The Potterizing of America:

[Uncle Joe]

The Potterizing of America: As the child tax credit ends, big corporations (and their CEOs and investors) keep raking it in

(snip)

The biggest single reason prices are rising is the concentration of the American economy into the hands of a few corporate giants with the power to raise prices.

To be sure, supply bottlenecks have raised the prices corporations pay for some raw materials and components. But here’s the most important thing: Instead of absorbing these costs, corporations are passing them on to customers in the form of higher prices.

This is because most large corporations face little or no competition. If corporations in the same industry were competing vigorously against each other, they’d keep their prices as low as possible so as not to lose customers. They’d try to avoid passing increased costs to consumers in higher prices, for fear of losing customers to competitors that don’t raise prices. They’d absorb the costs, and their profits would fall.

The opposite is occurring. Corporations are raising prices even as they rake in record profits. Profit margins at large corporations are now at a 70-year high. Take a look at the following chart (from Bloomberg):

(snip)

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/corporations-raking-it-in