drphungky

SAS so I could get more work. Plus it’s crazy fast and great for statistics and economics, which is my field. It’s also easier to learn for non programmers than Python. It’s a great language, and its only real fault is terrible naming constraints. It sucks to be the guy pushing for more C# and Python because no one knows SAS, but at this point the cost is just prohibitive.

This but FreeCAD!

Yeah, based on OP saying low WAF, I’m guessing maybe he didn’t set up the content server? Ours is great, and I can read on my phone or 2-in-1.

Yeah, my immediate thought was wondering why this manufactured content is here. Maybe a repost bot from Reddit where accounts with karma can be sold for disinfo?

That’s how it originally was in the US. I had it for years and it was absolutely useless, I used to complain about what’s the point of even having it if the only benefit was ONE return without a receipt per calendar year. You’re telling me you want to track all my purchases, but you can’t actually track all my purchases? Give me a break.

Then a few years ago they added free coffee, so it became worth it again. The 5% off thing is new enough I remember being surprised when I learned it.

Did you listen to the NPR report? I don’t understand how you still have these questions.

Literally just copy pasting this places now because so many people are still claiming greedflation is a thing. Not trying to spam but links to comments don’t seem to work, and as a literal economist who works on inflation I’m tired of reading political talking points disguised as economic analysis.

I think everyone should probably listen to this great report from NPR that dissects this issue. The Tl;dr: is greedflation is not really a real thing.

The deeper answer to your question of, “can one party increase prices in a market?” is sort of basic economics, and the answer is, “Usually, no.” In a competitive market, the answer is no. In a monopolistic market (meaning one company controls most of the market, think like Google with browsers) with no government oversight, the answer is yes. Things get complicated when you add in government regulation or oligopolistic markets (markets where only a few players control the market). In those cases, it depends on how strong government regulations on price-gouging are and any anti-monopoly or anti-anticompetitive practice laws are, and also depends on how oligopolists behave. Sometimes, particularly in industries with few big players, the big players will make the same decisions independently. If they do this cooperating it will usually violate antitrust laws, but if they both decide they’ll be better off say, not paying workers as much, or charging super high markups, them that can happen. A lot of economic research shows that kind of “tacit collusion” happens in real life, like in the oil and gas industries. But other times oligopolies will behave very competitively, only uniting through lobbyist trade groups if at all (think Microsoft and Amazon in cloud software).

So that’s the facts, but here’s my economic musing: The reason it feels like greedflation is a thing is a combination of factors:

1. Inflation was very real, and very salient.
2. Corporations (as mentioned in the NPR piece) crowed about their “record profits” in the short term, and also mention them when they are absolute record profits, not just record profit margins (something not mentioned but very real - a company can make twice as much money but also have spent twice as much, making way “more” money but with identical margins)
3. In the US at least, we are seeing the highest numbers of industry consolidation and monopolies/oligopolies since the Gilded Age, so it feels like companies should be able to raise their prices if they want to.
4. Media coverage and online spaces have become extremely polarized, so “corporations bad” is a very easy refrain to find if you’re watching or reading anything remotely left-wing, and it has been parroted by many democratic politicians as well, because it scores cheap and easy political points (also, and this is just my opinion, it helps vilify corps more in the public eye to help get more support for better antitrust legislation and enforcement, the actual end goal. I don’t think senators like Bernie Sanders don’t actually understand what’s going on with profit margins, I think they’re using it to generate political will, but that may be my own bias creeping in).

I have literally never heard that described as a tankie talking point. Honestly, shouting down the fact that Russian aggression caused global prices to rise in everything (not just food, oil and gas causes ripples) feels like something their psyops people would do. Trying to tie it to US aid and calling it a tankie talking point is double plus hilarious. I don’t know where you’re reading that, but I’d be careful.

This concept of greedflation has been disproved in recent meta-analysis. It should probably die. I’ll copy paste a comment I wrote in some other thread analyzing it.

I think everyone should probably listen to this great report from NPR that dissects this issue. The Tl;dr: is greedflation is not really a real thing.

The deeper answer to your question of, “can one party increase prices in a market?” is sort of basic economics, and the answer is, “Usually, no.” In a competitive market, the answer is no. In a monopolistic market (meaning one company controls most of the market, think like Google with browsers) with no government oversight, the answer is yes. Things get complicated when you add in government regulation or oligopolistic markets (markets where only a few players control the market). In those cases, it depends on how strong government regulations on price-gouging are and any anti-monopoly or anti-anticompetitive practice laws are, and also depends on how oligopolists behave. Sometimes, particularly in industries with few big players, the big players will make the same decisions independently. If they do this cooperating it will usually violate antitrust laws, but if they both decide they’ll be better off say, not paying workers as much, or charging super high markups, them that can happen. A lot of economic research shows that kind of “tacit collusion” happens in real life, like in the oil and gas industries. But other times oligopolies will behave very competitively, only uniting through lobbyist trade groups if at all (think Microsoft and Amazon in cloud software).

So that’s the facts, but here’s my economic musing: The reason it feels like greedflation is a thing is a combination of factors:

1. Inflation was very real, and very salient.
2. Corporations (as mentioned in the NPR piece) crowed about their “record profits” in the short term, and also mention them when they are absolute record profits, not just record profit margins (something not mentioned but very real - a company can make twice as much money but also have spent twice as much, making way “more” money but with identical margins)
3. In the US at least, we are seeing the highest numbers of industry consolidation and monopolies/oligopolies since the Gilded Age, so it feels like companies should be able to raise their prices if they want to.
4. Media coverage and online spaces have become extremely polarized, so “corporations bad” is a very easy refrain to find if you’re watching or reading anything remotely left-wing, and it has been parroted by many democratic politicians as well, because it scores cheap and easy political points (also, and this is just my opinion, it helps vilify corps more in the public eye to help get more support for better antitrust legislation and enforcement, the actual end goal. I don’t think senators like Bernie Sanders don’t actually understand what’s going on with profit margins, I think they’re using it to generate political will, but that may be my own bias creeping in).

I’m an inflationary economist and I feel you, man.

Ah yes, the US Fed causing inflation in all of Europe and Canada too. It’s crazy how the Fed made inflation lower here at home though. I don’t know how they do that without there being some kind of series of global supply shocks.

I guess we’ll never know.

Yeah, is this a repost by a bot for content, or the same guy? I too remember this exact story.