Probably because people consider small businesses (within a certain scale) to be indistinguishable from individuals. So, in both cases its the 'giant corporation' screwing over individuals. However with regards to healthcare, gouging people on prices is immoral. So its a different situation to a random retail product.

This is an incredibly facetious example. You have to remember that the drug companies have effective monopolies for many expensive drugs. Do you actually believe that the government should be forced (by legislation) to accept unilaterally decreed prices by drug companies? These prices are not set by any market, so they have no relation to the cost of the drug or the research & development that went into discovering it.

> You have to remember that the drug companies have effective monopolies for many expensive drugs.

I think it is funny that the people demand the government force companies to lower prices caused by the government granting a monopoly to said companies why way of the patent system....

How about we just end patents.

I mean there are plenty of reasons not to do that

The receiver of the surplus (Walmart vs consumers) is kinda important...

First of all, consumers get lower prices at Walmart, it doesn't just have the effect of higher profits.

Second, the real danger in both cases (though people only see it in one, hence my point) is that you're killing off the OEMs this way. No one wants to bring innovative new products to market if some monopsonist will just force them down to the mandated n% profits.

Nope.

1) Walmart doesn't pass savings to consumers, it passes them to shareholders, as they have a fiduciary obligation to do. The "lower prices" thing is just marketing; WM's prices aren't particularly low once they've driven away their competition.

2) If drug companies want to charge a R&D premium for bleeding-edge innovative products, that's fine. What's not fine is price gouging consumers for drugs they depend on to live, that are not innovative in 2017, and that are cheaply available in other countries, like the EpiPen.

Post-patent drugs usually have insane prices due to reasons outside of what can be effectively combatted by the bargaining power of universal healthcare (e.g. regulatory capture in the case of EpiPen). That tactic is rarely necessary once generics enter the mix, as long as nothing is artificially preventing them from getting to market.

Walmart does not in any way, shape, or form have an obligation to pass savings directly onto shareholders instead of reinvesting it in customer satisfaction.

As a publicly traded company, yes they do. Customer satisfaction only matters to the extent that it increases shareholder value.

> Customer satisfaction only matters to the extent that it increases shareholder value.

Which it does, so it is a completely valid option.

There is absolutely nothing forcing them to pick any particular use for the money. Both uses benefit the company in some way. Both uses are fine. It's not like they're burning it.

It may, it may not. If not lowering prices benefits shareholders more, then that is what they have to do.

>There is absolutely nothing forcing them to pick any particular use for the money.

Except this legal precedent right here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

Walmart sells cheap stuff, it doesn't sell stuff cheaply. There is a very important distinction.

It works hard to lower supplier and employee costs not to benefit consumers but to prop up their own margins.

Fair enough on the passthrough to consumers.