I believe it. Companies get record profits but still initiate stuff like Return to Office and mass layoffs across multiple industries. At some point it's not about profits so much as control.
That's only 1 explanation, but it's a plausible one.
If you want my blind guess, the focus on satisfying shareholders simply intensified for the past 15 years or so, accelerated by tech and the need to incorporate it in all industries. That + low interest rates lead to a gold mine for corporate and a shift away from worrying about keeping a war chest as opposed to showing YoY growth. A shift way from retraining talent as opposed to figuring out how to save every penny on labor (the most expensive aspect in the US), regardless of employee satisfaction. There's more supply than ever so why fight for the best? You don't need the best if you lean on tech.
But that's just my L theory loosely based on experience and a variety of reading I did over the years.
RTO is a whole separate thing.
groceries are pretty inelastic, they shouldn't be subject to "risk" unless people stop eating. That would be a much bigger issue (or miracle) than anything in economics if it happened.
>RTO is a whole separate thing.
it is indeed tangential. It was more just a small quip to note that company greed can get worse. Now just wait until the AI revolution next decade.
Also, you say "pretty inelastic" - you seem to be accepting that food demand is elastic, just less so than other goods. Unsurprisingly, it turns out it depends what type of food article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804646/
>Also, you say "pretty inelastic" - you seem to be accepting that food demand is elastic, just less so than other goods.
Sure, it's not as inelastic as gas for Americans. America has enough free/cheap ways to eat if it really really came down to it so they can't pull an insulin. Still, I'd put it pretty high.
>Unsurprisingly, it turns out it depends what type of food articl
I figured, but that would imply that premium or convinent food caused the price spikes. Maybe it did, but I'm not so confident given how and what the government subsidizes (another reason you can't just price hike goods willy nilly. Subsidies are so you can pass on low prices to customers, not so you can pocket more money).
For financial sustainability, we should all be pushing for the current moderate interest rates to be the new normal for the next several decades - enough time for 30 year mortgages and T-bills to mature, so asset prices correct. Since the Federal Reserve hasn't demonstrated any ability of self restraint, we should be supporting purposeful government spending on real investments which will prevent the Fed from dropping rates again. Furthermore it is much nicer for the economy at large when monetary creation (and thus price inflation) happens in deliberate areas needing strategic investment, instead of bubbles of whatever arbitrary asset class the bankers choose to run up each month.