Yes. If costs are up AND profits are up or steady, it implies that the squeeze is being felt by consumers rather than by the large companies seeing profits. To me that implies the issue is a lack of competition, itself largely due to failure to enforce existing antitrust laws. It's hard to fix monopolization with interest rates.
Part of the _profits are up_ is synthetic while the squeeze is real.
Tariffs are one of the culprits. The invalid taxes people paid are not going back to them but to the companies that sold the products and services.
Price of goods are not going down after tariffs were invalidated. Majority of companies are keeping the same price point. It is extremely rare for companies to lower it. [0]
Rich keep getting richer and everyone else keeps getting poorer.
Comments
Yes. If costs are up AND profits are up or steady, it implies that the squeeze is being felt by consumers rather than by the large companies seeing profits. To me that implies the issue is a lack of competition, itself largely due to failure to enforce existing antitrust laws. It's hard to fix monopolization with interest rates.
Part of the _profits are up_ is synthetic while the squeeze is real.
Tariffs are one of the culprits. The invalid taxes people paid are not going back to them but to the companies that sold the products and services.
Price of goods are not going down after tariffs were invalidated. Majority of companies are keeping the same price point. It is extremely rare for companies to lower it. [0]
Rich keep getting richer and everyone else keeps getting poorer.
[0] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cooling/pc-coolin...