Yep, a huge portion of this recent ‘inflation’ is not cost increases or actual inflation… just basically the wealthy class turning the screws on everyone else because they can.
Don’t worry, my Econ 101 class states that surely a competitor will come in and operate at a lower cost to recoup that cost for the customers!
Wait… what do you mean the competitors are all increasing prices by the same amount knowing demand for diapers is inelastic and the Nash equilibrium is for them to all match price increases so that they all make more money together?
Surely a new entrant will help!
Wait… what do you mean nobody will invest in a new competitor because the market is “saturated” and even if they did the big brands would just decrease prices in the areas they operate until they run out of cash and fold?
Surely a regulator will help!
Wait… what do you mean the regulators feel price increases are due to “too much demand” for products and are turning the screws on consumers?
“But people are still out here buying staples and maxing out their credit cards, so we can turn the screws just a bit more, right? Right?”
-Rich People Probably
“There still aren’t enough homeless people. We can keep going.”
They literally lock up the baby formula in a cage at my local grocery stores now. You know, so criminal scum with starving babies don’t pillage them.
If that doesn’t signal imminent collapse I don’t know what does.
The devil’s advocate in me says that dealers often cut drugs with formula so there’s at least one other reason to keep it locked, but I don’t know how well that statement holds up under scrutiny, because it’s not like they check to see if you actually have a baby when you buy formula, and it’s probably not worth the risk to steal it as opposed to just buying it with the kind of return you’d get from diluting your product.
And yeah, I see razor blades, shampoo, and fucking laundry soap under lock and key in stores all the time. Nobody’s cutting drugs with any of those. Shit’s getting real fucked up.
I’ve heard the baby formula drug thing before, but I find it hard to believe you can’t mix it with something cheaper like regular powdered milk or flour.
A lot of this stuff is easily resellable down your local flat-roofed pub, and there’s practically no punishment for shoplifting.
Corporations. Do. Not. Care.
My ex-favorite tea brands silently cutting 20% of tea bags in the box and raised the price 15%, while keeping the same sized box and make the printed weight and contents smaller and harder to find.
And people call me crazy for getting frustrated.
I mean, this is what happens when you give these vultures the freedom to do whatever they want!
So I propose a solution:
We start and fund a non-profit organization designed to produce basic living essentials and sell it at the cost to manufacture, regardless of market pressures. Then we all collectively buy from this non-profit and have a functional means of production legally owned and controlled by the people.
Set up strict rules to ban anyone who has ever worked in any upper management position in any for-profit basic essentials producing company from ever holding any position of power in the non-profit. No one from the corporate world at all. No one from any position in state or federal government. No lobbyists or consultants or members of their think tanks or any of their goons.
Use open source designs for the factories and everyone in the community works together to automate them as much as is possible.
Sounds an awful lot like communism to me.
I’m in.
I’m surprised no one here has organized something like this yet.
I’m sure the ruling class would get rid of it pretty quickly.
Shareholder primacy is upheld by the state putting every publicly owned company antagonistic to its workers and customers, id est, the public.
This means the companies are forced to charge what the market will bear, and it’s the responsibility of the government to regulate prices to keep things affordable.
But this means lobbying by companies is an attack on the public. (It’s highly profitable to bribe officials and should be illegal. It also means officials who take lobby money are traitors to the public, the nation and their office, whether or not doing so is legal.
So the justification for bullets is there, and has been for several decades. We’re just not very good at seeing when we have nothing left to lose.
Remember this discrepancy every time you hear “they’ll just pass the costs on to the consumer” with regards to regulation and taxes. It works the same way in both directions; the price is based on what you’re willing to pay, not their operating costs.
Someone should have Robert Reich be their vice president. He could come out every second day and rip into some fucking companies for the shit they do to keep dragging the whole world down.
I think corporations learned some very dangerous lessons from the pandemic.
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The demand for essential goods is inelastic. They can charge whatever and people still have to but things, especially food, household products, and a place to live.
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They can understaff and underpay employees, and people will choose to fault people for laziness rather than the deliberate corporate choices that lead to the situation.
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Corporations have built such a large market share so as to have created giant barriers to entry that there is zero competition from new businesses.
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Even larger competitor corporations are happy to wink and nod as you both raise prices, cut staff, and give paltry raises because it just means you both make more money, and so long as you don’t say it out loud, it isn’t collusion.
They already knew these things, they just needed an excuse to not cause too much of an uproar. Egg prices went up by way too much too quickly that even the government, who rarely actually does anything about this sort of thing, started an investigation. Magically the prices dropped by a lot, but unfortunately still higher than it used to be.
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An aggregate piece increase percentage vs a production cost decrease percentage would be more useful. Brands shift to higher and lower quality and price brackets, so unless they’re all going up, it’s not much of an issue if you don’t have brand loyalty. But I think it’s likely most all brands of diapers are going up in price since they saw people were willing to pay ludicrous prices for them.
I mean, its pay ludicrous prices or have an unhappy baby with lots of diaper rash issues if they have sensitive skin.
Parents are between a rock and a hard place on that one. Its not like they can magically make their kids stop pooping.
We use some washable diapers, though it’s nasty and a lot of work.
and a lot of work.
Over 60% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck and probably simply doesn’t have the time to do such a thing, despite the obvious environmental benefits.
Yeah, hence why diaper companies probably figure they can charge more.
This doesn’t tell the whole story. It seems like the aggregate cost of Kimberly Clark products fell by $75M. But perhaps the diapers did increase in cost? Further analysis is needed.
Is this Bidenomics?
BORING
