Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 535 posts

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#511

Post by therealdrag0 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #329
enoch_r wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Market price” is a hallucination that you can ignore. You’re not forced to go along with it. It's a powerful signal containing important information! You don't have to go along with it, but it may be beneficial to others if you do. As an example, we bought a new car in 2019. We were planning to sell our old car but every time we were about to sell it, it came in handy - family came to town and we needed two cars,…

> Someone who valued it more than us got to use the vehicle. Was that greed? You sold it because you could get more money for it. That’s what greed is - you chose more money. You could make the case that you weren’t behaving immorally -not everything in life has to be a charity- but you acted out of a selfish desire for more money. I’d also argue that “value it more” is pretty flimsy. Yes in a shortage the buyer clea…

That’s not greed. Greed implies excess and has a strongly negative connotation. Just any old decision that benefits self is not greed. Choosing a higher paying job is not greed. Selling something at market rate is not greed. Would you really sell a car or a house without taking into account ANY market information?

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#515

Post by tyingq »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #381
tyingq wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few stories outlining how many companies are taking advantage of the "cover" of inflation to take on additional margin. Like, they see cost increases of 5% on their side, but raise prices 10%. It doesn't require a cartel for every notable supplier in a market to have the same idea.

Except they will be immediately undercut by someone that did NOT raise prices !

Except it's happened, and recently, and the quasi-cartel holds.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#516

Post by oneTbrain23 »

h1fra wrote: post #69

For those wondering if it's truly representative, it's estimated that 50% of the inflation in Europe is due to margin increase not bc of the inflation itself. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/06/26/europes-inf...

Mostly due to supporting American stand of sanctioning Russia for Zelenskyy and partially sanctioning Chinese companies. In short, they did it to themselves. As for their citizens, I would say they are getting what they voted for (or didn't do any unalivement when some of those voted leaders betrayed their interest).

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#517

Post by Xorakios »

Splitting into two parts so I can get yelled at separately:

1) At least in the US, most large companies converted to FIFO (first-in, first-out) accounting so, if today's input prices are up 10%, but a company raises by 5%, their profits skyrocket for a awhile, and then trend down when inventories and long term/sunk costs like leases, amortization of R&D, and labor contracts catch up.

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#518

Post by Xorakios »

Splitting into two parts so I can get yelled at separately:

2) Money supply is only part of the monetary influence on pricing pressure. velocity also matters - when people are saving stimulus funds, effective monetary stimulus is less than when people are scared and spending to protect against future price hikes

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#519

Post by BlueTemplar »

tyingq wrote: post #515
BlueTemplar wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they will be immediately undercut by someone that did NOT raise prices !

Except it's happened, and recently, and the quasi-cartel holds.

If it holds, what makes you think it's not a cartel ?

Re: Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands

#520

Post by winter_blue »

josu wrote: post #171
h1fra wrote: post #69

For those wondering if it's truly representative, it's estimated that 50% of the inflation in Europe is due to margin increase not bc of the inflation itself. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/06/26/europes-inf...

Do not buy into that narrative. This inflationary process has been mostly driven by monetary policy. Margin increases are the result of businesses trying to navigate an inflationary period. These margin increases are not resulting in increased profits across the board (there are some notable exceptions). For example, Carrefour's profits in 2022 were about the same as in 2019. [1] From the article you linked: "Profits…

Canadian retailer profits have been off the charts, fwiw. Inflation has been quite brutal and merciless in Canada, with retail chain owners fat extra paychecks in the tens or hundreds of millions.
Post reply on HN