Did narcissistic sociopaths use a crisis to pursue personal gain?
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
-Milton Friedman
Obviously yes. Their production costs barely rose but their prices skyrocketed. Here's a Forbes article from 2022 pointing out that it was increased profit margins causing most of the inflation:
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This is just capitalism working as intended. The fact that these price increases are being sold as some kind of abnormality is some real neolib brain in action. It isn't "greedflation," it's literally the same capitalism we've lived with for centuries.
And then go one step further and realize it's always been shit. The only time the world has been great has been when kings and capitalism are on a VERY short leash.
It isn't "greedflation," it's literally the same capitalism we've lived with for centuries.
You're both absolutely right and very wrong: it by definition IS greedflation, inflated prices due to greed.
While it is indeed caused by the same capitalist system we've lived with for centuries, it's getting much worse than it has been now that the billionaires and their corporations have realized that there's no consequences even when their profiteering is so blatant that even the likes of Forbes and WSJ are having to acknowledge what they've been able to distract from before.
There is no penalties for collision. Regulation should prevent but since politicians are owned and there's zero effort at enforcment here we are.
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Of course they did. We know they did. All you have to do is go back and read their quarterly earnings calls from 2020 to basically now and they told their shareholders clearly that they were using the pandemic as an excuse to increase profits.
So are they going to have to pay it back or did the FTC make a report for nothing?
... you can't seriously build a system that is meant to take advantage of every situation, praise if for taking advantage of every situation, align it's interests in taking advantage of every situation and then be surprised it took advantage of a situation. We should be better than Pikachu.
It's ethical to steal from these grocery chains.
Why are people acting surprised? That is just the invisible hand of the market. Isn’t this the unfettered capitalism we asked for?
It's the unfettered capitalism Reagan delivered to his cronies, which ofc trickled down to the whole fucking world.
Everyone keeps saying this is capitalism and its true. Companies squeezing everyone when they're vulnerable for more profits.
Consumers need protections for things like basic needs so we don't struggle just to survive.
Food and housing should be protected. Luxury brands can get all the profit they want.
Don't touch my fucking groceries and rent!
Are you saying human quality of life is more important than (strictly financial) profits?? I'm thought that is blasphemy and that I must shame you for it. How dare.
This is why giant supermarkets are bad. When you have a choice of several places to buy, they compete.
Rent though has been captured by optimisation software. Your rent goes up because a computer predicted you (or someone else) would pay more.
Is this even news, ofc they did, give them an inch and they always take a mile, war, recessions and sickness are always a profiteering venture for business.
Don't think of your death as failure; think of it as fun! Don't think of Wal-Mart's price hikes as war profiteering, think of them as war... fun!
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Nothing happens to Corporations around here. It was pretty clear it was greed even before the data hit.
See, it's very simple. You create a massive monopoly/duopoly/triopoly, to undercut, out compete and otherwise dominate small businesses, until they've been fazed out.... then once it's only you, and you decide the pricing, then you start screwing around with prices while politicians twiddle their thumbs.
Enshittification in a nutshell.
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You fucking bet and it sure as hell isn't limited to grocery stores.
It's fair, though. They raised the salaries of the people who worked there.
Right?
They did at least where i worked but 3 years into covid and its was only a temporary bonus
The exhalation proves the roost. Or something like that
I love all the headlines that declare [report about thing you already figured out years ago] was in fact true, like it's a fucking surprise. Some would say it's good to have corroborating data, but it never seems to help and I'm just exhausted being right so dammed often.
Okay? Now fucking do something about it.
Of course, but they didn't lower the prices after. Fucking awful evil companies.
I’m sure this will result in swift, appropriate actions to hold them accountable. Just let me start holding my breath
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I think the FTC is the only one surprised about this. I bet they're getting their most severe finger wagging ready to go.
We need experts to explain and study what ordinary people fucking experience first hand
Anyone got a link to the actual report?
Shouldn't we blame this on the food monopolies rather than grocery stores?
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Is anyone going to do anything about it? No
What stunning observational powers they have over there at the FTC. Too bad they don't have any teeth because the government doesn't fund them even close to adequately.
No way!
We all knew they did.
Prices were always going to rise, COVID just gave them an excuse to accelerate it in a shorter amount of time. In Capitalism every company with stockholders has to show ever-increasing profits, because it's never enough. Even if you knock it out of the park one year, you're expected to knock it out of the park even further the next year. And so they keep charging as much as they think they can get away with, and it's really not sustainable. We're approaching the limits of it now as everyone is taking so much that the average citizen doesn't have much more to give.
Pikachu, I choose you ... to get here and make that face.
Duh!
Has been in the news for months. Welcome to last week USAtoday.
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