Re:The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal
by WalterBright on Friday September 02, 2022 @04:08PM
(#32695195)
If gouging worked, why wouldn't corporations have been doing it all along?
Besides, if inflation is 10%, profits would have to rise 10% just to stay even.
Re:The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal
by DrNosferatu on Saturday September 03, 2022 @03:10AM
(#32699500)
Already answered that: corporations are surfing the public perception/impact of supply chain constraints and gas/fuel shortage - and taking advantage of that to raise prices and their respective profit margin.
Nope: structural inflation implies clear degradation of profits due to increased operating costs - yet, profits recently increased to record highs.
Also, Quantitative Easing was literally printing money and yet EU rates (inflation & sovereign debt interest) remained low, many times negative - with some EU countries observing actual deflation.
Only when the supply shock did happen (Covid & Ukraine), rates started to increase. And only after that, price gouging practices started by riding the supply shock public perception - resulting in said record corporate profits.
If there was inflation caused by excess money, how could corporate profits be at record highs?