I’m just going to leave this here. It’s a bit sedate for my tastes given the subject and could use a few tablespoons of anger (that’s the hardcore punk in me demanding more urgency). I dig the snark though.
Two notable factors involved here are 1) consolidation among corporations, which leads to 2) concentration of control over supply chains, (which involves things like eliminating “low cost” consumer goods options and artificially restricting supply to inflate prices, etc.)
From the article:
“One widely accepted narrative holds that companies and consumers are sharing in inflationary pain, but a Guardian analysis of top corporations’ financials and earnings calls reveals most are enjoying profit increases even as they pass on costs to customers, many of whom are struggling to afford gas, food, clothing, housing and other basics.
The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in one case by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors.
In earnings calls, executives detailed how even as demand and profits rose post-vaccine, they passed on most or all inflationary costs to customers via price increases, and some took the opportunity to add more on top. Margins – the share of sales converted into profits – also improved for the majority of the companies analyzed by the Guardian.
Economists who reviewed the data say it’s more evidence of a clear reality: Consumers are taking a financial hit as companies and shareholders profit or are largely shielded.“
It’s obvious that corporations are trying to pass on any form of short-term pain they might be feeling … and that’s serving the top, wealthiest class instead of those in need of fair wages or products that are affordable,” said Krista Brown, a policy analyst with the American Economic Liberties Project.” …. “The Guardian’s data….objectively shows a massive “transfer of wealth” from consumers, who pay higher prices, to shareholders and investment firms that reap the benefits.”
Panel 1: A big cake on a table on a table has been cut into two slices–a very small one, labelled “pobres” (the poor) and a very large one, labelled “ricos” (the rich). Two people on the poor side look angrily at the man on the rich side.
Panel 2: The rich man has taken a knife to cut the already small “pobres” (poor) slice in half, now marked “izquierda” (the Left) and “derecha” (the Right). The two poor people are now looking angrily at each other while the rich man knowingly smiles.
“Customers need to know that just ‘cause you hit one-click buy, it’s not magic. These are real people being affected. We want you all to stand in solidarity with these workers. They come from y'all community, they’re your neighbors.
The first thing we’re fighting for is job security. They hire and fire people all the time. There’s people that are homeless and people in shelters working there that we help.
We’re fighting to make everybody a shareholder again, which they stopped in 2018, and bringing back the monthly bonuses for productivity and attendance. They stopped that in 2018, as well. Bring back hazard pay.
They think the pandemic is over. People are still working, catching covid, still being sick. And, also, providing a better quality of life: a pension, free college…everything a union can provide, we want to provide.”
[Image caption: Bolded text is colored yellow in the source image. Text reads as follows: “Friendly reminder that Elon Musk told the UN that if they gave him a budgeted breakdown of how $6 billion could end world hunger, he would do it. They gave him a detailed budget of how the money would used, and then he DIDN’T DO IT. Instead he decided to buy Twitter for $45 billion.” This is accompanied by a picture of Elon Musk leaning to one side and giving two thumbs up, and a credit in the corner reading @CaptAmazo. End caption.]
this is like just a fourth of a whole musical medley addressing that you can’t live like the simpsons anymore. harsh :(
For those wondering, the rest of the episode’s songs cover such topics as kids turning to social media as their income source, Fox News skewing the votes of senior citizens by just plain frightening them, that Bart’s generation has little option but to hope they can destroy and rebuild the system, and that if you do want a good middle class job, almost the only reliable one left is being a firefighter.
Moe also raps in case you needed to know this
We watched the episode and there’s this bit where when asked what to do about the shitty state of everything the janitor who leads the song pauses and says ‘burn it’.
That bit gave me chills. Because The Simpsons for the past 15 years or more has been a fairly good barometer of American popular opinion. Some folks are gonna be like ‘the Simpsons went radical!!!’, but, the Simpsons doing this shows that this is an opinion that is now -normal-. Two generations have been brutally disenfranchised and things are pushing towards a boiling point. I have 0 clue what that boiling point will look like but this is like steam raising from the pot.
Ah, you have articulated my own thoughts as a Gen X who has literally watched The Simpsons from the beginning. I still watch it, and I chuckle when someone claims nobody watches or likes the Simpsons anymore. It’s a Sunday night ritual. Remembering how anti-capitalist they were then, and seeing such a poetically logical end game now, gives me chills as well. I’ve been recommending “Poorhouse Rock” to everyone I know regardless of their views on the show.
The system is inherently corrupt. You can go into it with the best intentions, a great moral compass, try to rein in the profiteering, but inevitably you are compromised. When a system answers first to corporations, also known as a dictatorship of the capital, it’s inevitable that you compromise yourself working for a system like that. And compromise is what led it to become that way in the first place. Which is part of why we say “you can’t reform capitalism.” Because you can’t in the long run. It’s why social democracies turn into neoliberal states. Because a system based on profiting, firstly, exploits the worker, and secondly, enables what becomes unsustainable greed, so any safeguards trying to hold back that unsustainable greed erode. In late stage capitalism, it is especially a joke to be a reformist. At this point, most reform is all very surface level. Real change comes from the masses, and they do that through revolt.
When implementing minimum wage, northern Dems/progressives were set on the minimum wage being a lot higher than it was eventually settled on, but, shocker, Southern Republicans and Dems weren’t having it. For them, it meant giving some black people and poor white people non poverty wages, and losing even more profit since chattel slavery was officially abolished. But Congress did end up implementing a minimum wage, (as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), and it was significant in fixing the staggering wealth inequality and building what became a robust (mostly white) middle class. The times conservatives ironically refer to as when we were great were when we were notably as close as we have gotten to a social democracy.
The minimum wage stopped going up with inflation/cost of living in 1968, though, and it wasn’t until 2009 that Dems barely bumped it up within 2 years to …what it still is now. Lol And, overall, it certainly hasn’t gone up with productivity. Considering just these things, the current minimum wage should be at least $25.
