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Hard times
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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Ribbit
Inflation was never natural. What's happening now is its logical result, not an exception.
Well, sorta.
You can say that the War In Ukraine was not natural (definitelly man-made and entirelly avoidable) and the imposition of Sanctions on a oil producing nation was not natural (it was a choice, even if the only reasonable one), plus all the increase in the money supply and decrease in the cost of debt from ZIRP which devaluated money (hence inflated the currency-denominated value of things) were also not natural.
However the effects of those things were natural consequences, and that includes Inflation, which came in via increased energy prices, increased realestate prices (cheaper debt and the rush up the yield ladded of "investment" money pushed those up) and just the straightforward devaluation of money.
However it seems that most of the inflation, at least beyond a certain point (this stuff was already happenning before the War) was not from the natural effect of those other things but rather companies taking advantage of the situation to, in a cartel-like fashion (not actually a Cartel in legal terms because they didn't get together and agree to do so) pumping up prices in tandem to increase profits.
Of course inflation is natural. Unless we are all gonna share the same $100 forever it has to happen at least without some sort of perfect foresight so the correct amount of money can be issued.
What isn't natural is somehow people are convinced they should be held hostage by business.
When somehow we are convinced taking out a loan that you have to pay on for eternity (selling stock) that is not natural.
When somehow limited resources (our time) has less value then an unlimited resource (money) that is not natural.
It sounds like you're saying why you think inflation is a good idea, not why it's natural.
Why not share the same $100 forever? As the value of $100 increases, we can just divide it up into smaller and smaller bills.
We should be trading our limited time for another limited resource, not an unlimited one. At the time of the trade they're always equal, but labor in the past should be worth more than that, not less.
Dividing $100 into smaller and smaller pieces is the exact same thing as making money which causes inflation? If you divide it into 200 parts of fifty cents each and you only need 199 then someone has an extra fifty cents.
It's not the same thing because each person's percentage of the total supply doesn't change, like it does with inflation.
Grocery stores are pretty much the definition of a perfectly competitive industry. The profit margins are always between 1 and 3%. The only reason they raise prices is because they have to.
Thay was true once. It hasn't been for decades.
Name a grocery store with a higher margin than 3%
Whole Foods has to be. The few times I have been there I was disgusted by the prices. Mother fuckers, I just want some apples. I don't need certified that some old hippy said they were all natural.
Briefly was at 4% in 2013 declining to around 2% in 2017 before being acquired by Amazon.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/delisted/WFM/whole-foods-market/net-profit-margin
How!?
I haven’t specifically looked at While Foods but I’m guessing the higher-priced premium products cost more at wholesale and therefore don’t produce better margins.
How!?
I wasnt disputing your margins report but that it makes for perfect competition. Why are you assuming low margins necessarily lead to better competition? With low margins, volume dictates the winning business in the unregulated marketplace. Big businesses monopolize and then one day have more leverage over their margins than the marketplace itself. Not a problem when antitrust laws are enforced but those laws have had their teeth pulled for the last 30 years.
So what hasn’t been true for decades then?
Your question isn’t a bad question though so I’m gonna answer it in good faith. Basically when regulators look at whether industries are competitive a huge factor they look at is whether firms have pricing power and their market share. There are a couple other things they look too like purchasing power with suppliers.
If you look at a firm like Facebook (META) it has both high margins (>30%)and between Google has 80% market share in online advertising. That’s an industry that is oligopolistic and possibly a case for antitrust measures.
In a nut-shell the question is “how much of the pie is consumer surplus vs producer surplus.”
If you look at grocery you’ll see the market share is really broken up so yeah they’re doing a lot of volume but you have a lot of choice. Volume itself doesn’t really tell us anything about competitiveness.
As you’re thinking about this ask and still disagree ask “what would a good objective measure be for competitiveness?” We need some actual quantifiable metric, so what would your counter-proposal be then?
So why are the major chains making billions more the last few years?
Which chain?