It's both increased wholesale food costs and price gouging. Profits have never been higher all along the board. Everyone in the chain is "passing the cost on" and also taking a little extra cut.
Should we be concerned about why there are shifts in demand/supply? Sure.(In the case of food, part of this is driven by the UA war and likely other trends in food productive)?
But it is eminently unhelpful to simply attribute increases to 'gouging' and expect that to be the final say.
and i don’t think you’d expect it to. the increased supply needs to hit the market first. depending on how that money is distributed, that could take a long time. also remember that QE has been central fiscal policy in the UK and US since basically 2007. and it’s safe to say that concentration of this wealth is.. very high.
> has UK M2 declining [..]
it becomes a bit more sobering when you look at the full scale on that graph (when the y-axis starts from 0). it’s a metaphorical deck-chair-thrown-off-of-the-titanic amount of decrease.
Yes we have high inflation now, but that’s just been a plain old cockup. The massive inflation reduction act stimulus for example.
The profits are inarguable. They really have never been higher. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/corporate-profit...
(note the table underneath pointing out that industrial production has declined at the same time as record profits)
Energy is a large part of that: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64489147
This feels correct, but if that were the case, if companies are generating record profits, why aren't we seeing that reflected in stock prices? At the very least, why isn't price / earning ratios cratering?
What are profits like adjusted for inflation?
they only need to increase prices to deal with the increase in costs, and profits represent an increase above and beyond that necessary amount, which in economic terms is "not cool, dude"