Greedflation

I agree. Greed has overtaken our economy. We can’t have anything nice now. Individuals are even worse than the corporations. Anything desirable gets snatched up and resold by investors or opportunists. Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, sneakers, video game consoles, bicycles… you name it. During the pandemic things were 2-3 times more expensive on the secondary market.

Worst of all is real estate… especially in Florida. People who bought in 2018 for $400k think they deserve $1.2M in 2023. People are paying them, too.

Our whole culture has been infected by greed.

 

My mentioned corporate profits as well as got the same Econ 101 response from that same person. Maybe they're a corporate lobbyist

 

There are some amateur and a semi-pro economist on here that have egg on their faces. This has has been studied and reported on quite extensively. Inflation would have topped out in 5% range without corporations taking advantage of industry wide price collaboration and a sticky demand quantity. I'd love to hear the righty theories about a check mailed out 3-4 years ago driving inflation. LOL.

I'd also argue inflation was good for low wage employees since their income rose well above the inflation rate. It's counter intuitive since inflation usually hurts those at the bottom most but opening wage rates are up more than any other income tier.

Personal example my teen cooks chicken for CAVA and makes $16 an hour vs the $9 he made rolling sushi in 2019. That's a 78% increase for doing basically the same job. Of course he has 19 cents in his account now just like he did then.

 

So even if willing to admit this is happening, what's the proposed solution?

 

No problem admitting I have very limited formal education on economics and that my feelings don't supercede how economics work but I think it's extremely naive to believe that corporations wouldn't use any and every opportunity to increase profits...

 

I've said it on here before, but I've had multiple other business owners say to me "if you haven't raised your prices over the last few years, whether you need to or not, you're an idiot"

Unfortunately for me our industry wide inflation index was 8% last year, so I've had no choice

 

The answer is always increase competition by not allowing mergers and busting up mega corporations.

 

My teen is just as bad. My two grade school sons have more money saved than she does.

 

Understanding that there are other factors in running a restaurant, egg prices have plummeted from their highs yet breakfast places charge $14 for omelets around here. My friend owns a breakfast place but refused to jack his prices up other than a dollar or so. About the only reasonable place to eat out at this point because he is the extreme minority of a business model. He is just as affected by labor costs, insurance, tax increases etc yet he is doing OK balancing profit and community.

 

The obvious solution is to appropriate corporate profits and raise their taxes

 

....sigh...

Ppl bitching about the problem they've aggressively pursued, fostered, and promoted for decades now...

 

What about non corporations then? Give them an unfair advantage and just choose them as the govt winners in this?

 

Who sets and receives this “global corporate tax” mentioned in the initial post?

 

What do you mean by a "non-corporation?" I dont think Chevron is going to reorganize as a sole proprietor or whatever.

 

The majority of businesses in the US are sole proprietorship. So raising taxes on PWC just gives a competing advantage to a mom and pop cpa

And the majority of corporations are small. Lobbing grenades at big corporations seems like a good idea until you realize you're just gonna hurt the little corporations that can't afford the fancy accountants way more than the big corporations.

 

So, do you think its a bad thing if non-corporations are advantaged (in a pretty small way)? Giving a leg up to mom and pop seems like something that would play well, politically. Mom and pop arent going to clear billions in profits no matter what rules you write.

 

Although this refers to prepandemic

Jury orders egg suppliers to pay $17.7 million in damages for price gouging in 2000s

What to do about it? Don’t know

 

Play well sure. But you can't disensetivize large corporations as so much technological and research advancement comes from them. A successful economy needs businesses of all scale.

Plus you're talking to the guy who thinks the corporate tax rate should be zero, since ultimately all taxes get passed on to the consumer anyway.