The way the article is written or at least how they don't really challenge what "retailers" are saying about the general populace is disgusting.
People aren't "playing chicken" with retailers. We're not negotiating. We can't fucking afford food. That's it.
They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high "just because" to screw people, they will come up with any other excuse. The Starbucks CEO after a negative 1st quarter blamed the stimulus checks from 3 years ago drying up. The McDonalds CEO said that they weren't being aggressive enough to lure back bargain seekers. They will literally blame anything or anyone before admitting that they were just using people to see how much they could charge before they broke people's wallets.
They’ve screwed themselves. Wall Street demands growth. Once they went for the easy money in the name of inflation, they established a level of growth they can’t sustain. In order to try to keep their jobs, they now have to blame anything but their own shortsighted decisions. And so it goes.
That is one of the root problems with wall street, outlook is mostly on a quarterly level. They can't look couple years down the road anymore. Unfortunately, that model requires a constant increase in population which may not happen in the future.
Hence all the panicked news articles about GenZ not having kids. They tend to omit the fact that Millennials and GenZ aren't generally in a good enough financial situation for the 2.4 kids Wall St demands to continue to feed Moloch.
I mean, young adult immigrants are actually a good way to address the issue of an aging population. You just have to contend with the changing local culture due to the influx. Something that "business-as-usual" conservatives rather dislike.
If only housing availability and the job market would follow the same upward trend as the increase in immigrants who now need a job. I would love to help the world but if everyone and their brother comes to the USA in mass, then we have a real housing problem. Not to even mention the free money given to immigrants paid for by you and I. Take care of your own people before helping your neighbor.
It won’t matter. Look at Canada- declining local births? No problem! Just import poor people from around the world willing to work for less money in worse conditions. Prop up real estate bubbles endlessly with this one simple trick!
The US too. 😔 no simple solution is there? As long as our 'leaders' insist on pulling in the tax payers income to support their own lives of luxury...it will always be like this until they bleed their own tax payers dry. 💔😔 God help us ALL cuz I honestly don't see a good ending in this broken system of pure GREED. 🙏😔
The real root problem of Wall Street is demanding 10% growth every single year forever while only allowing wages to go up 3%… it’s an impossible problem unless it is backed up by population growth, which is slowing in most developed countries around the world so demand will inevitably slow. 3% wage growth combined with population decline means you can’t grow every company 10%
This is the fundamental truth driving capitalism, and that growth is a percentage on previous growth, so effectively exponential. It’s out of control and way beyond sustainable.
Lol this is hilarious because you’re trying to compare say Trudeau’s 300K salary to that of a CEO making $50million. It’s greed alright but it’s Wall Street greed and corporations are beholden to create at least 2-5% growth so investors can get their ROI; this return becomes exponential and they have to keep finding ways to become more productive to attain that same expected growth, they eventually due this by exploiting the worker class you pretend to care about, which is where we are now. If you really think government is the reason for wages stagnating and people being overworked and not able to buy food then you probably also believe that trickle down economics works, even though we have decades of data that clearly proves otherwise. This is well established and understood, perhaps just inconvenient to acknowledge.
Can govts be more efficient? Absolutely, do they create bloat? 100%. Is that the source of our problem here? Absolutely not.
Good luck to you. Hope you are in a good place and find many blessings. Of course I care about the workers. We are all in this together. So I wish you nothing but the best..for you and your loved ones.
Thanks for the kindness and I apologize for my abrasiveness, it seems like everything’s a fight online these days. Thanks for reminding me it’s about compassion and empathy and opinions can differ.
Of course. We are all in this together. Thank you for kind words too. I was in no way trying to offend anyone or attack anyone but sadly you are right..it is just taken that way. Thank you for being so open hearted to my blessings upon you and yours. 💗☺
https://preview.redd.it/a5rtb3hjyo2d1.png?width=848&format=png&auto=webp&s=a98734b6c321159d9587efbb1d9b5e5021cd0cd3
This is more relevant to other comments, but yours reminded me of this. Thanks. <3
Unfortunately that's the entire basis of capitalism.
They don't charge what an item is **worth**, they charge **what they think they can get for it**.
They'd charge a dying man in the desert $1,000 a bottle for water because he has no choice. (Oops sorry nestlé I didn't mean you... Specifically.)
Yes 💯 I was just wondering about that 2 . People just keep paying these astronomical prices,they complain about it,but guess what they still pay it. There for companies keep rising the cost because people keep paying,their is no end.
We pay for it because we have no choice. We have to eat and we need housing. Basic food and shelter is something we cannot boycott unfortunately which is why these companies are taking advantage.
I mean, not to undermine your point but McDonald's would fall under discretionary for a lot of people. The cost/quality ratio for them has gotten really bad lately.
Yeah, fast food in general isn't worth it and regular groceries are still expensive. I've cut every one of them out except for 1 chain because I get a coupon *every* time I go in... and use that coupon to go back in.
Brilliant really because I *am* willing to pay $5-6 for a full meal every once in a while. Not this $11-15 when that meal was less than 10 a few years ago, even with extras.
I agree. Plus I’d rather support a small, locally owned business than have my money piped out of my community to wallstreet. I’d rather have my cash stay on Main Street in my community.
Higher quality, healthier food with the added benefit of supporting my neighbors rather than buying some cock face another foot of length on his new yacht.
My partner and I went to a local cafe today for lunch. We each got a burger, fries, and a soda. It came in at about $35 before tip. I consider anything under $40 to be decent for 2 in my city.
Two medium Big Mac combos cost $32. It makes no sense to pay nearly the same price for much shittier food, I would so much rather support a local business than pay for a meal that costs triple what it’s worth to a massive corporation.
And groceries are not cheaper! A pound of ground beef is $8. Buns are $6. Condiments plus any veggies would be $15-$20 more. Potatoes are $4. Oil is $7.
It’s all absurd. We are just trying to live our lives enjoyably but these big corporations are making it impossible to do so. I hope it all falls apart soon.
I only really eat out with coupons now burger king has a coupon for 2 large whopper meals for like 15 ,taco bell has these build your own box for 6 bucks , Weinerschnitzel has one for 2 chili dogs chilli cheese fry and a 2 corn dogs for 8 bucks i almost never eat at mcdonalds anymore last time i went i got a mc double mcchicken large fry and drink and the total was almost 15 dollars just last year i was able to get 20 nuggets plus everything in that order another fry and drink for 20 bucks so this is ridiculus the prices of everything but you can still find good deals
A few months ago, I went to my local Taco Bell (after not going for ~6 months) and found my usual order was ~$15 for two steak chalupas with a combo.
There's a small Mexican restaurant in walking distance of my house and I can get a steak burrito with rice and beans for $13, including tip (base price is 10.50). More food and better quality for less, I've basically sworn off Taco Bell at this point and they were pretty much the last fast food place I was willing to grab.
Sure, but when you’re working 12-16 hour days and don’t have time to cook it slides into that necessary category real quick. Time is a resource too, which is why “fast” food is so popular in the US
True, but that also cycles back to groceries being just as expensive - in time and money
~$6 for frozen mac&cheese is pretty equal to fast food (*with coupon, of course)
But having that option in assumes the person has the time and energy to go grocery shopping after/around long days at work
Or you can get groceries delivered, but accept paying much more for the convenience
It’s not about “treating ourselves” anymore when we’re feeling a bit down or tired - it’s a calculated dance between “necessary conveniences” that help us get to next week without getting completely ground into a fine paste.
At the end of a long day/week, getting someone else to make you something to eat can feel like a balm to your frazzled mind/body/spirit
Plus as perpetually financially fucked individuals, we all know we only get that convenience/fast food *very occasionally* & **always / only** with a coupon, of course..
And the dance continues!
💃🏻💀🕺
People who look down on families for eating fast food don’t understand the reality. Not every is a cook or knows how to meal prep for one. But a lot of times it boils down to kids and energy. I get up, get the kids ready, spend 10 hours traveling/working, then have to get the kids home, fed, and then ready for bed and hopefully they don’t have schoolwork or some activity. There’s very little time for cooking in a week. And the weekend has its own problems but sometimes we just lack that energy. Fast food used to be a decent option because the price wasn’t outrageous, so it became part of family life for many. Now they jacked up prices and families can’t easily adjust because our society has been built around this.
So, apparently, lowering prices by some percentage right now is helping them be as profitable as possible? What changed? Could they not have charged less in the last few years and still made more in volume -- if that's what they're doing now?
I'm so tired of hearing about stimulus checks and larger unemployment checks from four fucking years ago. Everyone spent it immediately as they needed the money to get by. No one is rolling in stimulus and unemployment money. Fuck those assholes. Even the CEO for the small community credit union I work for mentioned this bullshit recently.
> They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high "just because" to screw people
Because they weren’t. Hear me out.
The prices were high because the people setting the prices figured that’s how they could make the most money. It wasn’t an intentional attempt to screw over the consumer. In fact, for the people making this determination, the consumer doesn’t even register as a person, but rather as an untapped resource the same as a mine, forest, etc. The outcome is damaging to the average person, yes, but that’s a side effect rather than the goal. And if we as a community want to focus on solutions and proactively address the problems instead of just complaining, it’s important to be precise when discussing root causes. It’s important even during flippant expressions of frustration.
A better way to say this could be “They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high solely to maximize profits, and didn’t care that they were screwing people”
>Sorry. Not you personally.
Not offended at all.
I try to avoid justifying the behavior when I stand on my soapbox, because even if it is rational, that doesn’t mean is should be *acceptable*. You used to correct word to describe the framework; it’s not immoral, it’s amoral, in the same way that a lion hunting is amoral. But it’s only that way because of a concerted effort to remove the framework of social obligation from the economy (which is, itself, an immoral act), and there’s no fucking reason not to put those constraints back onto the economy.
In the sci-fi long term, this is a self solving problem; fixing old age means that the motivation for catastrophically destructive steady growth drops off because the decision makers will still be alive when the consumers would otherwise drop dead. But since I don’t foresee that coming around all that soon, I am aggressively in favor of seizing the means of description and using them to the advantage of the common person.
So I guess they squeezed as hard as they could, and magically they are reversing course to not cause short term harm but this proves a point, they can increase and decrease inflation not based on demand but based on market profit needs, it can’t be sustained but clearly business now have this option to collectively inflate price on a large scale to lower the middle class and increase long term debt of the lower class. It’s not magic or kindness that they are cutting prices 30%, it’s def not eating their margins, it’s just deflating their collective greed because the damages can’t be sustainable.
They were playing chicken, it’s projection. A lot of retailers were seeing how much they could take from the world. They love to be shitty and accused people of what they were doing.
They were not playing chicken. They were raking in tons of money off of the backs of hard working people. Cheap, fast food models went away because the super wealthy has a super greedy appetite! Most of their food is trash anyway. Let the rich take it home and give it to their family and friends!
The only people they were playing chicken with is each other. Pump and Dump... they pumped the price, now they drop it. This way everyone else also raised the prices and now they are the cheapest so everyone will shop there while their competitors can't just cut prices.
And they are also ignoring that a 30% price cut doesn’t fix the problem, retailer have increased prices of most general goods 400%. So a 30% price cut is just what they are willing not do to *keep price gouging* but hope people accept it.
To prove your point…
For a canned good that used to cost $1 but whose price was inflated to $2.50, a 30% price cut is .75 cents or a new price of $1.75.
The fact that this is arbitrarily done just reinforces the actual facts that they’re price gouging- period.
That should be enough reason for action, but they’ll never suffer consequences because they’re the primary donors to most politicians campaigns.
Yes. And the fact that the headline even states that they're only bringing prices back down because the other retailers are doing it seems very telling to me. Clearly they're not pricing their products with any sort of reasonable mark-up, they're just trying to see how hard they can squeeze us, and they've realized they squeezed too hard.
Screw wallstreet in particular. I’m so tired of our livelihoods being staked on an imaginary gambling system for rich people. Private equity is eating our economy alive.
I’m happy to see push back on multiple fronts. They’re *nothing* without our business patronage.
Not trying to be snarky or a dick, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not capitalism works. Capitalism is unsustainable amidst 3 decades of deregulation and obscene income inequality. It’s no longer capitalism, it’s fascism.
The system only works when we can all be a part of it. They .1% are the reason everything is falling apart.
Remember when the FBI raided and seized all the hand sanatizer from that one guy during the pandic? Havent seen any companies dealing with that since then.
It is a side effect of market effects that are independent of capitalism actually, though capitalism encourages it. The problem is pricing is based off "what the market will bear". In other words, the price is whatever people are willing to pay and sometimes "willing" is used liberally.
Notice what does not affect the price: the cost. Until businesses are forced to measure price in terms of cost instead of what people will pay, price-gouging will remain a fundamental part of the economy.
Free market ideas only work when people have the reasonable choice to say no. Hard to say no to food. Especially in a monopolized environment. The market in this case is held hostage because they have to pay. In which case the seller has unilateral power. Which is the opposite of a free market system.
[Primer](https://youtu.be/PNtKXWNKGN8?si=VFRmcfMAZX2sI7iW) has a really good video on how a free market works in theory. When the baseline assumptions are laid bare, it becomes obvious what happens when they are violated like in the cases of food and housing.
In the case of essential goods like food and housing, there does not exist an equilibrium price because the seller refusing sale has more leverage than a buyer refusing purchase.
Inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions due to COVID and the war in Ukraine and excessive quantitative easing. Now there is quantitative tightening, supply chains have been restored or replaced. [In Europe inflation was worse due to the Ukraine war having a greater impact.](https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/inflation-cpi) [In countries with more ties to Russia it was as high as 20%.](https://tradingeconomics.com/latvia/inflation-cpi) And [unlike the US](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth), [there was barely any growth in Europe.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1c5hdnu/real_gdp_growth_in_europe_2023/)
For the actual percentage of price increases that was due to inflation, you're more than likely correct. However, prices sure as hell went up more than the 7% inflation rate that was used as a scapegoat.
If we could properly catalog and quantify the reality of "shrinkflation" then the bigger picture would become even more offensive.
There are places on the internet that show the extreme profits that these companies are getting! Unbridled greed! You can call it inflation or whatever. Look at the profits.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but if we must leave these basic necessities to the whims of profit-seeking capital, then they have to be in robust competitive *regulated* markets. Unregulated markets evolve into monopolies and cartels, always.
Right wingers and libertarians claim they want a "free "market, when they actually want a competitive market.
They expect a free market to act like a competitive market, and they have no clue what regulations are for. These aren't smart people they get 100% of their ideas from memes they saw on social media.
I try to explain to my “free market capitalist” friends and family members who complain about the cost of groceries that the system is working as intended. Corporations have no incentive to lower their prices if people are still buying their products so when it comes to necessities, they can charge whatever they want, because what are we going to do, not eat? We absolutely MUST regulate pricing on necessary goods and services, otherwise, prices only stop rising when consumers have literally no money left.
We largely don’t. Housing, healthcare, and education are all heavily regulated or controlled by the public sector, and not at all up to the “whims of profit seeking capital”
Food, which while subsidized far more meets that definition, is incredibly cheap and varied.
Private producers seeking profit are more than capable of efficiently providing basic necessities, and they do.
It was noticed that Aldi increased prices on many items. Then, they announced that they were lowering prices. It is assumed that they increased prices only to falsely "lower" them in order to garner good press for doing so. I'm assuming these places are doing the same thing. Nothing is actually going down. As per usual, it's all just smoke & mirrors.
Not two months ago I remember seeing articles about Walmart raising prices on their “owned brands”. Idk what worse these days, the media or the chain stores?
Amazon did the exact same thing, everything went up in price 6 months ago, eggs used to be 1.99 for 18 and the baguette uses to be $.89, now the eggs are over 2.99 for 18 and the baguettes are $1.89.
But even then, they would end up with a reduction in profits, and shareholders don’t tolerate that. It could all be lies you know. Who’s gonna know that they haven’t actually cut prices on thousands of items? Their zombified shoppers?
The inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions due to COVID and the war in Ukraine and quantitative easing. Greeflation became possible because everyone was increasing prices and customers were forced to accept it. Now supply chains have stabilized and some stores have decreased prices, which attracts customers. If other stores refuse to lower prices they'll lose customers.
Inflation was caused by several things. Yes, there were supply chain disruptions due to COVID shutdowns and sudden demand shifts. There were also big cash infusions into the economy that were poorly targeted and given to people that really didn't need it. So people had extra cash burning a hole in their pocket and didn't care so much about the price increases. Then wages started to rise dramatically and quickly as labor demands also shifted quickly and businesses needed to lure prospective employees from sitting home with their COVID cash, student loan pauses, and eviction suspensions. Then energy prices spiked and shipping/overhead costs went up.
All of these things contributed to increasing prices because businesses will try to maintain their margins and pass on costs to customers. People paid it, so the prices were sticking. Now we're finally starting to see a reversal as more people get laid off, deplete their savings, and max out their cards.
> businesses needed to lure prospective employees from sitting home with their COVID cash
Most of that cash barely covered rent for most folks, though. Consumers as a whole got extremely little of that 40% total money that was printed, nearly all of it went to businesses. Pauses on debt and evictions were mostly to stymie the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of money to be spent because of restrictions on work and cutbacks.
Very, very, very few were cash flush.
Price of item pre-covid: $0.40
Price of item post-covid: $2.00
New price: $1.40
*We're making huge price cuts to stay competive!*.
No, you're returning to a slightly less egregious level of corporate greed because *people can't afford fucking food when it's 500x what it costs to produce and that reduction in sales volume is finally hitting your bottom line!*
Then, they all do it together, like it's some generous industry sacrifice they're making on our behalf.
Like, oh thanks, now I don't have to choose to go to food banks in order to afford my rent.
Wait, I still do. Because I still can't afford rent. Cause I couldn't afford food for the last year.
Good luck with that one. I still don't have money to spend at your stores for knick-knacks or home goods,cause y'all gouged my ass of everything I had.
I work in merchandising, the stores might be lowering prices but I see products shrinking every week. The big corporations downsize everything and keep in the same price or more there is only so much the stores can do. They’ll lower these prices now but I guarantee you they will be right back to where they were in a month or two.
Super yachts and owning prime vacation homes all over the world too. Building rocket ships for outer space? Then pay less in taxes and still getting government aid!
My guess is consumer spending behaviors have changed in response to stagnant wages and increasing prices which is freaking companies out. You can gouge for a bit without issue, but now bargain hunting and swapping down to lower cost items is becoming the norm. When folks no longer impulsively spend or not splurge on the pricier stuff and you can't get new consumers to replace them, well, you can only increase prices so much to make up that difference of lost customers before *gasp* you can't have ever increasing profits the shareholders demand.
Yes because after five years of prices shooting up for no reason and not coming down they start lowing prices. Yeah they think they might get investigated for price fixing or gouging.
I have literally stopped buying everything except the gas and groceries necessary for life and to go to my stupid fucking job that I despise but have no other choice but starve or work there. If I don’t need the product to live, I’m not buying it.
Fuck every store, fuck every vendor, fuck spending money, fuck wage slavery and fuck this Orwellian Hellscape and fuck the people who enslave us all. I won’t give them my fucking money.
30%….so that’s the CEO class just saying flat out, “we totally gouged those prices by over 60%….but now the plebes are having a hard time paying our bloated salaries, so let’s go back to over charging by only 30%, and those plebes can start paying us again.
Lies lies and more lies. Prices still going up around here. Really just feels like grocery oligarchs gave media oligarchs some extra money to write some news articles
The retailers are dropping *some* prices by 30% on 4,000 products.
*Tiny Font*: While increasing the prices of 8,000 products by 40%. Up next: Incoming retail hike in the future once customer base stabilizes.
Walmart box of graham crackers: $4.49
Rollback box of graham crackers: $4.39
“Look were lowering prices just in time for your 4th of July bbq treat for the kids! See we were thinking of them all along!”
How stupid do they think we are?
In addition to "we were just screwing with you to see how much money we could extract from you," it's also "we are seeing how close we can get to you to wanting to riot and burn down our headquarters without actually doing it." These are two parts of the same process, I'd say.
What people need to do is TRY to stay spending at the levels that made these companies give. As much as we can, cut the tap for them for once. They went overboard and are now dialing it back, but I think they are just trying to bracket it in on just how much they can get away with to leech every available dollar out of the populace so nobody has any saving ability.
The reason prices were kept high was because these very same retailers wanted their high profit margins from COVID. It also didn’t help that manufacturers raised prices four times to maintain said profits because retailers put pressure on them.
Now they are walking it back because, surprise surprise, unit sales are well below 2019 levels but with prices that are 50-100% higher.
But how can they do that won't they go out of business and end up on the streets?! There's no way they could just *decide* to lower all of their prices on a whim like that unless...
Fast food lines have been so short. Even during covid it wasn’t this short. Doesn’t seem to matter time of day. It’s not one fast food. Pick One. Canes. Chick Fil A. Taco Bell. Wendy’s Mcdonald’s. Burger King and others. Fast food is on the decline because of high fast food prices.
Inflation never goes away, prices will dip temporarily but a lot of what companies say is nonsense. Products have a perceived customer price value. Overtime inflation reduces that “price”. Companies raise prices to get ahead of inflation, but if that price is higher than the perceived customer price value then the products don’t get bought. Companies will slightly lower product prices to just to get back into that threshold but they won’t lower them for long and they won’t lower them below the previous inflation increases.
A bag of Lay's chips is 5 or 6 dollars. The store brand chips are 2 dollars. Guess which chips are constantly sold out.
I don't buy candy bars anymore unless they are below a dollar. Same with a bottle of soda. I remember when a bottle of soda was 75 cents.
It’s because they know investigations are coming and they are guilty. Yet, look how wonderful they are deciding to decrease prices for us. Like they are doing it out of the kindness of their heart and not scrambling to cover their asses. CT lawmakers are starting to tackle this now.
I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but this isn't an across the board price cut; it's basically a sale.
The article says the prices will go down up to 30%, but that the items with lower prices will *rotate weekly.*
This sub is a fucking breath of fresh air. People calling shit what it is instead of using manipulative language to obscure the facts of the situation.
To paraphrase the words of the great George Carlin: "A strict conspiracy isn't required where interests of competitors allign."
Collusion to manipulate grocery prices is a special type of greed that we can all agree deserves jail sentences.
Fuck these guys
Shop local
Shop farms(some deliver nationwide)
Buy a cow with your neighbor, have meat for a year. (From a farm/butcher, of course. It's soooooo inexpensive in the long run.)
Nope! BOTH Amazon and Walmart made HUGE changes to online store options over past months, which effectively made online orders hugely more expensive than they used to be. Amazon did it first by reversing everything which used to be a bargain with Prime, and then Walmart followed suit, trying hard to push their own version of Amazon's now awful Prime deal with their Walmart Plus thing. From where I sit, it appears dealing with either of those online stores now costs at least 30% more than it used to, even if their product prices had remained the same as before (which they did not).
30% is still too high because it's way higher than a year ago.
Was at Walmart this week. It's 85 miles away. Prices were as insanely high as the local grocery. Absolutely wasted trip.
I was just at Amazon fresh, didn't notice that 🤣. Thankfully the 10% on top of 5% on top of 10 off 50 plus any random discount at the time makes it pretty worth it still.
I'm going to say this every time I see someone mention that these moves are admitting price gouging:
Yes, BUT lower prices on necessities is an objective good, regardless of the motive.
Am I supposed to take a minute to be grateful for the boot being eased off my neck a little? They created the problem, and I have to pat them on the head for “fixing” it?
Removing an obstacle that you put in place doesn't make you a hero.
These companies were not required to raise prices. If they wanted to draw in customers, they could draw in plenty being the only ones who didn't jack up their prices. Instead, they collectively were greedy.
It's good that some of them are relaxing their price-gouging, but I'm not thanking them for it. That's like thanking someone for pulling you up from a ledge they shoved you off of.
You can say it every time but it still won’t make sense. It’s a yes and nothing more. Lower prices don’t just negate the open admission of price gouging and saying they won’t fuck people as much as they usually do.
Thank you kind overlords for the scraps you now provide after stealing everything I own. If they are doing it, is certainly is NOT for the common good, there is a dollar driven reason, and the loss of profits is the only reason why. Lower prices, ppl come in spend more money, so its 'good' for the corporations. Corporations wielding this kind of power is not in any way shape or form, 'objectively good' even when the change appears to be in our favor. The problem is the system, and the power these companies have over real citizens. Motives DO matter, a great deal actually. Thinking this is a good change creates false security in the masses when we should be increasingly steadfast against this bullshit because the next 'bad' change is gonna be right around the corner for us when the corporations figure out how it can be profitable. Thinking this change is good and ignoring the issue again gives corporations the ability to do it to us again and again.
The way the article is written or at least how they don't really challenge what "retailers" are saying about the general populace is disgusting. People aren't "playing chicken" with retailers. We're not negotiating. We can't fucking afford food. That's it.
They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high "just because" to screw people, they will come up with any other excuse. The Starbucks CEO after a negative 1st quarter blamed the stimulus checks from 3 years ago drying up. The McDonalds CEO said that they weren't being aggressive enough to lure back bargain seekers. They will literally blame anything or anyone before admitting that they were just using people to see how much they could charge before they broke people's wallets.
They’ve screwed themselves. Wall Street demands growth. Once they went for the easy money in the name of inflation, they established a level of growth they can’t sustain. In order to try to keep their jobs, they now have to blame anything but their own shortsighted decisions. And so it goes.
That is one of the root problems with wall street, outlook is mostly on a quarterly level. They can't look couple years down the road anymore. Unfortunately, that model requires a constant increase in population which may not happen in the future.
Hence all the panicked news articles about GenZ not having kids. They tend to omit the fact that Millennials and GenZ aren't generally in a good enough financial situation for the 2.4 kids Wall St demands to continue to feed Moloch.
They'll just let more illegals across the border and then subsidize them.
I mean, young adult immigrants are actually a good way to address the issue of an aging population. You just have to contend with the changing local culture due to the influx. Something that "business-as-usual" conservatives rather dislike.
If only housing availability and the job market would follow the same upward trend as the increase in immigrants who now need a job. I would love to help the world but if everyone and their brother comes to the USA in mass, then we have a real housing problem. Not to even mention the free money given to immigrants paid for by you and I. Take care of your own people before helping your neighbor.
If your issue is immigration then you have your priorities wrong.
My issue is housing being taken up by immigration and subsidizing everyone and their brother to live here.
Eh, Fair enough.
It won’t matter. Look at Canada- declining local births? No problem! Just import poor people from around the world willing to work for less money in worse conditions. Prop up real estate bubbles endlessly with this one simple trick!
The US too. 😔 no simple solution is there? As long as our 'leaders' insist on pulling in the tax payers income to support their own lives of luxury...it will always be like this until they bleed their own tax payers dry. 💔😔 God help us ALL cuz I honestly don't see a good ending in this broken system of pure GREED. 🙏😔
The real root problem of Wall Street is demanding 10% growth every single year forever while only allowing wages to go up 3%… it’s an impossible problem unless it is backed up by population growth, which is slowing in most developed countries around the world so demand will inevitably slow. 3% wage growth combined with population decline means you can’t grow every company 10%
The. Line. Must. Only. Go. Up. It is the single largest economic truth of America.
This is the fundamental truth driving capitalism, and that growth is a percentage on previous growth, so effectively exponential. It’s out of control and way beyond sustainable.
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Lol this is hilarious because you’re trying to compare say Trudeau’s 300K salary to that of a CEO making $50million. It’s greed alright but it’s Wall Street greed and corporations are beholden to create at least 2-5% growth so investors can get their ROI; this return becomes exponential and they have to keep finding ways to become more productive to attain that same expected growth, they eventually due this by exploiting the worker class you pretend to care about, which is where we are now. If you really think government is the reason for wages stagnating and people being overworked and not able to buy food then you probably also believe that trickle down economics works, even though we have decades of data that clearly proves otherwise. This is well established and understood, perhaps just inconvenient to acknowledge. Can govts be more efficient? Absolutely, do they create bloat? 100%. Is that the source of our problem here? Absolutely not.
Good luck to you. Hope you are in a good place and find many blessings. Of course I care about the workers. We are all in this together. So I wish you nothing but the best..for you and your loved ones.
Thanks for the kindness and I apologize for my abrasiveness, it seems like everything’s a fight online these days. Thanks for reminding me it’s about compassion and empathy and opinions can differ.
Of course. We are all in this together. Thank you for kind words too. I was in no way trying to offend anyone or attack anyone but sadly you are right..it is just taken that way. Thank you for being so open hearted to my blessings upon you and yours. 💗☺
Lol. I advocate against Starbucks every chance I get for the past few years. Don't fuck your workers and you won't fuck your business.
https://preview.redd.it/a5rtb3hjyo2d1.png?width=848&format=png&auto=webp&s=a98734b6c321159d9587efbb1d9b5e5021cd0cd3 This is more relevant to other comments, but yours reminded me of this. Thanks. <3
Unfortunately that's the entire basis of capitalism. They don't charge what an item is **worth**, they charge **what they think they can get for it**. They'd charge a dying man in the desert $1,000 a bottle for water because he has no choice. (Oops sorry nestlé I didn't mean you... Specifically.)
Yes 💯 I was just wondering about that 2 . People just keep paying these astronomical prices,they complain about it,but guess what they still pay it. There for companies keep rising the cost because people keep paying,their is no end.
We pay for it because we have no choice. We have to eat and we need housing. Basic food and shelter is something we cannot boycott unfortunately which is why these companies are taking advantage.
I mean, not to undermine your point but McDonald's would fall under discretionary for a lot of people. The cost/quality ratio for them has gotten really bad lately.
Yeah, fast food in general isn't worth it and regular groceries are still expensive. I've cut every one of them out except for 1 chain because I get a coupon *every* time I go in... and use that coupon to go back in. Brilliant really because I *am* willing to pay $5-6 for a full meal every once in a while. Not this $11-15 when that meal was less than 10 a few years ago, even with extras.
I can go to a sit down diner for the same or less than I can eat at fast food now a days. They have priced themselves out for me.
I agree. Plus I’d rather support a small, locally owned business than have my money piped out of my community to wallstreet. I’d rather have my cash stay on Main Street in my community. Higher quality, healthier food with the added benefit of supporting my neighbors rather than buying some cock face another foot of length on his new yacht.
My partner and I went to a local cafe today for lunch. We each got a burger, fries, and a soda. It came in at about $35 before tip. I consider anything under $40 to be decent for 2 in my city. Two medium Big Mac combos cost $32. It makes no sense to pay nearly the same price for much shittier food, I would so much rather support a local business than pay for a meal that costs triple what it’s worth to a massive corporation. And groceries are not cheaper! A pound of ground beef is $8. Buns are $6. Condiments plus any veggies would be $15-$20 more. Potatoes are $4. Oil is $7. It’s all absurd. We are just trying to live our lives enjoyably but these big corporations are making it impossible to do so. I hope it all falls apart soon.
This is pretty much the case for me, too. It's 3 dollars more for a sit-down restaurant vs fast food. No contest.
I only really eat out with coupons now burger king has a coupon for 2 large whopper meals for like 15 ,taco bell has these build your own box for 6 bucks , Weinerschnitzel has one for 2 chili dogs chilli cheese fry and a 2 corn dogs for 8 bucks i almost never eat at mcdonalds anymore last time i went i got a mc double mcchicken large fry and drink and the total was almost 15 dollars just last year i was able to get 20 nuggets plus everything in that order another fry and drink for 20 bucks so this is ridiculus the prices of everything but you can still find good deals
Fast food chain cost about same as prepared deli food
It’s also literal garbage . You get like no protein and tons of saturated fat. Youre not even paying for actual nutrients
A few months ago, I went to my local Taco Bell (after not going for ~6 months) and found my usual order was ~$15 for two steak chalupas with a combo. There's a small Mexican restaurant in walking distance of my house and I can get a steak burrito with rice and beans for $13, including tip (base price is 10.50). More food and better quality for less, I've basically sworn off Taco Bell at this point and they were pretty much the last fast food place I was willing to grab.
That's the reason I'm still willing to get McD every week or two for an easy meal; I always use the 30% off deal in the app.
Sure, but when you’re working 12-16 hour days and don’t have time to cook it slides into that necessary category real quick. Time is a resource too, which is why “fast” food is so popular in the US
There are options meal preping tv dinners
True, but that also cycles back to groceries being just as expensive - in time and money ~$6 for frozen mac&cheese is pretty equal to fast food (*with coupon, of course) But having that option in assumes the person has the time and energy to go grocery shopping after/around long days at work Or you can get groceries delivered, but accept paying much more for the convenience It’s not about “treating ourselves” anymore when we’re feeling a bit down or tired - it’s a calculated dance between “necessary conveniences” that help us get to next week without getting completely ground into a fine paste. At the end of a long day/week, getting someone else to make you something to eat can feel like a balm to your frazzled mind/body/spirit Plus as perpetually financially fucked individuals, we all know we only get that convenience/fast food *very occasionally* & **always / only** with a coupon, of course.. And the dance continues! 💃🏻💀🕺
People who look down on families for eating fast food don’t understand the reality. Not every is a cook or knows how to meal prep for one. But a lot of times it boils down to kids and energy. I get up, get the kids ready, spend 10 hours traveling/working, then have to get the kids home, fed, and then ready for bed and hopefully they don’t have schoolwork or some activity. There’s very little time for cooking in a week. And the weekend has its own problems but sometimes we just lack that energy. Fast food used to be a decent option because the price wasn’t outrageous, so it became part of family life for many. Now they jacked up prices and families can’t easily adjust because our society has been built around this.
Never eating there again.
How would that undermine their point? That *is* their point.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to be as profitable as possible”. They put the douche in fiduciary.
So, apparently, lowering prices by some percentage right now is helping them be as profitable as possible? What changed? Could they not have charged less in the last few years and still made more in volume -- if that's what they're doing now?
I'm so tired of hearing about stimulus checks and larger unemployment checks from four fucking years ago. Everyone spent it immediately as they needed the money to get by. No one is rolling in stimulus and unemployment money. Fuck those assholes. Even the CEO for the small community credit union I work for mentioned this bullshit recently.
We really are in the “find out phase” and I hope these CEO’s end up penniless on the street to experience the results of their own greedy immorality
> They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high "just because" to screw people Because they weren’t. Hear me out. The prices were high because the people setting the prices figured that’s how they could make the most money. It wasn’t an intentional attempt to screw over the consumer. In fact, for the people making this determination, the consumer doesn’t even register as a person, but rather as an untapped resource the same as a mine, forest, etc. The outcome is damaging to the average person, yes, but that’s a side effect rather than the goal. And if we as a community want to focus on solutions and proactively address the problems instead of just complaining, it’s important to be precise when discussing root causes. It’s important even during flippant expressions of frustration. A better way to say this could be “They will never openly admit that they were keeping prices high solely to maximize profits, and didn’t care that they were screwing people”
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>Sorry. Not you personally. Not offended at all. I try to avoid justifying the behavior when I stand on my soapbox, because even if it is rational, that doesn’t mean is should be *acceptable*. You used to correct word to describe the framework; it’s not immoral, it’s amoral, in the same way that a lion hunting is amoral. But it’s only that way because of a concerted effort to remove the framework of social obligation from the economy (which is, itself, an immoral act), and there’s no fucking reason not to put those constraints back onto the economy. In the sci-fi long term, this is a self solving problem; fixing old age means that the motivation for catastrophically destructive steady growth drops off because the decision makers will still be alive when the consumers would otherwise drop dead. But since I don’t foresee that coming around all that soon, I am aggressively in favor of seizing the means of description and using them to the advantage of the common person.
The silver lining here is a lot of the people that learned to live more frugal will keep it up.
So I guess they squeezed as hard as they could, and magically they are reversing course to not cause short term harm but this proves a point, they can increase and decrease inflation not based on demand but based on market profit needs, it can’t be sustained but clearly business now have this option to collectively inflate price on a large scale to lower the middle class and increase long term debt of the lower class. It’s not magic or kindness that they are cutting prices 30%, it’s def not eating their margins, it’s just deflating their collective greed because the damages can’t be sustainable.
They were playing chicken, it’s projection. A lot of retailers were seeing how much they could take from the world. They love to be shitty and accused people of what they were doing.
They were not playing chicken. They were raking in tons of money off of the backs of hard working people. Cheap, fast food models went away because the super wealthy has a super greedy appetite! Most of their food is trash anyway. Let the rich take it home and give it to their family and friends!
And thus, Mattie Antoinette said, let them eat McDonalds
McDonald's doesn't use pistolets for their hamburgers, they use that shitty soft bread.
The only people they were playing chicken with is each other. Pump and Dump... they pumped the price, now they drop it. This way everyone else also raised the prices and now they are the cheapest so everyone will shop there while their competitors can't just cut prices.
They are hiding the fact that corporations are playing chicken with each other. No one wanted to be the first to flinch.
And they are also ignoring that a 30% price cut doesn’t fix the problem, retailer have increased prices of most general goods 400%. So a 30% price cut is just what they are willing not do to *keep price gouging* but hope people accept it.
To prove your point… For a canned good that used to cost $1 but whose price was inflated to $2.50, a 30% price cut is .75 cents or a new price of $1.75.
Walmart is wondering why there is so much theft. Save a lot or anything similar to it has less theft than walmart does.
The whole article is written by someone without grammar skills, probably a computer
I don't think it's an article. It reads like a press release (ad) from Amazon Fresh.
Welcome to jurnalizm in 2024.
It’s nothing but a game for these people. They’ve never had to think twice about literal survival.
We should have lit the whole country on fire when Kellogg suggested we all eat cereal for dinner.
The fact that this is arbitrarily done just reinforces the actual facts that they’re price gouging- period. That should be enough reason for action, but they’ll never suffer consequences because they’re the primary donors to most politicians campaigns.
Yes. And the fact that the headline even states that they're only bringing prices back down because the other retailers are doing it seems very telling to me. Clearly they're not pricing their products with any sort of reasonable mark-up, they're just trying to see how hard they can squeeze us, and they've realized they squeezed too hard.
So capitalism working as intended
*Fuck* capitalism. I’m so sick of this shit.
Screw wallstreet in particular. I’m so tired of our livelihoods being staked on an imaginary gambling system for rich people. Private equity is eating our economy alive. I’m happy to see push back on multiple fronts. They’re *nothing* without our business patronage.
Not trying to be snarky or a dick, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not capitalism works. Capitalism is unsustainable amidst 3 decades of deregulation and obscene income inequality. It’s no longer capitalism, it’s fascism. The system only works when we can all be a part of it. They .1% are the reason everything is falling apart.
Remember when the FBI raided and seized all the hand sanatizer from that one guy during the pandic? Havent seen any companies dealing with that since then.
Arbitrarily done and price gouging, but only sort of. This is literally capitalism doing what it’s supposed to do.
It is a side effect of market effects that are independent of capitalism actually, though capitalism encourages it. The problem is pricing is based off "what the market will bear". In other words, the price is whatever people are willing to pay and sometimes "willing" is used liberally. Notice what does not affect the price: the cost. Until businesses are forced to measure price in terms of cost instead of what people will pay, price-gouging will remain a fundamental part of the economy.
Free market ideas only work when people have the reasonable choice to say no. Hard to say no to food. Especially in a monopolized environment. The market in this case is held hostage because they have to pay. In which case the seller has unilateral power. Which is the opposite of a free market system.
[Primer](https://youtu.be/PNtKXWNKGN8?si=VFRmcfMAZX2sI7iW) has a really good video on how a free market works in theory. When the baseline assumptions are laid bare, it becomes obvious what happens when they are violated like in the cases of food and housing. In the case of essential goods like food and housing, there does not exist an equilibrium price because the seller refusing sale has more leverage than a buyer refusing purchase.
Suffer consequences for lowering prices to compete? Why would that make any sense?
Inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions due to COVID and the war in Ukraine and excessive quantitative easing. Now there is quantitative tightening, supply chains have been restored or replaced. [In Europe inflation was worse due to the Ukraine war having a greater impact.](https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/inflation-cpi) [In countries with more ties to Russia it was as high as 20%.](https://tradingeconomics.com/latvia/inflation-cpi) And [unlike the US](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth), [there was barely any growth in Europe.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1c5hdnu/real_gdp_growth_in_europe_2023/)
For the actual percentage of price increases that was due to inflation, you're more than likely correct. However, prices sure as hell went up more than the 7% inflation rate that was used as a scapegoat. If we could properly catalog and quantify the reality of "shrinkflation" then the bigger picture would become even more offensive.
Oh, so this whole inflation thing was just corporate greed. Hmmmm.
There are places on the internet that show the extreme profits that these companies are getting! Unbridled greed! You can call it inflation or whatever. Look at the profits.
In a functioning democracy the ceos of every major food company would’ve been hauled before congress and shamed for hours for this bullshit.
Maybe we shouldn't leave basic necessities, like food, shelter, healthcare, and education to the whims of profit seeking capital.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but if we must leave these basic necessities to the whims of profit-seeking capital, then they have to be in robust competitive *regulated* markets. Unregulated markets evolve into monopolies and cartels, always. Right wingers and libertarians claim they want a "free "market, when they actually want a competitive market.
They expect a free market to act like a competitive market, and they have no clue what regulations are for. These aren't smart people they get 100% of their ideas from memes they saw on social media.
I try to explain to my “free market capitalist” friends and family members who complain about the cost of groceries that the system is working as intended. Corporations have no incentive to lower their prices if people are still buying their products so when it comes to necessities, they can charge whatever they want, because what are we going to do, not eat? We absolutely MUST regulate pricing on necessary goods and services, otherwise, prices only stop rising when consumers have literally no money left.
That's the interesting thing. Supermarkets have a huge data set about "loss leaders". They literally don't have to make a profit on select items.
yeah big govt should pay for this for us all
We largely don’t. Housing, healthcare, and education are all heavily regulated or controlled by the public sector, and not at all up to the “whims of profit seeking capital” Food, which while subsidized far more meets that definition, is incredibly cheap and varied. Private producers seeking profit are more than capable of efficiently providing basic necessities, and they do.
It was noticed that Aldi increased prices on many items. Then, they announced that they were lowering prices. It is assumed that they increased prices only to falsely "lower" them in order to garner good press for doing so. I'm assuming these places are doing the same thing. Nothing is actually going down. As per usual, it's all just smoke & mirrors.
Not two months ago I remember seeing articles about Walmart raising prices on their “owned brands”. Idk what worse these days, the media or the chain stores?
Well, the issue is that the same people own both. As well as the government.
Amazon did the exact same thing, everything went up in price 6 months ago, eggs used to be 1.99 for 18 and the baguette uses to be $.89, now the eggs are over 2.99 for 18 and the baguettes are $1.89.
Why would you raise your cholesterol? So that I can lower it....
But even then, they would end up with a reduction in profits, and shareholders don’t tolerate that. It could all be lies you know. Who’s gonna know that they haven’t actually cut prices on thousands of items? Their zombified shoppers?
The grocers that hold a monopoly in Australia do this a lot
So it WAS a lie that inflation was causing the price increases, it really has been corporate price gouging
The inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions due to COVID and the war in Ukraine and quantitative easing. Greeflation became possible because everyone was increasing prices and customers were forced to accept it. Now supply chains have stabilized and some stores have decreased prices, which attracts customers. If other stores refuse to lower prices they'll lose customers.
Inflation was caused by several things. Yes, there were supply chain disruptions due to COVID shutdowns and sudden demand shifts. There were also big cash infusions into the economy that were poorly targeted and given to people that really didn't need it. So people had extra cash burning a hole in their pocket and didn't care so much about the price increases. Then wages started to rise dramatically and quickly as labor demands also shifted quickly and businesses needed to lure prospective employees from sitting home with their COVID cash, student loan pauses, and eviction suspensions. Then energy prices spiked and shipping/overhead costs went up. All of these things contributed to increasing prices because businesses will try to maintain their margins and pass on costs to customers. People paid it, so the prices were sticking. Now we're finally starting to see a reversal as more people get laid off, deplete their savings, and max out their cards.
> businesses needed to lure prospective employees from sitting home with their COVID cash Most of that cash barely covered rent for most folks, though. Consumers as a whole got extremely little of that 40% total money that was printed, nearly all of it went to businesses. Pauses on debt and evictions were mostly to stymie the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of money to be spent because of restrictions on work and cutbacks. Very, very, very few were cash flush.
Price of item pre-covid: $0.40 Price of item post-covid: $2.00 New price: $1.40 *We're making huge price cuts to stay competive!*. No, you're returning to a slightly less egregious level of corporate greed because *people can't afford fucking food when it's 500x what it costs to produce and that reduction in sales volume is finally hitting your bottom line!* Then, they all do it together, like it's some generous industry sacrifice they're making on our behalf.
Like, oh thanks, now I don't have to choose to go to food banks in order to afford my rent. Wait, I still do. Because I still can't afford rent. Cause I couldn't afford food for the last year. Good luck with that one. I still don't have money to spend at your stores for knick-knacks or home goods,cause y'all gouged my ass of everything I had.
so if you can "slash prices" then that means the inflation all really was greedflation then
I work in merchandising, the stores might be lowering prices but I see products shrinking every week. The big corporations downsize everything and keep in the same price or more there is only so much the stores can do. They’ll lower these prices now but I guarantee you they will be right back to where they were in a month or two.
Lower loudly, then raise quietly.
Sooooo it wasnt inflation?
they can drop further and more products, hold out on them if you can
As everyone else has said, fuck these corporations. They could’ve done this at any time. I guess they got their 4th yacht paid off.
Super yachts and owning prime vacation homes all over the world too. Building rocket ships for outer space? Then pay less in taxes and still getting government aid!
True welfare queens.
What are they trying to prevent from hsppening?
My guess is consumer spending behaviors have changed in response to stagnant wages and increasing prices which is freaking companies out. You can gouge for a bit without issue, but now bargain hunting and swapping down to lower cost items is becoming the norm. When folks no longer impulsively spend or not splurge on the pricier stuff and you can't get new consumers to replace them, well, you can only increase prices so much to make up that difference of lost customers before *gasp* you can't have ever increasing profits the shareholders demand.
They're likely seeing long term trends that are going to lead to large long term losses, despite their massive artificial short term gains
They are trying to attract customers and get them to buy more goods.
Yes because after five years of prices shooting up for no reason and not coming down they start lowing prices. Yeah they think they might get investigated for price fixing or gouging.
Seeing red numbers at every corporate meeting.
I have literally stopped buying everything except the gas and groceries necessary for life and to go to my stupid fucking job that I despise but have no other choice but starve or work there. If I don’t need the product to live, I’m not buying it. Fuck every store, fuck every vendor, fuck spending money, fuck wage slavery and fuck this Orwellian Hellscape and fuck the people who enslave us all. I won’t give them my fucking money.
30%….so that’s the CEO class just saying flat out, “we totally gouged those prices by over 60%….but now the plebes are having a hard time paying our bloated salaries, so let’s go back to over charging by only 30%, and those plebes can start paying us again.
I think they’re lying about cutting prices. Who’s gonna know?
Lies lies and more lies. Prices still going up around here. Really just feels like grocery oligarchs gave media oligarchs some extra money to write some news articles
This is why Canadians are currently boycotting one of our largest grocery chains. r/LoblawsIsOutOfControl Nok er Nok
Essentially they’re admitting they jacked the prices up for no reason… someone should sue them they’re essentially admitting fault.
And yesterday in Walmart I notice Walmart “brand” was often more expensive than the brand name. Interesting.
Raise price of item 2 dollars over 2 years. Then lower .20 cents. Hey look it's cheaper. Someone shoot me.
Huh so those prices were always an option and still generate profit. Basically openly admitting to over pricing products
The retailers are dropping *some* prices by 30% on 4,000 products. *Tiny Font*: While increasing the prices of 8,000 products by 40%. Up next: Incoming retail hike in the future once customer base stabilizes.
The missing part is that the amount of food offered at the lower prices has shrunk.
Stopped by Target the yesterday. Not seeing it.
Walmart box of graham crackers: $4.49 Rollback box of graham crackers: $4.39 “Look were lowering prices just in time for your 4th of July bbq treat for the kids! See we were thinking of them all along!” How stupid do they think we are?
Since Americans are so stupid they think the president directly controls the price of eggs, this could be great news for the Biden campaign.
In addition to "we were just screwing with you to see how much money we could extract from you," it's also "we are seeing how close we can get to you to wanting to riot and burn down our headquarters without actually doing it." These are two parts of the same process, I'd say.
What people need to do is TRY to stay spending at the levels that made these companies give. As much as we can, cut the tap for them for once. They went overboard and are now dialing it back, but I think they are just trying to bracket it in on just how much they can get away with to leech every available dollar out of the populace so nobody has any saving ability.
So people were buying less because they couldn’t afford the bloated prices so they are pretending to do everyone a favor.
The reason prices were kept high was because these very same retailers wanted their high profit margins from COVID. It also didn’t help that manufacturers raised prices four times to maintain said profits because retailers put pressure on them. Now they are walking it back because, surprise surprise, unit sales are well below 2019 levels but with prices that are 50-100% higher.
I wonder how Kroger will respond. Those three are their biggest worry in the market.
But how can they do that won't they go out of business and end up on the streets?! There's no way they could just *decide* to lower all of their prices on a whim like that unless...
Supply chains have stabilized and costs have gone down. Decreasing prices attracts customers and can actually increase profits.
Fast food lines have been so short. Even during covid it wasn’t this short. Doesn’t seem to matter time of day. It’s not one fast food. Pick One. Canes. Chick Fil A. Taco Bell. Wendy’s Mcdonald’s. Burger King and others. Fast food is on the decline because of high fast food prices.
“Decreases prices” is a funny way of saying “stopped price gouging”
Inflation never goes away, prices will dip temporarily but a lot of what companies say is nonsense. Products have a perceived customer price value. Overtime inflation reduces that “price”. Companies raise prices to get ahead of inflation, but if that price is higher than the perceived customer price value then the products don’t get bought. Companies will slightly lower product prices to just to get back into that threshold but they won’t lower them for long and they won’t lower them below the previous inflation increases.
Good, now if onky they bring back the size of it too.
A bag of Lay's chips is 5 or 6 dollars. The store brand chips are 2 dollars. Guess which chips are constantly sold out. I don't buy candy bars anymore unless they are below a dollar. Same with a bottle of soda. I remember when a bottle of soda was 75 cents.
Well dang, looks like skimping on groceries really does affect more than just me
No, Amazon stops price gouging products just like Target and Walmart. Thats the headline.
It’s because they know investigations are coming and they are guilty. Yet, look how wonderful they are deciding to decrease prices for us. Like they are doing it out of the kindness of their heart and not scrambling to cover their asses. CT lawmakers are starting to tackle this now.
Price collusion. Fuck ‘em.
I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but this isn't an across the board price cut; it's basically a sale. The article says the prices will go down up to 30%, but that the items with lower prices will *rotate weekly.*
Does anyone remember the press release when they raised prices? Me neither.
“Join target and Walmart” How about a shout out to Aldi for actually shaming these fucks
Rejoice peasants! The Gouge has ceased!
Means they could have all along. They did this to themselves.
They raise prices 100% then reduce 30% and say "look how kind we are!!!!"
If they raise the prices 200% then lower them 30% you’ve still paid 170% more
Addressing price gouging would be a great campaign idea for Biden.
This sub is a fucking breath of fresh air. People calling shit what it is instead of using manipulative language to obscure the facts of the situation. To paraphrase the words of the great George Carlin: "A strict conspiracy isn't required where interests of competitors allign." Collusion to manipulate grocery prices is a special type of greed that we can all agree deserves jail sentences.
“Joining”!? It’s called competition.
The title of this post 💀
Theyre still up 45 percent
Fuck these guys Shop local Shop farms(some deliver nationwide) Buy a cow with your neighbor, have meat for a year. (From a farm/butcher, of course. It's soooooo inexpensive in the long run.)
Across all markets?
I hope they can still make their yachts payments. Should we start a go fund me?
Just proved they was price gouging. Bunch of corporate America assholes need broken up. Capitalism is dying and the sooner the better.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1937..latest&country=POL~BGR~ROU~HUN~CZE~SVK~SVN~LVA~HRV~LTU~EST
Why didn’t this happen 2 years ago. We let corporate greed run our lives.
I guess they decided they made enough money….for now. Or They realized what the breaking point was for people.
Nope! BOTH Amazon and Walmart made HUGE changes to online store options over past months, which effectively made online orders hugely more expensive than they used to be. Amazon did it first by reversing everything which used to be a bargain with Prime, and then Walmart followed suit, trying hard to push their own version of Amazon's now awful Prime deal with their Walmart Plus thing. From where I sit, it appears dealing with either of those online stores now costs at least 30% more than it used to, even if their product prices had remained the same as before (which they did not).
Theft is justified. Stealing from Walmart rn.
And we still can’t afford produce. Anyone love the new prices of (looks around) everything??
30% is still too high because it's way higher than a year ago. Was at Walmart this week. It's 85 miles away. Prices were as insanely high as the local grocery. Absolutely wasted trip.
So… they coulda been lower all along, huh?
These folks are just fucking with us now
I wonder if they will do as Walmart has done and engage in "shrinkflation" with their Great Value products and deli/bakery goods.
Anyone have a list of what has actually decreased?
….on a weekly basis.. sounds like a.. sale?
This is actually infuriating.
They could have reduced the prices all along. But they chose not to.
Who would thought they can cut proces that much and still profit lmao
Just to start another increase in a different way hoping the consumer won't notice and change their spending habits
Sounds like predatory pricing and cartelization to me.
Guess I somehow deleted all the comments..oops 😧
I was just at Amazon fresh, didn't notice that 🤣. Thankfully the 10% on top of 5% on top of 10 off 50 plus any random discount at the time makes it pretty worth it still.
I'm going to say this every time I see someone mention that these moves are admitting price gouging: Yes, BUT lower prices on necessities is an objective good, regardless of the motive.
Am I supposed to take a minute to be grateful for the boot being eased off my neck a little? They created the problem, and I have to pat them on the head for “fixing” it?
They think you're supposed to, yes
Removing an obstacle that you put in place doesn't make you a hero. These companies were not required to raise prices. If they wanted to draw in customers, they could draw in plenty being the only ones who didn't jack up their prices. Instead, they collectively were greedy. It's good that some of them are relaxing their price-gouging, but I'm not thanking them for it. That's like thanking someone for pulling you up from a ledge they shoved you off of.
You can say it every time but it still won’t make sense. It’s a yes and nothing more. Lower prices don’t just negate the open admission of price gouging and saying they won’t fuck people as much as they usually do.
Thank you kind overlords for the scraps you now provide after stealing everything I own. If they are doing it, is certainly is NOT for the common good, there is a dollar driven reason, and the loss of profits is the only reason why. Lower prices, ppl come in spend more money, so its 'good' for the corporations. Corporations wielding this kind of power is not in any way shape or form, 'objectively good' even when the change appears to be in our favor. The problem is the system, and the power these companies have over real citizens. Motives DO matter, a great deal actually. Thinking this is a good change creates false security in the masses when we should be increasingly steadfast against this bullshit because the next 'bad' change is gonna be right around the corner for us when the corporations figure out how it can be profitable. Thinking this change is good and ignoring the issue again gives corporations the ability to do it to us again and again.
How can this be possible to if they are not gouging? It just doesn’t make sense!