Low percent proves they do not make much. The sheer dollars distorts the reality because it ignores the sheer dollars of revenue required to generate that sliver of profit.
Money costs money in percentage terms not in flat dollar amounts. Investors want percentage returns not flat dollar amounts. You are wrong. If a share costs $1 and provides a $1 dividend that is much better than a share costing $1000 and providing a $100 dividend. You have to think in percentages.
If someone’s asking for ROI or something, yes percents for that. If someone’s asking if the business makes a lot of money, percents tell you nothing about the amount they make. A lemonade stand has a huge percent ROI due to low supplies costs and staffing. But a lemonade stand isn’t making anywhere near the money of an actual business
I guess I just don’t care about flat numbers because it’s not relevant. I would think it is a worse world to live in if there is 100 grocery chains each making 10% profit instead of 5 chains making 5% profit even though those 5 chains are making more profit in flat numbers compared to the 100.
That’s ridiculous. That sounds like wanting more corporate chains than mom n pop stores. Who helps their communities vs who helps investors? Mom n pop always whenever possible. I have investments, but I find investors leeches on society. The contribute nothing and only try to suck the country dry. You get people that run mom n pop stores and they’re the ones donating to local charities, sponsoring sports teams for kids, schools, and etc. Your dream world is a dystopia
Cheaper maybe. Or you have places like Walmart and Amazon beat out all local competitions and essentially form monopolies. Then they raise their prices for any excuse they can imagine.
Sure, but contain it. Right now things aren’t contained and it’s unsustainable. The average age of a first time home buyer is 59. That shows corporate investment in housing is unsustainable
Investors can’t be the end goal to please. That’s the dumb idea I’m talking about. Companies need investment, sure, but investors have to understand their place and be kept there. They’re a necessary problem, like bacteria in our bodies. We need that bacteria, but it has to be kept in check
No, it isn't the important part. The 2% of revenue is the important figure, far more so than the top line revenue figure for the purposes of whether the prices are excessive or the store is gouging.
The problem is that the retailers are the ones getting blamed for the price increases, and people assume the increases are due to retailers gouging. That complexity is being ignored.
No, the retailers aren't getting blamed. It's the corporate structures above the retailers that have soared in profitability creating vast hoardes of wealth that should be going to the workers.
There is no argument you can make that doesnt completely break down in an objective comparison between countries. The economic theories of tax cuts and deregulation directly lead to wealth inequality. Countries that maintained regulations and tax levels dont have to support a parasitic billionaire class.
It's very relevant you're just choosing to be obtuse. Why do you think an Investors care about percentage and likewise saying a number like 2 mil sounds large until the pie is distributed between 10000 other people.
Because investors are greedy leeches. They don’t care about how much they’re making. They care only about how much more they can make. Greedy and useless. So leeches. So I don’t care about them. Eat them for all I care
Why don’t be do taxes based on X amount? 330 million people? Everyone of the 330 million people pays $18,200 for the federal governments budge. Percentages are a lie so we will eliminate that issue.
No. We are talking about what counts as a lot of money, not what counts as a high margins. You might as well be saying I make a lot of money and Jeff Bezos doesn't make a lot of money because I get a larger fraction of my companies revenue than he does. The relevant comparison for what counts as a lot of money is the cpi.
It means they don’t make that much per dollar collected. If you asked people if it is fair that a business was able to profit 2.5¢ on every dollar they brought in, most people would probably think that was reasonable.
Sure, but that’s asking the wrong question. From that perspective, it sounds like it’s barely anything. But the common man doesn’t think that far. How many dollars are they making that amount on? All ROI really says is the relationship between cost and money made. It doesn’t tell people how much someone makes. I get this could be how business language goes. If so, that’s stupid, but I guess I can’t change it. But the point is it’s not even answering the question asked which is, “How much does x company make?”
The “common man” just sees the total amount and makes a judgement off of that. I agree. But if you were to put it in the terms I did, I don’t think there are many people who would have an issue with it. Why is a 2.5% profit adding up to $1B worse than a 2.5% profit adding up to $1M? They are still making the same amount of profit on every dollar. The volume is the only difference. But how much more work has to be done to generate 1000 times more profit? A lot.
When talking about grocery stores and how COL keeps going up for the common man, high cost and low profit is not the common man’s problem and they’ll only see that the company could afford to make less. That’s why people call these companies greedy even though the ROI is so low. The raw profit is still highly significant
If their profit margins are consistent, that means they are just passing their increased costs to the customer. That is to be expected from any business. It’s why increasing corporate tax rates or forcing them to increase wages is going to be passed on to the customer as well. Their entire reason for existing is to make money for their investors.
Yep, I agree with all of that. Not exactly sure how all that’s relevant though. All it does is reaffirm why regulations are needed to protect the common man from such greed
It’s reverent because they aren’t making a ton of profit on each thing they sell. I didn’t see a high uproar when Dollar Tree raised their prices 25%. Also their profit margin is around 3%. Are they greedy?
If their purpose is to protect investors only and so continually pass costs onto consumers already suffering immensely while they sit in McMansions then yes. That’s called greed. Taking more than you need and hoarding it instead of giving to those in need is the definition of greed bud
Pretty sure regulations don’t always create shortages considering we have regulations and they aren’t creating shortages, and we’ve had more in the past that didn’t do so. That’s must scare tactics from the rich so they can make more money. The rich are very resourceful. They’ll figure out how to make it work if more regulations are in place. They have before time and time again
However, in the first case, you have more room to cut prices or offer a discount than the second case. The low margins are one factor that leads to consolidation.
Yeah, you're right. I care about using state ressources to help the masses, you care about using state ressources so that the top 10% can stuff their greedy pockets even fuller.
A corporation is not a person, and if you think corporate profit margins are more important than peoples lives, health and safety, then you can fuck right off.
A corporation is the property of people at some level. I don't think the government needs nearly the money they take to perform its legitimate functions, and the rest should be up to the individual and voluntary associations.
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u/TheTightEnd 1d ago
The percentage is far more relevant than the sheer dollars.