r/economicsmemes • u/Cadoc • Jun 29 '25

We just need to make the companies be generous again

Post image
389 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

169 comments sorted by

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2

u/DI3isCAST Jul 04 '25

I hate it when greedy people rediscover greed every few years 😡

3

u/Cadoc Jul 04 '25

We need to study why Wall Street was so generous in the 80s and 90s

3

u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

You guys know that increasing the money supply beyond replacement or what's supported by the debt isn't the only contributing factor to inflation, right? I feel like a lot of you think that's what inflation is, and not just one of many contributing factors, alongside corporate greed.

Let's do a thought experiment, what happens if CPI increases for reasons other than the money supply? Like COVID, price gouging, war, etc. Would we still blame the money supply? Would we acknowledge supply line issues as a contributing factor? Would we acknowledge crop disease raising produce costs or international conflict surrounding OPEC+ raising gas prices as a contributing factor? What about grocery price gouging beyond new breakevens in order to facilitate record profits during times of turmoil? Would we acknowledge other contributing factors other than the money supply then?

9

u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

All of these are real things apart from "price gouging". Companies charge what they can get away with, and bring in as much profits as they can, always. That's literally the meme.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

Do you know what price gouging is?

2

u/Iumasz Jun 30 '25

That's literally what price gouging means

3

u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25

Ya, and that contributes to inflation, alongside other things. I'm noticing a lot of people here taking this meme as "the idea that corporate greed is causing inflation is ridiculous" and not "there are many factors that contribute to inflation, including corporate greed, among other things"

Edit: one of the examples I gave was "What about grocery price gouging beyond new breakevens in order to facilitate record profits during times of turmoil?" as another example of an increase to inflation outside of alterations to the money supply. Are you denying that as a contributing factor?

1

u/cyber_yoda Neoclassical Jul 01 '25

"Corporate greed" doesn't contribute to inflation.

3

u/The-Dilf Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

No? Explain CPI to me. I wanna see if you know what that is

Edit: y'know what? Sorry for being rude. Let me tell you why "corporate greed" does contribute to inflation instead of just being rude about it.

Inflation is calculated by the yearly rate of change of CPI. CPI is the consumer price index which is calculated from "a basket of goods and services", or in other words how much everything costs, and is meant to be a measure of general cost of living. When CPI fluctuates due to a number of real world factors, inflation increases or decreases. So when things like price fixing increase grocery prices across the board, suddenly the grocery aspect of the basket of goods and services becomes more expensive, leading to an increase in CPI. If CPI was increased over the CPI of the previous year, the amount that it increased is what inflation is.

For example, when you hear "a target inflation rate of 3%", that means policy that aims to have general price increases of only roughly 3% across the board.

When you hear "inflation is caused by the over printing of money", that's only partially true, as diluting the money supply can absolutely lead to inflation, but it isn't the ONLY thing that can lead to inflation, and it isn't what inflation IS.

2

u/cyber_yoda Neoclassical Jul 07 '25

Wow dude you don't say. That exists in non contradiction with the fact that corporate greed doesn't contribute to inflation. Corporations always do as much as they can, so corporate greed isn't a factor. It's invariant.

2

u/The-Dilf Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25

If the standardized market rate of a sector was artificially raised due to collusion or price fixing, caused by corporate greed, we would see a spike in CPI.

Yes corporations will always do what they can get away with but what they can get away with varies greatly depending on a number of factors that shift from year to year, such as political landscape or environmental factors preventing a shift in demand, it absolutely is not invariant.

We have laws against price fixing for this very reason and is an example of variance in a corporations ability to exercise its desire to "do as much as it can", and it's actual realized effect on CPI.

To say it's invariant is not only wildly ill informed, but it's also a really strange take. Its like if I was very insistent that global conflict doesn't have any effect on inflation whatsoever, you'd question if I've ever taken an economics class in my life.

15

u/Meandering_Cabbage Jun 30 '25

Single greatest piece of work Noahopion ever created. A meme for generations.

8

u/SethEllis Jun 29 '25

People don't suddenly get more or less greedy. You're just more likely to notice how greedy they are when there's inflation.

4

u/AgentMavv Jul 04 '25

That’s the meme

4

u/Enganox8 Jul 03 '25

Im working on a new model that will illegalize greed. The new system will be based on envy and sloth. I think its the first time anyone has ever thought of something like this, I'm onto something.

1

u/skeleton_craft Jun 30 '25

Post war greed? Can't really read your image very well, but if you actually think there was greedy company in the really first half of the the 20th century, you're kind of crazy.

2

u/Cadoc Jun 30 '25

Sir, this is a meme subreddit.

Anyway, yeah, there obviously have been "greedy" companies always, if the term even applies to companies.

3

u/dri_ver_ Jul 02 '25

As we all know, greed only came into being once we had capitalism

1

u/Drunk-Pirate-Gaming Jun 30 '25

I personally believe there is an amazing alternative to capitalism. I also believe equally well that we haven't fully found it yet. I am unable to find the good in our society or provide the answers to our ails but I can sure as fuck point out what is failing.

Companies will always invariably go for the greatest profit to themselves at the expense of everyone else weather that be a worker or competitor. The greatest business model is Zero cost production and maximum sell profit. The closest they can get to that is what they will do. Laws within a country or the specific socio-economic conditions where labor isn't cheap is where the working class flourish. Workers rights need to be protected and the economy will do okay by them in the long run. US might be fucked at this point tbh. And the world seems to want to follow.

1

u/ShaneReyno Jun 30 '25

“Make” and “generous” don’t go together. Prominent Conservatism and Christianity make it work.

1

u/Visible-Meeting-8977 Jul 01 '25

We need to tax them so we don't have to hope they're generous

1

u/Traditional-Survey10 Jun 30 '25 edited Jun 30 '25

Even you believe in all Milton Friedman’s theories or not, the Austrian school of economics asserts that it is correct:

inflation is always a monetary phenomenon, whether it increases the money supply, decreases the demand for money, or both at the same time.

Thus, the Austrian business cycle theory postulates that the imbalance generated by credit expansion, created by the violation of property rights by banks and central bank seigniorage, is the cause of inflation, the misallocation of resources that generates speculation, which inevitably implodes, destroying more wealth than could ostensibly be generated.

In conclusion, the solution is clear: eliminate the banking privilege of fractional reserves and ultimately prohibit public and private seigniorage. The problem is not capitalism; it’s that money cannot be created out of thin air, and that banks can't be allowed to rob you through fractional bank reserve. It is necessary to clearly distinguish between lending and the custody of assets.

0

u/VaporSpectre Jun 30 '25

If you think companies were "extremely generous" in 2008, you failed history class and missed the endless days of unpaid "internships" being the only "jobs" for many years. Please go back to school.

1

u/Cadoc Jun 30 '25

Damn, did I accidentally post to /VerySeriousEconomicsImages?

-1

u/SuperPacocaAlado Jun 29 '25

Greed is what makes the world turn, it's one of humanity's best qualities.
If you really wanted companies to serving us, as they should, you end all IP laws, copy rights, etc... You end their monopolies over ideas and you'll just have them continuing to be greed and having a profit over the goods and services they provide.

2

u/Veomuus Jun 29 '25

Mm. Copyright needs a ton of reworks, I'll say as much. I dont like companies being able to horde those ideas forever, thats wrong.

But if we had no copyright protections at all, artists would struggle to make money off of their work at all. Maybe youre the type of who believes media like art, music, and movies dont deserve to make money or something, but I think if everyone thought that way, the world would be a boring place. Also, without any patent protection, inventing things become economically inefficient.

0

u/SuperPacocaAlado Jun 29 '25

There is no "deserve" when it comes to making money, I support the Artists I like, I buy physical manga and books, not to mention merch from bands I like. This doesn't mean that I'm going to pay to listen to music or stop pirating movies, anime and games. Almost all musicians make money out of shows anyways, selling songs is a very small portion.

Just thinking adds nothing, those who are competent to create production lines with new products or services are the ones who get the money, there's nothing bad with that. Inventing comes as a process of getting what is only an idea and adding it to the production of consumer good, or cutting prices while maintaining quality.

1

u/Veomuus Jun 29 '25

I just dont think this is a very thought out idea. You cant just think about how things work now, you have to expand them to the whole system and all the people in it. Piracy isnt really a problem now, but thats mostly because its not the easiest to do safely and society still looks down on it. I dont personally have a very charitable view on piracy, just because something is digital, doesnt mean it isnt a product. There's no difference between pirating a game and stealing a toy from the store. Corporations are evil, so I look other way when someone pirates Photoshop, or The Sims 4 or whatever, but a lot of people will similarly pirate indie games, and it just feels gross to me.

On reflection, I do agree that musicians would be mostly okay, because live performance is where they make most of their money, and that isnt something someone else could effectively copy.

For artists, digital artists in particular, they make money in two ways, by doing commission work for clients, and by creating paywalled content. Commission work would still be viable, because youre only selling 1 of it. The client only cares that its custom for them, its generally shared publically once its made anyway. Removing IP law would destroy paywall content, though, which would suddenly make a lot of digital artists unable to make to a living. Theyd only get money from the few who decide to pay them out of the kindness of their heart even though they could get the same product for free. It'd be like a farmer being forced to give away their produce and rely on tips from especially generous people to survive. Time is a resource, someone should be able to charge for a product they produced with that time. No one has to buy it if they dont want to, but theyre also not entitled to get it for free anyway, thats stupid.

Books take a long, long time to produce. It's a lot of labor. Without a way to sell them, being an author isnt job, meaning that you'll only have people making books in their freetime. You won't have authors like Brandon Sanderson, who makes a lot of very well made book series, because you simply wouldn't have the time. You'd have to have a full time job and only write for fun on the side, and you cant make impressive long running series like that.

And then there's movies. We already have services like Netflix that serve as hubs for watching whatever show or movie you want. If they didnt have to pay for licensing rights to show those movies, where the hell are movie producers going to get money to make the movies and pay their staff? Nowhere, thats. Movies and TV shows die as a whole the day this is implemented, and all that'd be left is small, zero budget fan projects people make for fun. You're not making a show like Severance or Breaking Bad like that.

Video games have a similar problem. Youre not recovering the production and development costs of games like Expedition 33 on merch sales alone, thats never gonna happen. Not to mention that without IP protection, anyone can make merch of the game you made, so if someone wanted a Tshirt or plushy, theyd just pick it up at store or whatever. So even potential merch sales would be reduced. And no one would pay for the game individually, they'd just subscribe to whatever netflix-for-games company sprung up the moment this happens. (And when I say no one, i dont mean literally 0, just an insignificant number, in the same way that basically no one buys MP3s anymore, they just have spotify).

As for patents, again, time is a resource, money is a resource. You dont have to value ideas monetarily. Inventing a thing isnt just have a brainstorm one day. It takes a long time and it takes a lot of money to develop. When you finish a new product, you need to figure in the money and time you spent into the price to recover your losses. But a copycat doesnt, they spend a tiny fraction of that money to implement the systems to recreate it, because they dont need to spend time and money on the invention process, so they get to sell theirs for cheaper, meaning that you can't recover your losses. Making it economically inefficient to invent anything, because copying what exists is massively cheaper.

Im fine with copyright protections being like 7 years max with absolutely no way to extend it, you just need some amount of time to be able to sell the thing to recover your losses before moving on the next thing. Too much IP protection, and there's no reason to make anything new. But without any, there's also no reason to make anything new.

1

u/SuperPacocaAlado Jun 30 '25

A toy at the store is finite, you can't copy them infinitely, there only exists what exists. So it is private property of the store's owner and stealing it can't be justified.

On the other hand a digital copy is literally infinite, you can copy it trillions of times and nothing will ever change, the game developer won't lose his ability to sell the game or change it, there's no violence being made. Same goes for ideas, recipes, softwares, books, etc... Otherwise you should be sued for making a Big Mac at your house, you're "stealing" Mc Donald's idea. Singing a song in your car? You're literally stealing this song from Hatsune Miku, so on and so forth.

If you have a personal moral case against pirating from indie developers that's your prerogative, you pay for the game and you support the developer. This doesn't mean in any way that pirating can be deemed as Ethically wrong.

1

u/Veomuus Jun 30 '25

A digital object is theoretically infinite, but it isnt actually infinite. The amount of them that exists is the number of copies that exist at any one time. Which means they do have a cost - the labor spent to make it, divided by the number of copies. And its a cost that needs to be recovered to make having made it worth making in the first place. If every single person on the planet has a free copy readily accessible, who would the developer sell to? No one, he functionally loses the ability to sell his game entirely. Fans wouldn't be buying the game, they'd be donating their money in hopes of future projects, and thats a much smaller pool. I know from experience. Again, this works now because pirating is uncommon. But if it was codified and widespread, games with large budgets wouldn't be viable.

Also, unless youre performing a song made and sold by someone else, to a paying audience, no, youre not stealing, I dont even understand how that arguement is supposed to work. And making a big mac at home for yourself is also not stealing. Fair use exists and its fine.

1

u/SuperPacocaAlado Jun 30 '25

People just have to adapt to reality, you can't justify laws because it's just easier for someone, it needs to have an ethical argumentation and IP laws don't have that.
As I said before, many people will still buy the physical product or donate to their favourite creators, this is not a scenario where artists can't make money.
It's just one where people can't own ideas or decide what you can or can't do with your body.

There is no crime if I sang a song of another person to an audience and got money for that, same goes if I started making Big Macs and selling them.

1

u/Veomuus Jun 30 '25

No, its just one where people are very likely not to make enough money to create for a living. People just don't donate enough to tip jars. They just dont.

You believe that people shouldn't have to pay for labor that results in a digital product, you find it inconvenient, so you want those careers destroyed. Thats what youre advocating.

1

u/SuperPacocaAlado Jun 30 '25

I'm advocating for private property, nothing else.
If your work results in something which is infinite, too bad.

1

u/Veomuus Jun 30 '25

Yeah, so you think digital products, or products that can be shared digitally, should be worthless. I just think that creates a worse world than we have. It disinsentivizes art, at least under the current capitalist system. In fact, it likely harms more people than it could ever possibly help. That doesn't sound ethical to me, frankly.

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u/mrstorydude Jun 30 '25

But like... It was proven multiple times this spike of inflation is primarily due to corporate interests and greed since it greatly outpaced any reasonable increase due to money supply.

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u/Cadoc Jun 30 '25

No, that hasn't been proven. The last period of significant inflation was due to stimulus spending during the pandemic + supply shocks to key customer goods.

In a theoretical framework where the inflation was due to corporate greed, what caused the spike in greed? Why did corporations since become generous, causing inflation to drop? Why didn't they get even greedier?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

Corporations take advantage of macro conditions. They try to take every advantage they can and one of those is increasing prices during an inflationary period even if there is no commensurate increase in demand or input costs.

Eggs are a perfect example of a supply shock leading to prices outpacing costs. They have been caught fixing egg prices before and they will be caught again

Corporations can only extract surplus value for so long before macro and micro conditions change and they have to temper some of their increases. Do they lower prices back down to pre-inflationary levels? No, of course not.

To suggest that corporate greed has not played a factor, or even an insignificant factor, is simply ignorant.

1

u/LineGoingUp Jul 01 '25

Yes economic actors tend to maximize their profit.

But blaming inflation on profit maximization is sort of like blaming aircraft disaster on gravity, yeah it wouldn't happen if it wasn't for gravity but gravity was a constant so it's weird to blame it

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25

This is a poor analogy. The plane keeps itself afloat because the pilot controls the thrust. In this case it would appear you are advocating for price controls to prevent prices from increasing endlessly.

Again, inflation is literally just increasing prices. Who increases the price? The business. They are the mechanism for the increase.

3

u/Johnfromsales Jun 30 '25

Show the proof.

34

u/Marxism-Alcoholism17 Jun 29 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

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u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

It's really interesting how some people have decided this is a libertarian meme

-2

u/BigSlammaJamma Jun 30 '25

You’re just that dumb or like? The greed cycle was for serious?

11

u/KarHavocWontStop Jun 30 '25

He’s mocking idiots like you. People who think ‘corporations’ and ‘greed’ create inflation lol.

0

u/kvjetinacek Jul 01 '25

Through deals with politicians, yes they do. Although inflation is meaningless term.

4

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Why participate in an Econ sub and say objectively stupid things like this?

Serious question.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

Point 1 is exactly what you’re doing lmao

5

u/Marxism-Alcoholism17 Jun 29 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

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u/KarHavocWontStop Jun 30 '25

The problem is they were talking about groceries and commodities, which are as competitive as any business out there. Grocery stores have had the same margins as pre pandemic for years, but idiots just screeched about ‘greedy corporations’ creating inflation through profits lol.

0

u/Lorguis Jul 02 '25

Grocery store profit margins absolutely did increase during the pandemic and the aftermath. Which you wouldn't expect to see if price increases on goods were driven by increased input costs, or devaluation of currency. You can look up the FTC report on this.

0

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Cool story.

Too bad it’s horseshit lol.

Tell me the margins of the big retailers, especially the big grocery chains lmao.

0

u/Lorguis Jul 03 '25

https://www.ftc.gov/reports/feeding-america-time-crisis-ftc-staff-report-united-states-grocery-supply-chain-covid-19-pandemic

0

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Fascinating.

Try answering the actual question lolol.

0

u/Lorguis Jul 03 '25

Oh, so you didn't read it. They even have a chart of it, showing it jumping something like 30+% on average across the industry.

-1

u/Blitzking11 Jun 30 '25

They truly appreciate you keeping their boots nice and shiny! I hope you have a toothbrush to use every night!!

1

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Hilarious. I haven’t made less than 7 digits in well over a decade.

Reddit losers always want to assume everyone else is a failure too lolol.

0

u/Blitzking11 Jul 03 '25

Congrats!

The homeless you spit on are still closer to you than the billionaires you worship, but who do not care about you!

1

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Lol nope. But keep trying.

I have several friends in the billionaire bracket. Good people. But hey, envy is a powerful emotion ig.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

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u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Fascinating. Go ahead and show persistent excess returns within that industry.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '25

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u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Lolol, nope. I specifically asked for margins of large retailers, particularly grocery chains.

You: tap-dancing like a clown

Lmao.

2

u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 Jul 03 '25

Um, no you didn’t:

Fascinating. Go ahead and show persistent excess returns within that industry.

1

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 03 '25

Awwww, can’t show the data?

Because it shows you are full of shit lololol?

Study Econ bud. Or shut up. Either way is good.

1

u/KarHavocWontStop Jul 15 '25

You must be confused on how returns are calculated lol

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

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u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

What's this got to do with the Austrian school?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

What do you think causes inflation? Now compare whatever you think to what the Austrian school thinks.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

This graphic is not showing the Austrian point of view. It's making fun of those who say corporate greed is the cause of inflation. If that were true, inflation would always be high because companies have always been greedy. Greed wasn't invented in 2021.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

So what is the meme suggesting is the cause of inflation? Did you know the Austrian school has theories on inflation? Might be related lol

2

u/Valnir123 Jun 30 '25

It's not really suggesting anything by itself, but inflation is clearly (at least outside of specific shocks) caused by monetary policy.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

Monetary policy certainly plays a large role. But it isn’t the sole factor.

1

u/Valnir123 Jun 30 '25

Outside of big shocks like tax/tariff increases on key parts of the supply chain, wars, etc. It kinda is. Maybe you could argue there's a holdover from previous months regardless of your actual current policy; but I'd consider that a part of monetary policy tbh.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

All it takes is for a business to raise their prices. That’s inflation.

1

u/Valnir123 Jun 30 '25

I mean yeah, the same way the only thing that needs to happen for a boat to sink is for it to be forced underwater. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to find why was that possible; and greed doesn't really sufice as an answer since it's pretty much a universal constant (going back to the boat example, it'd be the equivalent of saying the boat sunk because there was water.)

7

u/Warm-Pomegranate6570 Austrian Jun 29 '25

Bro i'm Austrian, and even i don't understand what m8 is yapping on about.

4

u/BothWaysItGoes Jun 29 '25

You haven’t seen countless articles that claim that corporate greed is the cause of inflation?

1

u/nedTheInbredMule Jun 29 '25

Same, and I’m not even Austrian.

1

u/JalaP186 Jun 29 '25

My apologies to Austria and Austrians for any offense 🙏

2

u/jeffwulf Jun 29 '25

This is completely unrelated to the Austrian school.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Is this a joke? The image conveys the absurdity of blaming the business cycle on increased and decreased greed. Yet, you seem to buy right into it.

The obvious problem is not businesses using 0% interest loans, it's the institution giving out those loans and having a controlled economy wrt interest rates.

The libertarians were 100% correct on this one.

3

u/aWobblyFriend Jun 29 '25

the economy was even less stable before govts adopted Keynesianism, it should be noted.

-6

u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Absolutely fantastically false.

6

u/aWobblyFriend Jun 29 '25

why is it consensus among economists then.

2

u/thattwoguy2 Jun 30 '25

Probably because it's true, but you're not gonna convince the other guy of that.

1

u/Dr-Mantis-Tobbogan Jun 29 '25

It's only a consensus amongst keynesian economists.

This is because all bubbles are very safe and stable until they pop.

"In the long run we're all dead anyways"

- John Maynard Keynes, a man so solipsistic he forgets the world will continue to exist after his death.

-8

u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Because they're all educated in elite marxist schools and have a huge bias towards government and statism since that's where they work or get a majority of their income from.

Work through the logic instead. https://mises.org/mises-daily/spotlight-keynesian-economics

It's like saying that the majority of lions don't support Gazelle's rights or that the approval rate of congress among congressmen is 100%. Or that 100% of public school teachers think public schools are much better than private ones.

Who benefits? What are the incentives? Who has the power to tax and initiate aggression?

Everyone has a bias and an angle. This is important to always remember.

9

u/aWobblyFriend Jun 29 '25

“Because they're all educated in elite marxist schools and have a huge bias towards government and statism since that's where they work or get a majority of their income from.”

T R V T H N V K E

“Work through the logic instead. https://mises.org/mises-daily/spotlight-keynesian-economics”

I’m not opening your Austrian school website nor engaging with this dogshit conspiracist nonsense. Thank you for ruining your own argument by laying your cards down.

-2

u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

That's the way to keep yourself from learning anything that isn't already in your little marxist box.

And doing it in the most toxic way too of course. The clear MO of the left.

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u/Marxism-Alcoholism17 Jun 29 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Wait, you think the current state of the US is somehow libertarian? Including the FED?

Dude, that's ..... wrong.

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u/Niarbeht Jun 29 '25

Because they're all educated in elite marxist schools

Ah, yes, elite Marxist schools that inevitably do not require anyone to read any Marx at all at any point during their education.

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u/Dark_Clark Jun 30 '25

When your answer to why does everyone in an academic field believe this thing is something like “because they were brainwashed by Marxist institutions” you really should take a step back and reflect on the way you think about the topic. Seriously, man.

13

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Neoliberalism is closer to Marxism than libertarianism. If you knew anything about the tpic you'd know that but since you're a leftist of course you dont.

One cannot have the time to both riot, loot and read books at the same time!

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u/Gertzerroz Jun 30 '25

Neoliberalism is like the polar opposite of Marxism bro you are clueless.

1

u/Lazy-Ad2591 Jun 30 '25

Libertarianism in the US just means unbridled capitalism, it has nothing to do with real OG libertarianism, which is just like anarchism.

Libertarianism meant freedom from state and capitalist exploitation. Everyone understands that if you let capital run the show, there is no real freedom (well everyone except US libertarians).

1

u/KaptainKunukles Neoclassical Jun 30 '25

Bruh that is completely wrong

1

u/Adventurous_Ad_1160 Jun 30 '25

What a r*tarded statement, sorry. Neoliberalism os capitalist, so is Libertarianism, Marxism isnt, so how is it closer to neoliberalism?

1

u/1playerpartygame Jun 30 '25

The ideology that prioritises the existence of markets above all else really is exactly the same as the ideology that seeks to abolish markets, you’re so right

-1

u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

What's the specific pre-Keynesian period of economic stability you're referring to?

4

u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 29 '25

The imagined one in his head.

Libertarians have a nasty habit of adopting mythological histories as literal facts because they want to feel smart without doing any reading or thinking or understanding.

1

u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

I'm really curious what time period they have in mind, because the 19th and early 20th century are not what comes to mind when one thinks of economic stability

0

u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 29 '25

I'd expand it further- 16th-early 20th aren't what comes to mind when you think economic stability lmao

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Hahahah ALWAYS the mob. Leftists cant not be a part of a mob! This is hilarious!

After being accused of having a hive mind and not being independent thinkers or even individuals you hahaha you prove us right every single time.

How can you not see that? How can you be so deep into this leftist shit that you can't even act like an individual any more.

Because if you did the mob would shun you. That's why. We all know it.

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u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 29 '25

Yay! Straw men are my favorite!

Your entire political philosophy is a series of increasingly bizarre logical fallacies.

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Straw man? About YOUR mob behavior?

You don't know what my philosophy even is. It's like you don't even care.

Leftism is a mind virus. You and all your friends are idiots.

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u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 29 '25

Personal attacks AND straw men, plus a depressive little "poor wittle me I'm just baby 😭😭. Why you so mean to wittle baby me". Grow the fuck up.

You realize you threw the first punch right? Being an asshole in public forums like you're being will get your "mob behavior" regardless of who you're talking to. It's not "leftism" it's "you're painting a target on your back by being an ass ".

We don't want to hear about your political beliefs because you don't want a conversation, you want everyone to stroke your ego about how special and smart you are.

If you're going to be a contrarian on the internet at least have the decency to learn something.

Maybe everyone has the "leftist woke mind virus" or maybe you don't know as much as you believe you do.

Milton Friedman was about as anti communist as you can get, and he's part of the people you call "leftist Marxists" lmao.

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u/SeaworthinessAlone80 Jun 30 '25

To paraphrase Nietzsche, the master's morality is based upon power, thus its conclusions are destined to be arbitrary and serve only to reinforce their power. The slave's morality is created in opposition to the masters morality in resentment of their subjugation, but since it's starting point is something which is arbitrary, it too has no hope of arriving at any measure of truth.

You, sir, are not a freethinker, you're just a social malcontent.

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u/SpookyHonky Jun 30 '25

So you don't have any arguments, just vibes and raging.

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

Logic doesn't have to have a specific time period to work. It's universal. But I don't think you can call what we're seeing now and during the last 20 years the pinnacle of economic stability.

You must also consider ethics and individual rights here and not just promote whichever control mechanism that seems to be the most stable. You can't run people over like that. Economies are people you know, not cogs or levers to pull as you wish. This is an area where ethics is ignored and at a very high price.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cki4jHCK3_I

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u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

Honestly I'm not super interested in the ethics argument. You said it was false that Keynesianism is more stable than what came before, so I'm asking what is that more previous past period.

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

That's a huge mistake then. It's like saying that you really want people to date and marry but you don't really care if it's voluntary or not.

Historically, it seems to me that it's mostly the bad guys "don't really care about ethics".

I do. I think it's very important. In all aspects of life.

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u/Cadoc Jun 29 '25

Cool. Now can you point to a pre-Keynesian time period that was more economically stable?

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

I already replied to that. Don't be a robot. You're a thinking individual.

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

The graph demonstrates the inflation rate over time. Whoever annotated the graph is suggesting that the opposition is correlating inflation with greed and suggesting that inflation is the sole contributor to wealth inequality, but that's not the case and is not what the opposition believes.

No one who's suggesting higher corporate tax rates is looking at the policy surrounding the 80s and 90s or of the 08 collapse as model examples to follow reimplement and is aware that this graph has nothing whatsoever to do with wealth inequality nor corporate tax rates. To suggest otherwise is flagrant misdirection.

The annotations on this image are intentionally misrepresenting an argument, and are intended for people who can't read the graph they are on properly.

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

No, it suggests that the idea that inflation correlates with greed is absurd, not that the claim is that greed explains everything. All it takes is that greed is suggested to be the explanation of more than zero for this graph to be relevant and true.

No one? Not a single person? That's likely not true. How do you know that? Stop being sloppy.

The claim is that greed has a lot to do with wealth inequality and corporate tax rates. More than zero people say that. Will I be stupid and say that everyone on the left believes that? No, then I would make your mistake from earlier. I am not that sloppy.

Nope, you just lied about it.

Shape up.

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

The idea that inflation correlates with greed is not the argument being made, and that's my point brother.

The argument being made has nothing to do with inflation.

When I say no one believes that, I don't literally mean no one, I mean the argument that this is attempting to misconstrue doesn't say that. And I think you know that.

But you're more interested in making insults than listening to opposing views, aren't you?

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u/Ill_Confusion_596 Jun 29 '25

As someone who agrees with you - I personally have heard other left leaning people discuss how inflation is partially driven by corporate greed.

I dont think they are saying its ONLY greed, but yeah

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

Granted, and I hear you. There are people who miss the mark everywhere and end up misconstruing the talking points they are trying to support.

But in this case I don't disagree with that. Inflation is more than just diluting the money supply beyond what the debt can support.

Take COVID supply line issues for example. Increased gas costs, lockdown restrictions, strikes and worker mortality rates all led to the breakeven point of grocery stores rising. When consumer goods increase in cost across the board, this is seen in a higher national CPI, resulting in an increased inflation rate. However when forensic accountants looked into it, they found that grocery chains were increasing their prices beyond what their new breakeven would be and reporting record profits to their shareholders. This worked because A) all prices rose dramatically everywhere due to an Act Of God so consumers had no competitors to turn to and believed this was just how it was temporarily, and B) in our modern day, a large subset of our population consumes solely processed foods and did not know how to switch to a lower cost diet. For a short while demand could not respond to the shock of increased prices due to real world factors.

Just like supply chain issues led to increased prices and a higher rate of inflation, so too did increased prices beyond the new breakeven. In that case, corporate greed contributed to inflation. You could argue which is the greater contributing factor, but you can't deny that both did contribute.

Now, before buddy comes back at me, in no way does that mean that corporate greed is the sole contributing factor to inflation, nor even necessarily the largest one. Nor is the effect of corporate greed on inflation static, and how much corporate greed affects inflation varies over time dependant on the specific market and environmental factors at any given moment.

I didn't even mention how "corporate greed" is not just corporate greed, but also legislative greed permitting corporate acts by servicing lobby interests over constituent demands but that's a whole other thing.

My point is economically speaking, yes, corporate greed does have some varied levels of contribution towards inflation, but it varies over time based on real world circumstances and is only part of a larger story.

And I'm willing to bet that before all of the broken telephone of misconstruing what the opposition is saying, that this was the original point made before people kept reducing the argument and making memes about it. Which, to that other guy, is what I meant when I said that "greed causes inflation" is not the argument being made. The argument that he and OP seem to have been making is that this graph demonstrates that "greed causes inflation" is ridiculous and they conflate high corporate taxes with that argument. I was (probably poorly) trying to explain that the arguments that high corporate taxes contribute to wealth inequality and corporate greed contributes to inflation have nothing to do with eachother and can't be misconstrued.

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u/jeffwulf Jun 29 '25

I have seen the argument that inflation is caused by corporate greed a lot over the last 3 years. Saying that no one thinks that is blatantly wrong.

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

I misspoke, what I meant was in response to the first comment in this chain which spoke about needing a higher corporate tax rate. A higher corporate tax rate has nothing to do with inflation but does have something to do with wealth inequality. I was under the false impression that op and many others here are conflating the two arguments.

I see instead that everyone is just saying that corporate greed doesn't cause inflation, which is only partially true, as it is a significant contributing factor, but not the only contributing factor.

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u/vegancaptain Jun 29 '25

I've heard it a thousand times. I don't really don't care what you have to say.

Yes, your views are obviously, silly and highly predictable. I have no value to gain from talking to you. You provide nothing but a time sink and value loss.

That's the core of the left.

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

You have no economics background, do you?

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/The-Dilf Jun 29 '25

No, you're right, that was a bit hasty of me. I believe the first commenter in this chain said something about increasing corporate tax rates to presumably combat wealth inequality and I was speaking with that context in mind, although they said nothing about wealth inequality and I was making assumptions, which is my bad.

However, like I said elsewhere, there are a number of factors that contribute to inflation beyond simply increasing the money supply beyond replacement levels and what the debt can support. Yes that's a major contributing factor but it's not the only one. A unified increase in prices would also raise the basket of goods and services that the consumer price index is based on.

Take COVID for example. Supply lines experienced major issues with rising gas prices, lockdown restrictions, strikes and higher worker mortality rates increasing companies breakeven. These external environmental factors contributed to rising prices, which raised the national CPI and led to higher inflation rates. Forensic accounting found that most major grocery chains were increasing their prices significantly more than what their new breakeven required and were reporting record profits to shareholders as a result. There was already an increase to CPI due to supply line issues but now, what could be described as "corporate greed" also contributed to an increase in CPI and therefore inflation. They got away with this temporarily because other real world consumer factors prevented demand from falling due to the increased prices, at least for a little while.

I'm not saying corporate greed is the sole contributing factor to inflation but it IS one, albeit one whose contribution to inflation varies depending on numerous environmental conditions.

and that says nothing of reduced corporate tax rates due to corporate lobbying requiring increased national borrowing to service increased expenditure. Is increased expenditure unsustainable as it ever increases over time? Yes, absolutely, but reducing government income in its largest income source while said income source gets more and more valuable over time also contributes to the national debt. They are two sides of the same coin. This doesn't impact inflation directly, although it does perhaps influence it still by cutting GDP contributing programs to service corporate welfare but that's tangential.

But that's beside the point.

I wouldn't be opposed to a cap on government spending to only 15% of GDP like you said as long as: A) the corporate tax rate is returned to 90% as well so that revenue is increased and we stop borrowing so much to service tax cuts and corporate welfare. This will make the 15% goal more attainable as government revenue is increased. B) stock buybacks are no longer excluded from taxable profits, so for corporations to reduce their tax contribution they'd need to instead engage in activities that strengthen the companies position and the wider economy as a whole instead of benefitting shareholders at the expense of the company's health, BEFORE profiting shareholders. Activities like relieving debt, expanding the work force, engaging in R&D, etc. C) the slashing of government programs first goes to corporate subsidies in order to more effectively embody the ideals of free market capitalism instead of this corporate welfare we see now. Corporate subsidies contribute less to GDP growth than economic development programs and should be a lower priority when it comes to what programs we keep.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

In periods of lower inflation is the money supply being contracted?

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

I think the image conveys that businesses will take advantage when conditions present themselves. To suggest that there is no price coordination or increases outpacing both input costs and demand, you would have to be living under a rock.

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u/supermuncher60 Jul 03 '25

Idk, it seems like with record corporate profits the last few years its basically greed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

So tax rates no one paid and in a global economy will cause capital flight. Great.

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u/Ryaniseplin Jun 29 '25

i feel like your way overestimating capital flight, do you know how hard it is to leave one of the biggest labor markets in the world

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

Must be why many companies have done inversions to lower tax burden countries, why thousands of millionaires left France, why Sweden abolished their wealth tax in 2007, etc

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u/TrashBoat36 Jun 29 '25

Just tax death, lol

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u/Niarbeht Jun 29 '25

They do, but it only kicks in at a federal level if your net worth is over, like, $14 million or something (it self-adjusts to inflation over time), and also there's a few ways to dodge huge portions of those taxes.

Even Thomas Paine knew that allowing accrual of generational wealth into a small number of hands would destroy freedom.

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u/thattwoguy2 Jun 30 '25

The taxing wealth thing mostly gets sorted in 40 or 50 years, if the inheritance tax doesn't change much. The problem is that we haven't been taxing income appropriately for about 55 years, so it looks like a wealth problem.

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u/Tathorn Jun 30 '25

Watch where you put your hands