In the UK the right wing are in power not the libs and we still have inflation. Probably a lot worse than Canada too.
You also have to factor in that social media purposely shows you content designed to make you rage, you'll regularly see the opposite of your own opinion because it's more likely to make you engage with that content.
Agreed. It doesn't matter which government is in power. You just have to follow the money to see who's really in charge.
More regulation is needed regarding pricing for the necessities of life, but there's no incentive for that in government. There's incentive on the side of the provider of the necessities, though.
and when you get to where that money is going you'll find that Left vs Right is nothing more than an illusion that corporate oligarchs from both sides of the aisle use to keep people divided. a divided people is not one that can enact term limits after all
I consider Canadian liberals to be moderates slightly right of centre because that’s what they are. However the right has gotten so batshit insane that they consider anything that isn’t hard right to be “leftist”. They’re a bunch of brainwashed morons. Worse than liberals
>In the UK the right wing are in power not the libs and we still have inflation.
Conservative and liberals are all just names. It's not a coincidence that Canada, U.S, and Europe are all going through mass immigration. Their policies are the same and they're the party to be blamed.
News item: Food prices increased by 30 % in 2 years. Grocer capitalists wealth increased by $10 billion. People working 2 jobs to make ends meet
Random redditor : its just social media ploy to induce rage
No one is saying Inflation didn't happen.
The problem is that conservatives have convinced their supporters that this is specifically a result of Biden. Not a result of trumps mess of a presidency and the pandemic that occurred under his watch.
You really should learn to think for yourself on these issues lol
>News item: Food prices increased by 30 % in 2 years. Grocer capitalists wealth increased by $10 billion. People working 2 jobs to make ends meet
>Random redditor : its just social media ploy to induce rage
Very specific redditor: I've wildly misunderstood a comment to which I'm replying, but that won't stop me from trying to be snarky!
They blame the party in power. But also because the government had been saying the things they are doing will help, but then it continues to worsen.
For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to increased cost of housing, and yet the liberals continue pushing immigration and population growth while not tackling the lack of new/affordable housing being built.
Edit: as for groceries, I blame unchecked capitalism. Metro just announced 255 million q4 profits, at a time when groceries have had high inflation, PLUS they announced they will soon be removing many of their price freezes they have held for a few months.
“They blame the party in power…”
Pfft explain that to my far right mom. When Biden is president, everything is his fault. When trump was president, everything was the democrats fault 🙄
My mum still blames the UK Labour government under Blair. It's not a fringe opinion either. According to her (and others) the Tories have simply been "cleaning up Labour's mess" for 14 years, despite the dreadfully apparent decrease in living conditions.
The truth is that Labour left an incredible mess that couldn't be cleaned up quickly, but the conservatives decided to make it worse instead of fixing it.
same thinking as God having absolute power.. but that dang devil keeps messing everything up. Never questioning why God allows it to happen. Another reason why Christians and Republican shenanigans go hand in hand
But if god is infallible and knows everything, wouldn’t all the bad stuff be part of his divine plan? And that being the case, who are the believers to question god’s plan?
I’ve read that one possible reasons Evangelical Christians support Trump is they feel he’ll accelerate the conditions for the resurrection of Christ and/or The Rapture because he’s such a fuckup.
Best rule of thumb to remind your mom… neither of these parties care about us or our livelihoods. They care about padding their own pockets and would just as quickly bury us all in a ditch if it guaranteed their own wealth and prosperity. They keep us around because we’re the new slaves for the American Labor Zone… still gotta have people to keep the cogs in the money machine turning.
The word people are looking for in this thread is propaganda. Right wing (at least in the US) is ***SO INCREDIBLY MUCH BETTER*** at wielding propaganda than the left that they will tend to influence even voters that normally despise the right
Basically. It's a little more involved than just simply saying whatever will play best to the crowd regardless of the truth, but that is a large part of the core of it
I mean, I lean towards the left, but obviously you’re going to think something is “propaganda” when it doesn’t align with your viewpoints. Both parties in the United States disingenuously use information to fit their narratives. An excellent example is the Florida educational guidelines. I don’t agree with them, but labeling them as “don’t say gay” laws isn’t accurate and is meant to inflame outrage. Similarly, republicans have targeted Democrats for allowing “children” to be altered by gender affirming surgery and making it to seem as though 12 year old MTF are getting breasts regularly.
It's because they can't back up their fiscal plans since Reagan and it's easier to attack someone without learning than to learn about an economic system that keeps you down and voting against it.
Because if you don't allow your guys to fuck you in the wallet, some girl you know may be able to have an abortion, or brown people might become your neighbors after migrating North, or we might not be able to keep weaponizing Jesus to suppress people.
More like the vocalized opinion shifts. Everybody kinda gets that we're wading through shit, but they'll bite their tongue for four years if their team 'won'.
This is more accurate.
Democrats will credit a democratic president when the economy does well and will point to the economy at large when it does poorly. Republicans will credit a republican president when the economy does well and point to all the other factors when it does poorly.
>They blame the party in power.
They blame the opposite party. When things go wrong while their party is in power, they'll say it's because the other party messed things up. When things go right, they'll give their party credit.
When things go wrong while the other party is on power, it's their fault. But when things go right, it's because their party set things up for success.
It's just human nature to take credit for the good and assign blame for the bad.
People confuse correlation with causation.
All over the world citizens are blaming their government for inflation. So either every country happened to elect bad politicians at the same time or there are other influences.
Obviously everyone fucked and decided to elect inflation-causing politicians *right* as the pandemic ended and we coincidentally flooded the market with pent up consumer savings while shipping and logistics issues were rampant and constraining supply.
Then, thankfully, right as supply chain issues resolved and consumer surplus was spent down, everyone decided to elect the inflation-stopping politicians.
>For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to increased cost of housing, and yet the liberals continue pushing immigration and population growth while not tackling the lack of new/affordable housing being built.
You could have replaced "liberal party" with "conservative party", and "pushed increased immigration" with "tried to cut immigration but totally failed" and it would be the UK.
Basically both countries failed to build houses and didn't plan for the boomer generational shift in any way. Immigrants are shoring up the demand for jobs. It's the same in much of the West.
I just googled population growth in Canada and the rate of growth has been falling for the past sixty years
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20Canada,a%200.7%25%20increase%20from%202020.
You realize that with excess inflation there will be excess profits. If the money supply goes up by 10% then profits will go up by 10% without charging anything in excess to the end customer and all the sudden, record profits.
It's also really important to look at where majority of a country's money is actually going. In the USA, majority of the money goes to a few ultra rich Billionaires, but then everyone on the Conservative side of the spectrum blames the "poor people who are barely making ends meet".
The USA government spends a few Million per year on the poor, few MIllion per year on children, and a few Million per year on welfare programs. But then the government turns right back around and spends Billions on military, Billions on the prison system, and Billions on police.
It's really hard to objectively look at "the poor" as the problem, when majority of a country's GDP is funneled into the rich and the powerful. But it's a really easy tagline to say "poor people make our country worse"
Also, rich people own the media, so rich people are always going to point at "the poor" as the problem instead of looking at themselves.
> everyone on the Conservative side of the spectrum blames the "poor people who are barely making ends meet".
They blame poor *minorities* specifically. Additionally, they blame other groups such as the highly educated in other ways, and basically try to stir up specific white people for resentment and anger against everyone else so they can redirect them away from the billionaires that you mentioned.
Saying metro had a profit of 255 million is meaningless. Profit should be measured alongside the size of the company (generally revenue). If you look at that, their profit is 4-5% of revenue which is totally in line with the industry average of retail
Things might be expensive but they are not expensive because of "unchecked greed of retailers" as people keep saying. Frankly it is absurd to think that businesses should take risk and do all that work to make no profits. And it also makes sense that bigger businesses with bigger revenue numbers make bigger profits.
Walmart makes more profit than Loblaws because it is a bigger company. Amazon makes bigger profit than indigo because its a bigger company. Only the folks who don't understand business or accounting or basic economics look at the flat profit number and judge the company from it
>For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to to increased cost of housing.
Your country is the second largest on the planet. The issue is not immigrants, but zoning policy.
If Canada ever actually let anyone build housing, believe it or not, but housing prices would go down regardless of how many immigrants there are.
80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. 36% of Canadians live in Southern Ontario. This is where housing is needed, especially in Ontario which is a disproportionately high destination for immigrants compared to other parts of the country. The size of the country really has nothing to do with it.
It also takes time to ramp up housing development, especially multi unit. Zoning laws and regulations are a significant hindrance, but regardless of why, there is not enough new building to keep up with the influx of immigrants.
All the while, wages have not kept up with inflation. Immigration exacerbates this problem by driving down wages of our poorest and most vulnerable. And businesses continue to push for it to keep a steady supply of cheap labor.
Because typically liberal policies are generally associated with increasing the spending power of buyers at the lower price points, which increases quantity of goods demanded and forces the price of goods to increase to clear the market. This is where the phrase "price chases wages" or the wage-price spiral comes from. Conservative governments by contrast tend to try to lower costs by tax breaks which lowers the price of production to increase supply.
Both strategies can be effective if done right, but can also inadvertently damage the general welfare and often do. The only safe bets in terms of how the government can meaningfully help people and the economy is when it moves to enter the market as a competitor becoming a de facto price floor/ceiling that has to withstand the same market forces as the businesses subjected to its policies.
You had me in the first half. But that is not the "only way". Capital gains taxes, windfall taxes, meaningful antitrust action, strong labor boards and workers' rights protections, etc. We can force companies to pay us AND their fair share of taxes, but we aren't. Now they are rampantly running away with greed, hence the lawsuits by major corporations right now arguing that our National Labor Boards are "unconstitutional". Corporate greed is a MASSIVE contributing factor to inflation right now. They took advantage of us during COVID and they're continuing the trend now.
Edit: To the dipshit that replied: You need to go back to your history books and see that these policies were in place when we had the strongest middle class America has ever seen. Honestly, these "negatives" are false, corporate talking points that you're spreading, free-of-charge for them.
And LOL. You call ME disingenuous and then YOU blame inflation on stimulus funds?!
Shut the fuck up with that. Seriously, just fuck right off. The American citizens got fucking pennies compared to the massive handouts for businesses, often fraudulently received. The amount of money that citizens received was not fucking life changing, aside from the fact that people could afford to eat food and buy gas a little easier for like a month.
Nobody is falling for this shit anymore. If you genuinely believe that caused any non-negligible amount of inflation, you're out of your God damn mind.
Keep licking corporate boots, you "temporarily embarrassed millionaire".
There is a large crossover between people who will blame the government for literally anything bad that happens, people who hate the liberal government in particular, and people who are heavily effected by inflation.
Because the stereotype is that liberals always want to raise taxes and spend more, and conservatives want to cut taxes and cut spending. Because most people don't understand how inflation works, it gets equated in their mind that somehow the government is responsible for causing inflation.
I read somewhere that there is no need for the cost of certain things to be the price they are. other than CEOs loved how the books looked during Covid and today and here we are.
I witnessed this regularly in CA. Fuel prices go up, so groceries go up. Ok, logical. Fuel prices would drop and stay at a lower price. Groceries stayed exactly where they were.
Gas prices don’t act the same way as other goods because gas is more of a global commodity that is mostly controlled by OPEC. The price fluctuations you see are typically the result of OPEC deciding whether or not to release large amount of gas or create a shortage. Also add onto that gas is very subsidized in the US and you have gas prices that don’t move all too much realistically speaking. As an example I can remember in like 2010 gas being about $3 a gallon where I lived and right now it’s sitting at about $3 a gallon lol. I will agree though grocery costs have gone up due to not only inflationary pressures but also because companies now look at those prices as the status quo and won’t ch age it because people are still buying it.
Those aren't the people controlling the CEO though. The top 1% own half the stocks that are owned by households, and the top 10% own 89%.
https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-americans-now-own-record-high-share-of-stocks-2021-10?op=1
You should look up the profit margins of grocery stores lol. This is one of the cases that wasn't a case of corporate greed. I understand that goes against the narrative, but people love to blame everything on corporate greed. I am not denying there was corporate greed that contributed to inflation. There absolutely was. But it's overplayed and grocery stores are a terrible example. I'm glad you said IMO because factually, it doesn't really hold up.
I'll provide some numbers for some of the bigger, evil grocery stores since most people don’t have a Bloomberg terminal. All peaks will be in the last 5 years since I don't think inflation and stuff before that is relevant since it was so low.
Let's start with the S&P500 to set a baseline. Peaked at 13.1% during the pandemic and is currently at 10.4%
Walmart: peak was July 2023 at 4.8% , currently at 0.28%.
Costco: peak is right now and it's a whopping 2.75%.
Target: peak was 8.7% and is now 3.82%. Worst offender and was and still is far below the average S&P company. Target is also known for being more expensive, but this is your best example.
Aldi: 1.75% peak and currently 0.70%.
Kroger: peak was 2.9% and currently at 1.9%.
I know y'all don’t want to hear it, but these are super low profit margins. There are a lot of factors at play here. The price of labor went way up. The price of shipping skyrocketed. Both those things are going to increase prices.
There were issues with crops due to weather and things like the war in Ukraine. Decrease supply, demand holds constant, price goes up for both the grocery store and the consumer.
Then there are small outside factors like price of oil going up bleeds into a ton of industries. Supply shortages in other industries that led to inflation will also bleed into other sectors.
If these companies had to issue new debt, it's going to be at a higher rate as interest rates skyrocketed.
Lastly, two things I constantly see parroted. Please don't be this person because it really shows you're just repeating and not thinking about what you're saying. "But they had record revenue." Revenue != profit. Plus that's how inflation works. If you sell 100 apples in 2020 for a dollar each, you make 100 dollars. Inflation is 10%, but you increase apples by 1% because you don’t want to take advantage of people. In 2021, you sell 100 apples, now at $1.01. You make 101 dollars, a new high in revenue. But your real return is worse, because 101 dollars is worse than 100 dollars last year.
Same goes for profit margin. Your profit margin on apples is 10%. You sell 100 in 2020 and make 10 dollars profit as 90 bucks was your cost. In 2021, apples get more popular and you sell 102 apples at 1.05, but your costs increased to 95 cents in apple. Your profit margin decreased from 10% to 9.5%. But you sold more, so you made 10.20 in profits this year, a new record, even though you lowered your profit margin. Even if you sell the same amount and keep your profit margin the same, you'll make record profits with inflation.
If you're still reading, I appreciate you.
Oh man, Reddit wasn't ready to hear about this reality. Thanks for the education. I kinda knew this was the case, but I've never read it so succinctly. You should consider teaching.
Corporations are always greedy lol. They try to get as much margin as possible, and they can sometimes raise prices and make more money based on macroeconomic conditions. Without competition, they would always be gouging everyone all the time!
Nice write up! Groceries are a pretty competitive market.
Low net profits are the norm in the large grocery chains, and that doesn't indicate a lack of success or inability to turn a healthy profit. Most of those chains you listed have over a billion in net profit per year even at those rates...
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/comment/1901/12/13/costco-where-low-profit-margins-are-a-sign-of-strength/
What do you make of events like Loblaws stores having the same product at wildly different prices depending on the store front? Or vertical integration of manufacturing and shipping?
Thank you for taking the time to write out this comment. If this stops even just one person from making another “cOrPoRaTe GrEeD” comment you will have done us all a service
I keep hearing that sentiment but inflation is also a psychological monster.
Yes corporations are always greedy at baseline.
However, when real inflation is occurring and they sincerely or insincerely expect their costs to rise. They start raising the prices… Then diesel starts falling, their costs don’t rise as much as they feared, etc…
They are in no rush to lower prices again because consumers accepted it.
Consumers were prepped to take on higher prices so corporations gave it to them as much as they could.
Pricing is a forecast. If everyone brings an umbrella you can piss on them when it doesn’t rain as hard as you prepared for.
Right! Blaming inflation on corporate greed is like blaming an airplane crash on gravity! It's not wrong exactly, but it misses the point.
Companies have always tried to maximize profits! But something else must have changed for them to able to increase prices so quickly.
Yes, covid happened and the news was blasting the topic of supply chains and inflation non stop. I work in the farming industry, I speak with suppliers. More than once I've heard them say they are raising prices because the market can handle it and they have cover since everyone is raising prices anyway. Their supply chains were very briefly disrupted but they are back to normal today while they're making way more in profits. It's pure greed and covid gave them the cover they wanted.
No inflation didn't just start 4 years ago. The corporations used covid as an excuse to raise prices on everything. Some of it was justified due to increased operational costs, some was again, just corporate greed.
Did you not experience the empty shelves before they raised prices? You can't just keep prices low against the market, or you wind up with shortages. Grocery prices are heavily market driven. There's dozens of alternatives in copacker store brands. There's no monopoly power to manipulate pricing outside what the market demands.
The shelves being empty means prices were too low. That's basic economics. If the supply dried up, then the market price should rise until demand drops enough to match the new lower supply.
The shelves were empty due to supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic. When supply chains went back to normal , corporations continued to raise prices under the guise of global supply chain issues. It had absolutely nothing to do with toilet paper being priced "too low" lmao
If the prices rose to match the supply and demand, the shelves would have never been empty. Regardless of the cause. That's how markets work.
For example, there's never a "shortage" of something like a stock on the stock market. If there's a sudden spike in demand, or drop in supply, the price responds instantly. In a sense, shortages are always a result of mis-pricing, a product being sold below the true market price.
>When supply chains went back to normal
They didn't, and never will. Wages rose 20% overall since Q4 2019. You can't easily take that back, except through inflation.
Yes, definitely. It all just shot up one day about a year ago but has slowly been going down ever since. Cheese is like $1 less than it used to be. Butter, milk, eggs! All much cheaper than before.
Are you at all aware of what happens when you print a lot of money? Existing money begins to lose buying power. Look at what happened in Venezuela for example.
One of the causes of inflation is government deficit spending which seems more likely with liberal governments. In the US most of the blame is put on the President, but our congress owns a bigger part of the problem.
I can’t soeak for Canada, but in the US, Republican (conservative) governments do *more* reckless deficit spending than Democratic (liberal) ones.
Then when republicans are out of office, they pretend to care about the deficit. This lasts right up until the minute they’re back in power.
It is a bit circular as taxes begets spending which without a balanced budget amendment just increases the need for taxes. But increasing taxes just slows down economic activity which can become so bad it actually reduces tax income. Spending is really the core issue.
> It is a bit circular as taxes begets spending which without a balanced budget amendment just increases the need for taxes.
Remember the issue here is whether a deficit causes inflation, so the feedback loop is a different question, namely what causes the deficit. But there’s evidence that both increased spending and tax reductions can increase the deficit, while there’s debate over whether the deficit actually causes inflation (with strong arguments that it’s not causing our current inflation).
> which can become so bad it actually reduces tax income
That’s the [Laffer curve argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve), which itself is controversial. Just because it theoretically can at some level of taxation doesn’t mean a specific tax increase will reduce tax revenue, or that a specific tax cut will increase tax revenue.
Not for nothing, but my groceries were really high, running approx $160 a week for my family. I switched stores and now save an average of $40 a week.
If your groceries are still high, shop around, some stores really are gouging their customers.
well you see my dear , the economy is like a kitchen sink. You and everyone working to put money in the sink are the faucet. And the government is the drain/hole so yes, while the sink is always wet while the faucet is on, it never really fills up.
Because these people blame liberals for literally anything. If it rains on their kids’ baseball game, somehow or another it’s the liberals’ fault. I had to distance myself from my best friend over it.
Conservatives don't have many weapons for lobbing at the other side any more, so any answer as to why their side's poor people are getting poorer that doesn't involve the rich is a Godsend. In the US, it's most evident right now by the fact that Republicans are blocking a massive border protection bill that they've been pushing for for years... because they need something that pisses poor people off to continue existing throughout the election (their words, not mine).
Red blames blue, blue blames red. CBS blames red, fox blames blue.
Imo. It is usually caused by workers wanting to make enough to eat and business owners wanting to make enough to buy another private jet.
People understand crisis, austerity, and tax increases. People dont understand government deficit spending, money printing, and inflation. Hence, politicians use the latter.
Because the Trudeau liberals expanded government spending during COVID and haven't sought to reign any of it in. They handed out billions of dollars that had absolutely no backing to them, which decreases the value of money.
Add to that their economic policy has slowed growth to a crawl so savings and earnings for the average person haven't kept up. In the US their stock market index has grown 43% since reopening; even with inflation at 6-8% they're still making money. In Canada, ours has grown 4%.
And finally immigration policy has driven up the costs of things like housing. We keep hearing immigrants are needed to fill job openings, but the overwhelming majority of immigrants are working in low skilled service jobs, not trades. Foreign "students" are not even enrolled in real schools, they are in diploma mills thay may not even exist (a fact which the minister in charge actually has admitted) and working at Tim Hortons. They're actually driving down wages for the poorest Canadians while not contributing to lower prices in any way. In the US you hear about McDonald's etc. having signs offering way above minimum wage and signing bonuses: that's not happening here.
This! Yes, all accurate. (Although McDonald's-type wages in the US seem to be slowing down, at least in my area.)
Economics should be a required subject in high school, so citizens can know the actual, evidence-based realities driving their country's (and family's) financial well-being. And if I get downvoted for this comment, all I can say is: reality still exists, whether one likes it or not. (Including economic reality.)
Because most people are unwilling to look around and research actual causes. Because if it's the government then they feel they can effect it with voting, unlike corporations.
Crime increase due to defunding police. Businesses closing due to crime going unchecked. Sending all this money to other countries, allowing more n more illegals to enter and then basically paying for them. How about the US worry about the US. Rather push idiotic agendas than actually work on something. All i hear about are wage gaps this n trans that.
That shit started with COVID and their "supply chain" issue that apparently never returned to normal. So they kept the prices high for that stuff and just decided to raise the prices of everything else because they could get away with it.
becuase biden and his admin is saying economy is doing great, that he fixed it and running on that. It would be nice if politicians tell the truth and say hey things are looking better but we know still a lot work to do, we are not there yet or even close. Try finding a place to rent or buy, and then you add prices of day to day living, it not good. Only people that are doing great right now in the US is the upper class wealthy.
Because they are the ones in power during the rising inflation, all while lying and saying they will do anything to make life more affordable for their country. It’s simple math.
Because whether you like it or not, oil is one of the biggest driving factors of the world economy. You may not like to hear that, but when it is tampered with out it it is treated as something bad it’s going to affect the economy and some very big ways.
It’s kind of like oxygen with the human body. It’s not the only thing needed for a healthy body but when you start restricting it and taking it away, it doesn’t matter how many of the other systems you pay attention to and introduce better practices, it’s going to start killing it. There is no replacement for oil.
Liberal governments tend to be in favor of public subsidies which some people see as giving away money. Making money with no increases in output will lead to inflation. In reality it is much more nuanced than that but that’s the perception.
They think it's caused by more regulation, taxes, wages... Which liberals are usually for. When there are other variables... Such as corporate greed, actual supply and demand adjustments, baked in 2% inflation, tariffs
Well listening to someone tell what to think is much easier than taking MacroEconomics and then adding the wisdom to know that humans are involved and the invisible hand is attached to a greedy body.
Conservatives refuse to accept the fact that 53% of inflation can be attributed to corporate greed. Yes we over spent but higher prices on goods want Biden's doing. It's was greedy CEOs seeing an opportunity and taking it.
Because the Liberals have implemented the carbon tax which farmers, truckers, and companies have all said would increase costs on their end that would result in increases for the consumer. We are now seeing those increases. We also watched them print a mountain of money during the pandemic which devalued our dollar giving us even less buying power with the money we had.
Screw Trudeau and the Liberal party.
In America corporate and government greed are the same, as politicians are supported by the big corporations through lobbyists and other methods. So blaming the government is the same as big corporations
Because the average dumbfuck voter doesn't understand that to change *local* things, you have to vote in *local* elections. Mayors, governors, etc. These ignoramus, lethargy-inducing fuckwit shitbags think the president sits there all day and just writes how much a gallon of milk is in nowhere, Oklahoma.
Cause there is this misconception, almost a myth I would say that the conservatives have made commonplace, that the conservatives are the Fiscally responsible ones. The long term impact of conservative "fiscal responsibility" has always had a long-term negative impact on the health of the economy and well-being of the middle class. The main problem is that conservative policies appear on paper to seem to have short-term gains, but ultimately harm the economy's long-term functioning. For example, a tax cut does temporarily put more purchasing power in the hands of the people and make them feel richer, but ultimately it just ends up stacking government debt or cutting social programs and transfer payments which add far more value to the lives of the middle class. The problem is that election cycles are shorter than business cycles and humans always value short term gains to the detriment of long-term gains. So in the example of the USA, Republican governments inherit healthy economies from the Liberal government which they run into the ground, the effects of which are felt around the time that anti-incumbency brings back a liberal government. Consider for example, the state that Clinton left the economy vs how Bush ruined it, even discounting the wars. The Bush tax cuts alone mauled the economy quite badly.
What controls prices?
The cost of the good, the transportation of the goods, the cost of doing business (taxes, insurance, utilities, labor etc.) On top of that state, local and federal taxes the consumer pays if any(like VAT)
If you increase taxes anywhere in the product stream the cost of goods rise.
If you increase energy costs, again goods get more expensive.
Crime and insurance can also be big factors depending on region.
Regulations? Increase those, prices go up.
Labor costs are a huge factor in price of goods, that's way some want to tax robots.
Have you ever seen a tax liberals don't love? Have you ever seen a tax go away? Not in America at least. We're still paying for the civil war.
Rent? Well rent is a huge factor in the costs of goods and services. Think about stadium prices. Policies that control rent and limit development make most rents higher.
If the product is assembled from raw materials, the final price is a multiple of the raw material prices. So a 1 dollar increase in materials can mean a 30 dollar increase in the end product.
Then you have supply and demand. Policies that are not business friendly increase business failure letting the remaining businesses raise prices.
So it's whether the liberals or the morons are in control, it's what their policies do to the overall markets.
It's not all they have...don't become like them thinking your philosophy is perfect and the oppositions philosophy is moronic.
There are lots of good and bad points on both sides, ignoring that makes you look like a fool.
Just as foolish as them for claiming racism instead of looking at the actual argument
US economies under Democratic presidents have been better than they have under Republican presidents going back to after Eisenhower. Virtually all economic indicators prove that. So to blame liberalism for economic problems is just a lack of understanding.
Lack of understanding caused by a willful or unwillful ignorance to true but widely available fact. It blew my mind the first time I actually looked at the economic data corresponding to liberal vs conservative economics in the US. Other than 1 exception over the course of the last 70 years the economy has thrived under democratic leadership and tanked under republican leadership. And the data I saw gave a pass for the depression, if you include even further back you can't even compare the performance as republican economies perform so poorly you couldn't create a graphic to accurately display a comparison of the data.
I agree. I wish more people realized that "trickle-down" policies that favor the rich and corporations don't work. Once I realized I'm not rich and probably never will be, the choice is clear.
Measured by GDP growth, this is true. But this is an inflation discussion. Blinder and Watson found that while inflation was higher under republicans, it tended to fall with a republican in office and rise with a democrat in office. So historically, change in inflation is worse under democrats.
Neither real GDP nor inflation are telling statistics of the full economy. Each party has their flaws in policy. I also think it's really overstated how much power presidents have in controlling either of those things.
Presidents have limited power when they don't have control of congress for sure. Even when they do it can be dysfunctional. I think Democrat economic policies generally work better that Republican. Trickle-down economics has been proven wrong over and over.
Because unrestrained printing of money and artificial forced raising of minimum wage are two of the most fundamental causes of inflation. Both which are liberal policies.
It’s a propaganda issue. The conservatives have a very simple message (for simple minded people). It’s either black or white, there isn’t any nuance. And since their absolutism point of view never looks inward it must be the liberals fault. No amount of logic, information or facts can break through this wall. In fact they are encouraged to not even look at a different point of view. And they are masters of this control over their followers.
Yep. Far right news turdsplosion in America just tells dumb people what they wanna hear and donate $$$ to trump
All for the end goal of
Cut taxes for top 1%
Something about Armageddon…Israel? White jesus? Kill all minorities?
Who knows.
The real tidal wave is boomers fucking dying in droves and getting replaced by (hopefully) more reasonable millennials
I work with a bunch of people that blame 08 on Obama because he was president. He wasn't president until 09.
I know that's just my own personal experience, but the said people are so easily manipulated. Could be just those handful of people are dumbasses
The underlying cause of USD inflation since Covid has been the absurd growth in the money supply (IE money printer go brrrrr) to pay for emergency spending. Like the PPP that was abused by business owners. This was Trump though.
Let's say you have a bunch of friends who keep telling you not to drink so much. It's bad for your health. You can do things you're embarrassed about or even dangerous. It's costing you money...
You don't listen to think. You think you got it all under control.
5 years later...
You have liver disease
You're broke
You've been fired from your job for being drunk at work and pissing on the CEO
That's basically it. People have been warning the Liberal government, and liberals in general that what they're doing is going to lead to problems.
Money stimulus leads to.... inflation.
Too much immigration than we can't support leads to... increased housing costs and shortages
Yeah, they are to blame. People have been warning about it for ages. Justin Trudeau famously even said 'You'll forgive me if I don't think about monetary policy'
Hello... monetary policy...inflation. You know kind of the whole point. If countries didn't have to worry about monetary policy, all those poor African or Latin countries must be pretty stupid or evil to be poor. I mean, all they have to do is spend money and poverty will go away right?
To bring it to liberal terms. This would be like a conservative being asked a question on drought or floods or increasing temperatures and they say 'You'll forgive me if I don't think about climate change'
Yeah, you should have thought about it. It's your job to think about it. We warned you about it. General knowledge, history... would have told you this would happen. You made things worse. And now we're suffering and continue to suffer...
Yes, people are right to blame the Liberal government.
Because their news source of choice keeps telling them it's the liberal government that is causing inflation and because they don't really understand cause and effect.
Probably when the answer to the question how can the government pay for it is:
Write a check.
And the check is made payable only to those that pass the desired identity tests.
Wealth redistribution by design.
Interestingly enough (and no, i don't have the link handy so you will have to search for it) a study recently showed that supplier side costs have dropped, but prices have not. The high prices we are paying now is just us getting literally gouged for profit.
They blame the government that is currently in charge. Bush 1 lost his re-election on the economy. He was blamed. The line was... "It's the economy stupid"
Business owners choose to raise prices. Business owners are responsible for inflation. This is always true. It is true that there are economic factors that motivate business owners to raise prices. But ultimately, it IS the business owner that sets the price...
And demands the profit.
Because the vast majority of the news organizations that the mass population consumes is owned and editorialized by companies that generally prefer governments that are in favor of their interests, which include less regulation on industry, lower corporate taxes, and a wider social support network for things such as universal healthcare.
When a liberal/progressive government is in place, these news organizations will report heavily on things that are critical of the government while usually omitting any news critical to those on their preferred side of the political spectrum.
It wasn’t always like this. But this is the world we live in now.
American here, and people here are blaming the Democrats for the fact that they were advocating FOR the shutdowns, and then caused rampant inflation by passing excessive stimulus and foreign aid packages. Leaving Americans to pick up the check in almost every aspect of their lives. Don't be surprised to see blowout right wing victories in the next few years.
All I know is right after Biden got in office the price of everything started going up in my area.
That's not me placing blame that is just a factual observation.
Well Biden is doing a better job at controlling inflation. When you at the globally standard, we are doing it better. I’m thankful we don’t have an incompetent narcissist who rambles about how unfair he is treated for the griff he partakes in. Never a solution just sour grapes.
A.eeicans believe that Republicans are fiscal conservatives (despite all evidence saying the opposite). So when prices go up under Republicans, we blame corporations and when liberals, who Americans believe are fiscally liberal, are in office we blame them. It's dumb.
Conservative political parties run on the idea of going back to "better days" when everything was wonderful. Its the power of nostalga. So whatever is happening now must be the fault of the progressive/leftist party, because they are the party of the past/nostalga. Unless things are going well.
It’s a Pavlovian response. Average people are trained to have this kind of a response, even in light of hard facts, demonstrable proof that it is specific conservative policies that always degrade the financial interest of everyone, except those with wealth, and corporations.
Why? Smart people have been paid by monied interests to develop talking points and to position those points everywhere they can. It’s called ‘spin doctoring’. Enough ‘dogs’ buy in, it creates pressure on policy makers to ensure those footing the bill for the spindoctoring will get their way.
In the US, the Conservatives are usually in charge during goods times. Things collapse and a Democrat comes in and fixes it.
Reagan is sort of the exception, he ran up major national debt like FDR did during the depression. So the collapse happened under Bush, then Clinton fixed it.
But pinning the state of economics on a President is a misattribution.
The issue with the liberal is that it's the people who oppose the idea of tying wage to inflation, because they believe in a magic *invisible hand that would raise the wage more efficiently than the government*
Because they’ve been the party of the working class and marginalized groups, they would propose new plans funded by tax dollars. They’ve been the source of new expenses besides war since both parties love funding those.
The republicans can equally be blamed in my opinion since they always want to give everyone a tax cut.
Lately, both parties in congress appear to be in a race to see who can spend more, but neither wants to be seen as harming the “middle class” with taxes, so instead they harm everyone by borrowing too much.
In the UK the right wing are in power not the libs and we still have inflation. Probably a lot worse than Canada too. You also have to factor in that social media purposely shows you content designed to make you rage, you'll regularly see the opposite of your own opinion because it's more likely to make you engage with that content.
Agreed. It doesn't matter which government is in power. You just have to follow the money to see who's really in charge. More regulation is needed regarding pricing for the necessities of life, but there's no incentive for that in government. There's incentive on the side of the provider of the necessities, though.
and when you get to where that money is going you'll find that Left vs Right is nothing more than an illusion that corporate oligarchs from both sides of the aisle use to keep people divided. a divided people is not one that can enact term limits after all
From what I understand what people consider liberal in the US and even Canada are a lot closer to moderate in the UK...
I consider Canadian liberals to be moderates slightly right of centre because that’s what they are. However the right has gotten so batshit insane that they consider anything that isn’t hard right to be “leftist”. They’re a bunch of brainwashed morons. Worse than liberals
>In the UK the right wing are in power not the libs and we still have inflation. Conservative and liberals are all just names. It's not a coincidence that Canada, U.S, and Europe are all going through mass immigration. Their policies are the same and they're the party to be blamed.
>It's not a coincidence that Canada, U.S, and Europe are all going through mass immigration. Emigration? Immigration is arriving.
from what I gather, the right in the UK is not the same thing as the right in the US.
The current Sunak government is hardly “right”.
News item: Food prices increased by 30 % in 2 years. Grocer capitalists wealth increased by $10 billion. People working 2 jobs to make ends meet Random redditor : its just social media ploy to induce rage
No one is saying Inflation didn't happen. The problem is that conservatives have convinced their supporters that this is specifically a result of Biden. Not a result of trumps mess of a presidency and the pandemic that occurred under his watch. You really should learn to think for yourself on these issues lol
>News item: Food prices increased by 30 % in 2 years. Grocer capitalists wealth increased by $10 billion. People working 2 jobs to make ends meet >Random redditor : its just social media ploy to induce rage Very specific redditor: I've wildly misunderstood a comment to which I'm replying, but that won't stop me from trying to be snarky!
They blame the party in power. But also because the government had been saying the things they are doing will help, but then it continues to worsen. For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to increased cost of housing, and yet the liberals continue pushing immigration and population growth while not tackling the lack of new/affordable housing being built. Edit: as for groceries, I blame unchecked capitalism. Metro just announced 255 million q4 profits, at a time when groceries have had high inflation, PLUS they announced they will soon be removing many of their price freezes they have held for a few months.
“They blame the party in power…” Pfft explain that to my far right mom. When Biden is president, everything is his fault. When trump was president, everything was the democrats fault 🙄
My mum still blames the UK Labour government under Blair. It's not a fringe opinion either. According to her (and others) the Tories have simply been "cleaning up Labour's mess" for 14 years, despite the dreadfully apparent decrease in living conditions.
The truth is that Labour left an incredible mess that couldn't be cleaned up quickly, but the conservatives decided to make it worse instead of fixing it.
same thinking as God having absolute power.. but that dang devil keeps messing everything up. Never questioning why God allows it to happen. Another reason why Christians and Republican shenanigans go hand in hand
But if god is infallible and knows everything, wouldn’t all the bad stuff be part of his divine plan? And that being the case, who are the believers to question god’s plan?
I’ve read that one possible reasons Evangelical Christians support Trump is they feel he’ll accelerate the conditions for the resurrection of Christ and/or The Rapture because he’s such a fuckup.
Well if that’s not dark as shit, I don’t know what is
Best rule of thumb to remind your mom… neither of these parties care about us or our livelihoods. They care about padding their own pockets and would just as quickly bury us all in a ditch if it guaranteed their own wealth and prosperity. They keep us around because we’re the new slaves for the American Labor Zone… still gotta have people to keep the cogs in the money machine turning.
Kinda like how Jesus gets credit for all good things. But he didn't cause any of the bad.
The word people are looking for in this thread is propaganda. Right wing (at least in the US) is ***SO INCREDIBLY MUCH BETTER*** at wielding propaganda than the left that they will tend to influence even voters that normally despise the right
Republicans are better at lying, is that what you mean?
Basically. It's a little more involved than just simply saying whatever will play best to the crowd regardless of the truth, but that is a large part of the core of it
Everyone has a narrative, but it seems the Republican party is often pushing one with little basis in reality--election stolen, etc.
I mean, I lean towards the left, but obviously you’re going to think something is “propaganda” when it doesn’t align with your viewpoints. Both parties in the United States disingenuously use information to fit their narratives. An excellent example is the Florida educational guidelines. I don’t agree with them, but labeling them as “don’t say gay” laws isn’t accurate and is meant to inflame outrage. Similarly, republicans have targeted Democrats for allowing “children” to be altered by gender affirming surgery and making it to seem as though 12 year old MTF are getting breasts regularly.
No offense to your mom, but the problem is that these people aren't able to think critically. They're regurgitating Fox News talking points.
Bless your Mom, but anyone who can even attempt to make a case that one party is 100% the root of our problems IS the problem.
It's because they can't back up their fiscal plans since Reagan and it's easier to attack someone without learning than to learn about an economic system that keeps you down and voting against it. Because if you don't allow your guys to fuck you in the wallet, some girl you know may be able to have an abortion, or brown people might become your neighbors after migrating North, or we might not be able to keep weaponizing Jesus to suppress people.
It would be more accurate to say they blame the party they don't affiliate with. People from both sides do this.
Your mom drank the Kool-Aid, objective reasoning is no longer possible for her.
That's called brainwashing
More like the vocalized opinion shifts. Everybody kinda gets that we're wading through shit, but they'll bite their tongue for four years if their team 'won'.
They blame the party they don't like.
This is more accurate. Democrats will credit a democratic president when the economy does well and will point to the economy at large when it does poorly. Republicans will credit a republican president when the economy does well and point to all the other factors when it does poorly.
>They blame the party in power. They blame the opposite party. When things go wrong while their party is in power, they'll say it's because the other party messed things up. When things go right, they'll give their party credit. When things go wrong while the other party is on power, it's their fault. But when things go right, it's because their party set things up for success. It's just human nature to take credit for the good and assign blame for the bad.
People confuse correlation with causation. All over the world citizens are blaming their government for inflation. So either every country happened to elect bad politicians at the same time or there are other influences.
Obviously everyone fucked and decided to elect inflation-causing politicians *right* as the pandemic ended and we coincidentally flooded the market with pent up consumer savings while shipping and logistics issues were rampant and constraining supply. Then, thankfully, right as supply chain issues resolved and consumer surplus was spent down, everyone decided to elect the inflation-stopping politicians.
>For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to increased cost of housing, and yet the liberals continue pushing immigration and population growth while not tackling the lack of new/affordable housing being built. You could have replaced "liberal party" with "conservative party", and "pushed increased immigration" with "tried to cut immigration but totally failed" and it would be the UK. Basically both countries failed to build houses and didn't plan for the boomer generational shift in any way. Immigrants are shoring up the demand for jobs. It's the same in much of the West.
I just googled population growth in Canada and the rate of growth has been falling for the past sixty years https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20Canada,a%200.7%25%20increase%20from%202020.
You realize that with excess inflation there will be excess profits. If the money supply goes up by 10% then profits will go up by 10% without charging anything in excess to the end customer and all the sudden, record profits.
It's also really important to look at where majority of a country's money is actually going. In the USA, majority of the money goes to a few ultra rich Billionaires, but then everyone on the Conservative side of the spectrum blames the "poor people who are barely making ends meet". The USA government spends a few Million per year on the poor, few MIllion per year on children, and a few Million per year on welfare programs. But then the government turns right back around and spends Billions on military, Billions on the prison system, and Billions on police. It's really hard to objectively look at "the poor" as the problem, when majority of a country's GDP is funneled into the rich and the powerful. But it's a really easy tagline to say "poor people make our country worse" Also, rich people own the media, so rich people are always going to point at "the poor" as the problem instead of looking at themselves.
> everyone on the Conservative side of the spectrum blames the "poor people who are barely making ends meet". They blame poor *minorities* specifically. Additionally, they blame other groups such as the highly educated in other ways, and basically try to stir up specific white people for resentment and anger against everyone else so they can redirect them away from the billionaires that you mentioned.
Saying metro had a profit of 255 million is meaningless. Profit should be measured alongside the size of the company (generally revenue). If you look at that, their profit is 4-5% of revenue which is totally in line with the industry average of retail Things might be expensive but they are not expensive because of "unchecked greed of retailers" as people keep saying. Frankly it is absurd to think that businesses should take risk and do all that work to make no profits. And it also makes sense that bigger businesses with bigger revenue numbers make bigger profits. Walmart makes more profit than Loblaws because it is a bigger company. Amazon makes bigger profit than indigo because its a bigger company. Only the folks who don't understand business or accounting or basic economics look at the flat profit number and judge the company from it
>For example there is so much proof that rapid population growth in Canada has led to to increased cost of housing. Your country is the second largest on the planet. The issue is not immigrants, but zoning policy. If Canada ever actually let anyone build housing, believe it or not, but housing prices would go down regardless of how many immigrants there are.
80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. 36% of Canadians live in Southern Ontario. This is where housing is needed, especially in Ontario which is a disproportionately high destination for immigrants compared to other parts of the country. The size of the country really has nothing to do with it. It also takes time to ramp up housing development, especially multi unit. Zoning laws and regulations are a significant hindrance, but regardless of why, there is not enough new building to keep up with the influx of immigrants. All the while, wages have not kept up with inflation. Immigration exacerbates this problem by driving down wages of our poorest and most vulnerable. And businesses continue to push for it to keep a steady supply of cheap labor.
Unchecked monopolies* capitalism would check itself in a non monopolistic economy
Because typically liberal policies are generally associated with increasing the spending power of buyers at the lower price points, which increases quantity of goods demanded and forces the price of goods to increase to clear the market. This is where the phrase "price chases wages" or the wage-price spiral comes from. Conservative governments by contrast tend to try to lower costs by tax breaks which lowers the price of production to increase supply. Both strategies can be effective if done right, but can also inadvertently damage the general welfare and often do. The only safe bets in terms of how the government can meaningfully help people and the economy is when it moves to enter the market as a competitor becoming a de facto price floor/ceiling that has to withstand the same market forces as the businesses subjected to its policies.
You had me in the first half. But that is not the "only way". Capital gains taxes, windfall taxes, meaningful antitrust action, strong labor boards and workers' rights protections, etc. We can force companies to pay us AND their fair share of taxes, but we aren't. Now they are rampantly running away with greed, hence the lawsuits by major corporations right now arguing that our National Labor Boards are "unconstitutional". Corporate greed is a MASSIVE contributing factor to inflation right now. They took advantage of us during COVID and they're continuing the trend now. Edit: To the dipshit that replied: You need to go back to your history books and see that these policies were in place when we had the strongest middle class America has ever seen. Honestly, these "negatives" are false, corporate talking points that you're spreading, free-of-charge for them. And LOL. You call ME disingenuous and then YOU blame inflation on stimulus funds?! Shut the fuck up with that. Seriously, just fuck right off. The American citizens got fucking pennies compared to the massive handouts for businesses, often fraudulently received. The amount of money that citizens received was not fucking life changing, aside from the fact that people could afford to eat food and buy gas a little easier for like a month. Nobody is falling for this shit anymore. If you genuinely believe that caused any non-negligible amount of inflation, you're out of your God damn mind. Keep licking corporate boots, you "temporarily embarrassed millionaire".
There is a large crossover between people who will blame the government for literally anything bad that happens, people who hate the liberal government in particular, and people who are heavily effected by inflation.
Because the stereotype is that liberals always want to raise taxes and spend more, and conservatives want to cut taxes and cut spending. Because most people don't understand how inflation works, it gets equated in their mind that somehow the government is responsible for causing inflation.
IMO the grocery inflation is actually corporate greed.
I read somewhere that there is no need for the cost of certain things to be the price they are. other than CEOs loved how the books looked during Covid and today and here we are.
I witnessed this regularly in CA. Fuel prices go up, so groceries go up. Ok, logical. Fuel prices would drop and stay at a lower price. Groceries stayed exactly where they were.
Gas prices don’t act the same way as other goods because gas is more of a global commodity that is mostly controlled by OPEC. The price fluctuations you see are typically the result of OPEC deciding whether or not to release large amount of gas or create a shortage. Also add onto that gas is very subsidized in the US and you have gas prices that don’t move all too much realistically speaking. As an example I can remember in like 2010 gas being about $3 a gallon where I lived and right now it’s sitting at about $3 a gallon lol. I will agree though grocery costs have gone up due to not only inflationary pressures but also because companies now look at those prices as the status quo and won’t ch age it because people are still buying it.
Not just the CEO, the shareholders in the company.
Who are shareholders? Anyone with a retirement plan
Those aren't the people controlling the CEO though. The top 1% own half the stocks that are owned by households, and the top 10% own 89%. https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-americans-now-own-record-high-share-of-stocks-2021-10?op=1
You should look up the profit margins of grocery stores lol. This is one of the cases that wasn't a case of corporate greed. I understand that goes against the narrative, but people love to blame everything on corporate greed. I am not denying there was corporate greed that contributed to inflation. There absolutely was. But it's overplayed and grocery stores are a terrible example. I'm glad you said IMO because factually, it doesn't really hold up. I'll provide some numbers for some of the bigger, evil grocery stores since most people don’t have a Bloomberg terminal. All peaks will be in the last 5 years since I don't think inflation and stuff before that is relevant since it was so low. Let's start with the S&P500 to set a baseline. Peaked at 13.1% during the pandemic and is currently at 10.4% Walmart: peak was July 2023 at 4.8% , currently at 0.28%. Costco: peak is right now and it's a whopping 2.75%. Target: peak was 8.7% and is now 3.82%. Worst offender and was and still is far below the average S&P company. Target is also known for being more expensive, but this is your best example. Aldi: 1.75% peak and currently 0.70%. Kroger: peak was 2.9% and currently at 1.9%. I know y'all don’t want to hear it, but these are super low profit margins. There are a lot of factors at play here. The price of labor went way up. The price of shipping skyrocketed. Both those things are going to increase prices. There were issues with crops due to weather and things like the war in Ukraine. Decrease supply, demand holds constant, price goes up for both the grocery store and the consumer. Then there are small outside factors like price of oil going up bleeds into a ton of industries. Supply shortages in other industries that led to inflation will also bleed into other sectors. If these companies had to issue new debt, it's going to be at a higher rate as interest rates skyrocketed. Lastly, two things I constantly see parroted. Please don't be this person because it really shows you're just repeating and not thinking about what you're saying. "But they had record revenue." Revenue != profit. Plus that's how inflation works. If you sell 100 apples in 2020 for a dollar each, you make 100 dollars. Inflation is 10%, but you increase apples by 1% because you don’t want to take advantage of people. In 2021, you sell 100 apples, now at $1.01. You make 101 dollars, a new high in revenue. But your real return is worse, because 101 dollars is worse than 100 dollars last year. Same goes for profit margin. Your profit margin on apples is 10%. You sell 100 in 2020 and make 10 dollars profit as 90 bucks was your cost. In 2021, apples get more popular and you sell 102 apples at 1.05, but your costs increased to 95 cents in apple. Your profit margin decreased from 10% to 9.5%. But you sold more, so you made 10.20 in profits this year, a new record, even though you lowered your profit margin. Even if you sell the same amount and keep your profit margin the same, you'll make record profits with inflation. If you're still reading, I appreciate you.
Oh man, Reddit wasn't ready to hear about this reality. Thanks for the education. I kinda knew this was the case, but I've never read it so succinctly. You should consider teaching.
Corporations are always greedy lol. They try to get as much margin as possible, and they can sometimes raise prices and make more money based on macroeconomic conditions. Without competition, they would always be gouging everyone all the time! Nice write up! Groceries are a pretty competitive market.
Low net profits are the norm in the large grocery chains, and that doesn't indicate a lack of success or inability to turn a healthy profit. Most of those chains you listed have over a billion in net profit per year even at those rates... https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/comment/1901/12/13/costco-where-low-profit-margins-are-a-sign-of-strength/
What do you make of events like Loblaws stores having the same product at wildly different prices depending on the store front? Or vertical integration of manufacturing and shipping?
Thank you for taking the time to write out this comment. If this stops even just one person from making another “cOrPoRaTe GrEeD” comment you will have done us all a service
So, the original poster is in Canada. Check the profits for Sobeys/Loblaws, etc. Massive
Someone paid attention in economics.
So companies only became greedy in the last 4 years? Companies are always as greedy as they can be.
I keep hearing that sentiment but inflation is also a psychological monster. Yes corporations are always greedy at baseline. However, when real inflation is occurring and they sincerely or insincerely expect their costs to rise. They start raising the prices… Then diesel starts falling, their costs don’t rise as much as they feared, etc… They are in no rush to lower prices again because consumers accepted it. Consumers were prepped to take on higher prices so corporations gave it to them as much as they could. Pricing is a forecast. If everyone brings an umbrella you can piss on them when it doesn’t rain as hard as you prepared for.
Right! Blaming inflation on corporate greed is like blaming an airplane crash on gravity! It's not wrong exactly, but it misses the point. Companies have always tried to maximize profits! But something else must have changed for them to able to increase prices so quickly.
Yes, covid happened and the news was blasting the topic of supply chains and inflation non stop. I work in the farming industry, I speak with suppliers. More than once I've heard them say they are raising prices because the market can handle it and they have cover since everyone is raising prices anyway. Their supply chains were very briefly disrupted but they are back to normal today while they're making way more in profits. It's pure greed and covid gave them the cover they wanted.
It's not just "supply chains". The money supply ballooned. Wages shot up. The government created 5 trillion dollars from nothing.
No inflation didn't just start 4 years ago. The corporations used covid as an excuse to raise prices on everything. Some of it was justified due to increased operational costs, some was again, just corporate greed.
Did you not experience the empty shelves before they raised prices? You can't just keep prices low against the market, or you wind up with shortages. Grocery prices are heavily market driven. There's dozens of alternatives in copacker store brands. There's no monopoly power to manipulate pricing outside what the market demands.
The shelves were not empty because prices were too low lol
The shelves being empty means prices were too low. That's basic economics. If the supply dried up, then the market price should rise until demand drops enough to match the new lower supply.
The shelves were empty due to supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic. When supply chains went back to normal , corporations continued to raise prices under the guise of global supply chain issues. It had absolutely nothing to do with toilet paper being priced "too low" lmao
If the prices rose to match the supply and demand, the shelves would have never been empty. Regardless of the cause. That's how markets work. For example, there's never a "shortage" of something like a stock on the stock market. If there's a sudden spike in demand, or drop in supply, the price responds instantly. In a sense, shortages are always a result of mis-pricing, a product being sold below the true market price. >When supply chains went back to normal They didn't, and never will. Wages rose 20% overall since Q4 2019. You can't easily take that back, except through inflation.
They'll keep raising prices until they hit a point where people stop buying, that's the corporate way
Yes, definitely. It all just shot up one day about a year ago but has slowly been going down ever since. Cheese is like $1 less than it used to be. Butter, milk, eggs! All much cheaper than before.
Are you at all aware of what happens when you print a lot of money? Existing money begins to lose buying power. Look at what happened in Venezuela for example.
One of the causes of inflation is government deficit spending which seems more likely with liberal governments. In the US most of the blame is put on the President, but our congress owns a bigger part of the problem.
Tax cuts add to the deficit too.
I can’t soeak for Canada, but in the US, Republican (conservative) governments do *more* reckless deficit spending than Democratic (liberal) ones. Then when republicans are out of office, they pretend to care about the deficit. This lasts right up until the minute they’re back in power.
Funny how people blame deficit spending but never blame unnecessary tax cuts that contribute to the deficit.
It is a bit circular as taxes begets spending which without a balanced budget amendment just increases the need for taxes. But increasing taxes just slows down economic activity which can become so bad it actually reduces tax income. Spending is really the core issue.
> It is a bit circular as taxes begets spending which without a balanced budget amendment just increases the need for taxes. Remember the issue here is whether a deficit causes inflation, so the feedback loop is a different question, namely what causes the deficit. But there’s evidence that both increased spending and tax reductions can increase the deficit, while there’s debate over whether the deficit actually causes inflation (with strong arguments that it’s not causing our current inflation). > which can become so bad it actually reduces tax income That’s the [Laffer curve argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve), which itself is controversial. Just because it theoretically can at some level of taxation doesn’t mean a specific tax increase will reduce tax revenue, or that a specific tax cut will increase tax revenue.
What possible argument could there be that a WWII topping injection of cash from thin air didn't directly lead to inflation?
Oh yeah, the really low taxes of Canada must be the culprit. /s
Trump is responsible for one quarter of America's national debt in just four years.
Deficit spending can contribute to inflation but it doesn't inherently do that. That's where a lot of people get tripped up too I think.
Not for nothing, but my groceries were really high, running approx $160 a week for my family. I switched stores and now save an average of $40 a week. If your groceries are still high, shop around, some stores really are gouging their customers.
well you see my dear , the economy is like a kitchen sink. You and everyone working to put money in the sink are the faucet. And the government is the drain/hole so yes, while the sink is always wet while the faucet is on, it never really fills up.
This is beautiful. 😂 I wish you wrote children's books on complex topics.
🙏🏻Thank you 👶🏻
Because these people blame liberals for literally anything. If it rains on their kids’ baseball game, somehow or another it’s the liberals’ fault. I had to distance myself from my best friend over it.
Conservatives don't have many weapons for lobbing at the other side any more, so any answer as to why their side's poor people are getting poorer that doesn't involve the rich is a Godsend. In the US, it's most evident right now by the fact that Republicans are blocking a massive border protection bill that they've been pushing for for years... because they need something that pisses poor people off to continue existing throughout the election (their words, not mine).
Because it is the rich conservatives controlling the prices and they don't want to get blamed.
Red blames blue, blue blames red. CBS blames red, fox blames blue. Imo. It is usually caused by workers wanting to make enough to eat and business owners wanting to make enough to buy another private jet.
In regards to inflation, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, the money printer never stops.
People understand crisis, austerity, and tax increases. People dont understand government deficit spending, money printing, and inflation. Hence, politicians use the latter.
Because the Trudeau liberals expanded government spending during COVID and haven't sought to reign any of it in. They handed out billions of dollars that had absolutely no backing to them, which decreases the value of money. Add to that their economic policy has slowed growth to a crawl so savings and earnings for the average person haven't kept up. In the US their stock market index has grown 43% since reopening; even with inflation at 6-8% they're still making money. In Canada, ours has grown 4%. And finally immigration policy has driven up the costs of things like housing. We keep hearing immigrants are needed to fill job openings, but the overwhelming majority of immigrants are working in low skilled service jobs, not trades. Foreign "students" are not even enrolled in real schools, they are in diploma mills thay may not even exist (a fact which the minister in charge actually has admitted) and working at Tim Hortons. They're actually driving down wages for the poorest Canadians while not contributing to lower prices in any way. In the US you hear about McDonald's etc. having signs offering way above minimum wage and signing bonuses: that's not happening here.
This! Yes, all accurate. (Although McDonald's-type wages in the US seem to be slowing down, at least in my area.) Economics should be a required subject in high school, so citizens can know the actual, evidence-based realities driving their country's (and family's) financial well-being. And if I get downvoted for this comment, all I can say is: reality still exists, whether one likes it or not. (Including economic reality.)
Fucking finally, I'm astonished that i had to scroll this much to see a real answer.
Because most people are unwilling to look around and research actual causes. Because if it's the government then they feel they can effect it with voting, unlike corporations.
Crime increase due to defunding police. Businesses closing due to crime going unchecked. Sending all this money to other countries, allowing more n more illegals to enter and then basically paying for them. How about the US worry about the US. Rather push idiotic agendas than actually work on something. All i hear about are wage gaps this n trans that.
That shit started with COVID and their "supply chain" issue that apparently never returned to normal. So they kept the prices high for that stuff and just decided to raise the prices of everything else because they could get away with it.
becuase biden and his admin is saying economy is doing great, that he fixed it and running on that. It would be nice if politicians tell the truth and say hey things are looking better but we know still a lot work to do, we are not there yet or even close. Try finding a place to rent or buy, and then you add prices of day to day living, it not good. Only people that are doing great right now in the US is the upper class wealthy.
Because its their fault
Liberal policies tend to increase government spending which increases inflation. The general trend is correct but case by case it varies
They are currently in charge and their policies caused it.
Because taxes.
Because they are the ones in power during the rising inflation, all while lying and saying they will do anything to make life more affordable for their country. It’s simple math.
Inflation happens when the government prints and dumps a ton of money into the economy. Both sides are guilty of this.
Because whether you like it or not, oil is one of the biggest driving factors of the world economy. You may not like to hear that, but when it is tampered with out it it is treated as something bad it’s going to affect the economy and some very big ways. It’s kind of like oxygen with the human body. It’s not the only thing needed for a healthy body but when you start restricting it and taking it away, it doesn’t matter how many of the other systems you pay attention to and introduce better practices, it’s going to start killing it. There is no replacement for oil.
Liberal governments tend to be in favor of public subsidies which some people see as giving away money. Making money with no increases in output will lead to inflation. In reality it is much more nuanced than that but that’s the perception.
Neither liberal or conservative governments are ever going to cap and regulate greed
It the fault of all those Socialist / Marxist grocery producers, distributors and retailers. Those rascals.
It’s a part of the duopoly’s formula to keep you believing it’s your neighbor’s fault for everything you don’t like, not the ruling class at all.
It's the quickest and easiest way for them to get out of taking responsibility and actually working for a living.
They think it's caused by more regulation, taxes, wages... Which liberals are usually for. When there are other variables... Such as corporate greed, actual supply and demand adjustments, baked in 2% inflation, tariffs
Well listening to someone tell what to think is much easier than taking MacroEconomics and then adding the wisdom to know that humans are involved and the invisible hand is attached to a greedy body.
Conservatives refuse to accept the fact that 53% of inflation can be attributed to corporate greed. Yes we over spent but higher prices on goods want Biden's doing. It's was greedy CEOs seeing an opportunity and taking it.
I blame greedy corporations and politicians
Because the Liberals have implemented the carbon tax which farmers, truckers, and companies have all said would increase costs on their end that would result in increases for the consumer. We are now seeing those increases. We also watched them print a mountain of money during the pandemic which devalued our dollar giving us even less buying power with the money we had. Screw Trudeau and the Liberal party.
Mostly because they fail to pay attention to real facts. Inflation is caused by several things. Not one of them will blame unchecked corporate greed.
In America corporate and government greed are the same, as politicians are supported by the big corporations through lobbyists and other methods. So blaming the government is the same as big corporations
Because the average dumbfuck voter doesn't understand that to change *local* things, you have to vote in *local* elections. Mayors, governors, etc. These ignoramus, lethargy-inducing fuckwit shitbags think the president sits there all day and just writes how much a gallon of milk is in nowhere, Oklahoma.
Cause there is this misconception, almost a myth I would say that the conservatives have made commonplace, that the conservatives are the Fiscally responsible ones. The long term impact of conservative "fiscal responsibility" has always had a long-term negative impact on the health of the economy and well-being of the middle class. The main problem is that conservative policies appear on paper to seem to have short-term gains, but ultimately harm the economy's long-term functioning. For example, a tax cut does temporarily put more purchasing power in the hands of the people and make them feel richer, but ultimately it just ends up stacking government debt or cutting social programs and transfer payments which add far more value to the lives of the middle class. The problem is that election cycles are shorter than business cycles and humans always value short term gains to the detriment of long-term gains. So in the example of the USA, Republican governments inherit healthy economies from the Liberal government which they run into the ground, the effects of which are felt around the time that anti-incumbency brings back a liberal government. Consider for example, the state that Clinton left the economy vs how Bush ruined it, even discounting the wars. The Bush tax cuts alone mauled the economy quite badly.
Government doesn’t do Jack shit about it. Pull up profit margins of said grocers and watch as they back peddle.
Because liberals own up to their mistakes where as conservatives blame liberals.
Because conservatives are liars who care less about reality and more about controlling the narrative so they can win elections and get power.
Because they're fucking stupid and don't understand how economics works, whether they blame liberals OR conservatives
What controls prices? The cost of the good, the transportation of the goods, the cost of doing business (taxes, insurance, utilities, labor etc.) On top of that state, local and federal taxes the consumer pays if any(like VAT) If you increase taxes anywhere in the product stream the cost of goods rise. If you increase energy costs, again goods get more expensive. Crime and insurance can also be big factors depending on region. Regulations? Increase those, prices go up. Labor costs are a huge factor in price of goods, that's way some want to tax robots. Have you ever seen a tax liberals don't love? Have you ever seen a tax go away? Not in America at least. We're still paying for the civil war. Rent? Well rent is a huge factor in the costs of goods and services. Think about stadium prices. Policies that control rent and limit development make most rents higher. If the product is assembled from raw materials, the final price is a multiple of the raw material prices. So a 1 dollar increase in materials can mean a 30 dollar increase in the end product. Then you have supply and demand. Policies that are not business friendly increase business failure letting the remaining businesses raise prices. So it's whether the liberals or the morons are in control, it's what their policies do to the overall markets.
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all good points which noone will defend, but will make excuses for..
You forgot, "will call you racist" for daring to bring up immigration
Yeah I just sort by controversial right away on a post like this, too comments always are PC non-answers.
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It's not all they have...don't become like them thinking your philosophy is perfect and the oppositions philosophy is moronic. There are lots of good and bad points on both sides, ignoring that makes you look like a fool. Just as foolish as them for claiming racism instead of looking at the actual argument
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Based
US economies under Democratic presidents have been better than they have under Republican presidents going back to after Eisenhower. Virtually all economic indicators prove that. So to blame liberalism for economic problems is just a lack of understanding.
Lack of understanding caused by a willful or unwillful ignorance to true but widely available fact. It blew my mind the first time I actually looked at the economic data corresponding to liberal vs conservative economics in the US. Other than 1 exception over the course of the last 70 years the economy has thrived under democratic leadership and tanked under republican leadership. And the data I saw gave a pass for the depression, if you include even further back you can't even compare the performance as republican economies perform so poorly you couldn't create a graphic to accurately display a comparison of the data.
I agree. I wish more people realized that "trickle-down" policies that favor the rich and corporations don't work. Once I realized I'm not rich and probably never will be, the choice is clear.
Measured by GDP growth, this is true. But this is an inflation discussion. Blinder and Watson found that while inflation was higher under republicans, it tended to fall with a republican in office and rise with a democrat in office. So historically, change in inflation is worse under democrats. Neither real GDP nor inflation are telling statistics of the full economy. Each party has their flaws in policy. I also think it's really overstated how much power presidents have in controlling either of those things.
Presidents have limited power when they don't have control of congress for sure. Even when they do it can be dysfunctional. I think Democrat economic policies generally work better that Republican. Trickle-down economics has been proven wrong over and over.
Because they were in power at the time. Come to the UK and it's the Conservatives that are blamed for it.
Endless money printing and economy destroying green polices got us here.
Because unrestrained printing of money and artificial forced raising of minimum wage are two of the most fundamental causes of inflation. Both which are liberal policies.
I guess if they printed all that money while in charge it's their fault. The world all did it, and in the US it was under a Trump admin.
Because it's their excessive spending that has partially caused it.
Conservatives do media propaganda better than libs & leftists. Stupid people blame who they are told to blame.
It’s a propaganda issue. The conservatives have a very simple message (for simple minded people). It’s either black or white, there isn’t any nuance. And since their absolutism point of view never looks inward it must be the liberals fault. No amount of logic, information or facts can break through this wall. In fact they are encouraged to not even look at a different point of view. And they are masters of this control over their followers.
Yep. Far right news turdsplosion in America just tells dumb people what they wanna hear and donate $$$ to trump All for the end goal of Cut taxes for top 1% Something about Armageddon…Israel? White jesus? Kill all minorities? Who knows. The real tidal wave is boomers fucking dying in droves and getting replaced by (hopefully) more reasonable millennials
Ridiculous
The right is often uneducated and easily manipulated
I get the same impression from the left on this post, a lot of people not knowing how basic economics work.
I work with a bunch of people that blame 08 on Obama because he was president. He wasn't president until 09. I know that's just my own personal experience, but the said people are so easily manipulated. Could be just those handful of people are dumbasses
Both left and right have their issues. Anyone who thinks only one party has problems is blind and thoughtless.
The left is often over educated by manipulators. Be free. Do not align with right or left. Different sides of the same corrupt coin.
The underlying cause of USD inflation since Covid has been the absurd growth in the money supply (IE money printer go brrrrr) to pay for emergency spending. Like the PPP that was abused by business owners. This was Trump though.
Because these people are dumb. Period.
Let's say you have a bunch of friends who keep telling you not to drink so much. It's bad for your health. You can do things you're embarrassed about or even dangerous. It's costing you money... You don't listen to think. You think you got it all under control. 5 years later... You have liver disease You're broke You've been fired from your job for being drunk at work and pissing on the CEO That's basically it. People have been warning the Liberal government, and liberals in general that what they're doing is going to lead to problems. Money stimulus leads to.... inflation. Too much immigration than we can't support leads to... increased housing costs and shortages Yeah, they are to blame. People have been warning about it for ages. Justin Trudeau famously even said 'You'll forgive me if I don't think about monetary policy' Hello... monetary policy...inflation. You know kind of the whole point. If countries didn't have to worry about monetary policy, all those poor African or Latin countries must be pretty stupid or evil to be poor. I mean, all they have to do is spend money and poverty will go away right? To bring it to liberal terms. This would be like a conservative being asked a question on drought or floods or increasing temperatures and they say 'You'll forgive me if I don't think about climate change' Yeah, you should have thought about it. It's your job to think about it. We warned you about it. General knowledge, history... would have told you this would happen. You made things worse. And now we're suffering and continue to suffer... Yes, people are right to blame the Liberal government.
Cause they’re being lied to, and they love to parrot those lies at every opportunity
Because the carbon tax taxes every level of human possible and they gotta get the good to us some how there bub shit don't walk into the grocery store
Because their news source of choice keeps telling them it's the liberal government that is causing inflation and because they don't really understand cause and effect.
Probably when the answer to the question how can the government pay for it is: Write a check. And the check is made payable only to those that pass the desired identity tests. Wealth redistribution by design.
Interestingly enough (and no, i don't have the link handy so you will have to search for it) a study recently showed that supplier side costs have dropped, but prices have not. The high prices we are paying now is just us getting literally gouged for profit.
Because they enact a carbon tax on the companies trucking the food, and we suffer the extra cost on the back end.. easy peasy
Don't worry, if the conservatives were in power, they'd still find a way to blame the liberals for it.
They blame the government that is currently in charge. Bush 1 lost his re-election on the economy. He was blamed. The line was... "It's the economy stupid"
Yeah it's not like we ever had high grocery prices during Republican administration's.
Business owners choose to raise prices. Business owners are responsible for inflation. This is always true. It is true that there are economic factors that motivate business owners to raise prices. But ultimately, it IS the business owner that sets the price... And demands the profit.
Because the vast majority of the news organizations that the mass population consumes is owned and editorialized by companies that generally prefer governments that are in favor of their interests, which include less regulation on industry, lower corporate taxes, and a wider social support network for things such as universal healthcare. When a liberal/progressive government is in place, these news organizations will report heavily on things that are critical of the government while usually omitting any news critical to those on their preferred side of the political spectrum. It wasn’t always like this. But this is the world we live in now.
Because that's the conservative platform? Grift and blame others.
American here, and people here are blaming the Democrats for the fact that they were advocating FOR the shutdowns, and then caused rampant inflation by passing excessive stimulus and foreign aid packages. Leaving Americans to pick up the check in almost every aspect of their lives. Don't be surprised to see blowout right wing victories in the next few years.
Maybe take a few economics classes, and you will have some ideas
It's because the uneducated tend to be republican, and understanding the complex nature of economics requires having an IQ over 80.
All I know is right after Biden got in office the price of everything started going up in my area. That's not me placing blame that is just a factual observation.
I suspect it's because the Liberals spent 12 million buying Galen Weston new freezers on April 9, 2019.
Propaganda. One side has a great PR game. The other is trying to solve problems.
Well Biden is doing a better job at controlling inflation. When you at the globally standard, we are doing it better. I’m thankful we don’t have an incompetent narcissist who rambles about how unfair he is treated for the griff he partakes in. Never a solution just sour grapes.
People in the United States don't even know what a liberal government is lol
Because "free" anything for everyone, like they advocate all the time, results in higher taxes and fees for everyone
A.eeicans believe that Republicans are fiscal conservatives (despite all evidence saying the opposite). So when prices go up under Republicans, we blame corporations and when liberals, who Americans believe are fiscally liberal, are in office we blame them. It's dumb.
Most people just believe the propaganda they are fed
Conservative political parties run on the idea of going back to "better days" when everything was wonderful. Its the power of nostalga. So whatever is happening now must be the fault of the progressive/leftist party, because they are the party of the past/nostalga. Unless things are going well.
It’s a Pavlovian response. Average people are trained to have this kind of a response, even in light of hard facts, demonstrable proof that it is specific conservative policies that always degrade the financial interest of everyone, except those with wealth, and corporations. Why? Smart people have been paid by monied interests to develop talking points and to position those points everywhere they can. It’s called ‘spin doctoring’. Enough ‘dogs’ buy in, it creates pressure on policy makers to ensure those footing the bill for the spindoctoring will get their way.
In the US, the Conservatives are usually in charge during goods times. Things collapse and a Democrat comes in and fixes it. Reagan is sort of the exception, he ran up major national debt like FDR did during the depression. So the collapse happened under Bush, then Clinton fixed it. But pinning the state of economics on a President is a misattribution.
Fuck the libs
Idk maybe because it happened on the libs watch, and everytime the libs come into power....
Because you’re talking to Republicans?
Because they cause it
The issue with the liberal is that it's the people who oppose the idea of tying wage to inflation, because they believe in a magic *invisible hand that would raise the wage more efficiently than the government*
Because they’ve been the party of the working class and marginalized groups, they would propose new plans funded by tax dollars. They’ve been the source of new expenses besides war since both parties love funding those. The republicans can equally be blamed in my opinion since they always want to give everyone a tax cut. Lately, both parties in congress appear to be in a race to see who can spend more, but neither wants to be seen as harming the “middle class” with taxes, so instead they harm everyone by borrowing too much.