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The price of Huggies diapers went up 6% between April- June 2023. Inflation, right? Wrong. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Huggies, reported that the cost to make its products fell by $75 million.They took the money and ran, banking $168 million in operating profits in Q3 2023. Now, new research shows that corporate profits drove 53% of inflation during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2023. During the 40 years prior to the pandemic, profits drove just 11% of price growth. 117 comments
 We’re sorry, but your post lacks any kind of reference or documentation. You will have to re-apply with corroborative documentation before we can acknowledge your personhood.    @rbreich The tobacco industry is an old hand at this- whenever tax on tobacco was increased, the industry would add a bit more on, so that they hid behind the tax.  @rbreich Until we start erecting gallows, they will never stop profiteering on our necessities. Corporate death penalty is sorely needed. I have also argued for a strong form of ‘financial imprisonment’ or financial ‘house arrest’ as a response to serious ‘white collar’ crime.  @DavidM_yeg @rbreich @NosirrahSec Financial house arrest as in no income but basic income?  @rbreich This goes a long way to explaining what’s happening right now in the stock market. Profits are through the roof despite high interest rates and increased household debt.  @rbreich So you are a pro economist - I'm just an amateur....  @jab01701mid @rbreich Yeah. You just described the process of rationalizing greed. You can call it lots of things but basing prices on the maximum you can force people to pay is greedy, especially when the product is a basic need (in the modern sense of the word need). @medley56 @jab01701mid @rbreich competition used to be a hedge against this, but not anymore with no antitrust enforcement (thanks Reagan et al). You can't really go across the street for a better deal when the same corporate holding company owns the mattress store or eyeglass retailer across the street too. And with dozens of brands under each, many people don't really even realize which industries have basically already become cartels. @medley56 @jab01701mid @rbreich You're interpreting that as a rationalization. But the previous poster is just describing what actually happened. People saved money during the pandemic. Corporations--which are always greedy as their natural state--saw the opportunity and raised prices. Due to inelastic demand and supply issues they were successful at raising prices and they're approaching the end game of confiscating all those savings. @lamont @jab01701mid @rbreich I think we agree on all points in terms of what has occurred. It’s not OK that our economic system works this way.  @rbreich We've made an economy that's a zero-sum gain. "Excess Savings" results in increased prices without a change in demand or price to produce, because the economy is mostly composed of monopolies and coordinated actor (trusts without being called trusts).    @rbreich cloth. In all seriousness people managed with cloth diapers for hundreds of years. Fuck landfill choking disposables. @CatDragon @rbreich Millions of people don't have personal laundry machines and most commercial laundries don't allow diapers for sanitary reasons. And cloth diaper services are way too expensive for most people, too. This is another one of those situations where we have to solve the economic problem before we can solve the environmental one. @textualdeviance @rbreich do you really think your great grandma had a washing machine or a laundromat? @CatDragon @rbreich My great grandma died after ruining her body with 9 kids because she didn't have access to birth control. Fetishizing low-tech eras without thinking about the enormous body counts those involve is ridiculous. @textualdeviance @rbreich fetishizing? @CatDragon @rbreich And people who live in urban areas and are working two jobs would have the time, energy and skills to do all this when, exactly? Your little cottagecore life works for you, and that's fine. But it's not how modern life works for millions of other people. @textualdeviance @rbreich not cottage core, been doing this my entire life, urban, suburban, and rural. Worked a good 50-60 hours a week and raised two kids. Is everyone able to do it? No. But if you can you should. Disposable everything is killing us. @CatDragon Do you vote for Democrats in every election? Because I guarantee you that a person who uses disposable diapers but votes every time is doing way more for the planet than a non-voter who thinks their homesteading skills make them morally superior. Individual actions don't have anywhere near the same impact on climate change that changes in public policy do. @textualdeviance I vote and attend every town meeting, even the reaaaally boring ones. @textualdeviance also WHY homesteading skills as a description ?  @rbreich Price is how the market apportions scarcity. The alternative is government rationing. That's one explanation. Another is companies charge whatever the market will bear - in other words, the highest price they can squeeze out of consumers. Yet another is when companies let greed get the better of them and just continue to charge far more than they need after circumstances have changed and scarcity &/or production costs no longer justify prices.  @rbreich It's great that we have research to back this up, but we can see it happening right in front of us. They're reporting HUGE profits while we're paying for high INFLATION. You don't have to have a phd in economics to figure out this math.  @GhostOnTheHalfShell @rbreich it's just price discovery. You just raise your prices and see what the market will bear. Clearly people are willing to pay the prices for the convenience vs going back to cloth diapers (which as a poor 80s kid, we used)
  @textualdeviance @rbreich You get killed slowly with Biden and killed quickly with Trump. If the left in the US got off their a$$, out of their high paying charity board jobs and off their twitter (or fedi these days) feeds, they might be able to turn out NON-voters and push biden to the left on israel, , so that they then endorse him. But no. Lol @luciedigitalni @Libby_ @rbreich it used to be called “price fixing” but i guess that has too many negative connotations that people are afraid to say it out loud?  @luciedigitalni @Libby_ @rbreich collusion was recently proven. it’s just laundered with “algorithms” @luciedigitalni @Libby_ @rbreich like… if you have a computer program to change your store prices the microsecond your competition does, is an actual conversation to agree to do that needed? @rbreich the story of our lives... what exactly can we do to expose this global situation?  Jus' wunnerin' if they made any statements or had mouth-talkers come out to coo and patronize the go-to single mother or struggling family, lamenting their self-inflated cost of diapers during that time. Or were they at least smart enough to STFU while stealing candy from babies?  Well, at least the rich get even richer by milking all the dumb peasants, right? I wonder when people will ever realize that at least half of our problems, if not much, much more, would be solved, if you disown all the billionaires and millionaires + make it impossible for people to earn such money + put a cap of wealth + set all land to belong to the state. Canadian grocery shoppers are familiar with the model, monopolies make sure, there are three , all with record profits.  This is true. Inflation based in profit-stealing, disgustingly, are driving inflation, and you can calculate what cost increases ALSO drive inflation, and calculate which is just "gimme." AND some of the "cost" portion of a products price rise is THEIR suppliers profit-stealing, suppliers who have NO cost increases. Here is the 10Q for Q3 2023: The operating profit of $168 million is reported for the business segment 'K-C Professional' that does not include Huggies.  @rbreich Guillotines are really easy to make. The French national library has the plans online. Just sayin.   @rbreich unfortunately we are all slaves of the system. What is a parent gonna do? NOT buy diapers for their infant? Someone would call Child Protective Services so fast they wouldn't have time to say "Child Protective Services"😬 @rbreich This is why basic necessities can't be left to profiteering. The more basic the need (ie, utilities and housing), the worse the gouging. I totally get the need for free-market, but there are places where we need to say, "Hands off!", even if we start regulating just one industry at a time. "Inflation, right? Wrong" No ... I'm pretty sure that's still called 'inflation'. But I'm no economist, so ... sure. Whatever. Edit: I should note that I agree that that the profiteering, using inflation (or the media talk giving rise to a public expectation of inflation) as an excuse, is as lamentable as it is common. But at the end of the day, the price went up, eroding purchasing power, which pretty much = inflation, as I understand it. @rbreich This would be a very useful stat, depending on the source - can you point to the research? Screw over the poor, blame Dem president. Gop president, reduce prices and then say how great of a job he is doing. (Always a he). It's a conspiracy writ so large as to be unbelievable. I said this decades ago, and it remains true.  @rbreich @rbreich best way is organic cotton wraps.. hot water wash machine that.. less infections on kids.. esp female infants.. what ? people are lazy. IMHO FDT / FVP  @rbreich Ordinary people have 'known' the drivers of inflation, but Reserve Banks keep telling us that we - the ones who have to spend our incomes - are the drivers!   @rbreich Overt profiteering by companies that support the gop. A conspiracy if criminality by the gop. @rbreich The worst part is they've already gotten away with it. Earning per-share for all S&P 500 companies vs US inflation rate. The biggest companies in the US raised their prices to drive record earnings when interest rates were low. Now they will downsize their workforces as inflation eases and the fed cools the economy. Notice how earnings haven't slowed as much as inflation, though. Still taking profits while they can. here's our little socialist troll, reich making sure nothing is blamed on the illegitimate government and all the blame goes to those evil capitalists @rbreich Mark of capitalism's dominance over the government. Pretty much an oligarchy now. @rbreich greed! Guess they needed that extra to build their own apocalypse proof, underground bunker? |
Gregory's Server
News flash: Corporations used "inflation" as cover to squeeze more money out of you."