Bev Ball
Robert ReichCorporate profits only accounted for roughly 11% of price growth from 1979 to 2019.
Today, record corporate profits account for 53.9% of price increases.
Folks, corporate greed is driving inflation, not workers asking for better wages.
John Yarlett aka Scooby62@rbreich say it louder for those at the back!
john r red-horse@rbreich Is it also possible that aspects of monopoly play into it as well?
I sure seems like there has been a fair bit of consolidation in many business sectors that show up in the inflation metrics.
Steve NordquistLooking forward to your digest of monopolies not evidencing greed, but with price hikes. Federated First Nations Minerals Categories, I guess shine forth! Looking for some verticals...
GFJacobs Is Still Masking
Chris Thomas@rbreich ok... but *why*?
Corporations have always been greedy. What happened to change their willingness to raise prices across the entire economy?
Warmth Highest
Nicolas F@killfile @rbreich He has talked about it before. There are lots of big companies that are gaining more market share through mergers.
For instance, Kroger is trying to acquire Albertsons, which would effectively make a more concentrated oligarchy in the supermarket business. They will not have to compete with as many other businesses on prices and wages.
Capitalism encourages competition, but the irony is that winning the competition means getting rid of it.
DBraun
Tofu Golem@rbreich
Is that with or without investigations into Hunter Biden's laptop?
How can you claim to be an economist when you clearly don't understand the relationship between Hunter Biden's laptop and inflation? [/Sarcasm]
@rbreich tell that to the feds!
Kitt Lieder@rbreich Time we figure this out and accept it!
Runmiked@rbreich so why is that never mentioned by Jerome Powell and why is he and this administration, by his hand, targeting workers via rate hikes?
@rbreich how can you measure that and identify the exact reason for inflation?
Grumble@rbreich
If the mob only needed to eat a dozen millionaires in 1980, because of inflation the mob will now need to eat almost one hundred millionaires in 2023.
If the mob only needed to eat a dozen millionaires in 1980, because of inflation the mob will now need to eat almost one hundred millionaires in 2023.
sdflo
Ethan 🌒@rbreich embrace socialism robert
@rbreich there's never been a time when corporations intentionally made less than humanly possible - corporate greed is always maxed out at 100% - inflation is caused by high demand and low supply - it's a baked in feature of capitalism - there has never been and never will be a time when CEO's intentionally decide to make less - you cannot address this problem without challenging capitalism itself
rw@rbreich They may not be monopolies by the book, but they’re certainly acting like monopolies.
ZZ Bottom
Cindi Lynch (She/Her)@rbreich Some price increases are legitimately due to supply chain foul-ups and increased costs to get products to the market. It's important to do the math to see whether the vendors you do business with prioritize their employees and their customers or their owners/shareholders.
@rbreich do you have any evidence?
3Moons
Ty Ross@rbreich unbelievable
Sean@rbreich Given this, why have central banks bought into the false belief that raising interest rates will stem inflation? The reality is that higher rates actually benefit the greedy corporations while putting vulnerable individuals in an even more precarious situation.
Jonathan Kamens 86 47@seanb @rbreich The most charitable explanation is that the central bankers can't see past the orthodox economic view that profit is always good and the free market will correct excess profit.
Slightly less charitable explanation is that they know raising rates won't work but nothing else will either and they don't want to go down in history as the bankers who didn't raise rates when it was needed.
Least charitable explanation is, they're in on the con. #EndCapitalism
Slightly less charitable explanation is that they know raising rates won't work but nothing else will either and they don't want to go down in history as the bankers who didn't raise rates when it was needed.
Least charitable explanation is, they're in on the con. #EndCapitalism
joe•iuculano 
@rbreich I've been saying this seemingly F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!
Oregon Wine Woman@rbreich "Today, record corporate profits account for 53.9% of price increases." We've known that, but stupid folk have stopped their ears with foolish garbage.
I'll keep beating the drum and shouting the truth to all who will listen.
I'll keep beating the drum and shouting the truth to all who will listen.
@rbreich
Oh yay-glad I found you here
Oh yay-glad I found you here
Max Ganz II 🇺🇦@rbreich I may be completely wrong, but this to my eye, taken at face value, is most strange. In a market with competition, profits decline to the lowest level where the businesses involved can make a reasonable long term profit (the price of bread, say). By contrast, in a monopoly market, prices rise to the highest level the market can bear (the Apple and Google taxes, for example).
A couple of questions however immediately come to mind - which companies? how is profit defined?
✊🏾WiseGuyEddie@rbreich THIS TOO!
@rbreich Can Congress get the Fed to stop raising interest rates to get people fired?
@rbreich The system is broken. Rich getting richer, poor getting power, and that's not good, in so many ways!
turkeyman1000@rbreich you tell ‘em!
MartyMarmalade@rbreich what do you propose be done about it? It’s a free market, the price is that which the market will bear.
@rbreich But Mr. Reich, that perspective goes completely against the predominant narrative - it's those evil workers seeking higher wages driving all this inflation. Like COLAs in the late '70s and early/mid '80s.
How you get past that is hard because so many workers now have (sometimes puny) 401k accounts invested in the corporations and they hope those investments will tide them over when they retire.
Basically, "monied" labor is now in some ways tied to the fortunes of corporations.
HumbleBrag@rbreich What can possibly be done about it? Corpos have realized they can just increase prices exponentially with zero consequences.
I'll never understand how a company can say "we made 20bn last year, great job! How do we make even more this year?"
Dragon sickness will be the downfall of the species.
Julien ColombDoes fit with my feelings, but do you have sources/references
for these numbers?
@rbreich
Tax the rich&Corp. publicize corporate greed as price gouging, which is driving up prices.
Tax the rich&Corp. publicize corporate greed as price gouging, which is driving up prices.
M&M@rbreich it is obvious to us looking at it. But not to the leaders who are representing the corporate/capital class.
DJDWade