• snownyte@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Eggs are again steadily rising in price. Wal-Mart “great value” prices isn’t all that ‘great’ to begin with, with most of it’s products.

    But can we stop calling things inflation? Call it for what it really has been - G-R-E-E-D

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    The problem is the way the system is rigged.

    Kroger is a publicly traded company, their stock price right now is 46.71 / share.

    You can see their most recent earnings report here:

    https://ir.kroger.com/news/news-details/2023/Kroger-Reports-Third-Quarter-2023-Results-and-Updates-Guidance/default.aspx

    Operating Profit of $912 million; EPS of $0.88

    Now then… for NEXT quarter… It doesn’t matter if they are profitable or not. Because they are publicly traded, they are going to be expected to make MORE profit than they did this quarter.

    Let’s say next quarter they “only” have $890 million in profit… Most of us would KILL to be that profitable.

    The stock market analysts will look at it and go “yeah, but you ‘lost’ $22 million from last quarter…” and they will punish Kroger for failing.

    Even worse…

    Let’s say Kroger raised their prices and pulls in a profit of $915 million next quarter… they can STILL get punished if the market goes “Yeah, but our analysts expected you to bring in $921 million in profit.”

    Failing to meet or beat “expectations” is just as bad as raking in less of a profit than last time.

    So prices go up, because they have to make more money than the same time last month, last quarter, last year.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      abolish the stock market. put these hogs on a fucking island with no natural resources but sand and salt water. set up a camera and let us watch.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        7 months ago

        It’s interesting how recent the stock market really is:

        https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/history-of-the-stock-market/

        "The first modern stock trading market was created in Amsterdam when the Dutch East India Company was the first publicly traded company. To raise capital, the company decided to sell stock and pay dividends of the shares to investors. Then in 1611, the Amsterdam stock exchange was created. For many years, the only trading activity on the exchange was trading shares of the Dutch East India Company.

        At this point, other countries began creating similar companies, and buying shares of stock was popular for investors. The excitement blinded most investors and they bought into any company that began available without investigating the organization. This resulted in financial instability, and eventually in 1720, investors became fearful and tried to sell all their shares in a hurry. No one was buying however, so the market crashed.

        . . .

        Although the first stock market began in Amsterdam in 1611, the U.S. didn’t get into the stock market game until the late 1700s. It was then that a small group of merchants made the Buttonwood Tree Agreement. This group of men met daily to buy and sell stocks and bonds, which became the origin of what we know today as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

        Although the Buttonwood traders are considered the inventors of the largest stock exchange in America, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was America’s first stock exchange. Founded in 1790, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange had a profound impact on the city’s place in the global economy, including helping spur the development of the U.S.’s financial sectors and its expansion west."

        • normalexit@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t know if my highschool education is failing me, but the US declared independence in 1776, so I feel like the US not having a stock market until the late 1700s makes a lot of sense.

          • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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            7 months ago

            Well, when you consider that humans go back 300,000 years or so, and “civilization”, such as it is, goes back 10,000 - 12,000 years, 500 years is really not much at all.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      7 months ago

      You have to be some kind of moron to think it would be a good idea for the president to start dictating prices to grocery chains. Unfortunately Lemmy is largely populated by idiots and delusional fools, so I expect this observation to be unpopular.

        • Fox@pawb.social
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          7 months ago

          I’m not sure why you’d advocate for it if you’ve actually read the history, it’s a terrible idea that has failed spectacularly in the past

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      What are you, some kind of Communist? You can’t have government run retail outlets. It would be inefficient! It would prevent innovation! It would desaturate the market! It would cause millions of farmers to go bankrupt overnight! The employees would all be rapists and arsonists and unionists, while the managers would be bloated government bureaucrats who only care about their cushy government jobs!

      You would cause famine and poverty across the entire nation. It would be the worst thing to happen to the country since the Postal Service!!!

      • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        But then the government would have to remedy the surplus of food by implementing food banks. Then markets would crash because everyone would go to food banks instead of grocery stores. Then money would be worthless and the government would have to step in and offer some type of work for rations program. And if that’s successful, it would spread to other industries for furniture and other goods. Is Biden going full Kropotkin?

  • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Why does Biden go after anything but minimum wage? Just because min wage isn’t a winning issue doesn’t make the problem go away.

      • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Sure, that is why. Poor Biden, he would help the working class, only if he could. Give president absolute power to use it when they need to help the rich, but when it helps the working class, all of a sudden they are powerless.

        • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          You remember the whole student loan forgiveness situation? The executive can only do things that the legislature has granted it power to do. And even then, the supreme court can show up and stop it for whatever reason they pull out of their ass.

          Despite what Trump says, the President is not a king. The legislature is by the far the most powerful branch and is most to blame for the current situation. Blame them and especially the filibuster in the Senate.

          • olivebranch@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            Didn’t democrats vote in executive power for president during Obama administration so the president can act on their own? Kinda funny how democrats complain republicans are authoritarian, when they give presidents power of kings.

            All presidents used executive power for lesser reasons. These are just PR games for naive voters.