this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
18 points (95.0% liked)
World News
32372 readers
575 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah that seems like bullshit. If they raised prices proportionally profit levels would remain flat.
Not necessarily. Let's say I'm a corporation, who sells a widget for $100. It costs me $80 to produce said widget and I keep $20 in profit. Now, let's say inflation is 25%. My cost per widget is has increased to $100. To keep up with inflation, and to maintain the same percentage of profit, I need to raise my prices to $125. This gives me a record profit of $25 per widget, while still maintaining the same proportion of profit as before.
If we only discuss the dollar value in terms of profit, it's hard to tell if record profits are coming from inflation or price gouging or both. If the percentage profit remains unchanged, then it's likely more to do with inflation than price gouging.
Why does profit need to increase as a percentage? If prices were only raised to $120 you'd still he making the same amount of profit