Canada

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.

It's crazy how many people refer to this shit as "inflation" I could be wrong (wouldn't be the first time lol) but I think Inflation generally refers to cost increases due to the economy sucking shit.

This isn't that.

This is companies and landlords and service providers gouging us everywhere they can because the government is doing nothing to stop it, and the companies are laughing in their piles of money while they watch the average idiot call it "inflation" instead of "corporate greed" or succinctly, "greedflation".

The complacency of people to just accept this and blame it on normal inflation is bonkers. Companies are reporting record profits - how could that be possible under true inflation‽‽

It's time to fix our broken fucking tax brackets and start swinging at the money-filled pinatas already!

Collectively agreeing to raising prices is anti-competitive collusion and illegal.

Collectively raising prices is anti-competitive coordination and legal.

Pandemic and supply shocks is a perfect excuse to do the latter.

Good luck to whoever is trying to solve this.

There are half as many publicly traded corporations now as there were 20 years ago. It's not actually that we let them

Parliament is doing nothing and will do nothing. It’s up to us.

This article makes Tiff look a lot like a corporate shill in government clothes. Blame labor until the corporate theft is over and then start to recognize it for what it is.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

When asked how much of Canada's current inflationary problem can be blamed on price hikes above and beyond companies' cost increases, Macklem said, "I don't think we can put a number on it," but other central bankers have been far more willing.

Paul Donovan, a London-based economist with Swiss bank UBS, says the scenario described above is what's known as "profit-led inflation" and he's been waving red flags about it for most of the past year.

While it has exposed itself to varying degrees in various places around the world, the one condition it requires is a strong narrative: consumers have to believe en masse that price increases are justified, or they won't accept them.

"Consumers in the U.K. have shown themselves less willing to believe the narrative of why prices were rising, and supermarkets are eager not to alienate customers and so seek to shore up loyalty through the privileged discount scheme."

Jim Stanford, an economist and director at the Centre for Future Work, says its refreshing to see central bankers start to acknowledge that corporate profits have played a disproportionate role in inflation, because for too long Canada's economic discourse has been trying to put the blame on anything but that.

I've heard that advice from a dozen people [but] I think it's unreasonable to expect that somehow consumers have to solve the problem by becoming bargain hunters and spending half their week looking at grocery store leaflets."

The original article contains 1,034 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

This is why I no longer go to loblaws-family stores.

I've noticed here in the US that all restaurants have been getting more expensive yet worse in quality. You can get a good anything anymore without paying insane prices.

And even for typically expensive prices, you get fairly mediocre food.

Neoliberal policy is fucked. It's rather telling that China's economic environment is more conducive to startups and innovation than Canada's.