A Boring Dystopia

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?

"Actual inflation" is just some capitalist a bit further up the supply chain "turning the screws on everyone just because they can". Inflation is the ultimate proof capitalism is an inherently flawed system.

"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

I usually try to see both sides of an argument, give 'em a chance.

For example; Supply chains were truly fucked over by COVID. And believe it or not, it's still an issue in late 2023.

But inflation now is almost entirely corporate greed. They saw what they could get away with and pressed it.

Say you have egg laying chickens. You were selling a dozen for $1, but prices spiked and people were happy to pay $2.

You going to drop your prices out the goodness of your heart? And at the same time, feed prices went up (but came down again). Everything went up! Need to repair the fence? $20 worth of wire is now $40 (but that price came down).

That extra $20 was nothing to me, but I can justify keeping my prices up, or even raising them!

Expand that to megacorp's kinda thinking. In my simplistic case, you are solely responsible for the morality of your decisions, and it might be a hard decision. You gonna take less money nice guy?

For a monster corporation? Nah, that greed is spread over a thousand actors, all sanely acting in their best interest.

Capitalism is the best economic system we got, but the flaws are clear. We need strong worker unions and strong legislative oversight. And that is clear as well.

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.

There's a drug store chain near me that has a sign, if you need formula and can't afford it, they'll let you have their brand generic formulas for free. You just bring it up to the desk, let them know and they'll scan it and give it to you.

That isn't a sign of collapse. That just shows that the average retailer would let a baby starve than lose a dime. Its a reflection of the morality that these people have. But of course they never examine themselves deep enough to have that realisation.

Their incentives go directly against our incentives quite often

In other news, guillotine futures are up 20% in Q3.

Sounds an awful lot like communism to me.

I'm in.