I don't understand why everyone hates the rich. Without them who would...*checks notes*...trash the economy repeatedly with no consequences?

@geekysteven

Tell me you dont understand how economies work without telling me you dont understand.

@freemo @geekysteven The common leftie line is that companies are unnecessarily inflating prices so that they can make record profits. I can’t deny that they are making record profits but I suspect that this isn’t the only reason why they’re raising their prices.

Even if they were raising prices to make more money, who is to say it’s “unnecessary”? There isn’t a standardized acceptable price for anything.

People making such claims have very likely never signed the front of a paycheck.

@midway @geekysteven @freemo That’s a good point.

I’ve heard it said once that corporations behave more ethically under stable economics than in unstable economies, and it makes sense. Even if the leftist line was correct, it’s possible that these CEOs are storing their acorns for the winter so to speak, not inflating prices out of mere greed.

If a financial disaster is impeding, as I suspect it is, there’s no such thing as a company having too much money.

@freemo @geekysteven @realcaseyrollins
Even if it’s just to make more money, that’s not illegitimate. Businesses exist to make money by serving people. Their goal is to charge as much as they can while maintaining sales. If they charge too much, they will eventually lose market share. But raising prices to increase profits and profit margins is not a crime or even immoral. It’s a normal business practice. There is no “right” price except for what people are willing to accept.

@midway @geekysteven @freemo I largely agree although price gouging for, say, drinking water would certainly be unethical.

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@realcaseyrollins

I'd also argue that prioviding water should be a duty of governments not private companies... A priovate company should be welcome to price gouge on water because they are providing water where there is a market, which implies filling a gap that the government should have already supplied. It is unethical the government didnt provide the water, not for the company charging for it.

@geekysteven @midway

@freemo @realcaseyrollins @midway @geekysteven all value is subjective. Price gauging is a normal part of response to increased demand. It's not really possible this close to the events to determine how much inflation of the money supply is responsible for record profits and how much is increased demand, or something else we can't see yet. Regardless, I suspect that the only way companies are able to control the supply side in such a way to increase the price necessary to meet demand is their protection in the capitalist economy. We must Rembert that corporations are an artificial entity that does not exist in nature. Governments have created them allowing their liability to be limited so that owners can take significantly more financial risks than the workers can. This gives them much more power to exploit further driving down supply thereby raising prizes to meet demand.
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