if rising prices are a sign of a corporate greed, are falling prices a sig of corporate benevelan?

[dead0man]

<difficulty level 4-you can only do insults after you make a point>

[Antonio the Sixth]

The whole purpose of a capital owner is to charge the highest possible price while paying the lowest possible wages. That's capitalism 101. There are many factors that go into how much you can actually get away with charging for a given product, and how low you can get away with paying your employees, but when left to their own devices these amounts will naturally tend toward infinity and zero, respectively.

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve. Of course corporations are "greedy", but that's not exactly a conscious choice - it's a product of how they are designed.

[MarkD]

"If rising prices are a sign of [] corporate greed, are falling prices a sig[n] of corporate benev(o)lan[ce]?"

No, because corporations are never, ever benevolent about anything. They are nothing but pure evil; inhuman monsters.

[dead0man]

The whole purpose of a capital owner is to charge the highest possible price while paying the lowest possible wages. That's capitalism 101. There are many factors that go into how much you can actually get away with charging for a given product, and how low you can get away with paying your employees, but when left to their own devices these amounts will naturally tend toward infinity and zero, respectively.

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve. Of course corporations are "greedy", but that's not exactly a conscious choice - it's a product of how they are designed.

I agree with all this, but I'd like to point out that they also try to pay the lowest possible rents and the lowest possible amount for the things they have to buy AND they are just like the consumers in this, the consumer is trying to pay the least for what they are getting (with the exception of rich people and the people dummies who try and emulate them).


interesting thread, probably the highest percentage of "yjdgitd0".

[Antonio the Sixth]

The whole purpose of a capital owner is to charge the highest possible price while paying the lowest possible wages. That's capitalism 101. There are many factors that go into how much you can actually get away with charging for a given product, and how low you can get away with paying your employees, but when left to their own devices these amounts will naturally tend toward infinity and zero, respectively.

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve. Of course corporations are "greedy", but that's not exactly a conscious choice - it's a product of how they are designed.

I agree with all this, but I'd like to point out that they also try to pay the lowest possible rents and the lowest possible amount for the things they have to buy AND they are just like the consumers in this, the consumer is trying to pay the least for what they are getting (with the exception of rich people and the people dummies who try and emulate them).

Sure, and workers also want to get paid as high as they can. The point, ultimately, is who has the social and material power to impose their wishes on the other. Since the 1980s, it has increasingly been shareholders, and you can see the results in the profit margin steadily rising at the expense of wages and even reinvestment. This current economic cycle is just continuing the trend.

[dead0man]

The whole purpose of a capital owner is to charge the highest possible price while paying the lowest possible wages. That's capitalism 101. There are many factors that go into how much you can actually get away with charging for a given product, and how low you can get away with paying your employees, but when left to their own devices these amounts will naturally tend toward infinity and zero, respectively.

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve. Of course corporations are "greedy", but that's not exactly a conscious choice - it's a product of how they are designed.

I agree with all this, but I'd like to point out that they also try to pay the lowest possible rents and the lowest possible amount for the things they have to buy AND they are just like the consumers in this, the consumer is trying to pay the least for what they are getting (with the exception of rich people and the people dummies who try and emulate them).

Sure, and workers also want to get paid as high as they can. The point, ultimately, is who has the social and material power to impose their wishes on the other. Since the 1980s, it has increasingly been shareholders, and you can see the results in the profit margin steadily rising at the expense of wages and even reinvestment. This current economic cycle is just continuing the trend.

the consumer has a lot of power, ask InBev, but like the voter, they are often very bad at their job

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The whole purpose of a capital owner is to charge the highest possible price while paying the lowest possible wages. That's capitalism 101. There are many factors that go into how much you can actually get away with charging for a given product, and how low you can get away with paying your employees, but when left to their own devices these amounts will naturally tend toward infinity and zero, respectively.

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve. Of course corporations are "greedy", but that's not exactly a conscious choice - it's a product of how they are designed.

I agree with all this, but I'd like to point out that they also try to pay the lowest possible rents and the lowest possible amount for the things they have to buy AND they are just like the consumers in this, the consumer is trying to pay the least for what they are getting (with the exception of rich people and the people dummies who try and emulate them).

Sure, and workers also want to get paid as high as they can. The point, ultimately, is who has the social and material power to impose their wishes on the other. Since the 1980s, it has increasingly been shareholders, and you can see the results in the profit margin steadily rising at the expense of wages and even reinvestment. This current economic cycle is just continuing the trend.

Good pair of comments here. Money is a power multiplier and a tool and for capital owners there is a definite incentive to make as much as they can using what money they do have.
"Late capitalism" itself is an overblown concept, but high margins (which many of these people are used to) are probably harder than ever before over the past few decades to get. Imo a lot of people in the space should lower their expectations, but getting there would be hard..
Capitalism, just like anything else, can be taken too far.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

No, corporations are always greedy and this is not necessarily a bad thing. They charge whatever they can to maximize their profit, which might include lowering prices because the demand is too elastic at the price they're currently charging.

Competition and fear are the 2 factors that balance out greed.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve.

This is (electorally) useful.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't like talking about "corporate greed" because it actually humanizes these economic systems more than they deserve.

This is (electorally) useful.

True enough, although what differentiates Democrats and Republicans these days is less their willingness to denounce corporations and more that the former actually try to do things to curb their worst abuses while the latter just whine about how woke they are.

[Ferguson97]

No, both are signs of corporate greed.

A business is, above all else, interested in making money.

If a business lowers its prices, it's because they have reason to believe that their current prices are too high for customers. There's a reason an iPhone costs $900 and not $25 or $4,000. Set your prices too low and you don't make a profit, even if you sell out your inventory. Set your prices too high and you don't sell enough to make a profit.

These prices can and do change in accordance to inflation. But they can also be subject to price gouging. Remember the Canadian wildfires? A week before that, for just $1 you could buy 10 boxes of masks (25 masks in each box). The day of the wildfires, the boxes were $5 each.

A business would only ever adjust its prices if they thought that the current prices were not the most efficient way of making a profit.