I'm surprised there's not an inflation thread yet
POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, June 11, 2026 17:04
VIEWED: 37356
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Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds
By Tom Perkins | Fri 19 Jan 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-b
y-corporate-profits
A new report claims “resounding evidence” shows that high corporate profits are a main driver of ongoing inflation, and companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop.
The report, compiled by the progressive Groundwork Collaborative thinktank, found corporate profits accounted for about 53% of inflation during last year’s second and third quarters. Profits drove just 11% of price growth in the 40 years prior to the pandemic, according to the report. https://groundworkcollaborative.org/
“Costs have come down substantially, and while corporations were quick to pass on their increased costs to consumers, they are surprisingly less quick to pass on their savings to consumers,” Liz Pancotti, a Groundwork strategic adviser and paper co-author, said.
Corporations maintain high prices by exploiting cost shocks caused by events such as the Ukraine war and coordinating price hikes, said Isabella Weber, a University of Massachusetts Amherst economist who was not part of the paper.
The shocks create an environment in which it is safe for firms to increase prices as they expect their competitors to do the same, said Weber.
“This is a form of implicit collusion,” she said. “Firms do not even need to talk to one another to know that a cost shock is a great time to raise prices. But when costs fall, price-setting firms do not have any incentive to decrease prices.”
If no firms launch a price war, Weber added, then companies “hold the line” on prices and widen margins.
Absent strong government intervention in pricing, the 2025 expiration of the Trump corporate tax cuts presents an opportunity to rein in corporations via the tax code, Pancotti said.
“We’ve decided as a country that we like to have very large, powerful corporations and we are OK with them being very profitable,” she said. “We need to take a really hard look at how our tax code incentivizes corporate profiteering and ask: ‘Do we as a country want to do something about that?’”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The buy now, pay later holiday debt hangover has arrived, as consumers wonder how they’ll pay bills
Buy now, pay later helped fuel record holiday spending online, surging 14% year over year, but now that those bills are coming due, consumers aren’t sure how they’ll pay them.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/21/buy-now-pay-later-shoppers-deal-with-h
oliday-debt.html
We're living in the age of Wimpy Economics...
Quote:
It’s tough to say how buy now, pay later fits into the country’s overall debt picture. Providers that offer the service don’t typically disclose how often those bills go unpaid, and the debts aren’t reported to credit bureaus. Klarna, PayPal and Affirm
all declined to share buy now, pay later delinquency rates with CNBC.
Affirm has said the short-term and high-velocity nature of its buy now, pay later service makes traditional credit metrics less relevant. It writes off those unpaid loans within 120 days, which is why it doesn’t disclose delinquency rates for the service. It does disclose other credit metrics for its longer-term loans.
Well then, the Government knows. If the Corps are going to get tax breaks that screw all Americans by knowingly preying on the stupidest and weakest citizens, that information should be put out there for everyone to see at the end of every year.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Credit Card Debt Is Up—and It’s Taking Longer to Pay Down
Customers of biggest U.S. banks have steadily increased unpaid balances
https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/credit-card-debt-is-upand-its-taki
ng-longer-to-pay-down-237cc4a3?mod=hp_lead_pos4
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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THIS Car Market Crisis is Getting WORSE
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For some unknown reason, a multi-billionaire decided to NOT gouge his customers by inflating prices. But if he wanted to inflate his prices, the Federal Gov could NOT stop him. The beauty of America is that you can make as much money as the gullibility of your customers will allow.
More at https://angrybearblog.com/2024/01/mark-cubans-cost-plus-drugs-plan
A customer's testimony
Mark R says:
January 29, 2024 at 7:12 am
I have used Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs for about a year and a half and it is absolutely brilliant. Prices are often lower on CPDs WITHOUT INSURANCE than it is buying from CVS or Duane Reade with insurance! Accuracy and delivery reliability are excellent and light years better than the purgatory of dealing with PBMs and chain pharmacies.
Mark Cuban has figured this out. It is not a coincidence that CVS announced it would be moving to change their entire drug pricing model to cost plus pricing next year.
Once you start using it, I promise you, you will never go back. And as more and more people move towards Cuban’s company, the exorbitant margins on drug sales that the insurance companies/pbms/pharmacies get are going to get cut in half or worse.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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CBS News: Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rent-homelessness-harvard-report-center-f
or-housing-studies/
Quote:
A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.
According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country's unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
Homelessness, long a problem in states such as California and Washington, has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S.. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs.
That alarming jump in people struggling to keep a roof over their head came amid blistering inflation in 2021 and 2022 and as surging rental prices across the U.S. outpaced worker wage gains. Although a range of factors can cause homelessness, high rents and the expiration of pandemic relief last year contributed to the spike in housing insecurity, the researchers found.
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USA Today: New study exposes finances of Americans: Most can't handle a $1,000 emergency expense
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2024/01/25/emerge
ncy-expense-savings-study/72356517007/
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Quote:You still have not accepted that in America your finances are controlled by the people you buy and borrow from. The government is nowhere in those transactions, except when you buy and borrow too much. At that point, a bankruptcy judge decides how much each seller and bank gets of your money. If your checks bounced, a lowly justice of the peace decides your finances. Your creditors and bankers are protected. You have very little protection since you don't have a lawyer nearly as experienced as their lawyers who have years of practice taking everything from people exactly like you.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
CBS News: Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
USA Today: New study exposes finances of Americans: Most can't handle a $1,000 emergency expense
Either become your own accountant and lawyer or get slaughtered by rich people who have highly competent lawyers whose sole job is killing you for money. Since at least half of Americans can't even understand how to balance a checkbook, their destiny is to be slaughtered. There could be protections for ignoramuses, but the Republican Party is obviously and completely opposed to such.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You still have not accepted that in America your finances are controlled by the people you buy and borrow from. The government is nowhere in those transactions, except when you buy and borrow too much. At that point, a bankruptcy judge decides how much each seller and bank gets of your money. If your checks bounced, a lowly justice of the peace decides your finances. Your creditors and bankers are protected. You have very little protection since you don't have a lawyer nearly as experienced as their lawyers who have years of practice taking everything from people exactly like you.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
CBS News: Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
USA Today: New study exposes finances of Americans: Most can't handle a $1,000 emergency expense
Either become your own accountant and lawyer or get slaughtered by rich people who have highly competent lawyers whose sole job is killing you for money. Since at least half of Americans can't even understand how to balance a checkbook, their destiny is to be slaughtered. There could be protections for ignoramuses, but the Republican Party is obviously and completely opposed to such.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
I'm fine. Very few people are better with money than I am. Especially when our government destroys the world economy.
Everybody has agency and the ability to make better decisions for themselves even if the public school system is designed to churn out stupid lifelong wage-slaves.
Don't try to take that away from them.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:That is the way the rich want it. Don't take away their right to collect all the money from the dumbest Americans. That is why prices keep rising: the rich are testing how much money is out there, and then they take it. If the rich get too greedy by setting prices too high too quickly, they end up with less money from lower sales compared to moderate greediness with higher sales.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Everybody has agency and the ability to make better decisions for themselves even if the public school system is designed to churn out stupid lifelong wage-slaves.
Don't try to take that away from them.
In theory, bankruptcy courts are there to protect the bankrupt debtor but in practice, the courts are there to divide the debtor's money evenly between creditors. The creditors are in a far better position to receive "fair" treatment from the courts than the debtors.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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