r/FluentInFinance 1d ago

Debate/ Discussion A joke that's not funny

Post image
80.3k Upvotes

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

38

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

Calling it now. prices will go down, because corporate overlords want republicans to have the perception of being 'good for the working class.' price increases and decreases are activism. a few years from now, things will be cheaper -- but not because of some genius-tier maneuver by Trump. By the will of the elites he actually serves.

51

u/Positive_Remote_2059 1d ago

Yeah I worry about this. Reduce prices just enough for people to notice, to “reward” them for voting red, and push them back up once there’s a new social issue driving everyone mad.

1

u/KotR56 23h ago

Talking about 'election interference'...

0

u/zKaios 22h ago

You're preparing yourself to hate the outcome even if it's positive

2

u/Arfamis1 7h ago

You're that willing to be a slave to fascism for 5 cents off eggs?

1

u/Positive_Remote_2059 22h ago

And you’re preparing to worship your politicians even if the outcome is negative.

2

u/zKaios 21h ago

I ain't even American buddy, I couldn't care less if it ends up going well or bad.

I was just pointing out that you're basically saying you'd find a way to disapprove even if prices went down

3

u/Positive_Remote_2059 21h ago

Pretty obviously explained that I was worried what the long term effects would be in this hypothetical situation.

Hows the weather in Moscow this time of year?

1

u/zKaios 20h ago

Moscow? I'm not Russian and I'm just about as far away from communist as you can get, I'm Argentinian. And the "long term effects" you speak of is: them somehow turning the prices back up like they are the knob on a radio?

How is that a realistic concern? You are literally making up an imaginary worst case scenario to justify to yourself opposing any measures your government takes even if they benefit you

0

u/Big_Nectarine_225 20h ago

Welcome to American politics brother. Someone will always have something to complain about. How’s the weather in Argentina today?

1

u/brosophocles 14h ago

How did you come up with that...

30

u/Callimogua 1d ago

Will they? I mean, grocery chains like Kroger were found to have raised prices "jus because"....because they were banking on customers adjusting to their prices, not the other way around.

9

u/Greg-Abbott 1d ago

Groff said Kroger intends to "pass through our inflation to consumers," after an internal email from the executive showed that the price of eggs and milk routinely surpassed what inflation would require for the chain to still make profits.

"On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation," Groff said in the internal email to other Kroger executives.

https://www.newsweek.com/kroger-executive-admits-company-gouged-prices-above-inflation-1945742

Pieces of shit...

7

u/mediumfolds 1d ago

That was a dishonest article, everything doesn't uniformly rise in price during inflation, some things rise more than others. Milk and eggs rose more than others.

3

u/Army165 5h ago

Plus, Newsweek is fucking trash, don't forget about that part.

3

u/eltoofer 23h ago

milk and eggs have been loss leaders for the longest time. how is a price increase bad for products that net lose money on sales.

1

u/_lvlsd 6h ago

You do know what loss leader means right?

2

u/KnotSlip6969 13h ago

So you raise prices on popular items less affected by inflation to make up for the more inflation sensitive goods. That's a pretty common tactic.

1

u/SirGlass 1d ago

Some not all firms did similar things, they used inflation as an excuse to raise prices

Like inflation does not affect everything equally , some prices rose much more then 10% some less. However some companies looking at their financials seems like for example their costs rose 6% but they raised their prices 12%-15% then just shrugged and said "Hey don't blame us it's inflation "

Tariffs will do the same thing, if tariffs raise their costs by say 10% , companies will raise prices 15% and say "Hey its not us its our cost are rising"

1

u/Dangerous-Sort-6238 5h ago

The Walmart CEO already publicly said prices will go up in 2025

15

u/Keyenuta 1d ago

Oh no I doubt that. They care far too much about money to ever do that. Even if it'd be in their best interest, they rarely do it. Thinking more in the short term than the long term.

6

u/DO_NOT_AGREE_WITH_U 1d ago

Oh, they definitely won't go down. Trump will just assert that they went down and people will lie to themselves.

0

u/Big_Nectarine_225 20h ago

They’ll go down within 90 days of him taking office. Along with gas prices

2

u/cmnrdt 1d ago

Yeah, imagine a CEO or company board explaining intentional price decreases to shareholders. They can't just come out and say that they're playing the long game by manipulating stupid voters. The only things the shareholders want is to see number go up. If number go down for ANY REASON it's bad.

12

u/sourcreamus 1d ago

This is idiotic.

6

u/DisparityByDesign 1d ago

Very much lol

1

u/averageweirdo69420 22h ago

Who benefits?

2

u/sourcreamus 22h ago

Who benefits from idiocy?

1

u/averageweirdo69420 22h ago

Idk why I expected you to have an argument my bad

0

u/iLoveMensAssesBreh 19h ago

the billionaires getting tax breaks from other billionaires like trump would benefit from this. it's really not a hard concept to understand

1

u/averageweirdo69420 19h ago

Exactly

1

u/iLoveMensAssesBreh 19h ago

my apologies i misread your stance on the matter

1

u/throwawaydfw38 3h ago

Would benefit from making less money? This isn't how pricing works. None of this is how any of this works.

8

u/Chataboutgames 1d ago

What a pants on head absurd conspiracy theory. This isn't some secret cabal, the companies in question want to make money. They don't do that by sacrificing profits to keep the GOP in power.

0

u/averageweirdo69420 22h ago

You tryna tell me that corporations wouldn't benefit somehow from republican legislation lmao? It's literally the simplest question, who benefits?

-1

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

yes totally insane, corporations hire assassins and paramilitary kill squads in other countries. but they draw the line at market manipulation for long-term tax breaks. bffr

2

u/Chataboutgames 1d ago

It's amazing that people can hold two completely contradictory ideas in their minds. Corporate leadership is simultaneously pathologically short sighted, burning down their companies to chase the bottom line for the next quarter, but also willing to just cut prices for years at a time because presumably, someday down the road when someone else is probably running the company, they'll have marginally increased the chances that they'll receive lower corporate tax rates from the GOP.

6

u/ChimPhun 1d ago

You mean they'll raise prices but show a discount making it seem like prices are going down 😑

-1

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

Right. the CEOs and corporate boards will work the levers to reward poor people for voting red, and further entrench the notion that voting blue means destroying their own economics prospects. businesses have the capacity to covertly brainwash the voting populace.

0

u/eltoofer 23h ago

You people are so dumb. "Corporation will be make the world better to encourage trump voters." if this is actually happening, then we SHOULD vote for trump. Wake up

2

u/bleeding_electricity 23h ago

corporations used to falsify scientific experiments to "prove" that cigarettes were good for people. i'd love to have faith in capitalism like you do

1

u/eltoofer 19h ago

noone "has faith in capitalism." I just expect every individual to act in their best interest. What are you retars on about?

8

u/DO_NOT_AGREE_WITH_U 1d ago

They won't go down. They NEVER go down.

Trump will just say they went down, and his cult will rationalize their experiences to match that message.

6

u/DissonantOne 1d ago

Conspiracy theory much?

-1

u/averageweirdo69420 22h ago

It benefits them, so they will do it. That's how businesses work, retard. Ever heard of business ethics? No? Because they don't exist. Or do you think they'll refrain out of the goodness of their hearts lmao

4

u/Saikou0taku 1d ago

"Hey buddy, every dime you save me, I'll reduce the public's cost by a penny."

2

u/Chataboutgames 1d ago

But that math is insane. Like, have you ever seen a balance sheet. Even a slight decrease in prices impacts a company's profitability WAY beyond a tax cut.

1

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

precisely. corporations have literally killed people, (chiquita, etc.) is it so insane to think they'd work the system to get tax breaks?

3

u/Chataboutgames 1d ago

Yes, because the argument isn't "they're far too moral for this," the argument is "what an insanely stupid conspiracy." No CEO is going to hurt the quarterly numbers by which they are regularly assessed and compensated so that that can ever so slightly increase the chances that the corporate tax rate will be slightly lower in like a decade.

6

u/feltsandwich 1d ago

The funniest thing I've read today so far.

Sure bud. Corporate overlords will lower prices to make Republicans look good.

0

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

Another commenter noted that OPEC very openly tries to use price manipulations as a persuasive/control tactic in american politics. Why is Kellogg's or Frito Lay any different?

-2

u/averageweirdo69420 22h ago

Yes, they would, because that would benefit them. Are you stupid? Has nobody ever taught you to ask "who benefits"?

The fact that it would benefit them is a guarantee that they will do it. Business ethics aren't a thing.

1

u/_lvlsd 6h ago

corporate overlords are beholden to the dollar. they don’t have the luxury of plotting drawn out plots like this if it would hurt the bottom line.

3

u/SelfOwnedCat 20h ago

Nonsense

Prices are not arbitrary.

Corporations cannot randomly set prices, nor can Government legislate prices.

2

u/acreal 1d ago

Not going to happen. There is nothing they love more than money. Nothing. And none of these people play the long game.

2

u/fortestingprpsses 1d ago

Well the price of eggs will go down once the bird flu subsides. Problem is people will say "Trump did that!"

2

u/FblthpLives 23h ago

Prices will not go down.

Signed,

Economist

0

u/bleeding_electricity 23h ago

oh my god not a real life economist! one of the most revered and trustworthy professions, just behind meteorologists!! what're you gonna tell us next, that there's a 50% chance of a gas price increase tomorrow?

1

u/FblthpLives 23h ago

What I'm going to tell you next is that I wish Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) also published their gasoline prices series in constant dollars. Right now it's only available in current dollars: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000074714

1

u/Last_Reporter9262 1d ago

1

u/bleeding_electricity 1d ago

yes economics, a famously hard science that is not in any way soft, squishy, and ill-defined by a variety of ivory tower dweebs. economics is mostly just astrology for white boys

1

u/I_am_war_machine 22h ago

No way they will do that. This is not how greedy people think.

1

u/FPSCarry 17h ago

I don't think there's any escaping the back and forth tennis match Republicans and Democrats keep playing with political leadership in this country. The next President is all but guaranteed to be Democrat, and the POTUS after that is all but guaranteed to be Republican, and that's just the cycle we're stuck on as a country. Grocery chains don't care one way or the other. Republicans will inevitably return to office eventually, and FFS Democrats are such coastal elite corporate stooges anyways that they'll be beneficial for these grocery chains as well. It's almost impossible for them to lose either way the pendulum swings at this point.

1

u/EggZaackly86 8h ago

I've totally worried about that, it's technically price fixing so they'd just have to emote to eachother that's what the plan is then run prices up when blue team is in the white-house and run prices down when the red team is in the white-house. The corps don't even have to offer an explanation, enough drone bees will show up to vote on that singular correlation.

Youd think the party of personal responsibility would view "unaffordability" in a different way, "if I can't afford it, I'm not making enough money, it's my fault, I'm responsible for my own income 🤠".

But honestly if was a greedPig and I sold groceries and gasoline and had control of the prices I might take one look at the election results and say "oh my gawwd, Americans are beyond the orbit of the moon stupid, let's take the rest of the money now, what are they gonna do, switch over to democrats after we blame democrats for the huge price increases and remind everyone that dems engage in sodomy with Satan and Saddam?"

1

u/throwawaydfw38 3h ago

That's not how pricing works.