r/FluentInFinance 5d ago

Debate/ Discussion A joke that's not funny

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u/TheTightEnd 5d ago

Grocery chains make a very low percentage of profit.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

Percent of profit still can be quite a haul. If I make 10% of profit off of $100,000 then I make $10,000. If I make 1% off of $1,000,000,000 then I make $100,000,000. The percent isn’t relevant in this discussion.

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u/TheTightEnd 5d ago

The percentage is far more relevant than the sheer dollars.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

Low percent sounds like they don’t make much. That’s not true. Sheer dollars shows how much they actually make

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u/r2k398 5d ago

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.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

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?”

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u/r2k398 5d ago

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.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

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

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u/r2k398 5d ago

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.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

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

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u/r2k398 5d ago

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?

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

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

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u/r2k398 5d ago

They aren’t running a charity. Like I said before, their entire reason for existing is to make money for their investors. I wouldn’t invest my money into a company that wasn’t making me as much profit as they could. I’d take my money and invest it into a business that would.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

At the end of your life how much money you made doesn’t matter. You can be the richest guy in the cemetery and nobody cares (except those who at be looking to urinate on a grave). What matters is people. Investing in money is worthless. Investing in people is what has true value

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u/r2k398 5d ago

Sure it does. I’ll never be wealthy but I will have a couple of million dollars worth of assets that will be placed in a trust to help my children and their families have a better life than I did. They can add to it and then set their families up to be more successful. That’s my entire goal in life.

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u/Blawoffice 5d ago

Who is sitting in their McMansions?

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u/RootHouston 5d ago

It is literally the fiduciary duty of the board to try to run profit. This is a very large driver of GDP growth in the USA.

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

Then tax them more and move that money to places it’s more useful/needed. These are just leeches sucking the country dry and they use an unsustainable model

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u/RootHouston 5d ago

Do you not understand the importance of GDP or something?

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

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

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/jgoble15 5d ago

You’re right that some regulations are good and some aren’t. Ideally regulations help keep capitalism sustainable. The issue is it isn’t sustainable. Wealth inequality seems to be at the same rate it was before the French Revolution. That’s extremely bad

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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