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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by eberkund on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:51PM (#19313047)
> And where does this money go? What does it end up doing?

Some of it goes to providing jobs to those same middle class people.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by Someone1234 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:53PM (#19313076)
Considering their profits, I don't believe that is where it is going:

http://www.luxottica.com/en/record-2017-net-profits-and-free...

Using a monopolistic position to overcharge doesn't generate more jobs, just profits.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by vibrio on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:16PM (#19313286)
Are 10-15% margins crazy large in this or comparable sectors?

I'm genuinely asking as I'm to busy/lazy to look it.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by wbracken on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:23PM (#19313349)
Of course not.
Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by vibrio on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @10:23AM (#19319521)
According to my basic understanding of basic economics (FWIW), doesn't this put a hole in the monopoly hypothesis here? [I'm not even close to being an economist, but I've taken a basic class or two.]

I looked at their 2017 financials, and they have revenue/ expenses broken out for many many brands and regions. There are huge variations in margins due to what it seems like to be growth expenses. Some of what i'd think to be more mature lines at first glance to have crazy good margins.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by bigdubs on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:53PM (#19313073)
The share of incomes from private businesses (especially luxury businesses) isn't flat and benefits mostly the executives and directors and shareholders.
Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by wbracken on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:56PM (#19313101)
How can you say that? Luxottica employs 85,000 people. Do those people obtain no benefit from employment?
Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by Someone1234 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:00PM (#19313140)
If there was healthy competition that same number of jobs may be split over multiple companies, but it would still have to exist since the market for the product itself wouldn't change.

That isn't an argument for not breaking up a monopoly. Only an argument that the market may be big enough to support actual competition.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by volkl48 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @03:16PM (#19313829)
Look at the beer market. Total beer volume sold is falling. Employment in breweries has doubled since 2010.

Why? Because the market is fragmenting to smaller operations who employ more people per unit of beer produced.

You can argue that from both sides, that it's less efficient vs generates more jobs, of course.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by cazum on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:59PM (#19313130)
What? Nobody is claiming that they don't.

What is being claimed is that the majority of those employees are not seeing an increased benefit (wages) proportional to the increased profits of the company they work for, whereas shareholders and executives do.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by wbracken on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:05PM (#19313170)
Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by toss1 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:23PM (#19313362)
Obviously they obtain benefit form employment.

If it were multiple competing companies, the same output would probably require MORE employees. One of the ways it is so profitable is to implement economies of scale not possible in a less monolithic industry.

You are failing to see that extractive business models such as monopolies do not add value, they extract value and concentrate it in the hands of the execs/owners. This removes capital from the socio-economic system/society and reduces the capabilities of the whole system to grow (the occasional purchase of a yacht does not rebalance things).

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by noonespecial on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:16PM (#19313278)
I think what it probably looks like from a mile high is that we all have a little less eyewear than we could so that a lucky few can have a lot more of everything than they probably should.

We perceive this to be unfair and wonder if we should risk reorganizing society a bit to remedy this.

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by cazum on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:55PM (#19313094)
There are plenty of examples where rising profits in an industry have led to workforce downsizing, not job creation.

Is there any data to show that these excessive eyewear profits are being used to create new jobs?

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by munk-a on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @05:11PM (#19314745)
You should familiarize yourself with the broken window fallacy[1], it fits this scenario pretty precisely and... well, it's a fallacy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window