Multinationals in particular hiked prices far above rise in costs to deliver an outsize impact on cost of living crisis, report concludes
Yesterday we were shopping at Target and in the frozen aisle they had a sign for the Favorite Day ice cream sandwiches, “Everyday low price $4.99”.
The price on the shelf label, $4.69. Whoops!
No shit
Correct, this is literally how market economics works. The real question is why they weren’t able to do it before, since they had the incentive already (and always do).
We all knew that. Too bad the Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada ignored every sign pointing to greedy companies causing inflation and instead nailed us to the wall.
thats by design, its always on us.
capitalize the gains, socialize the losses.
I work for a manufacturing company, and during the demand boom our customers wanted way more product than our facilities are physically capable of producing. I suppose sales could have complexified and ratcheted up our existing rationing process (have to have one at some level when it takes months to produce an order), but raising prices made demand go down so it matched our actual ability to make stuff.
Given the wild increase in demand beyond the infrastructure capabilities, the only alternative to inflation was rationing, and I do not have enthusiasm for ration lines.
Price hikes in a manufacturing context are simply rationing with extra profits, atleast until you build out greater capacity.
They exist to support the rich. Low unemployment rates hurt the rich, so they retaliate by raising prices, making people poorer and more desperate and less able to dictate the conditions of their employment. And here we are.
Steal from the poor, give to the rich
Capitalism doesn’t believe in Robin Hood. Robbin’ hoods on the other hand…
I would love someone to include Canada in these studies. With significantly lower wages than in the US and with the many quasi monopolies in many sectors like telecom and grocery chains and food, I’d like to know how bad Canadians were affected.
Apparently, at least for groceries, there’s an estimated extra $700/year increase next year, with food costs slowing to 2.5-4.5% increases in general, but sticking at 5-7% for bread, vegetables, and meat. It’s still going to cost an average 4-person family $16.3k a year for groceries, though (AKA just over half a full-time minimum-wage salary, prior to paying taxes).
Metro reported a 14% increase in profits for their last quarter compared to last year, and Loblaw’s 11%. According to Google’s earning statements of the last year, Metro has made 27.4% more profits in the last four quarters than they reported in 2020. Loblaws, on the other hand, is actually down 12%, though Google reports they had two really bad quarters this year, and posted a 40% increase in profits between FY 2022 and 2020. So yeah, nothing as egregious as the article, but they’re still outpacing (year over year for the last quarter) both regular and grocery inflation.
I’m sure if I really wanted to, I could dig up the same financial information for Soebys, but I have no clue if Walmart and Costco would keep clean financials readily available for Canada.
Holy shit. Thanks for that.
They decided they deserved to make up all the profit they lost during the pandemic, and they were legally able to increase our prices to do exactly that. It’s as plain and simple as this.
Real question is what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?
Burning the place down hardly helps and our elected officials don’t give much of a shit, at least around here.
I’m well paid, so it doesn’t matter too much for my family just yet, but there are people for whom this means food insecurity.
I’m still pissed though, because I think people deserve to eat.One thing is… it’s expensive to save money.
Buying in bulk isn’t as bad, but someone living paycheck to paycheck can’t afford that.
I have a vacuum machine, the space to store things, freezers, etc.
I can spend more money upfront to save on food in the long run, but not everyone can do this and it hits them even harder.Yeah, but the temptation to burn the place down is really smoldering.
