this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
180 points (96.4% liked)

News

23001 readers
3369 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Inflation is the measure of the cost of goods. You have cause and effect backwards here.

Inflation is the devaluation of currency due to increased supply of it. And you're ignoring that price increases outpaced inflation and resulted in record profits. Companies used rising inflation as a cover to simply increase profits.

Wages are up across the board. Do you resent suppliers, warehouse staff, truck drivers, grocery employees, and distributors for making more money?

You may be forgetting all the unionization and strikes that helped with those increases. And you can't refute that there are still people making federal minimum wage, or that it is a poverty wage.

The only significant life changes that happened during the post-covid inflation was wages increasing.

If you're asserting that companies have not been raising prices beyond inflationary rate I can only conclude you're willfully ignorant on this topic or commenting in bad faith.

https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-pocket-largest-profits-in-70-years-amid-inflation-complaints-2021-12

https://thehill.com/business/3756457-corporate-profits-hit-record-high-in-third-quarter-amid-40-year-high-inflation/

(paywall on this one) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950

Inflation happens because people have the money to support higher prices. It's no more greed to raise prices there than it is for you to want to make more money.

Inflation happens because the government puts more money into circulation. Raising prices at a rate consistent with inflation is not wealth-hoarding greed. Raising prices well beyond inflation just because you can blame it on inflation and raking in the profits is.

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Inflation is the devaluation of currency due to increased supply of it

This is simply not correct. Increased supply of currency relative to the actual amount of goods and services in an economy is probably the most prominent cause of inflation, but it's not the only cause. Inflation itself is the actual generalized rise in prices, which can be caused by a variety of factors. Find a basic econ textbook, or just read the Wikipedia article on inflation.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Yes I have acknowledged that technical definition in another comment.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Inflation happens because the government puts more money into circulation.

No. The government is constantly putting more.money into circulation without inflationary effects. We literally had suboptimal inflation for almost a decade.

Inflation is a measurement of price increases over time. Inflation happened this time due to COVID causing pent up demand, a glut of credit and cash on hand, and supply chain issues across the board.

Companies making more profits is hardly surprising given that people wanted to go buy a ton of shit because they finally could.

If you’re asserting that companies have not been raising prices beyond inflationary rate

Again this is literally impossible because whatever they raise prices to is where we derive the inflation rate from

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nobody is surprised about it companies wanting more money. We're just angry about it (the whole dark cloud thing the article is about). Nobody is out here complaining that a Lamborghini costs $20k more. It's about housing and groceries. The record profits aren't from introducing a new kind of egg or lowering the cost of production and distribution. The profits are from raising the prices on the same goods because people got stimulus money

Yes, you have the technical economist definition of inflation correct. But, my dude, people are out here saying "our basic necessities like staple groceries are still more expensive even though inflation has gone down and we see that the companies producing those goods have reported their highest profits in 70 years" and you're telling them "no, no, they're not being greedy, it's your fault for being willing to spend so much money on basic survival goods and that's causing inflation". There was no negotiating the cost of eggs and milk at the grocery store. The price was just set higher and consumers had to either pay it or starve.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world -3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Housing costs arent even companies being greedy, but homeowners.

I honestly think people don't even know what they're mad at they're just mad. This is why the real problems struggle to get fixed.

I'm not being pedantic here - if you don't understand the problem, you're part of the problem, by definition. Fixing housing requires changing local zoning laws and depowering current homeowners from the ability to pull the ladder up after them to protect their investment. They will never back that en masse on their own, because they benefit.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Housing costs arent even companies being greedy, but homeowners.

Investment firms buying and holding homes are, by definition, homeowners, making them part of the problem. People who are trying to buy a home are having to get into bidding wars with investors, who are buying 1/4 homes sold in the last ~9 months.

I honestly think people don't even know what they're mad at they're just mad

Renters looking to buy a home are mad at investors who can buy up inventory with cash (which in this context I'm including individuals buying up single-family houses to rent out, not just companies), and afford to leave the property vacant rather than accepting less profit by lowering the rent on it.

People trying to buy groceries are mad that wages increased 4-5% in 2022 while Tyson chicken prices went up 20% in 2021, and then in 2022 agreed to pay over $220M for price fixing while reporting $6.5B in profit that year.

This is why the real problems struggle to get fixed.

When you have unlimited corporate dark money going into politics, you get a government that seeks to obfuscate the issues to keep the population blaming the wrong things, to keep the money flowing into their "campaign funds."

Fixing housing requires changing local zoning laws and depowering current homeowners from the ability to pull the ladder up after them to protect their investment. They will never back that en masse on their own, because they benefit.

I don't disagree with that. And I'm in the minority of homeowners who do try and vote for making things more accessible knowing it will increase my own tax burden to pay for it, because I will benefit from having a more stable society around me even if my house doesn't appreciate another $100k.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago

People who are trying to buy a home are having to get into bidding wars with investors, who are buying 1/4 homes sold in the last ~9 months.

This only happens because we already have such a shortage that there is guaranteed ROI.

And I’m in the minority of homeowners who do try and vote for making things more accessible knowing it will increase my own tax burden to pay for it, because I will benefit from having a more stable society around me even if my house doesn’t appreciate another $100k.

Same dude! We just gotta keep trying to change more minds.