict without directly harming or threatening to harm an opponent. Sometimes called nonviolent resistance, unarmed struggle, or nonviolent action, this form of political action is now a mainstay across the globe. It was a central form of resistance in postwar anti-colonial movements, the 1989 revolutions, and the Arab Awakenings, and people are practicing civil resistance at higher rates than ever before around the world, including in the United States. If we want to understand the manifold protest movements emerging around the globe, we need a thorough understanding of civil resistance and its many dynamics and manifestations.
* https://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/civil-resistance-wha...
* https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-978...
* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44096650
If you wish your movement to succeed you have to broaden your support to the wider population, so you have to be mindful of how your actions are perceived. So these truckers (and the organizers) maybe should have asked themselves 'how will an illegal occupation would go down with the general public?' How was this action helping their cause?
> Simply declaring protests as illegal can leave us feeling like we took the high road with the Canadian trucker protest, but doesn't lead to a world I especially want to live in.
Once again: it was not the protests that were declared illegal but the occupation. Nowhere in the Charter does it say you can camp out in a city and generate noise throughout the night:
* https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/more-than-annoying-what...
* https://globalnews.ca/news/8586606/ottawa-trucker-protest-ha...
Or if there is, I would love a citation to it, or a court ruling saying occupations are legally okay.
Media and governments today control how protests are perceived. That is the issue. The division over this exists within the media. Same for the US, whether it was BLM, lockdowns, elections etc. The protestors don't get to decide how it will be perceived. The major established media narratives will control that perception.
So does social media and the messaging you put out on your accounts. Hint: if you want broad(er) societal support, don't (e.g.) fly Confederate flags (which tend to be associated with the KKK and racists), which will show up in the messaging you own and what is also broadcast on television. A news story by CTV on just such an occurrence, interviewing the dude:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQdBNPXMiC4
It's also why you need outreach: if all you're doing is talking in your own little echo chamber, the broader public may not get your side of the story (or a distorted version).
The various protests in 2020 had a similar issue: 97% of them were peaceful, but some riots did occur, and that got some press and altered (some) people's perceptions of events. Really recommend Chenoweth's book where this is discussed (specifically about "fringe violence" when the overall movement is non-violent.)
If they are not unscientific anti-vaxxers, they failed to communicate that. If they don't have associations with racists, they failed to communicate that. If they felt that illegally occupying a major urban centre—making the life of residents hell—was a good thing, they have failed to communicate that.
Basically the truckers involved failed to usefully communicate to the broader society why anyone should support them (assuming they're not just racist anti-vaxxers).
And when the Emergencies Act was invoked, who would object to it being used against anti-vaxxer racists that were illegally occupying the city of Ottawa?
Since when does any protest, movement, etc, need to begin by proving a negative. This is an expectation only setup through propaganda. Any movement can be destroyed under this context whether legitimate or not as we would never know.
And when the Emergencies Act was invoked, who would object to it being used against anti-vaxxer racists that were illegally occupying the city of Ottawa?
Again, perfectly making my point. The framing of the narrative.
To start, when they fly Confederate flags. If you do that you have to show that you're not a racist (see previous link to CTV news story).
> Any movement can be destroyed under this context whether legitimate or not as we would never know.
Yes, as discussed in Chenoweth. Which is why community/societal outreach is important with any movement that wants to effect change.
> The framing of the narrative.
Which the Convoy Truckers failed to do in their communications.
The onus is on the movement itself to properly communicate their desires and the goodness of their causes to the larger community. This communication is done not only via words and communiqués, but also by actions.
I mean that's the kind of thing that left wing protestors do all the time.
You have things like the 40 hour workweek due to protestors doing illegal things like that, and often getting flat-out murdered back in the day.
> They were protesting public health measure that were needed to protect the public (quarantines, vaccines).
> Probably worth noting that the folks in the convoy didn't have broad support in their industry
You have to be very careful with these kinds of arguments because you'll find that tactics which get used against people you don't like may get immediately flipped around and used against people you do like, or even yourself.
That's the whole problem with all the PATRIOT Act nonsense in the US. Once you give authorities the license to use tactics against one group that everyone clearly agrees deserves it, they never stop there.
Some problem with the death penalty and whoever your favorite serial killer is who clearly deserves death. Once the state can put people to death they start looking for more and more people to kill.
Yes, and they kept at it until they won because they believed in their cause and were able to gain more and more public support.
>> Probably worth noting that the folks in the convoy didn't have broad support in their industry
> You have to be very careful with these kinds of arguments because you'll find that tactics which get used against people you don't like may get immediately flipped around and used against people you do like, or even yourself.
It is the job of a movement to convince others that their goals are noble and that others should support them.
If the Convoy Truckers failed to convince that others in their industry (and the broader public) to support them, (a) they're bad at communicating, or (b) folks concluded they're a bunch of anti-vaxxer cranks and didn't want anything to do with them, (c) …?.
Being arrested/charged and the seizure of their assets is what they wanted?
The public health mandates that the truckers were protesting is what helped reduce COVID's effects and allowed for the reduction of the various health measures. Vaccine mandates did not end because of what the Convoy Truckers did, but despite what they did. The Convoy Truckers were working against their own interests (as the rest of the trucking industry realized).
The vaccines themselves were not benign.
The whole COVID pandemic was poorly handled. Lockdowns destroyed businesses and workers livelihoods alike. Unless you were an office worker who could remote, COVID was an absolute disaster.
While there was certainly incompetence/negligence from authorities, no one forced the truckers to start an illegal occupation of Ottawa. They could have shown up, done their thing to get their grievances across, and left.
I honestly don't see that kind of mostly peaceful mass protest as productive anymore.
> Cargill and just three other agribusiness companies control about 70 percent of the world’s agriculture market, according to Oxfam. Brands like PepsiCo, Nestle, Mondelez, and Conagra produce and market the vast majority of the offerings found in US grocery stores.
> Grocery retailers, too, have become increasingly consolidated. The ongoing Kroger-Albertsons merger, which could be blocked by the FTC, for example, has raised alarm bells from consumer advocates; if the merger goes through, Kroger-Albertsons and Walmart together would control 70 percent of their industry.
There are also enormous barriers to entry if you want to become a Tyson Foods or Kroger competitor.
There are also problems with paying for getting seed in the ground. A lot of farmers are incentivized to sell contracts for their goods for cheap as a way to finance planting.
This part is key to me. The larger the consolidation, the more they answer to stockholders, and not to customers or competition. Stockholders only care about stock price [1]. There's no value in caring for the consumer class.
[1] https://bts.com/2017/11/01/who-do-you-put-first-the-stakehol...
I can’t tell if this post was by the mathematically innumerate or just crafted for the innumerate. For example: “$238 billion, according to a recent Oxfam report, and their wealth increased by $8.8 billion between 2020 and 2022” 208 Billion in 2020 is worth ~238 billion in 2022, so they effectively down ~20 billion. Exact numbers depend on when in 2020 and 2022 their wealth was calculated, but it’s very clear they lost wealth.
Some of these numbers do support their argument but many directly contradict it.
And that's fine, because the CPI's job is to measure how prices have changed (ie. inflation), not wealth inequality. Just because a given metric doesn't support your pet cause doesn't mean it's "broken". It's like complaining GDP is a broken metric because it doesn't measure how oppressed minorities are.
> Real inflation has likely been ~33% higher than reported for decades (the Big Mac index is probably the true gold standard).
I tried to confirm this and the results were far from conclusive. The big mac index data can be obtained from github[1] and gives a 129.9% increase between april 2000 (earliest data available) and july 2022 (latest data available). To compare this against the CPI data, I checked on FRED and the "Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Food Away from Home in U.S. City Average"[2] component of the CPI gives a 87.0% for the same time period. If you take those numbers and convert them to annualized rates, you will indeed find a 33.3% difference between them. Looks like your claim is confirmed, right? But not so fast. The CPI category listed above actually breaks down into more detailed categories, including "Limited service meals and snacks", which presumably the big mac falls into. That data isn't available on FRED but can be found on BLS's data viewer[3] and gives you a 105.8% increase for the same time period. If you convert that to an annualized rate the difference between that and the big mac index drops to 15%. I suspect if we try harder we can eliminate more of the discrepancy. For instance, the "Limited service meals and snacks" index was probably computed from a basket of items, not just big macs. Items that have fatter margins (eg. fries or drinks) might have inflated slower than big macs, thereby dragging the growth of the basket down and explaining the difference.
[1] https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-data/
In the end if your spending doesn’t map to the basket of goods used to calculate inflation then the official figures aren’t meaningful.
The CPI is computed from a basket of goods, so you're always going to be able to pick some components that are growing faster than average. The fact that such components exist doesn't mean that "there’s a constant issue with how inflation is being measured".
>In the end if your spending doesn’t map to the basket of goods used to calculate inflation then the official figures aren’t meaningful.
Sure, they might not match your consumption patterns 100%, but that's because everyone's consumption patterns are different and it's impossible to come up with a metric that maps 100% for everyone. What matters is whether the basket accurately captures the spending patterns of the public as a whole. The BLS makes the basket weights publicly available[1]. I skimmed the list and they look fairly sensible. Are there any specific items from that you think don't accurately capture how the average american spends?
[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2022.htm
The problem is consistency. People need to eat. So if food increases significantly faster than inflation then eventually people’s basket of goods will consist of 99% food and 1% everything else.
If you look at a family of 4’s spending in 1990 vs today some stuff has gotten cheaper but to have an equal lifestyle you also need to buy the stuff that’s dramatically more expensive. A cheap Disneyland vacation isn’t cheap any more. Granted people’s actual purchasing reflects the new reality so Netflix substitutes for that movie tickets they can’t afford, but that isn’t an equivalent good.
If you want a specific example Apparel. Clothes the average person buys has gotten much worse over time. Fast fashion isn’t just about keeping up with trends, it just doesn’t last.
Ironically the hedonic adjustments that you decry so much about is supposed to adjust for this. Also, while you can bring up examples of stuff getting lower in quality, you fail to bring up instances where quality improved (eg. google maps on your phone vs paper maps). Without actual hard numbers quantifying either side arguing over this just turns into a handwaving war.
Hedonic adjustments are argued about quite often because they let the BLS change inflation numbers almost arbitrarily. Your Google Maps example is replacing something that was very cheap with a slightly better version of it that was also very cheap it’s got negligible impact on inflation compared to big ticket items.
Here’s one issue that stuck with me: “While there are arguments that the new goods do exhibit atypical price behavior—entering at a high price and following a “U-shaped cost curve”2—this aspect of the new goods problem is an issue more for sampling than for quality adjustment procedures. Nevertheless, we will argue below that the existence of differential price trends within item categories does have implications for the way in which hedonic regression techniques are implemented.” https://www.bls.gov/pir/journal/gj17.pdf
The BLS uses improving outcomes to adjust for healthcare costs. In terms of new treatments that’s perfectly reasonable, but it undermines increased costs for basic treatments like broken bones. People may enjoy higher quality but not if they are priced out of all options.
except that BLS lists which CPI categories have hedonic adjustments applied[1] and even how it's calculated for some categories[2], so they can't decide to arbitrarily sink energy inflation by saying that gasoline has gotten 50% better. Likewise, because they break out CPI by components, you can calculate a hedonic-less or food-only CPI if you so desire.
> Your Google Maps example is replacing something that was very cheap with a slightly better version of it that was also very cheap it’s got negligible impact on inflation compared to big ticket items.
It also replaced nearly all the electronics you bought from radio shack back in the day (eg. computer, alarm clock, radio, calculator, cd player, camera/camcorder, cordless phone, tape recorder). Quality improvement also applies to other categories as well, like appliances or cars. Finally, like I said before, the BLS breaks out all the inflation figures by category, so if you really wanted to you could make a "bare minimum to survive" index or whatever, although your initial comment seems to take issue with how the individual categories are calculated rather than how the categories are weighted.
>Here’s one issue that stuck with me:
I'm not sure what the actual issue is from your quote. Can you reexplain using your own words?
>The BLS uses improving outcomes to adjust for healthcare costs. In terms of new treatments that’s perfectly reasonable, but it undermines increased costs for basic treatments like broken bones. People may enjoy higher quality but not if they are priced out of all options.
But the CPI seems to be capturing healthcare just fine? Look at how high "hospital services" rose compared to overall inflation.
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cpi2020-875x1...
Moreover, the core issue seems to be "what do you do if things in a category are getting better but people are spending the same or even more on it?". The whole idea behind CPI is that you're supposed to measure price changes for the same goods. In that sense it's obvious that we should lower the CPI even though people are spending more on it. However, I can see where you're coming from given how people conflate "CPI" with "inflation" and "inflation" with "cost of living", the latter of which ignores like-for-like comparison for goods and only looks at cashflow. If you want to measure how has that changed, you'll need to come up with another metric, but I suspect that opens a whole can of worms. eg. how do you compare costs for phones between 2005 and today, if people in 2005 were buying $200 flip phones and today are buying $1000 iPhones, even though a $100 android would totally be serviceable and blow the $200 2005 phone away?
[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/
[2] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/hedonic-price-adj...
Alternatively, multiple cellphones are required to replace a single calculator because they don’t have nearly the lifespan. They need constant recharging as they aren’t solar powered. And that’s not even getting into the UI issues due to a lack of keys etc. Objectively cellphones are a different compromise not a strictly better replacement. (let alone vs a computer.)
So again these comparisons are very subjective especially when something has upsides at the cost of dramatically reduced lifespan. The simplest argument for the BLS’s bias is comparing how often they accused of over vs under estimating inflation.
PS: Did you consider how fragile that 100$ Android phone is in your comparison? If so how much should you adjust the equivalent price for that fault? Which is the core problem as it’s easy to compare numbers while ignoring say Windows 11’s built in advertising when comparing equipment over time.
Yeah a phone might be more fragile than a pocket calculator, but if you need a phone anyways and it comes with a calculator for free, the "replacement" calculator is effectively free and has infinite durability. You can knock off some points for not having tactile buttons, but then again it being effectively weightless and volumeless seems like a benefit.
> The simplest argument for the BLS’s bias is comparing how often they accused of over vs under estimating inflation.
That's a poor heuristic because even assuming the BLS was 100% accurate, you'd expect more people to complain about CPI being higher than lower. Squeaky wheel gets the grease as the saying goes, and there simply isn't much to complain about for low inflation. There are certainly downsides, but those are more academic/abstract than having to pay for bread with wheelbarrows full of bills. Same goes for conspiracies, eg. "everything is getting more expensive and the government is covering it up!". From there, motivated reasoning takes over and it's just a numbers game.
Fair enough, though I was more speaking in the academic context.
Anyway, a much better example of what I am referring to would be the very long slow decline of Red Delicious apples. What started as as a very tasty fruit was optimized for retail sales until it became unpalatable. Year to year it’s not obvious at any specific point that the product is worse, but over longer stretches of time say 1970 to 2010 it became so.
This related to shrinkflation, just harder to quantify because so many different things can be adjusted. However, if you’re measuring inflation over longer stretches to validate BLS calculations you find this kind of systematic bias more obvious.
Allow me to elaborate. Does it seem odd to you that "real wages" (i.e. inflation adjusted) have barely budged in decades, and even slowly increased? The wages aren't decreasing, despite people apparently being able to buy a nice house and live the American dream on a median wage up until around the early 90's.
The way CPI is calculated is that it surveys the median purchaser about their purchases (how much they bought and how much it cost). And as prices increase faster than wages, the median purchaser is spending a larger percentage of their paycheck on goods. More expensive purchasers / nicer goods are largely excluded from these surveys. For the last decade or so, it's probably pretty much all their money. That is NOT captured in CPI. They can only spend up to their entire paycheck, so inflation is limited to median wage growth. And then the hedonic adjustments can be used to help the government meet its targets ("when a measure becomes a target it no longer serves as an accurate measure").
My experience reading the article was just jarring as I would often get the opposite of what they intended when looking at the numbers. I’ve had similar experiences when people are praising ChatGPT for examples that seem terrible to me. Not that I think the article was written by a chat bot, but it was just the same kind of issue.
These are competitive industries with sub 5% profit margins being quite common. The simple reality is when companies hedge uncertainty they raise prices a little further than they expect their costs to rise. This is counterproductive when people buy less of their products, but staple food is a rather inelastic market.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/tyson-foods...
> The average price for Tyson's beef surged 31.7% in the quarter ended on Jan. 1, while the unit's operating margins jumped to 19.1% from 13.2% a year ago. Average prices for all of Tyson's products climbed by 19.6%.
Tyson’s net quarterly profits peaked at 7.9% 3/2022, but it was also 7.4% in 2018. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSN/tyson-foods/pr...
And if you look at their most recent numbers, net profits were 4.5% all of which is very favorable compared to 1.5% in 2012. Overall the tendency is at or below 5%.
For industry directly related to life, health, safety, shelter, food, and education, profit is theft via gouged prices mixed with stolen wage.
Any amount.
No “numbers” needed.
This kind of stuff should be nationalized. Especially if the US is as “strong” and smart a nation as we claim we are.
eg organic pasture raised eggs, grass fed beef, grass fed dairy, etc.
There’s a lot more of this “premium” stuff than a few years ago. I suspect if it’s included in some average it will look like things are getting much more expensive when part of what’s happening is upscaling of a lot of items.
The pandemic finally made it happen.
Buying bulk minimizes my time shopping. And I was worried about food shortages.
Food prep time is minimal. Pressure cooker FTW!
FWIW, I shop at (sorted by dollar amount): Costco, local restaurant supplier, farmer's markets, and Amazon Prime. Online is for stuff or brands I can't source locally, eg my fave tahini and steel cut oats.
now you go to a regular store and find organic heirloom pasture raised no corn or soy fed eggs from a dozen different brands
Not all USDA graded eggs are cage-free, and not all cage-free eggs are graded by USDA. But, eggs packed under a USDA Grade Shield and marketed as cage-free – or with any other production claim – must be source-verified by USDA through onsite farm visits, at least twice annually, to check that the laying hens are housed in the appropriate production system.
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/09/13/usda-graded-cage-...
it’s still going to be higher, but not necessarily as much as it’s being portrayed if you’re buying conventional stuff
But there's a big group of people that has a problem buying food now and didn't have that problem 5 years ago. I think on average probably the opposite of what you're suggesting is happening - people are buying cheaper goods, which to a small degree can mask the real price increase.
Pump prices for gas go up and down on a daily basis.
> Since the pandemic began, Kroger has paid billions in dividends to its shareholders.
Kroger stock is up 23.5% over the last 5 years. For comparison, the S&P 500 has gone up 51% over the last 5 years.
The article is a little short on a compelling argument.
Yes, "many" companies. But it's five hundred of the biggest companies, including Kroger.
There's no way around it - KR is a significantly underperforming stock, and a lousy investment.
If you think KR is a good investment, buy some shares in it. I'll pass, no thanks.
Yes, we can avoid to buy those products, but the issue is, like the article says, the monopoly. If all the products are made by the same company/ies, only with different sub-brands, then the politics and magistrates should take a look into it.
I have been consciously trying to cut down on the expenditure on snacks, food (like eggs) and other items like laundry detergent that obviously have gone up significantly in price (more so than inflation rate) and/or have been shrinkflating noticeably. It is not easy, but that's the best I can do to send a message (I know, me doing alone is inconsequential) to some of these producers that they have a limit on how much they can raise. I am also 100% aware that a lot of people (esp. the ones with families) don't have the luxury to reduce consumption like myself though.
My observation is that it has increased by the same rate on both sides, so DIY cooking has the same relative advantage. The absolute impact is simply larger now.
My monthly grocery bill is right under $500 today - just for myself. But, this is very nearly 100% of my meals. I will eat out about 10-20 times a year. I think meal prep is pretty much mandatory if you want to enjoy quality food without spending 4 figures/m. I find time in the kitchen is fantastic for unwinding from work or filling dead time between tasks.
I run 3 batches throughout the week, each usually good for 7 days. The system is sophisticated at this point with a "queue" in my freezer and color-coded containers. Right now, if I did absolutely no more cooking, I could enjoy high-quality meals for another week. Living with a reasonable buffer of food in your freezer will change how you do things. For me, the temptation to order a pizza is almost always negated when very tasty chicken-fried rice is only 3-5 minutes away and already paid for.
Looking at random fast food places I go to, I've seen those prices nearly double as well.
Pizza prices have nearly doubled to where a $20 pie is now close to $40.
We can make an acceptable pizza at home for around $5, making that our new first-favorite pizza place.
This happened to cake mix a few years back for instance. Ironically it had an interesting backlash b/c now the cake mix section is tiny because there’s nothing left but crap and no one wants another stomach ache.
Additionally taxes on resource extraction (eg oil and gas, mining) should permanently be high a la Norway.
That sounds like a great way to push companies to invest even less into disaster preparedness. Why bother pay extra money into supplying your supply chain for the next supply disruption, when you know that you'll get painted as profiteers by the government and slapped with a windfall tax? It's far better to run your business as lean as possible during the good times and extract all the money you can without the risk of being villanized.
Companies aren't investing in their business in any way. They're simply funennling huge profits to shareholders in the forms of share buybacks. That's it.
A high profit tax would actually encourage them to invest in their business.
> It's far better to run your business as lean as possible during the good times and extract all the money you can without the risk of being villanized.
Wow. This is textbook capitalist propaganda. "Villainized"? When profiteering is responsible for the majority of inflation, you should be villainized. You shouldn't necessarily be expected to do the right thing altruistically. That's what the windfall profits tax is for.
>A high profit tax would actually encourage them to invest in their business.
Time is a factor here. Just because you made $10M in excess profits this year because of avian flu, doesn't mean it makes sense to dump all of that into chicken farm in the same year. Even if we ignore the time factor, we have to consider that there might be better uses of the money, for instance shoring up investment in other sectors like semiconductors. Returning money to shareholders allows this to happen.
>Wow. This is textbook capitalist propaganda. "Villainized"? When profiteering is responsible for the majority of inflation, you should be villainized. You shouldn't necessarily be expected to do the right thing altruistically. That's what the windfall profits tax is for.
And what you're saying is textbook Marxist propaganda, so can we skip the ad hominems and stay on topic?
By this construction you'll always have a villain, because there's always going to be sectors that have higher inflation than normal. If your construction of a villain one to always exist by definition and without regard for actions or motivation, then I argue that your definition is seriously flawed.
Also, you seemed to have missed the point in my previous comment entirely. Let me rephrase it with an example: Suppose we have two egg farmers, Alice and Bob. Alice tries to do The Right Thing by having proper biosecurity practices (eg. smaller/isolated hen houses, proper training for staff, frequent monitoring for infection). Bob on the other hand does the bare minimum and cuts corners where he can. During normal times, all the extra precautions costs Alice money and either makes her offerings less competitive or eats into her profits, and meanwhile Bob gets to rake in all the extra money. Now suppose the avian flu rolls around, and Bob's flock is decimated while Alice's flock is unscathed due to the investments she had in the years prior. The shortage combined with Alice's flock being unscathed allows her to charge make more profits during the disaster, and for her to recoup her losses in the years prior. However, because she's making extra profits, she gets branded as the villain for hiking practices for no good reason. She didn't even lose any hens! How dare she raise prices! Meanwhile Bob avoids all of this, and maybe is even able to play the victim card and get the government to bail him out. So much for incentivizing long term thinking.
Corporations wouldn't have these profits if people didn't have excess cash to pay. The entire plan for the fight against inflation is "demand destruction", which is a euphemism for creating unemployed homeless peasant families that are intended to die under a tarp in Los Angeles. It means "run out of money and stop buying" with no plan for your survival. Corporations can try eek out higher earnings with any price, a different corporation or group of people will notice that there is a business model for undercutting it. Good for them, it has nothing to do with how fast or slow they can get into the market, and it won't matter for you if there is a disruption in your income and savings. But that's the reality.
Capitalism is failing, because we have monopolies/oligopolies everywhere.