328
submitted 1 year ago by sik0fewl@kbin.social to c/canada@lemmy.ca

Supply chains, worker wages and the price of energy has been blamed for the current bout of high inflation. But central bankers around the world are starting to clue in to something consumers have been aware of for a while β€” corporations just aren't afraid to raise their prices anymore.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] FunderPants@lemmy.ca 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There is a word for it in economic and business circles, "consumer surplus". When you have money that you could be willing, or forced, to part with business assholes call it comsumer surplus, like you have surplus money that belongs to them actually if only they could get you to give it to them.

Take that idea and apply it to consumer necessities, like housing or food, and you can see where the squeeze is coming from. The various businesses all at once have decided your money is their money and oligopolistic practices, and weak/ or difficult to deploy regulations let them get away with it.

[-] Neato@kbin.social 62 points 1 year ago

We should apply it the other way: Tax Surplus. There's a lot of valuation in companies in billionaires that could be taxed better.

[-] FunderPants@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I agree. Another economic concept is tax incidence, that is the term for who ultimately pays taxes. Conservatives like to pretend that all tax is paid by consumers, but this is a naive/trivial viewpoint because companies cannot set infinitely high prices, so tax may come from profit.

It's true that increased taxes don't always see the full incidence land on profit, but alot of it does because pockets aren't endlessly deep so prices can't be raised to offset all tax. I believe in using windfall taxes to prevent profit driven inflation.

[-] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

They also like to pretend they care about balanced budgets and monetary supply. Guess what? Taxes both balance the budget AND they evaporate money from circulation, reducing actual inflation. They ignore that because taxes are the ONLY lever that is progressive; where we can spread the pain equitably, asking the wealthy individuals and corporations to pay the largest share. That's a terrible idea /s

this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
328 points (98.5% liked)

Canada

7185 readers
451 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Communities


🍁 Meta


πŸ—ΊοΈ Provinces / Territories


πŸ™οΈ Cities / Local Communities


πŸ’ SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


πŸ’» Universities


πŸ’΅ Finance / Shopping


πŸ—£οΈ Politics


🍁 Social and Culture


Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS