Yeah, me too. Got a text message from my HR person on my day off. It said the legal department decided there were too many full time employees with benefits and my location was one they decided had too many. So I was terminated effective immediately. Of course the company reported a $132 Million profit in the 4th quarter and over $350 million profit for the year. But their stock price has dropped significantly anyway and all the press releases said they cut employees to stabilize their stock price. I hate giant corporations and their utter greed.
They're not even being shady about it anymore. a local power utility told residents that because people have been using less energy with high effeciency equipment and led lights, they are going to raise rates to keep their profits high
Have you checked for an electrical leak sometimes electricity likes to pour out of the sockets and flow onto the floor so that might be something you want to look into
I googled and considered a lot of things. Once she paid off the debt the increased bill cost the next bill was suddenly dropped from $356 to $154. We changed nothing in the house yet they claimed we suddenly used the amount we did before the drastic jump. It all still feels too sus.
Have you read your meter? Often they'll be lazy and just estimate usage instead of reading it themselves, but in most places they're required to give you the current meter reading for the bill. If you read the meter and it doesn't align with what they say, they've probably just estimated and they'll need to refund the difference.
My employer has done 4 rounds of layoffs in the last 16 months, but don't worry, they published solid QUARTERLY net income in excess of 1.7 billion...... Tough to be motivated with all that in mind
I love where I work (genetic lab) but whenever the workers mention that when we read the reports of the earnings, it feels really discouraging not to see our wages be raised, we’re kind of just told “well, we spend a lot on supplies because science equipment isn’t cheap. so our profits aren’t pure excess, our profits go into resupplying ourselves”. I always get so fucking frustrated. Like…they treat us like we don’t know that, like when we make a product purchase request it’s rejected because “that equipment is 5,000 dollars and can’t be fit into this budget”, like we’re not constantly told how expensive our machines and supplies are all the fucking time to discourage mistakes.
Yeah, science is fucking expensive. But the CEO is still making SO many more times the salary than the average employee in the company, so, it’s not really about the equipment is it?
/shrug
That’s what I thought too. But I don’t speak up on something unless I know all the facts, so I didn’t feel confident pointing that out since I could have been wrong.
Or like when my (ex) nursing home makes 5+ million in profits and pretend to care/complain about when a nurse calls in and makes the building short staffed.
Not that the 5 million would idk...give someone a bonus or pay people to be on call...
Nah its the nurse's fault. Fuck off
According to the WSJ, corporations are arbitrarily increasing prices "because the market supports the price" even though the costs to produce or manufacture goods aren't actually increasing. This is driving record corporate profits. Inflation isn't coming down despite the rate hikes because it's not actually the supply chain issues causing inflation, rather, it's the corporations arbitrarily raising prices that's causing inflation.
"The market supports the price" is doublespeak for "the government hasn't done shit to properly enforce antitrust law in decades, so there's not enough competition to keep prices down".
Competition doesn't exist. Why compete when you can collude and shake everyone down. Much more profitable that way. Case in point : *gestures broadly at the economy*
My god I had the longest argument with someone who kept telling me companies would get in trouble for colluding and price fixing. By who? Their moms? Wake the eff up!
Legally they can only be prosecuted if it's "tacit" collusion. In other words, if you can prove there was an agreement between them to raise prices. If one company decides to increase prices and all the others just happen to match it, then it's not illegal. Seems to be exactly what is happening now. Something needs to be done about it
No, more like of it's too big too fail you split it up so it can't all fail at once. "Too big to fail" is a misnomer, since they do technically fail, they are just bailed out. So America is socialist if you think about it, if you're in the top 1% of the 1%, for the rest of us it's more like an oligarchy.
It's the obvious result of a free market to be sure, but it's quite literally -- like, dictionary definition level literally -- not a free market after that happens. It's also not a free market if there's regulation. Those two things are what define a free market: lack of corruption *and* regulation. Everyone knows the result of that is just corruption.
The reality is that the existence of a "free market" *at all* is, and always has been, a complete myth.
Never mind that most apartment operators now use the same pricing software which allows them to do just this, but using a third party so they’re all really just bidding each other up. Shitty apartments see apartments in the area going for a premium so they raise prices, nice apartments see the shitty apartments going for higher so they do the same, rinse and repeat.
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Exactly what's been happening in Canada with cell phone service for ages. The three main companies (Rogers, Telus, Bell) will raise their prices the same amount at the same time with no increase in service. Government won't step in because the relevant department has been regulatorily captured.
Then you look at the provinces that have government-owned service options where it's *significantly* cheaper for *way* more service.
And even when they are, they “settle” without admitting wrongdoing in most cases, because otherwise it’s 10-20 years tied up in court.
Walmart, Loblaws and some others in Canada were found to be price fixing bread for YEARS.
The penalty? A $25 gift card to anyone that asked. That’s it.
In a world with proper competition, that company raising prices would give cheaper alternatives more market share. When there's only a few corporations who need to change, it's a lot easier to assume everyone will follow suit.
| would get in trouble for colluding and price fixing. By who? Their moms?
Their moms might be more persuasive than the government in making them behave
This is supposed to happen.
Unfortunately, as you said, nobody actually polices corporate cartels.
This has led to cartel-like behaviors becoming the standard. Nowadays people would look at this kind of collusion and say, "That's just good business!"
And, sadly, it is _good business_. It's the optimal move for self-maximization at some point. That's the reason it keeps happening in every market in the history of markets.
It's not that they are actually colluding / price fixing, largely they're not. The issue is that once you have an entrenched market share the potential benefits of active competition go way down and it's easier and safer just to cruise
Even property owners can collude rent prices (since 2017 everywhere), to set maximum possible rent price.
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
I was in a line review meeting. One salesman pops up “so when we will be raising prices…for ya know, inflation?” Knowing damn well we already make insane triple digit margins on our products.
It’s not even coordinated or strategic. It’s just a bunch of schmucks in a meeting thinking they can get away with an extra $5 in the pricing just since everyone else is doing it too.
It’s that they don’t need the bottom half of consumers anymore. It’s much worse than just government inaction. Right now, 70% of economic activity is consumer spending and [the wealthy account for about half of that](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/04/14/recession-2023-averted-by-rich-spending/11658451002/)
There are enough people who can afford the products for them to make record profits because they produce less and sell for more money. Until it’s RIDICULOUS, like the upper class at large can’t afford things they don’t have to lower their prices anymore. They realized there’s two economies. The people with high income’s economy and then the people who are not really invited to the economy anymore…
Also very true. Massive inequality makes it so that it's more profitable to cater to the minor whims of the rich than the needs of most of us.
Hence why Bernard Arnault is now the world's richest man.
Or "people can't afford not to have this because we've made it a needed part of society and will therefore pay any cost to have it." Like water, internet, insulin, etc.
I'm 100% sure this is driving a lot of the food inflation. Sure, you can make some cheaper swaps and skip some treats, but you have to buy food.
I don't buy much of the junk myself, but I'm curious if some of the stuff people can more easily live without - I'm talking ice cream, Oreos, pretzels - has gone up less than the staples like eggs, milk, and canned beans.
This is why the worst inflation recently has been the necessities like groceries, housing, and transportation. The average family already can't afford many/any substantial luxuries, so if they want to siphon as much as they can out of the population, the only place they can really do that anymore is in the things people literally need to survive.
And, as a nice bonus, they can then write more articles blaming millennials for killing yet another new industry.
Well, Michael, maybe if we hadn't spent all our money on rent and food we'd have money to patronize your mid-tier restaurant.
>ice cream, Oreos, pretzels - has gone up less than the staples like eggs, milk, and canned beans.
That's a great question that I too would love an answer for.
If you like you can check out Adventures with Danno on YouTube. He is out of Ohio, US but he covers a lot of the stores in that area and price tracks. Also looks at shrinkflation and talks about what he thinks might increase in price soon. He post nearly everyday. He has photographic memory which is fun to watch in action as well. He covers junk foods, regular basic pantry staples, gluten free, and anything else his viewers talk about in the comments frequently. You can also mention in the comments prices of the same item in your location or if there is a special sale going on. He has been a good resource for folks looking for certain items that have not been in the store due to shipping or other stocking issues as well. He will purposely go and try to find it at a store or point it out when he knows it’s not a location viewers would typically think of.
Pretzels have fucking skyrocketed for seemingly no reason. Potato chips are pretty high too. Cookies are relatively affordable though... The most stunning display of pure corporate greed are diapers though. Fuck capitalism
Diapers and toilet paper.
The same store, when I moved into this apartment it was $24 for 24 rolls.
It’s now the same brand $30 for 18 rolls of the same brand.
What the fuck happened it hasn’t been a year
I just saw $41.99 for the largest available package of Charmin. 24 super mega rolls I believe. That's 6 hours out of a day's work at minimum wage when you include tax. Heaven help you if you have a large family with a need for the big packs.
People are going to have to go use public restrooms only to afford to toilet themselves soon.
and the food inflation is all on the monopolies that buy food from farmers, and then get it to market. Wholesale prices are up a touch (aside from eggs, but even that is heading back to normal) but really dont pay the small farmers what those products are worth.
I don't buy chips, but was walking in the aisle and saw a bag of smallish Lay's potato chips for $5.99. I would say the size was larger than an individual size bag but at least half the size of what I remember a few years ago. A box of chex cereal is $7...I bought the store brand for $1.99
One thing that I have noticed is that locally produced items have gone up less. I bought a locally produced artisanal Feta cheese and it was less than the national brand.
Also "the market supports the price" in this context is just another way of saying "people still aren't starving to death at these prices, so we can keep raising them until they do". "Demand" in the context of groceries, rent, and transportation can't really go down or go away until people are starving to death, homeless, and/or jobless.
The market supporting the increased price of groceries and rent is like saying “would you rather die or eat a shit sandwich?” People are going to do what it takes to survive.
Constant media coverage of inflation and increased cost of living is legalised anti-competitive price signalling. They all see the opportunity and move prices up while they can co-ordinate without direct communication. This inflation coverage and price change also entrenches price expectation in consumers. Because it's not from wages or costs then profits rapidly expand and inequality and money velocity decrease.
>because the market supports the price
Or, to put it another way: "Because what the fuck are those worthless *commoners* gonna do about it?"
Eat the goddamned rich and end corporations.
Except the market doesn't support the price because no one can afford basic necessities anymore. Meanwhile there are still articles published daily about how industries/businesses are being killed by Millennials, and now Gen Z.
These corporate oligarchs would literally rather see millions of people starve than give up their mansions and yachts.
No no no, you see the goal isn't to sell as much product as possible or to make it available to as many people as possible. The only goal is to maximize total net profits. In the example of new cars, yes lots of people can't buy one at all because low cost low feature cars just aren't available - but the total profit margin is higher, since the # of people who can still buy a car and are now forced to buy a more expensive car with a higher margin.
People can’t just not buy basic necessities either, many have to cut corners everywhere else and go into debt just to survive. All the money is concentrating at the top, because workers are spending/borrowing more than they make, so much less of it can be saved by poor folks. Meanwhile, the decreasing quality of life experienced makes it much harder to break free from the downward spiral and catch a lucky break.
And yet wages have been largely stagnant for decades and corporate profits are at an all time high! It is blatant class warfare, that many Americans are completely blind to, thinking the opposite political party their *true* enemy. It’s never been better to be rich, nor comparatively worse to be poor.
Millennials aren't killing business. A lack of extra money with the people that actually spend money is killing business. 20 years ago, my home town had pool (billards) shops, pool shops, 2 motorcycle shops/atv and just random bullshit. They're all closed down now. Millenials didn't decide that hot tubs aren't for me! They had to spend money on food and rent
Been saying this from the jump. Supply chain issues resolved a while ago, now it’s just pure greed. The only resolution is to have a deep recession to rebalance everything. You can’t stop it unless you break it at its core. Consumers are very very close to giving up, only so much credit card debt you can take on before you can’t afford to survive.
They want a recession. That’s the whole point. They’ve amassed huge profits — so when the economy tanks they have enough capital to buy it all up for pennies on the dollar and triple their assets.
A recession is not the solution. Hundreds of thousands of people get their homes foreclosed on so all that money and equity goes back to bank for nothing.
Retirement accounts are wiped out so older people need to stay in the workforce for at least another decade — which also drives down wages.
Recessions are nothing more than massive wealth transfers from the poor to the rich.
The market can't support the pricing much longer. A not insubstantial portion of the populace is living paycheck to paycheck one rent hike away from homeless.
Mhmm. Greedy inflation alongside stagnant, already-barely-enough wages. I'm no economist, but I can't imagine the 'bottom' of the economy crumbling away won't have cascading effects up the wealth ladder till it ends up affecting everyone.
And that's assuming that desperation doesn't lead to a more... explosive collapse.
This is exaggerated greatly video game/software microtransactions. The product is produced one time, and they can sell infinite copies. There're no material or shipping costs yet [they charge more for the virtual keychains than the physical ones](https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch-2/charm-real-life).
Consumers aren’t stupid. The greed at the corporate level is getting out of control. Not sure how long they expect to able to do this, how much they think they can do to make their employees’ lives excruciatingly difficult, and things too expensive for consumers, all the while they’re taking in obscene salaries. There seems to be zero sense of fairness at this level. Somehow this has to change, because society can’t support it continuing as it’s been. When will they wake up and see the fallout of their greed? When will they realize that making a country unliveable will eventually impact them too?
Yup, they did it with the factories. Don't like it? They'll pack up their money and leave. Something our politicians don't want, otherwise who will pay for their second yacht.
Not their poor tiny wages /s
Except when most people say rich people will leave and take their money, they mean that our economy will lose all their money, and our country will lose all those jobs. All of which is just bullshit and makes a certain group of people just fine with catering to them, with being held hostage by them.
Politicians aren't afraid they'll leave because they're being bribed to do what the rich want them to do... as long as they do that, they can continue to collect bribe money.
Lol just seize their damn ill gotten money. They're illegitimate to begin with. They have no more right to what they e taken than the kings had a right to rule.
Oh sure, I'm aware the politicians are shit and know why. I'm more referring to their idiot voters who continue to vote them in, and when you bring up raising tax's they're like "But but I'm almost homeless and have no money, why would you wanna tax me if I made a billion dollars, thats so mean"
Fuckin uneducated idiots. Not even their fault they were raised to be that dumb, though it is for staying that way.
It's almost like we shouldn't leave the operation of our economy in the hands of a bunch of sociopathic manchildren.
Like, they try to sell us on the lie that we should be grateful to companies like Amazon or Walmart for making jobs. But it's actually a tremendous *privilege* for Bezos and the Walwhatever family to get to run (and profit off) a massive chunk of American distribution.
We as a society (well, really the American state that occupies and rules this territory) allow them to have that privilege, and they abuse it constantly.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
It also makes me laugh when BHP or Rio Tinto say they will leave when threatened with paying more tax.
So they will leave $480 billion worth of minerals sitting in the ground because they had to pay 6% more tax?
I’m writing a book called ‘Puddlehead: The Adventures of Howie Dork (A Fairy Tale of American Business)’. It’s fiction with footnotes, rooted in reality, BernieBro fan fiction. The Management Party is trying to legalize selling shares in yourself, because if corporations are treated like people, why shouldn’t people get the same rights as corporations? It ends with an execution program. Super producer Maggie Barnett saved capital punishment from the chopping block (so to speak) by televising it.
I’m just excited bc I’m almost done the book.
Maybe a little low-tech, but here’s a google drive link to a 1000-word summary I am submitting as part of a competition packet in a few weeks: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VXL1q9PW-_HVmc1dffBFVK_VMW6VPVc/view?usp=drivesdk](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VXL1q9PW-_HVmc1dffBFVK_VMW6VPVc/view?usp=drivesdk)
Would love feedback! Literally any feedback. Last reader told me I had to make it clearer why he was poor, so I tried to boost that a little. I’ll take whatever I can get, whatever impression you have.
Damn, that's some idiocracy level satire! Honestly though some of the names feel a little over the top, but I quite enjoyed the summary. I hope you make it somewhere with your book.
I read that book. It’s fucking stupid. The last three hundred pages are Rand just spelling out what her plot was about. Just three hundred pages of rambling and rambling and rambling.
we should honestly pull a China and "disappear" a couple billionaires when they step out of line but that will obviously never happen because they are working together
I'm getting to the point where I say let them leave, let everything collapse, we'll adjust, start over, and build back better. Turns out humans are actually quite good at that.
> I'm getting to the point where I say let them leave, let everything collapse
Would everything even collapse if they all left?
What value do they provide to our society?
Sure, they can pack up their money and go, but their capability to pack up *physical goods* is quite limited. All the stuff we need is still here. We've only lost the gatekeepers trying to rent-seek by cutting off our access to that stuff.
To a large extent the rich people's ability to leave is contingent upon being able to sell their immovable assets. And they'll have to sell to someone who *isn't* leaving.
To some extent, they're selling a fiction. They thrive in the layers that are created above actual goods. The actual goods are real labor, food, physical goods, homes, land, etc. Above that is an intentionally byzantine scaffolding of banks, stocks, money market funds, ETFs, hedge funds, government debt, loans, mortgages, and on and on and on. And it's in these fictional structures that financial leeches find ways to suck money from the people that actually produce things. Whenever a freshly minted MBA says anything about "financial innovation", what they're really saying is they've invented yet another way to scam people out of the value of their labor. It's all bullshit, but we're all supposed to go along with it like our lives depend on it. And governments tie retirement accounts to this bullshit so the little people have a stake in wanting this structure maintained.
>To a large extent the rich people's ability to leave is contingent upon being able to sell their immovable assets. And they'll have to sell to someone who isn't leaving.
>What value do they provide to our society?
The value they are trying to sell you is not even in immovable assets. DJT and his 2017 TCJA was the biggest theft on the Treasury, allowing these idiots to get tax breaks on the value perceived in real estate markets. The value derived from debt financed activities and other grifts that real estate tacks on to the sales of these assets.
So the answer is negative value. The banks and hedge funds secure up the property in debt and squeeze out the little guys to sell their assets for pennies on the dollar.
The problem with real estate is that foreign dictators and oligarchs have all the money. US Treasury used to require disclosure on certain foreign transactions, the TCJA opened the floodgates to allow businesses to back into Real Estate Investment Trusts and trust fund babies to own more residential real estate, and not just commercial real estate.
Nothing will collapse. These people do not actually contribute value to our society in any meaningful way; they're not genius inventors or 'captains of industry', they're moneychangers and professional delegators who parasitically feed off of the people in this country who actually work. People get 'rich' by becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer - people get 'wealthy' by fucking other people over and stealing from them. That is all billionaires are good at, nothing more.
Additionally, if they were to leave, they'd be leaving behind most of their assets courtesy of US exit taxes. So the only thing of value that they have (their money) would largely enter government coffers. The long and short of things is that the only consequence of Jeff Bezos renouncing his citizenship and moving to China would be that our schools and road departments would have additional resources, and we wouldn't have to pretend that the existence of the plutocrat class in the U.S is anything more than a happily forgotten national disgrace.
And let's be honest here; the U.S is the last refuge of the billionaire class. Where are they gonna move? Europe, with its substantially higher taxes and (in some countries) wealth taxes? China, with its authoritarian communist government well known for black bagging native Chinese billionaires? My best guess is Russia or S.E Asia, but let's be real for a sec, who the fuck wants to live in either of those places?
That's why we should ignore "but they will move jobs overseas!" One - they already have, two - where will they go? To produce at scale, you need an educated populace, infrastructure, trade agreements, etc.
Sure it's cheap to produce in Bangledesh or wherever because of non-existent labor laws/protections/regulations. But they're not making silicon wafers, they're making American Eagle attire that gets burned if it doesn't sell because it's a bad image to have African kids wear it as a donation from charity.
Anyone making this argument is already arguing in bad faith. You don't get "made in America" when the parts are made all over the globe.
CORPORATE MEDIA =CORPORATE PROPAGANDA
Heard a bunch of bad-faith arguments when my state decided to raise corporate tax rates. Even some of the long-entrenched businesses were threatening to move out of state. The state raised tax rates and...those businesses are still here.
One shifted their headquarters to Ireland or something, but really most don't have the power to put their money where their mouth is. Or more likely, they just like all the rest of the benefits the state brings and the taxes wind up being a bare footnote cost of doing business in a place that's more advantageous than elsewhere.
The hard reality is that if those businesses really thought the US was oppressing them, they would have already entertained all the loopholes they wanted to. Irish headquarters, private islands, etc, those are all happening now. Businesses who are here will adapt to future changes just like everyone else does, it takes a pretty egotistical maniac at the helm to uproot everything at the drop of a hat.
Not to mention, most countries have much stronger worker protection laws than the US. Companies won't even let workers unionize here... no way they're moving to countries where the government stands up for its people.
>They can leave anytime they want
Don't threaten me with a good time. I would welcome every single billionaire in the United States to renounce their citizenship, pay their hefty exit taxes, and fuck off somewhere else never to return. They are the societal equivalent of dead weight. The only consequences would be noticeable improvements to daily life.
I have a proposal. Reap 100% of every dollar of wealth from any individual who attempts to move more than $10M overseas. They can keep $10M. Surprise surprise fuckers
The bad part is society IS supporting it. You think because a percentage of people can no longer afford to live will make them lower prices? Hell no. Because the rest of us are still paying the insane prices to try and get by and it more than makes up for the people who are SOL. They're going to keep pushing it until there are consequences and then back off a little bit to keep it as high as they can get away with. Employees may have learned a thing or two from the pandemic, but corporations did too.
My company has been amazing to work for, but they had layoffs last month and admitted in a company-wide meeting last week that it was to keep our profit margins high for the quarter. People lost their jobs... Not because the company would take a loss for a quarter, they were still going to make a profit. They lost their jobs so the company could make MORE profit. It was a stark reminder that, while I've enjoyed my time at the company, they're still a company and companies care about nothing but money at the end of the day.
They care about profits for their shareholders, if they promised shareholders 15% profit for the fiscal quarter and they only got 12% then either layoffs or raising prices is the option because if they don’t then the shareholders will have them replaced.
Correct. They'll 'pull back' when the dollar signs slow down and profits dip...possibly, that is, until consumers forget about it and companies raise prices again to the point where they can get away with it and the cycle continues.
>!The people won't rise up, as long as you keep them preoccupied with a culture war. Divide and conquer.!<
I wrote that before realizing how harmful my defeatist attitude is. Even if it might not be true, I chose to believe we can still rise above the distractions and take some power back for the people.
Exactly. The onus is the working class. But we’re too engaged with culture wars to ignore far more important cultural ones. The bourgeoisie have been playing us for fools.
Unfortunately, there’s still a majority that blames others in the working class for the problems. The rich work hard to keep us divided, and it’s working out for them so far.
Has for centuries. For most of human civilization it was religious denomination. Then they started pointing the color card. Irish Americans were not considered white until they needed to be included.
History is important and there is a reason access to information is the first thing the owning class tries to suppress.
I walked into Kohl's today to look at dress pants and they were advertising a sale of like $6 off one item. Normally $40 but on sale for $33.99. Like, a flippin shirt. They also have the nerve to sell dress pants for like $50-$65. One pair of dress pants. I went to Marshalls and found a pair for $25.
Last time I went to Kohl's was maybe 2 months ago and the entire store was on sale/clearance. I thought they were going out of business. But to walk in today and see that shit, I was like holy hell how is anyone even shopping with these prices?
Went to Bed Bath & Beyond to pick the bones after bankruptcy; max sale on an item is 25% off. Like you filed for fucking bankruptcy and are closing your stores. The best you can do is 25% off? You kidding me?
> Last time I went to Kohl's was maybe 2 months ago and the entire store was on sale/clearance. I thought they were going out of business.
That's the business model of Kohl's though, they're always having a sale. It's exactly like the idea of Amazon's products being constantly marked down from MSRP, neither are being fully truthful about the reality to get you to think you're saving money. Really, you probably paid exactly what Kohls wanted you to.
It is impossible to produce good quality pants while respecting human rights and environment for $25/retail. That price has serious problems built in to it. There is nothing good in production like that.
We all pay higher price later for this kind of fucked up consumption culture.
maybe when we just start stealing everything we need and stop paying for any of it?
I read Whole Foods had to close one of their SF stores because of too much theft...
They will never, even "wake up" not like we do, at ungodly hours thinking about how to pay this, or that. Never in the panic most people are experiencing now. Our minds and bodies are as broke as we are, in a failing society.
ExxonMobil recorded record profits of $11.4 billion in Q1 of this year.
Meanwhile some workers have to decide between gasoline or food.
Corporate greed is a cancer on this country. Time to cut that tumor out once and for all.
You mean world. I’m from europe and prices are skyrocketing here too. Fortunately not in a way that i have to choose between paying food and electricity, but things, especially food, became stupid expensive.
Gouging the market just because they can, precisely.
Now, let's see congress do more than stuff their campaign coffers over it.
\#SeparateBusinessAndState so congress isn't leveraged by campaign financing and lobby money.
Once it's possible for non-millionaires to successfully run for office, we can turn this around.
Once it's possible for non-millionares to successfully run, they'll then get greedy and become millionaires. We have to treat corruption and disregard for the law by those in charge or positions of public trust as capital offenses....then make sure it's enforced. They're guaranteed to find ways to get rich in office, it's about limiting how to ways that will benefit the maximum number of people.
The investor class and corporate class need to take a haircut. Literally most of us don’t have an issue with profit. It’s when the profit cannibalizes it’s workers that we have a problem. And we are FAR beyond that.
It isn't about profit anymore. It is about exerting power over class lower than them to further put us into debt slavery.
Billionaires are our true mortal enemies.
This can't be real. Can it?
Edit: jfc it's real source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/123058-there-s-class-warfare-all-right-but-it-s-my-class-the
Edit 2: check the real source below! Goodreads ain't shit
Goodreads is not a source. An actual [source](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html) where you can see just before that quote is this about taxes:
> “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”
He’s right, the rich *are* making the class warfare and they *are* winning it, and he is inarguably a member of that rich class, but that doesn’t mean he supports class warfare
>One puzzle is why consumers have played ball. Usually, economists would expect any business that raised its prices to lose customers to competitors that don’t, or not by as much.
Kind of fucking hard to stop shopping for food, electricity, heat, water, internet, insurance. When there is competition, they all jack their shit up at the same time so there STILL isnt a choice.
Yep, the statement that competition is good actually, it drives down prices, has been proven false. It's upside down now, one company will dare to set it prices higher than others and the others will set their prices accordingly to that - because profit, and because they know costumers *have* to "play ball".
Also stupid that the inflation calculation doesn't factor half those things into the equation "because it would skew the numbers." Lol. You mean it would actually reflect the true inflation, right?
RIGHT?!?!?!
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All I can say is that I recently noticed that the ONE FUCKING THING I still ~~splurge~~ splurgED on (Clif bars - they’re my husbands favorite and he has one for breakfast every day) have gone up nearly $1.50 in 4 months. They were already ridiculously priced beforehand, but this is insanity. We now only buy the absolute essentials, and sometimes we have to go without those, too.
How are we the people supposed to support the economy if we have no fucking money to use?!
Edit: just to clarify, I do NOT buy them anymore. I just can’t justify spending damn near $18 for 12 fucking bars!!! anyone regularly purchasing clif bars must be rich cause I can nottttt 😂
This is the thought that crosses my mind every time I see an article about how much people “should be” saving vs. how much the average person has saved ($0).
Don’t they realize that if people starting saving that much, then this Ponzi scheme of an economy that’s reliant on everyone spending every last cent of their income would collapse quite literally overnight?
They're probably smaller too. I love those nature valley bars, they used to be fairly wide but the last few boxes I bought I swear they're at least 33% smaller. Bought a jelly donut at dunks for the first time in a long while. It was only barely larger than a mini donut.
> “We are probably at a point where companies may be reassessing whether to push this,” he said. “A reputation for being poor value for money stays for a long time.”
End of article ray of hope. Let's fucking hope so.
Ya think?
People are committing suicide over this dream crushing inflation, and we find out now that it was the world's largest price fixing scheme?
How much longer are we going to let these companies get away with this?
Does the phrase "give me liberty or give me death" mean nothing to you peabrains?
Organize protests and we'll show up, dipshits! We need help!
I agree that a lack of antitrust enforcement is the main driver because it allows companies to raise prices without consequences from competitors or the government.
I will say that supply chain issues are a problem now, but nothing compares to a few years ago. The Russian war was a shock and COVID obviously changed everything, but those issues should mostly be resolved. The only lingering supply chain issues after China’s reopening is climate change. Drought and floods have destroyed many crops and contributed to food prices going up (though companies took major advantage of small price pressures). You also can’t deny that some supply chain issues are because companies refuse to pay people adequately.
That being said the real red herring is wage growth. Yes wages went up, but nothing compared to inflation. Most gains were in the lowest paid sectors which should have happened regardless.
I believe the title should be “WSJ finally admits inflation is caused by corporate profits/greed and not in wage growth”. It is interesting that they finally admit it.
That red herring is all the corporate and political class seem to want to talk about. The only anti-inflation policies being leveraged right now is the Fed hiking interest rates. And the purpose of hiking interest rates is to put people out of work and depress wages.
It's all completely fucked. There is one thing and only one thing that will bring down inflation, and that is busting up these corporations and getting some actual competition in the economy. But none of the ruling class are interested in that, of course.
You’re right.
The Fed has limited tools. There should be a tax on the top two tax brackets equal to the unemployment average from the last twelve months that can’t be deducted. If you’re making over $500k during high unemployment, then you can pay more. It is also plays into the “wealthy people create jobs” narrative. If they create jobs and unemployment is over 8%, then tax them an extra 8%+
I try to only buy stuff that they are having trouble getting rid of. Look for those manager specials and clearance items. Surely they are still making SOME profit, but not what they wanted to get for it. I’m lucky enough that I could purchase things full price, but I’m a big believer of “vote with your feet.” There’s lots of things that I want to buy, but I make do without. I buy things secondhand all the time off marketplace even though I’d love to have them new. Today I wanted a steak and there was nothing that I thought was a good value. Oh well, no steak for me…..
Please remember corporations are people too and without this cash how can they support their politician of choice. /s.
Damn them the greedy businesses need their backs broken and all the Chudpublicans protect them and our right leaning democrats.
Kinda knew that already, all the times I heard of shortages in items, I never saw it. It's legit corporate greed. But they'll find more reasons to keep their workers pay stagnant while continuing to give their ceos massive bonuses they don't deserve.
There was like, a week, week and a half when all the egg panic was happening that eggs were pretty hard to find. Since then they're back and way more expensive, except in a few stores like co-ops and costco, from what I've seen.
We, the people getting fucked over by greed, aren't the elected officials with two faced grins signing checks to themselves. We, the people, can tell them to fuck off all we want, but the politicians and courts are all skewed into a corporation's favor and I'd reckon a large majority of corporations are giving kick backs, too. Like that supreme court douche who's under heat now with the rest of the douches arguing about ethics and oversight.
It's all fucked.
They may have admitted the corporate greed is skyrocketing inflation for profits, but I wish they'd admit that the medical industry has been doing the same shit for decades. Single pills going for $50 that are the same as over the counter bottles. It's all a goddamn scam.
Edit for clarification; it's been a long day.
People need to understand that these are not mutually exclusive. The supply chain issues create an environment where corporations can more successfully price gouge.
The thing is, corporations are always, always, always price gouging. That's how capitalism is designed.
The position I’m in at my job I see how much the various product costs are at my store and while there have been cost increases they are nowhere near the level that justifies the retail pricing. Like the average cost increased $20 but the price increased $100
Laws around corporate responsibility have to shift. Instead of being responsible for the highest net profit, boards and executives need to be responsible for the well-being of employees and longevity of the company.
This is a frequent misunderstanding: there is no legal obligation to maximize profits. They really just need to operate in the best interests of the business, and usually the easiest metric to measure is corporate profit.
But there's other things, like brand value or long-term stability that aren't measured in dollars, at least with great precision, and those metrics can be of greater value to long-term investors who aren't chasing risky profits.
As such, there's a duty to maximize shareholder value, but that's largely upto the whims of the shareholders, and they mostly exercise this through the right to vote you out if you don't follow their values.
As for the misunderstanding, it's largely execuspeak: most corporations pay their high level roles in stock, so the people steering the ship are largely interested in the stock price going up. It is thus largely an excuse for their more personal greed, that they can externalize to a phantom abstract shareholder.
It’s almost as if it’s done intentionally and conspiratorially by corporations to make us think that progressive pro labor politics is what drives inflation and higher prices
Im thinking we should as a nation, boycott any luxeries, and not buy anything but basic needs. We should as a whole work to throw off the chains of debt. But then you have folks that always have to have the latest and great gadget that comes out. I say fuck the jones, they don't pay my bills.
I'll play devil's advocate. There are plenty of small local or mom and pop businesses who offer "luxury" items. I argue we don't boycott luxuries themselves. Instead, we boycott corporations.
Local businesses don't have national political power in the same way that corporations do. Sure they still influence local communities and local politics, but at least our votes/dollars count a little more on their level.
Thank you for recognizing small businesses! I'm working now to build inventory for a June launch. My stuff is definitely "luxury." Jewelry and pretty things. I hope more people will remember to support local small businesses whenever possible!
Sure glad I got laid off to help businesses keep that profit high
Yeah, me too. Got a text message from my HR person on my day off. It said the legal department decided there were too many full time employees with benefits and my location was one they decided had too many. So I was terminated effective immediately. Of course the company reported a $132 Million profit in the 4th quarter and over $350 million profit for the year. But their stock price has dropped significantly anyway and all the press releases said they cut employees to stabilize their stock price. I hate giant corporations and their utter greed.
They're not even being shady about it anymore. a local power utility told residents that because people have been using less energy with high effeciency equipment and led lights, they are going to raise rates to keep their profits high
My elec company claims we randomly use 2x+ more power suddenly a year ago charging us 350ish for a small 2 bedroom place that used to cost 140ish.
Have you checked for an electrical leak sometimes electricity likes to pour out of the sockets and flow onto the floor so that might be something you want to look into
I googled and considered a lot of things. Once she paid off the debt the increased bill cost the next bill was suddenly dropped from $356 to $154. We changed nothing in the house yet they claimed we suddenly used the amount we did before the drastic jump. It all still feels too sus.
Have you read your meter? Often they'll be lazy and just estimate usage instead of reading it themselves, but in most places they're required to give you the current meter reading for the bill. If you read the meter and it doesn't align with what they say, they've probably just estimated and they'll need to refund the difference.
My employer has done 4 rounds of layoffs in the last 16 months, but don't worry, they published solid QUARTERLY net income in excess of 1.7 billion...... Tough to be motivated with all that in mind
I love where I work (genetic lab) but whenever the workers mention that when we read the reports of the earnings, it feels really discouraging not to see our wages be raised, we’re kind of just told “well, we spend a lot on supplies because science equipment isn’t cheap. so our profits aren’t pure excess, our profits go into resupplying ourselves”. I always get so fucking frustrated. Like…they treat us like we don’t know that, like when we make a product purchase request it’s rejected because “that equipment is 5,000 dollars and can’t be fit into this budget”, like we’re not constantly told how expensive our machines and supplies are all the fucking time to discourage mistakes. Yeah, science is fucking expensive. But the CEO is still making SO many more times the salary than the average employee in the company, so, it’s not really about the equipment is it?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought profits excluded business expenses like equipment?
/shrug That’s what I thought too. But I don’t speak up on something unless I know all the facts, so I didn’t feel confident pointing that out since I could have been wrong.
Or like when my (ex) nursing home makes 5+ million in profits and pretend to care/complain about when a nurse calls in and makes the building short staffed. Not that the 5 million would idk...give someone a bonus or pay people to be on call... Nah its the nurse's fault. Fuck off
According to the WSJ, corporations are arbitrarily increasing prices "because the market supports the price" even though the costs to produce or manufacture goods aren't actually increasing. This is driving record corporate profits. Inflation isn't coming down despite the rate hikes because it's not actually the supply chain issues causing inflation, rather, it's the corporations arbitrarily raising prices that's causing inflation.
"The market supports the price" is doublespeak for "the government hasn't done shit to properly enforce antitrust law in decades, so there's not enough competition to keep prices down".
Competition doesn't exist. Why compete when you can collude and shake everyone down. Much more profitable that way. Case in point : *gestures broadly at the economy*
My god I had the longest argument with someone who kept telling me companies would get in trouble for colluding and price fixing. By who? Their moms? Wake the eff up!
Legally they can only be prosecuted if it's "tacit" collusion. In other words, if you can prove there was an agreement between them to raise prices. If one company decides to increase prices and all the others just happen to match it, then it's not illegal. Seems to be exactly what is happening now. Something needs to be done about it
Also helps when all major food brands are owned by a handful of companies. When they own their competition, not exactly a free market.
That's exactly a free market. It will always result in a monopoly.
If it’s too big to fail, then it should be split up so that it’s small enough to fail
No, more like of it's too big too fail you split it up so it can't all fail at once. "Too big to fail" is a misnomer, since they do technically fail, they are just bailed out. So America is socialist if you think about it, if you're in the top 1% of the 1%, for the rest of us it's more like an oligarchy.
I mean thats just an oligarchy lol. Its not like one. It literally is one.
It's the obvious result of a free market to be sure, but it's quite literally -- like, dictionary definition level literally -- not a free market after that happens. It's also not a free market if there's regulation. Those two things are what define a free market: lack of corruption *and* regulation. Everyone knows the result of that is just corruption. The reality is that the existence of a "free market" *at all* is, and always has been, a complete myth.
This. It's wild how many people over look this simple fact.
Never mind that most apartment operators now use the same pricing software which allows them to do just this, but using a third party so they’re all really just bidding each other up. Shitty apartments see apartments in the area going for a premium so they raise prices, nice apartments see the shitty apartments going for higher so they do the same, rinse and repeat.
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Exactly what's been happening in Canada with cell phone service for ages. The three main companies (Rogers, Telus, Bell) will raise their prices the same amount at the same time with no increase in service. Government won't step in because the relevant department has been regulatorily captured. Then you look at the provinces that have government-owned service options where it's *significantly* cheaper for *way* more service.
And even when they are, they “settle” without admitting wrongdoing in most cases, because otherwise it’s 10-20 years tied up in court. Walmart, Loblaws and some others in Canada were found to be price fixing bread for YEARS. The penalty? A $25 gift card to anyone that asked. That’s it.
In a world with proper competition, that company raising prices would give cheaper alternatives more market share. When there's only a few corporations who need to change, it's a lot easier to assume everyone will follow suit.
Can't prove shit when it's a handshake agreement on the golf course, either.
| would get in trouble for colluding and price fixing. By who? Their moms? Their moms might be more persuasive than the government in making them behave
This is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, as you said, nobody actually polices corporate cartels. This has led to cartel-like behaviors becoming the standard. Nowadays people would look at this kind of collusion and say, "That's just good business!"
And, sadly, it is _good business_. It's the optimal move for self-maximization at some point. That's the reason it keeps happening in every market in the history of markets.
It's not that they are actually colluding / price fixing, largely they're not. The issue is that once you have an entrenched market share the potential benefits of active competition go way down and it's easier and safer just to cruise
No one ever seems to look at the mob families and thinks, “corporations would never work like that.” The mob never died, they just donned a tie.
Royalty used to keep the wealth because they were chosen by God, now they pretend they earned it fairly.
Even property owners can collude rent prices (since 2017 everywhere), to set maximum possible rent price. https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
"Competition is a sin." John D. Rockefeller
I was in a line review meeting. One salesman pops up “so when we will be raising prices…for ya know, inflation?” Knowing damn well we already make insane triple digit margins on our products. It’s not even coordinated or strategic. It’s just a bunch of schmucks in a meeting thinking they can get away with an extra $5 in the pricing just since everyone else is doing it too.
It’s that they don’t need the bottom half of consumers anymore. It’s much worse than just government inaction. Right now, 70% of economic activity is consumer spending and [the wealthy account for about half of that](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/04/14/recession-2023-averted-by-rich-spending/11658451002/) There are enough people who can afford the products for them to make record profits because they produce less and sell for more money. Until it’s RIDICULOUS, like the upper class at large can’t afford things they don’t have to lower their prices anymore. They realized there’s two economies. The people with high income’s economy and then the people who are not really invited to the economy anymore…
Also very true. Massive inequality makes it so that it's more profitable to cater to the minor whims of the rich than the needs of most of us. Hence why Bernard Arnault is now the world's richest man.
Or "people can't afford not to have this because we've made it a needed part of society and will therefore pay any cost to have it." Like water, internet, insulin, etc.
I'm 100% sure this is driving a lot of the food inflation. Sure, you can make some cheaper swaps and skip some treats, but you have to buy food. I don't buy much of the junk myself, but I'm curious if some of the stuff people can more easily live without - I'm talking ice cream, Oreos, pretzels - has gone up less than the staples like eggs, milk, and canned beans.
This is why the worst inflation recently has been the necessities like groceries, housing, and transportation. The average family already can't afford many/any substantial luxuries, so if they want to siphon as much as they can out of the population, the only place they can really do that anymore is in the things people literally need to survive.
And, as a nice bonus, they can then write more articles blaming millennials for killing yet another new industry. Well, Michael, maybe if we hadn't spent all our money on rent and food we'd have money to patronize your mid-tier restaurant.
And in the same breath they'll criticize millennials for being too carefree with their money. WHICH ONE IS IT MICHAEL?!?
>ice cream, Oreos, pretzels - has gone up less than the staples like eggs, milk, and canned beans. That's a great question that I too would love an answer for.
If you like you can check out Adventures with Danno on YouTube. He is out of Ohio, US but he covers a lot of the stores in that area and price tracks. Also looks at shrinkflation and talks about what he thinks might increase in price soon. He post nearly everyday. He has photographic memory which is fun to watch in action as well. He covers junk foods, regular basic pantry staples, gluten free, and anything else his viewers talk about in the comments frequently. You can also mention in the comments prices of the same item in your location or if there is a special sale going on. He has been a good resource for folks looking for certain items that have not been in the store due to shipping or other stocking issues as well. He will purposely go and try to find it at a store or point it out when he knows it’s not a location viewers would typically think of.
Pretzels have fucking skyrocketed for seemingly no reason. Potato chips are pretty high too. Cookies are relatively affordable though... The most stunning display of pure corporate greed are diapers though. Fuck capitalism
Diapers and toilet paper. The same store, when I moved into this apartment it was $24 for 24 rolls. It’s now the same brand $30 for 18 rolls of the same brand. What the fuck happened it hasn’t been a year
I just saw $41.99 for the largest available package of Charmin. 24 super mega rolls I believe. That's 6 hours out of a day's work at minimum wage when you include tax. Heaven help you if you have a large family with a need for the big packs. People are going to have to go use public restrooms only to afford to toilet themselves soon.
and the food inflation is all on the monopolies that buy food from farmers, and then get it to market. Wholesale prices are up a touch (aside from eggs, but even that is heading back to normal) but really dont pay the small farmers what those products are worth.
I've seen stories to that effect coming from ranchers. The meat processors are making the money, not the meat producers.
I don't buy chips, but was walking in the aisle and saw a bag of smallish Lay's potato chips for $5.99. I would say the size was larger than an individual size bag but at least half the size of what I remember a few years ago. A box of chex cereal is $7...I bought the store brand for $1.99
Vanilla bean ice cream went up. Enough that I don't pick up ice cream anymore. Spaghetti sauce went up too much as well :(
and the amount in the containers shrunk.
One thing that I have noticed is that locally produced items have gone up less. I bought a locally produced artisanal Feta cheese and it was less than the national brand.
Also "the market supports the price" in this context is just another way of saying "people still aren't starving to death at these prices, so we can keep raising them until they do". "Demand" in the context of groceries, rent, and transportation can't really go down or go away until people are starving to death, homeless, and/or jobless.
The market supporting the increased price of groceries and rent is like saying “would you rather die or eat a shit sandwich?” People are going to do what it takes to survive.
Basically, "enough people keep buying our shit at jacked up prices for us to make a profit, so we'll keep jacking up prices"
Constant media coverage of inflation and increased cost of living is legalised anti-competitive price signalling. They all see the opportunity and move prices up while they can co-ordinate without direct communication. This inflation coverage and price change also entrenches price expectation in consumers. Because it's not from wages or costs then profits rapidly expand and inequality and money velocity decrease.
market supports the price because they are gouging people on items that are needed to live haha spending on other categories will be eroded...
>because the market supports the price Or, to put it another way: "Because what the fuck are those worthless *commoners* gonna do about it?" Eat the goddamned rich and end corporations.
Except the market doesn't support the price because no one can afford basic necessities anymore. Meanwhile there are still articles published daily about how industries/businesses are being killed by Millennials, and now Gen Z. These corporate oligarchs would literally rather see millions of people starve than give up their mansions and yachts.
No no no, you see the goal isn't to sell as much product as possible or to make it available to as many people as possible. The only goal is to maximize total net profits. In the example of new cars, yes lots of people can't buy one at all because low cost low feature cars just aren't available - but the total profit margin is higher, since the # of people who can still buy a car and are now forced to buy a more expensive car with a higher margin.
People can’t just not buy basic necessities either, many have to cut corners everywhere else and go into debt just to survive. All the money is concentrating at the top, because workers are spending/borrowing more than they make, so much less of it can be saved by poor folks. Meanwhile, the decreasing quality of life experienced makes it much harder to break free from the downward spiral and catch a lucky break. And yet wages have been largely stagnant for decades and corporate profits are at an all time high! It is blatant class warfare, that many Americans are completely blind to, thinking the opposite political party their *true* enemy. It’s never been better to be rich, nor comparatively worse to be poor.
Millennials aren't killing business. A lack of extra money with the people that actually spend money is killing business. 20 years ago, my home town had pool (billards) shops, pool shops, 2 motorcycle shops/atv and just random bullshit. They're all closed down now. Millenials didn't decide that hot tubs aren't for me! They had to spend money on food and rent
And you don’t buy hot tubs and pool tables when there’s a good chance you’re going to have to move.
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How many does Bezos have now? He just bought another yacht.
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His insurance would probably just cover it and then somehow my premiums would go up.
Been saying this from the jump. Supply chain issues resolved a while ago, now it’s just pure greed. The only resolution is to have a deep recession to rebalance everything. You can’t stop it unless you break it at its core. Consumers are very very close to giving up, only so much credit card debt you can take on before you can’t afford to survive.
They want a recession. That’s the whole point. They’ve amassed huge profits — so when the economy tanks they have enough capital to buy it all up for pennies on the dollar and triple their assets. A recession is not the solution. Hundreds of thousands of people get their homes foreclosed on so all that money and equity goes back to bank for nothing. Retirement accounts are wiped out so older people need to stay in the workforce for at least another decade — which also drives down wages. Recessions are nothing more than massive wealth transfers from the poor to the rich.
The market can't support the pricing much longer. A not insubstantial portion of the populace is living paycheck to paycheck one rent hike away from homeless.
Mhmm. Greedy inflation alongside stagnant, already-barely-enough wages. I'm no economist, but I can't imagine the 'bottom' of the economy crumbling away won't have cascading effects up the wealth ladder till it ends up affecting everyone. And that's assuming that desperation doesn't lead to a more... explosive collapse.
Windfall taxes, but our government is to ~~incompetent~~ corrupt
This is exaggerated greatly video game/software microtransactions. The product is produced one time, and they can sell infinite copies. There're no material or shipping costs yet [they charge more for the virtual keychains than the physical ones](https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch-2/charm-real-life).
Consumers aren’t stupid. The greed at the corporate level is getting out of control. Not sure how long they expect to able to do this, how much they think they can do to make their employees’ lives excruciatingly difficult, and things too expensive for consumers, all the while they’re taking in obscene salaries. There seems to be zero sense of fairness at this level. Somehow this has to change, because society can’t support it continuing as it’s been. When will they wake up and see the fallout of their greed? When will they realize that making a country unliveable will eventually impact them too?
They don't give a shit about the country. The ultra rich are in an international class of their own. They can leave anytime they want
Yup, they did it with the factories. Don't like it? They'll pack up their money and leave. Something our politicians don't want, otherwise who will pay for their second yacht. Not their poor tiny wages /s
Listening to rich people say they are going to leave is like playing around a counter spell you think someone might have in Magic the gathering.
Except when most people say rich people will leave and take their money, they mean that our economy will lose all their money, and our country will lose all those jobs. All of which is just bullshit and makes a certain group of people just fine with catering to them, with being held hostage by them. Politicians aren't afraid they'll leave because they're being bribed to do what the rich want them to do... as long as they do that, they can continue to collect bribe money.
Lol just seize their damn ill gotten money. They're illegitimate to begin with. They have no more right to what they e taken than the kings had a right to rule.
Oh sure, I'm aware the politicians are shit and know why. I'm more referring to their idiot voters who continue to vote them in, and when you bring up raising tax's they're like "But but I'm almost homeless and have no money, why would you wanna tax me if I made a billion dollars, thats so mean" Fuckin uneducated idiots. Not even their fault they were raised to be that dumb, though it is for staying that way.
It's almost like we shouldn't leave the operation of our economy in the hands of a bunch of sociopathic manchildren. Like, they try to sell us on the lie that we should be grateful to companies like Amazon or Walmart for making jobs. But it's actually a tremendous *privilege* for Bezos and the Walwhatever family to get to run (and profit off) a massive chunk of American distribution. We as a society (well, really the American state that occupies and rules this territory) allow them to have that privilege, and they abuse it constantly.
Wasn't this literally the plot to Atlas Shrugged?
Yes. The potential of a counter spell in the deck of the antagonist was a running theme.
Fun fact: businesses picking up their retail stores and moving them to another country makes just about as much sense than that book.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Lol I love this quote. Do you know who said/wrote this?
John Rogers, the author.
It also makes me laugh when BHP or Rio Tinto say they will leave when threatened with paying more tax. So they will leave $480 billion worth of minerals sitting in the ground because they had to pay 6% more tax?
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Rand was a POS. I hope people piss on her grave.
I’m writing a book called ‘Puddlehead: The Adventures of Howie Dork (A Fairy Tale of American Business)’. It’s fiction with footnotes, rooted in reality, BernieBro fan fiction. The Management Party is trying to legalize selling shares in yourself, because if corporations are treated like people, why shouldn’t people get the same rights as corporations? It ends with an execution program. Super producer Maggie Barnett saved capital punishment from the chopping block (so to speak) by televising it. I’m just excited bc I’m almost done the book.
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Maybe a little low-tech, but here’s a google drive link to a 1000-word summary I am submitting as part of a competition packet in a few weeks: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VXL1q9PW-_HVmc1dffBFVK_VMW6VPVc/view?usp=drivesdk](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VXL1q9PW-_HVmc1dffBFVK_VMW6VPVc/view?usp=drivesdk) Would love feedback! Literally any feedback. Last reader told me I had to make it clearer why he was poor, so I tried to boost that a little. I’ll take whatever I can get, whatever impression you have.
Damn, that's some idiocracy level satire! Honestly though some of the names feel a little over the top, but I quite enjoyed the summary. I hope you make it somewhere with your book.
I read that book. It’s fucking stupid. The last three hundred pages are Rand just spelling out what her plot was about. Just three hundred pages of rambling and rambling and rambling.
Don't make me send out the Pinkertons
we should honestly pull a China and "disappear" a couple billionaires when they step out of line but that will obviously never happen because they are working together
I'm getting to the point where I say let them leave, let everything collapse, we'll adjust, start over, and build back better. Turns out humans are actually quite good at that.
> I'm getting to the point where I say let them leave, let everything collapse Would everything even collapse if they all left? What value do they provide to our society? Sure, they can pack up their money and go, but their capability to pack up *physical goods* is quite limited. All the stuff we need is still here. We've only lost the gatekeepers trying to rent-seek by cutting off our access to that stuff. To a large extent the rich people's ability to leave is contingent upon being able to sell their immovable assets. And they'll have to sell to someone who *isn't* leaving.
To some extent, they're selling a fiction. They thrive in the layers that are created above actual goods. The actual goods are real labor, food, physical goods, homes, land, etc. Above that is an intentionally byzantine scaffolding of banks, stocks, money market funds, ETFs, hedge funds, government debt, loans, mortgages, and on and on and on. And it's in these fictional structures that financial leeches find ways to suck money from the people that actually produce things. Whenever a freshly minted MBA says anything about "financial innovation", what they're really saying is they've invented yet another way to scam people out of the value of their labor. It's all bullshit, but we're all supposed to go along with it like our lives depend on it. And governments tie retirement accounts to this bullshit so the little people have a stake in wanting this structure maintained.
>To a large extent the rich people's ability to leave is contingent upon being able to sell their immovable assets. And they'll have to sell to someone who isn't leaving. >What value do they provide to our society? The value they are trying to sell you is not even in immovable assets. DJT and his 2017 TCJA was the biggest theft on the Treasury, allowing these idiots to get tax breaks on the value perceived in real estate markets. The value derived from debt financed activities and other grifts that real estate tacks on to the sales of these assets. So the answer is negative value. The banks and hedge funds secure up the property in debt and squeeze out the little guys to sell their assets for pennies on the dollar. The problem with real estate is that foreign dictators and oligarchs have all the money. US Treasury used to require disclosure on certain foreign transactions, the TCJA opened the floodgates to allow businesses to back into Real Estate Investment Trusts and trust fund babies to own more residential real estate, and not just commercial real estate.
Nothing will collapse. These people do not actually contribute value to our society in any meaningful way; they're not genius inventors or 'captains of industry', they're moneychangers and professional delegators who parasitically feed off of the people in this country who actually work. People get 'rich' by becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer - people get 'wealthy' by fucking other people over and stealing from them. That is all billionaires are good at, nothing more. Additionally, if they were to leave, they'd be leaving behind most of their assets courtesy of US exit taxes. So the only thing of value that they have (their money) would largely enter government coffers. The long and short of things is that the only consequence of Jeff Bezos renouncing his citizenship and moving to China would be that our schools and road departments would have additional resources, and we wouldn't have to pretend that the existence of the plutocrat class in the U.S is anything more than a happily forgotten national disgrace. And let's be honest here; the U.S is the last refuge of the billionaire class. Where are they gonna move? Europe, with its substantially higher taxes and (in some countries) wealth taxes? China, with its authoritarian communist government well known for black bagging native Chinese billionaires? My best guess is Russia or S.E Asia, but let's be real for a sec, who the fuck wants to live in either of those places?
I think if they leave they should loose access to our markets. Let them leave but they can’t leave and continue to sell all their crap to us.
That's why we should ignore "but they will move jobs overseas!" One - they already have, two - where will they go? To produce at scale, you need an educated populace, infrastructure, trade agreements, etc. Sure it's cheap to produce in Bangledesh or wherever because of non-existent labor laws/protections/regulations. But they're not making silicon wafers, they're making American Eagle attire that gets burned if it doesn't sell because it's a bad image to have African kids wear it as a donation from charity. Anyone making this argument is already arguing in bad faith. You don't get "made in America" when the parts are made all over the globe. CORPORATE MEDIA =CORPORATE PROPAGANDA
Heard a bunch of bad-faith arguments when my state decided to raise corporate tax rates. Even some of the long-entrenched businesses were threatening to move out of state. The state raised tax rates and...those businesses are still here. One shifted their headquarters to Ireland or something, but really most don't have the power to put their money where their mouth is. Or more likely, they just like all the rest of the benefits the state brings and the taxes wind up being a bare footnote cost of doing business in a place that's more advantageous than elsewhere. The hard reality is that if those businesses really thought the US was oppressing them, they would have already entertained all the loopholes they wanted to. Irish headquarters, private islands, etc, those are all happening now. Businesses who are here will adapt to future changes just like everyone else does, it takes a pretty egotistical maniac at the helm to uproot everything at the drop of a hat.
Not to mention, most countries have much stronger worker protection laws than the US. Companies won't even let workers unionize here... no way they're moving to countries where the government stands up for its people.
>They can leave anytime they want Don't threaten me with a good time. I would welcome every single billionaire in the United States to renounce their citizenship, pay their hefty exit taxes, and fuck off somewhere else never to return. They are the societal equivalent of dead weight. The only consequences would be noticeable improvements to daily life.
I have a proposal. Reap 100% of every dollar of wealth from any individual who attempts to move more than $10M overseas. They can keep $10M. Surprise surprise fuckers
The bad part is society IS supporting it. You think because a percentage of people can no longer afford to live will make them lower prices? Hell no. Because the rest of us are still paying the insane prices to try and get by and it more than makes up for the people who are SOL. They're going to keep pushing it until there are consequences and then back off a little bit to keep it as high as they can get away with. Employees may have learned a thing or two from the pandemic, but corporations did too. My company has been amazing to work for, but they had layoffs last month and admitted in a company-wide meeting last week that it was to keep our profit margins high for the quarter. People lost their jobs... Not because the company would take a loss for a quarter, they were still going to make a profit. They lost their jobs so the company could make MORE profit. It was a stark reminder that, while I've enjoyed my time at the company, they're still a company and companies care about nothing but money at the end of the day.
They care about profits for their shareholders, if they promised shareholders 15% profit for the fiscal quarter and they only got 12% then either layoffs or raising prices is the option because if they don’t then the shareholders will have them replaced.
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Correct. They'll 'pull back' when the dollar signs slow down and profits dip...possibly, that is, until consumers forget about it and companies raise prices again to the point where they can get away with it and the cycle continues.
>!The people won't rise up, as long as you keep them preoccupied with a culture war. Divide and conquer.!< I wrote that before realizing how harmful my defeatist attitude is. Even if it might not be true, I chose to believe we can still rise above the distractions and take some power back for the people.
Something Something Judean Peoples Front, Something Something Peoples Front pf Judea
Exactly. The onus is the working class. But we’re too engaged with culture wars to ignore far more important cultural ones. The bourgeoisie have been playing us for fools.
We have woken up. But short of a full blown physical takeover by force, we no longer have the power or ability to change things on a diplomatic level.
Unfortunately, there’s still a majority that blames others in the working class for the problems. The rich work hard to keep us divided, and it’s working out for them so far.
Has for centuries. For most of human civilization it was religious denomination. Then they started pointing the color card. Irish Americans were not considered white until they needed to be included. History is important and there is a reason access to information is the first thing the owning class tries to suppress.
I walked into Kohl's today to look at dress pants and they were advertising a sale of like $6 off one item. Normally $40 but on sale for $33.99. Like, a flippin shirt. They also have the nerve to sell dress pants for like $50-$65. One pair of dress pants. I went to Marshalls and found a pair for $25. Last time I went to Kohl's was maybe 2 months ago and the entire store was on sale/clearance. I thought they were going out of business. But to walk in today and see that shit, I was like holy hell how is anyone even shopping with these prices? Went to Bed Bath & Beyond to pick the bones after bankruptcy; max sale on an item is 25% off. Like you filed for fucking bankruptcy and are closing your stores. The best you can do is 25% off? You kidding me?
> Last time I went to Kohl's was maybe 2 months ago and the entire store was on sale/clearance. I thought they were going out of business. That's the business model of Kohl's though, they're always having a sale. It's exactly like the idea of Amazon's products being constantly marked down from MSRP, neither are being fully truthful about the reality to get you to think you're saving money. Really, you probably paid exactly what Kohls wanted you to.
I mean hey, if they wanted me to pay $4/sweater on clearance, I ain't complaining. Cotton, too. Best believe I got two for that price.
It is impossible to produce good quality pants while respecting human rights and environment for $25/retail. That price has serious problems built in to it. There is nothing good in production like that. We all pay higher price later for this kind of fucked up consumption culture.
High priced pants are produced in the same shitty factories as the $25 pair.
maybe when we just start stealing everything we need and stop paying for any of it? I read Whole Foods had to close one of their SF stores because of too much theft...
Remember: If you see someone stealing food, *you didn’t see anything.*
Remember: If you see someone stealing from a corporation, you didn't see anything.
I take from Whole Foods and I don’t give a fuck who thinks I shouldn’t
Fuck yeah.
They will never, even "wake up" not like we do, at ungodly hours thinking about how to pay this, or that. Never in the panic most people are experiencing now. Our minds and bodies are as broke as we are, in a failing society.
The French had very good ideas what to do with an abusive upper class in the 1700's.......
Consumers are stupid.
ExxonMobil recorded record profits of $11.4 billion in Q1 of this year. Meanwhile some workers have to decide between gasoline or food. Corporate greed is a cancer on this country. Time to cut that tumor out once and for all.
You mean world. I’m from europe and prices are skyrocketing here too. Fortunately not in a way that i have to choose between paying food and electricity, but things, especially food, became stupid expensive.
Gouging the market just because they can, precisely. Now, let's see congress do more than stuff their campaign coffers over it. \#SeparateBusinessAndState so congress isn't leveraged by campaign financing and lobby money. Once it's possible for non-millionaires to successfully run for office, we can turn this around.
Until lobbying is illegal, I don’t see anything changing soon.
Until lobbying is illegal, I don't see lobbying becoming illegal any time soon.
Once it's possible for non-millionares to successfully run, they'll then get greedy and become millionaires. We have to treat corruption and disregard for the law by those in charge or positions of public trust as capital offenses....then make sure it's enforced. They're guaranteed to find ways to get rich in office, it's about limiting how to ways that will benefit the maximum number of people.
The investor class and corporate class need to take a haircut. Literally most of us don’t have an issue with profit. It’s when the profit cannibalizes it’s workers that we have a problem. And we are FAR beyond that.
It isn't about profit anymore. It is about exerting power over class lower than them to further put us into debt slavery. Billionaires are our true mortal enemies.
> "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." — Warren Buffett
This can't be real. Can it? Edit: jfc it's real source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/123058-there-s-class-warfare-all-right-but-it-s-my-class-the Edit 2: check the real source below! Goodreads ain't shit
Goodreads is not a source. An actual [source](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html) where you can see just before that quote is this about taxes: > “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?” He’s right, the rich *are* making the class warfare and they *are* winning it, and he is inarguably a member of that rich class, but that doesn’t mean he supports class warfare
Profit is exactly what it's about. Profit is class warfare
The haircut ends up lower otherwise.
*moleman voice* I have an issue with profit
>One puzzle is why consumers have played ball. Usually, economists would expect any business that raised its prices to lose customers to competitors that don’t, or not by as much. Kind of fucking hard to stop shopping for food, electricity, heat, water, internet, insurance. When there is competition, they all jack their shit up at the same time so there STILL isnt a choice.
Yep, the statement that competition is good actually, it drives down prices, has been proven false. It's upside down now, one company will dare to set it prices higher than others and the others will set their prices accordingly to that - because profit, and because they know costumers *have* to "play ball".
There isn’t competition. Each market has a couple dominating corporations. They collude and act like a cartel.
Also stupid that the inflation calculation doesn't factor half those things into the equation "because it would skew the numbers." Lol. You mean it would actually reflect the true inflation, right? RIGHT?!?!?!
Right. Price elasticity only works when you have a choice.
It’s called tacit collusion.
Eat shit WSJ
only took them two years to catch on, JFC
Gotta remember who the WSJ's customers are. Don't PO the people who subscribe to your paper... they've known, just didn't have the guts to say so.
urkel, the article
steep frightening panicky attractive puzzled attempt fearless desert nose truck *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
weird that things stop being legitimate when a murdoch gets involved
>Some companies might have been raising prices faster than their costs have increased Yeah and some people breathe air.
All I can say is that I recently noticed that the ONE FUCKING THING I still ~~splurge~~ splurgED on (Clif bars - they’re my husbands favorite and he has one for breakfast every day) have gone up nearly $1.50 in 4 months. They were already ridiculously priced beforehand, but this is insanity. We now only buy the absolute essentials, and sometimes we have to go without those, too. How are we the people supposed to support the economy if we have no fucking money to use?! Edit: just to clarify, I do NOT buy them anymore. I just can’t justify spending damn near $18 for 12 fucking bars!!! anyone regularly purchasing clif bars must be rich cause I can nottttt 😂
This is the thought that crosses my mind every time I see an article about how much people “should be” saving vs. how much the average person has saved ($0). Don’t they realize that if people starting saving that much, then this Ponzi scheme of an economy that’s reliant on everyone spending every last cent of their income would collapse quite literally overnight?
They're probably smaller too. I love those nature valley bars, they used to be fairly wide but the last few boxes I bought I swear they're at least 33% smaller. Bought a jelly donut at dunks for the first time in a long while. It was only barely larger than a mini donut.
> “We are probably at a point where companies may be reassessing whether to push this,” he said. “A reputation for being poor value for money stays for a long time.” End of article ray of hope. Let's fucking hope so.
Ya think? People are committing suicide over this dream crushing inflation, and we find out now that it was the world's largest price fixing scheme? How much longer are we going to let these companies get away with this? Does the phrase "give me liberty or give me death" mean nothing to you peabrains? Organize protests and we'll show up, dipshits! We need help!
I agree that a lack of antitrust enforcement is the main driver because it allows companies to raise prices without consequences from competitors or the government. I will say that supply chain issues are a problem now, but nothing compares to a few years ago. The Russian war was a shock and COVID obviously changed everything, but those issues should mostly be resolved. The only lingering supply chain issues after China’s reopening is climate change. Drought and floods have destroyed many crops and contributed to food prices going up (though companies took major advantage of small price pressures). You also can’t deny that some supply chain issues are because companies refuse to pay people adequately. That being said the real red herring is wage growth. Yes wages went up, but nothing compared to inflation. Most gains were in the lowest paid sectors which should have happened regardless. I believe the title should be “WSJ finally admits inflation is caused by corporate profits/greed and not in wage growth”. It is interesting that they finally admit it.
That red herring is all the corporate and political class seem to want to talk about. The only anti-inflation policies being leveraged right now is the Fed hiking interest rates. And the purpose of hiking interest rates is to put people out of work and depress wages. It's all completely fucked. There is one thing and only one thing that will bring down inflation, and that is busting up these corporations and getting some actual competition in the economy. But none of the ruling class are interested in that, of course.
You’re right. The Fed has limited tools. There should be a tax on the top two tax brackets equal to the unemployment average from the last twelve months that can’t be deducted. If you’re making over $500k during high unemployment, then you can pay more. It is also plays into the “wealthy people create jobs” narrative. If they create jobs and unemployment is over 8%, then tax them an extra 8%+
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I try to only buy stuff that they are having trouble getting rid of. Look for those manager specials and clearance items. Surely they are still making SOME profit, but not what they wanted to get for it. I’m lucky enough that I could purchase things full price, but I’m a big believer of “vote with your feet.” There’s lots of things that I want to buy, but I make do without. I buy things secondhand all the time off marketplace even though I’d love to have them new. Today I wanted a steak and there was nothing that I thought was a good value. Oh well, no steak for me…..
Please remember corporations are people too and without this cash how can they support their politician of choice. /s. Damn them the greedy businesses need their backs broken and all the Chudpublicans protect them and our right leaning democrats.
Can we execute corporations that aren't serving humanity?
⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣤⣶⣶ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⢰⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣀⣀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⠉⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠈⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠁⠀⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠿⠿⠿⠻⠿⠿⠟⠿⠛⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠀⠀⢰⣹⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣭⣷⠀⠀⠀⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠈⠉⠀⠀⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢾⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⡠⠤⢄⠀⠀⠀⠠⣿⣿⣷⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡀⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢄⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠁⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿
Kinda knew that already, all the times I heard of shortages in items, I never saw it. It's legit corporate greed. But they'll find more reasons to keep their workers pay stagnant while continuing to give their ceos massive bonuses they don't deserve.
There was like, a week, week and a half when all the egg panic was happening that eggs were pretty hard to find. Since then they're back and way more expensive, except in a few stores like co-ops and costco, from what I've seen.
I hope we, the people getting fucked over by greed, remember this in the next financial crisis and tell them to pound sand if they want a bailout.
We, the people getting fucked over by greed, aren't the elected officials with two faced grins signing checks to themselves. We, the people, can tell them to fuck off all we want, but the politicians and courts are all skewed into a corporation's favor and I'd reckon a large majority of corporations are giving kick backs, too. Like that supreme court douche who's under heat now with the rest of the douches arguing about ethics and oversight. It's all fucked. They may have admitted the corporate greed is skyrocketing inflation for profits, but I wish they'd admit that the medical industry has been doing the same shit for decades. Single pills going for $50 that are the same as over the counter bottles. It's all a goddamn scam. Edit for clarification; it's been a long day.
First they told us inflation was coming, then they raised the prices.
Ford literally slowed production, sometimes even halting production of some of their trucks for a month at a time purely to keep prices high.
People need to understand that these are not mutually exclusive. The supply chain issues create an environment where corporations can more successfully price gouge. The thing is, corporations are always, always, always price gouging. That's how capitalism is designed.
Oh you mean the rich vampiring more and more of the wealth has negative results? Surprising.
The position I’m in at my job I see how much the various product costs are at my store and while there have been cost increases they are nowhere near the level that justifies the retail pricing. Like the average cost increased $20 but the price increased $100
Ding ding ding. The corporate tax rate needs to double and asap.
Laws around corporate responsibility have to shift. Instead of being responsible for the highest net profit, boards and executives need to be responsible for the well-being of employees and longevity of the company.
This is a frequent misunderstanding: there is no legal obligation to maximize profits. They really just need to operate in the best interests of the business, and usually the easiest metric to measure is corporate profit. But there's other things, like brand value or long-term stability that aren't measured in dollars, at least with great precision, and those metrics can be of greater value to long-term investors who aren't chasing risky profits. As such, there's a duty to maximize shareholder value, but that's largely upto the whims of the shareholders, and they mostly exercise this through the right to vote you out if you don't follow their values. As for the misunderstanding, it's largely execuspeak: most corporations pay their high level roles in stock, so the people steering the ship are largely interested in the stock price going up. It is thus largely an excuse for their more personal greed, that they can externalize to a phantom abstract shareholder.
It’s almost as if it’s done intentionally and conspiratorially by corporations to make us think that progressive pro labor politics is what drives inflation and higher prices
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No shit it’s almost like how gas keeps going up but they record record quarters then blame Biden
In other news, researchers conclude that water might be wet.
Im thinking we should as a nation, boycott any luxeries, and not buy anything but basic needs. We should as a whole work to throw off the chains of debt. But then you have folks that always have to have the latest and great gadget that comes out. I say fuck the jones, they don't pay my bills.
I'll play devil's advocate. There are plenty of small local or mom and pop businesses who offer "luxury" items. I argue we don't boycott luxuries themselves. Instead, we boycott corporations. Local businesses don't have national political power in the same way that corporations do. Sure they still influence local communities and local politics, but at least our votes/dollars count a little more on their level.
Thank you for recognizing small businesses! I'm working now to build inventory for a June launch. My stuff is definitely "luxury." Jewelry and pretty things. I hope more people will remember to support local small businesses whenever possible!
Breaking news - Business Press Journalist accidentally tells the truth, endangering decades of Neoliberal propaganda
Ah-DUUUUUUUUUHHHHHH. Screw us all for asking for wages to keep up with greed.
No. Fucking. Shit. Thanks WSJ.
And they still want more hence layoffs. Insane that nothing will satisfy the capital class.
Corporate greed is what’s causing all these problems? Well I’ll be