Another company took advantage of inflation and now regrets it

Amazing! A company that saw an opportunity to increase prices more than they needed to cover the costs admits they went too far. Our right-wing friends say this couldn't be true. Funny.

Nestlé’s price rises went ‘too far,’ burdening consumers and ultimately turning them away, chairman admits

Huh, look at that, supply and demand.  Amazing how that works.

Thanks! So it wasn't Biden's fault, supply and demand fueled it, I'm amazed you figured it out, congrats!

Hmmm.  Your right wing friends would say that is a perfect example of a pricing mistake in a free market.  They raised prices too much.  They lost business to competitors.  Now they are suffering the consequences and forced to cut costs and lower prices..  

It's our left-wing friends that would say this couldn't be true and only big government price controls can fix a business that charges more than the government thinks is a "fair" price.   Or as Kamala Harris would call it, "Price Guaging"

I guess that long post I did last week explaining that decrasing demand is the only thing that can lower prices must have did some good. He was clueless that demand had anything to do with prices prior to that.

My only point was our right-wing friends spent 4 years saying it was the "libs" fault for "all" the price increases, While some companies took advantage to increase their prices to increase their profits, and it worked for them, congrats! Capitalism! Now the consumer says, "Yeah we're done with that". 

In summary, right-ring friends on this forum said, "All of the inflation is the libs' fault". Now you're saying it's "capitalism" great, give credit to the libs that they weren't the sole cause of inflation?

BTW Harris and Biden are done.

It's tedious, isn't it?

Of course the 40 year high inflation was the fault of the Biden administration, but you're right it was fueled by supply and demand...but at a macroeconomic level.   Increased Demand was spurred by massifve, irresponsible defict spending.  They spent 4.7 trillion more than the pre-Biden projections.  4.7 Trillion.  Many smart economists warned that would be an inflation driving mistake...including Democrat Larry Summers.

. Larry Summers sends stark inflation warning to Joe Biden | CNN Business

If you remember your basic economcs, supply and demand curves intersect at a price point.  When demand increases, but supply does not the price increases until they are in equilibrium.  Of course Joe made it even worse by a variety of stupid actions he took that actually reduced supply at the same time as pumping demand, but I'll save that for the advanced course.  

Of couse we could just go to the Democrats' explanation for the horrible inflation they caused.  If they had a single explanation.  First they said it didn't exist.  Then it was a first world problem.  Then they said it was transitory.  Then they blamed Russia.  Then they actually blamed Trump (in 2023).  Finally it was corporate greed and 'Price Guaging'.  Shocking not shocking they never connected their obscene overspending and the Fed's monetary policy to America's Inflation problem.   But the voters did.  I guess Max has now turned his inflation ire towards Swiss chocolatier Netle.

You're very wrong about that.  There are acutally multiple ways to lower prices.  You can of course, have a collapse of demand like the Great Depression.  That was actually caused by the Fed decreasing the money supply when they shouldn't have.  That would not be the preferred method.

You can have technology changes with new paradigms.  Remember when a Big Screen TV cost $8,000 or when a laptop computer was 3-4K? Long distance phone calls?  Politicians?  Ok.  Just kidding they have gone up...but you get the idea. 

Anything the government can do to lower cost of doing business especially burdonsome regulations and permitting can also ripple through the economy.  Encouraging competition and innovation is another way to potentially reduce prices..  Finally, actually partnering with all energy companies instead of trying to kill off fossil fuels could cut the cost of almost every good or service.  Why do you ignore the supply side?

Of course the 40 year high inflation was the fault of the Biden administration...

Let's start with your claim that Biden was responsible for the inflation that was caused by the increased demand for goods and services after the global pandemic. This inflation was often explained in the Media as caused by consumers adopting YOLO spending habits. (We fared better than almost every other first-world country.)

This inflation was tied to deficit spending only in the sense that it left people with more disposable income in their pockets to spend. I'll also remind you that Trump was the one who doled out most of that money not Biden.  Odd you don't apportion the majority of the blame to Trump for what you think caused post-pandemic inflation as he spent twice as much as Biden did in four years.

If the culprit truly is deficit spending, you should be blaming Trump twice as much as you blame Biden. That you don't tells me you are just being dishonest. You don't want to know what caused the inflation after the pandemic and even with your blaming it on deficit spending you still refuse to blame the guy that did twice as much deficit spending. Perhaps you are just lying to yourself so mentally you can assign blame to the person you wish to assign blame to? 

Tell me what should Biden have done to tamp down on inflation that he didn't do? 

You're very wrong about that.  There are acutally multiple ways to lower prices.  You can of course, have a collapse of demand like the Great Depression.  That was actually caused by the Fed decreasing the money supply when they shouldn't have.  That would not be the preferred method.

Sure there are but the government has limited remedies.  The primary one is raising interest rates. The higher interest rates decrease the demand for goods and services. Every other remedy has a minuscule impact.  The only reliable way to lower prices is for the companies selling goods and services to lower prices because it makes business sense for them to do so. 

You can have technology changes with new paradigms.  Remember when a Big Screen TV cost $8,000 or when a laptop computer was 3-4K? Long distance phone calls?  Politicians?  Ok.  Just kidding they have gone up...but you get the idea. 

Sure on a micro level but not on a macro level. Prices go up and down on individual products and services all the time. You have to look at the overall inflation rate to get the big picture. 

Anything the government can do to lower cost of doing business especially burdonsome regulations and permitting can also ripple through the economy.  Encouraging competition and innovation is another way to potentially reduce prices..  Finally, actually partnering with all energy companies instead of trying to kill off fossil fuels could cut the cost of almost every good or service.  Why do you ignore the supply side?

Lowering the cost of doing business via government regulation or lack thereof has little impact on prices. I'd say it has so little impact that it is practically nonexistent. Your assumption that businesses would pass these cost savings on to the consumer, is false. We have close to 100 years of economic history that tells us otherwise.

The businesses would simply keep the excess profits.  Publically held corporations by law aren't allowed to lower prices because of decreased costs. Any increase in profits due to lower costs belongs to the shareholders, not the consumers.  Legally, the only way a publically held business can lower prices is if it makes business sense to do so. For example, increased competition or consumers not buying enough in volume due to their current prices would be legitimate business reasons for lowering prices. 

As for encouraging competition, isn't a big beef conservatives have with Biden is his anti-trust policy which eliminates monopolies and increases competition? Conservatives want the fat cats (republican donors) to make the big bucks and cash out with consolidation deals across almost every sector of the economy which leads to higher prices for consumers. 

At this point, solar and wind energy are less costly than using fossil fuels to produce energy. Electric cars are less costly to build and operate than fossil fuel-powered cars. You just countered your entire argument.  In this case, you want a big government solution to force consumers to buy more expensive products and services and deny them less expensive products and services.  Those higher costs are passed on to consumers. 

Recently we saw increased profit-taking during the pandemic by some corporations simply because the market would bear higher prices and it made business sense to use the pandemic as a cover for raising prices so the shareholders could reap the windfall at consumer expense. 

I could talk about this shit all day.  I would suggest that your comment that liberals want big government solutions to solve inflation is complete and utter bullshit. Trump is the one who wants to implement big government solutions like tariffs and deporting 5% of the workforce to solve a 2.6% inflation rate.

That workforce is highly concentrated in food production and construction. What do you think will happen to prices in those sectors? Trump promised to lower prices and make food and housing more affordable.  How do you think that will work out?

Trump is too ignorant to realize his big government solutions to inflation are inflationary and will lead to double-digit inflation.  It seems the Mexican President was able to educate him on how all this stuff works so there is hope. 

Charles if you believe the things you say and did independent research outside the conservative media to understand who is implementing the policies you prefer, you would make a good Democrat.