In April, Société Générale economist Albert Edwards released a scathing note saying he hadn’t seen anything like the current levels of corporate greed in his four decades working in finance. He said companies were using the war in Ukraine as an excuse to hike prices in search of profits.
“The end of Greedflation must surely come. Otherwise, we may be looking at the end of capitalism,” Edwards wrote. “This is a big issue for policymakers that simply cannot be ignored any longer.”
No surprise there, really. Those corporations were posting record high profits… In an environment of “real” high inflation those companies don’t get to increase their profits and their margins like that. Yet most news publications lend then a microphone for them to spread their lies instead of calling their bullshit. It’s not inflation, it’s greed. Why would they want you to pay less instead of more? It’s not like capitalism was invented yesterday. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
An economist worth his salt should be considering. “Why didn’t this happen earlier?” Instead of being “shocked”.
We actually already know the answer to that. In a normal environment raising prices is something consumers are very sensitive to. But when there’s already inflation consumers are very bad at gauging what the new price should be. The corporations know this and have for some time. They were just waiting for a good moment to raise their prices.
They absolutely do get to increase their profits and margins like that. They did, and they will again.
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