Almost forgot about the whole 'judges taking underhanded payments for sending kids to new juvi centres providing an awful source of modern slavery free labour for the abusive owners of said centres, along with numerous other harmful problems;
It's ok to be angry about capitalism
- Thread starter XsjadoBlaydette
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And if everybody's wages were increased, they would use that as an excuse to jack up the prices even more, and much more than would be necessary to make up the difference. The result being a wage increase actually ends up not only pointless but detrimental. All due to the fact that these companies have nothing in place to stop them from just charging whatever they feel like.
It's not just that - if everyone's wage goes up 10%, unless there's a corresponding increase in productivity all the prices go up inherently (in the long term), because there's more money but only still the same amount of "stuff" to go round.
However, you're also right as there is evidence that numerous companies have used the current economic turbulence as an excuse to increase prices beyond what is really justifiable from the cost increases they have incurred.
Putting the cart before the horse: inflation is happening anyway, thus wages can't remain stagnant
But yeah, corporations need to be reigned in too
But yeah, corporations need to be reigned in too
Whilst that is extremely Twitter Blue, and I don't think people are likely to top themselves because TV is a bit shit, I do think TV has an anesthetizing effect in terms of addressing things like loneliness (apparently a bad thing now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-65465124). But it's an anesthetizing effect exactly the same as painkillers - you've still got a fucked back at the end of the day, you just can't feel it. It's a time filler when you have too much time and too many thoughts.
(And obviously writers aren't culpable for there not being sufficiently good TV to watch to make it worth hanging out on the old mortal coil. I did not know there were strikes.)
And people probably haven't watched every previous show ever made, you are allowed to watch TV from 5 years ago, and occasionally even older.
There's certainly not a shortage of TV to watch. I struggle to find TV I want to watch, but that's not for lack of material.
May be biased with a credit score I know ain't worth checking anymore, but this does validate some personal doubts toward their public utility.
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If everybody's wages go up 10%, then everybody can afford to buy more, thus any loss in profit would be temporary and more than made up for in volume. Nearly everything important to have there's plenty to go around and probably will be for the next couple of centuries at least and there are few not particularly important things that there isn't enough to go around. Of course there's a limit to this, but in general yeah, increasing wages would equal an increase in profits.
The problem is these companies are short sighted and thus only see a wage increase as a nice shiny thing to parade out and blame for increasing prices, like anything and everything.
At some point, no matter how tight the regulations and enforcement, people need to rein themselves in for there to be a fair... anything really, and this includes companies. Society only functions because the vast majority of people don't exploit every possible loophole that exists in order to benefit themselves and screw everybody else due to having the empathy to care enough not to do so.
The companies are exploiting the weak regulation and poor enforcement in order not just to benefit themselves but also choosing ways to do so that are at the cost of everyone else. It is 100% their fault that regulations even need to exist in the first place.
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But the government is elected by the people, and elected to not regulate companies. Because freedom. Of companies.
Obviously, the real world is a great deal more complex, but this is the basic theory:
Imagine there's 10 million units of stuff to buy, and a population has 10 billion dollars, so every unit of stuff costs $1000. Then there's a factory that shuts down so next year there's only 9 million units of stuff... but everyone has 10 billion dollars. So what happens is the same amount of money chases less stuff, prices go up, and now people get one unit of stuff for $1111. People are unhappy about the increase in prices making them poorer, so they demand a pay rise of 10%. It is granted, so they now have $11 billion. But they are still chasing only 9 million units of stuff, so the price of a unit of stuff goes up to $1222.
This is the same sort of reason that economies can't just make themselves richer by printing money uncontrollably: unless there's an increase in production to support the extra money, the money just becomes worth less in the long run.
You may be talking about a type of monetary stimulus. The US and UK after the financial crash did just "print money". This can work, because it is temporary and exists when there is unused production capacity because otherwise people would become unemployed, and there isn't already an inflation problem. What the money does here is keep people employed and producing stuff for that money to buy in the short term, whereas the inflation caused by this occurs over a longer-term. It's an alternative to a stimulus of simply borrowing money and spending it to give people work. However, the latter has to paid back eventually (debts), whereas printing money has to be "paid back" in the form of inflation.
No. I'm talking about wage increases. Increase the amount of money everyone is paid, people have more disposable income. More disposable income means people are more willing to spend that income. More people willing to spend their income means more gets bought. More getting bought means more profit for the companies selling things. More profit for the companies selling things means they can afford to pay their workers more. It's an uphill spiral that will plateau but benefits everyone in the meantime... but requires companies to look toward just slightly longer term.
The vast majority of things especially the essentials of life can be produced in quaunities to meet significantly greater demand than there is now, especially digitally downloadable stuff which is potentially infinite supply. Supply vs. Demand only applies when the Demand can outpace the Supply, and most of the time that occurs because those producing don't produce enough, accidentally or deliberately. If people make more money, the costs don't increase, and thus people buy more, everyone across the board is going to produce more in order to meet that demand. There would be an adjustment period to be sure, but the supply meeting demand would happen and thus the costs would even out.
The cusp of all of this is the companies. If the companies are only willing to take a very very brief hit to their profits they'd see greater profits in return.
It also means prices get higher. That's how supply and demand work when people have more money. As more people have more money to buy a thing, the market price for that thing increases.
Yes, but only to a certain extent and dependent on situation.
Increases in production must keep pace with wage increases. If wage increases outstrip the increase in availability of goods and services, there will be inflation.
The increased availability of good and services comes from more people working, or workers producing more. If unemployment is low, it is very unlikely more people are going to work. Producitivity increases are difficult (in an advanced economy) - they are mostly driven by technology, so to improve productivity requires research and development. Increase wages now and income for companies so they can spend it on R&D, you might not see the productivity increase for years. In the meantime, you will have inflation.
So increasing wages (and the money going into an economy) is more likely to drive growth when unemployment is high and inflation low - for instance during recessions. Just at the moment we have a form of resource shock - unemployment is low and inflation high. Raising wages at this point is very likely to increase inflation rather than help the economy.