AmZero85
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I'm not the conspiracy type, but it seems like they wanted to influence the general public so they think the economy is bad, just so a certain candidate would be voted into office to slash regulations and taxes on the 1%.
Columbus43219
My conspiracy brain thinks that too.
activeracer28
Correction, slashing prices on the junk no one buys and using the "sale" to get you in the door where you'll still buy the inflated priced needful things
Apothecarius
I noticed they did it the past month or so. People stop buying your stupidly overpriced shit, but you still gotta sell it syndrome.
Mordikay
It's almost like if people can't afford.stuff they stop buying stuff. So weird.
TChallaVanDam
Nah, @op. The cartoon has the correct conspiracy. It was just greed. They saw an opportunity to take more of our money and took it. I don’t think they give a fuck who’s in office, so long as those with the money keep making all of the money.
SilentScreamsX
Turns out literally pricing your customers out of buying your products isn't the best business move. Who'd have thought?!
Blabulus
They have been profiting this whole time, and LYING about the "hard times" to cheat us
MickeyCallahan
Corporations try to set prices as close as they can to the limit of where they'll lose too much business if it goes any higher. What price gets them the most profit.
Clockworkdancerobot
Always was.
MisterLemons
Doing IRPs in Lowe's today, finding some fun numbers after doing the math when the phone tells us how much the department loses if the items are lost. Cushions the store gets for $33 we sell for $98, chainsaw chains we get for $7 we sell for $32, grills are $250/$600, ant bait $2/9, pressure washer nozzles $2/10, umbrellas $28/60, premix gas $6/$22...
This could *easily* be avoided but peoply pay it because corporations have over hyped the hell out of holidays and idiots buy into it full swing.
fnoigy
No it's definitely because all money went to the poors and not because the rich are richer than ever before
Shaodyn
Translation: Giant corporations realize that their unrestrained greed is costing them customers, make prices slightly more reasonable in hopes of getting profit margins back.
SteveMND
You don't need a conspiracy to agree that corporate-generated "inflation" and wanting to see another Republican president are both symptoms of the same underlying problem.
Oblok
I hate their attitude: "Please come back! We've cut the prices 20% and made the product 30% smaller for your convenience!"
TunnelRat13
Hamburger Helper just shrinkflationed their entire product line, both singles and doubles.
xj4low
IF they lower prices to try to gain back customers, it will not be to per-pandemic/per-inflation prices. If inflation went up 4%, they raised prices 6%. That way if they ever need to come down, they will only bring it back down 4% leaving the 2% profit in place. The consumer will see the prices come down and think they are getting a deal but not realize they are still getting milked another 2%.
Debadguy
I wonder if these corporate guys realize money is only as valuable as the people who use it? If no one has cash, we just revert back to trading.
Nightshift603
Now: Somebody tell McDONALDS. They should burn in hell.
AmZero85
The Crunch Wrap Supreme meal at Taco Bell is $10, where I live. I'll go to the local Mexican place down the road and get a full plate lunch for that cost.
stonebrood
why are people scared to be "the conspiracy type"? people conspire bruh. you don't have to think aliens made the fucking pyramids, don't let this dumb notion that you're "not the conspiracy type" hold you back
IslaNublar
It's infuriating when people try to blame Biden for "rampant inflation" and it's like no you idiots, it's CORPORATE FUCKING GREED. PURE FUCKING GREED. You don't have stores bragging about their best financial years since the 50s and basically popping champaign and shit while they just keep jacking prices until some shit's literally 500%+ over normal and blame that on the president.
AmZero85
The media has bought into the "inflation" spin. They need something to hook people in so they can sell ads to the same companies ripping us off.
MarshmallowFluffernutterPie
I already found somewhere cheaper that realized Walmart's mistake. It's a local store! Die, Walmart.
TheKentuckySlasher
Ya I discovered a win-co last year because of wallmart & krogers prices, I’m never going back
DrBukkakeShots69
Fuck those companies. Refrain from
Buying from them if possible.
LurkMasterP
Interesting that they all actually raised prices at the same time, and now they're all "slashing costs" at the same time to try to get back the customers they lost. A cynical man would suspect this was collusion between several corporate giants on a planned strategy with a planned timetable, but I'd never be so bold as to suggest that or anything.
SploogeMcDuck316
ok now do one for housing.
vash77
SploogeMcDuck316
Especially when so many are spending 50% or more of their monthly income just to have a roof over their head. Or having to have 5 roommates.
Thisisabigmistake
Canadian grocery chains already got caught and punished for bread price fixing scheme but seems like they aren't being punished for the excessive profits after COVID and blaming it on inflation and high minimum wage
CaldariBob
They got punished for it... in Ontario. AFAIK, no one else got the payout.
Danuck123
One can only hope that the wider public will stop believing the 'inflation' and 'carbon tax' angle and start holding the richest to account. Inflation and the carbon tax do contribute to price increases, but to a marginal amount vs corporate greed.
SteveMND
Source: https://archive.fo/grbAa
spacestationnumberfive
Saucy sauce.
MrSpookywasagoodboy2
Slashing costs means nothing if they don't lower prices
skrimg59
that’s what they mean by “slashing costs”, lowering prices
Clockworkdancerobot
All those mergers and companies owned by the same major groups, and the private equity firms owning the largest part of them? huh.
silentjay01
They aren't even slashing. They are leaving the new, inflated price on there and just marking the item as "On Sale" for slightly less your your brain can pretend you are getting a deal.
I0VE525P00GE
Yeah, slashing costs just means they are screwing their suppliers even more.
cambriago13
Finally realized? Or knew perfectly well the whole fucking time?
xXxX66SICKXxXx
I’ve been saying this to my wife for the last 3 years… “they will keep the boot on our throats until we either turn blue or start reaching for something to use as a weapon”. The goal was to maximize profits for as long as possible until we either collapsed, rebelled, or they got their wish and reinstated “company towns” on a city scale nationwide… crypto shitting the bed helped stave this ugly future off for a while longer at least.
MadCat221
Finally realized… that *we* knew the whole fucking time.
MisterLemons
They did not know because that was not the focus. They never considered the long-term consequences because they were so focused on the immediate numbers.
Corporations are not entities, they're conglomerates of greedy bastards all trying to make the highest quantifiable profit and the only other concern is how they'll top it next quarter. They are not *capable* of considering the repercussions as a dissuasion, only ever factoring that in as a cost/benefit analysis. Dropping profits is alien.
MisterLemons
If you told the CEO or whoever the hell is in charge of plotting the roadmap for Lowe's or whatever that literally doubling the markup of everything in the building is not sustainable and that even with inflation the numerical gross profit in five years is going to be lesser than today I guarantee the response would be a long the lines of "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" because, again, he is not capable of comprehending that infinite growth is not possible. It doesn't even register.
SweetprinceShambles
Record profits year after year while people are getting laid off..
hydrocarbon82
Not to mention Amazon's avg tax rate was SINGLE DIGITS for the last 5yrs.
RunThatIn
and they blame crime so they can increase the police presence and throw the poors in jail
nubblebun
It's almost as if the rich know that climate change is absolutely real and collapse is coming sooner rather than later and they would like to be as rich as possible before the shit hits the fan. It's almost as if they know that climate change is real and happening now. Or maybe I'm just paranoid who knows. We will see.
keystotheairlock
Correct. The more power they consolidate, the easier it will be for them to make land grabs and water acquisitions in the coming decades. They're going to be running out of food and water too, they just want to last as long as they can.
imgonnaralph
But still ads on prime cuz they need the money...
nimodium
prime streaming considering how much the alternatives cost is still cheap (they have spent billions on programming) most other services have more than doubled over the last few years
Paoloc0mments
SithElephant
Don't forget blaming theft
pretendthisisagoodusername
I'm getting republican ads blaming democrats for "bailing out illegals"
newsguycraigevans
I was assured over the weekend that all the inflation, even the inflation in other nations, is entirely the fault of Biden. Why yes, they have a red hat. How did you know?
PoliticalWanderer
"We're losing money because of theft! Please ignore that $5.2 billion opioid settlement... and that $270 million Medicare fraud fine... and those millions in wage theft lawsuits... it's totally because of people stealing cheap flip flops and $20 dollar sunglasses. That's where the money is." - Walgreens![]()
certainlynotaserialkiller
I will neither confirm nor deny having any part in this matter.
TheFakeCraigFerguson
Dude, seriously. So many places have made checkout fucking hell cause tHeFt. My local Safeway can now only be exited from one side. They locked the other door and now it's an emergency exit only. I'm disabled you fucks. Now I have to try and find parking in your tiny ass lot on one side that everyone parks at now. And fucking Walmart. Let's rip out all by two registers and replace them with self checkout which will then ban access to cause tHeFt. Also let's lock everything and have 3 1/
TheFakeCraigFerguson
Whole employeeswith keys to the fucking locks to take care of the entire store. They have the fucking SPAM locked up. You have to page an associate for fucking SPAM. Baby stuff? Tooth paste? Multivitamins? Allergy meds? CALL AN ASSOCIATE THEY'LL BE THERE WITHIN 5 TO TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES! even the curbside shoppers have to call an associate. Look. If you're gonna fucking lock everything up, more power to you you greed soaked cuntbuckets. But put more people on fucking door duty.
Jatenffxiv
Oh oh and everything being "Woke"
whateverthevoicestellme
“This DEI is so expensive” -execs and investors who add no value to society
tacojuggler
Theft they budget for no less. When projecting profits they account for for general losses like if things will expire and can't be sold or if products get damaged or just stuff is stolen. I'd say they likely account for more loss than actually happens so really they probably expect people to steal more.
Clockworkdancerobot
Walgreens loses $140M to Theranos, closes stores so close that they cannibalize their own sales, oopsie! must be shrink!
NinetiesBoomer
I read that as Thanos 😂
Sasurau
SithElephant
This misses out the huge block of corporate theft defined to be legal and normal. For example, starting out at time theft and employees being required to provide their own tools, all the way through corporate profit-taking in health insurance as an arm of HR in reducing employee left because of health cost terror, on to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_erosion_and_profit_shifting which means it's quite legal for companies to lie to the IRS about their income, if they do it on the right forms.
Ialwayslookhungover
No i was definitely stealing from them. Anytime i had to use those stupid self-checkout lanes that reduced overhead without lowering prices. Not my fault they chose to make me a temporary employee without compensation.
Jatenffxiv
Yeah, I've probably missed a few items over the years. Who could say?
IHaveGreatKittenRecipes
Yep, if I'm the cashier, I expect to be paid for my work. Lucky for them I'm willing to accept goods of commensurate value.
FermentTheRich3000
The cashier at those self checkouts is always a dick to me. Always talking about some random thing I said like a decade ago.
artdecoasfuck
I think OP was more calling back to the 2022 "Walmart Warns of Store Closures If Theft Continues" headlines when thefts were causing a reported $400M of losses on Walmart's $144B profit that year... Really? Total "breakage" due to theft below 0.2% total profit is gonna cripple the company and cause store closures. Yeah right.
AmZero85
Translation: We took out a huge loan to build a new lux corporate HQ in Bentonville, so we need excuses to tell the shareholders.
pkerteam13
Let it burn, Let it rot. Til there's nothing left.
darkninja2992
Agreed. A lot of the younger generations today have no idea the actual level of damage these stores did to everything. All the local stores that specialized, but couldn't keep up with what was originally low-cost super stores that had a bit of everything, people had to give in and close. Grocery stored, delis, toy stores, etc, they just couldn't compete. But if thesebig names close, the demand opens up for the small stores again, there'll be a customer base to make it thrive
RottedOnion
Seriously. At this point I'm afraid there's nothing we can do but let society die and rebuild from the ashes.
Danuck123
But we've done hard stuff like this before, unions and the public rose against monopolies in the Gilded Age (late 1800s and early 1900s) to squeeze big capitalists into sharing their wealth more equitably. It was punishing, people died, but it allowed a system that was more fair and built into one of the best successes after WW2.
But maybe we can do it better this time, women, racialized people, and many disadvantaged and disabled people were left behind. This time we can go together.
CowboyRooster
What then? The pathologically greedy will be attracted to positions of responsibility and slowly turn them back into positions of power, and the cycle repeats.
jammer909
The solution is nihilism. End the human race. Let some other organism have a chance.
ANALOG2DIGITAL
No, the solution is to dissolve money in its current form and create a meritocracy where benevolence earns privilege.
Itslukus
Abundance is the only counter to capitalism... everyone producing so much that nothing can be cornered. Free energy I'd probably key to ending the cycle tbh and that's why they've stopped it st every turn