Never have I said or thought we should stop pharmaceutical research.

However, they should all be subject to rigorous double blind placebo RCTs.

Don't you think?

Unless you want them to push snake oil on us?!?

Its ok.

You clearly have an emotion you are trying to justify without wanting to understand reality.
Have a good day... we are going in circles here.

During that same time, most if not all construction project and investements where stopped.

If your avg profit margin is 3% but you spend half a billion one year, and don't the next year... what happens to your profit margin?

Exactly, it goes up.

I am not saying that is the only reason... its just quite easy and simple to follow the media narrative that Grocery Corporations bad... instead of understanding what is actually going on behind the scenes in business operations.

P.s. You do know pension funds and retail (individual) investors hold stocks right? This is what allows them to pay out pensions or save for retirement.

Its not as simple as corporation bad. Many people depend on the economy to function and corporations to maintain their profit margins so they can live. Not just evil CEOs.

At the end of the day, the problem here is the money. Its broken. Governements and central banks should not have control of the money and the capacity to increase "print" more of it. This is what causes price increases longterm and what screws everyone.

Thats a nice narrative you have there.
Its very convenient for the pharmaceutical industry.

What sky rocketing profits?

As stated their profit margins are barely increasing. Nominal dollar amounts go up but those dollars buy less due to all price increases.

Electricity has gone up, some grocers pat rent, those that own have repairs to do which coat more, they pay more in property taxes, insurance has skyrocketed and wages are most definitely up.

You seem to have a very narrow understanding of business, economics and costs of operations.

Do you have any other questions, maybe i can help you understand more.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bls.gov%2Fcharts%2Femp...

If they tripled prices and their costs didnt go up, their operating margins would have tripled.

I'm not making excuses, you simply do not understand how monetary inflation functions or how business operates.

Cost increases happen across the supply chain.
Labor costs
Rent
Building maintenance
Fixed costs like electricity
This costs increase for the farmer, the factory that transforms the product, the distributor and finaly the grocer.

The grocer ALSO has labor cost increases, rent, maintenance, and other fixed costs increases.

Business work on operating margins takes into account all expenses and profits.

Each product can go up at different rates. Some not at all, some triple and some double. The grocer has to keep his selling margin the same.
At the end of the day, tally all costs of operating and supplies and sales income and you get the operating margins.

No matter what you think, there margins are thin and barely going up.

If a certain product, like beef has double, its not because the grocer is pocketing the difference. And if his margin has gone up slightly higher than the product costs increase, its most likely because somewhere else in his operating costs something went up he has to compensate for. Rent for example, or electricity.

At the end of the day, operating margins as public for large corporations and tell the story if they are gouging customers and they clearly are not.

There are other reasons for food or animal products price increases though. For example the government mandating the slaughter of perfectly healthy chickens because of a few bird flu cases: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Fopinion%2Fwh...

Grocerie store operating margins are one of the thinnest in the market. 3-5% per year.

The numbers seem massive because there is allot of products being sold, but as a business, its very thin.

End of year opearting margins are dependent on real estate investements that year, new land bought, store refresh, etc... Some years have massive negative growth and some higher. But on average its pretty steady.

Loblaws one of the largest grocery chains in Canada closed 2024 at 5%.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcompaniesmarketcap.com...

You are scared of requirements for robust trials.
You are the one arguing from anecdotal evidence.

Why do you want drugs, treatments or vaccines being licensed without proper placebo RCTs??

You might have read that, but it would be wrong and its source either being unknowlegable of monetary economics and/or lying about it.

The M2 monetary global liquidity has increased by 38% since February 2020 (see linked chart below). It went up massively during covid when pretty much all governements "printed" and distributed money to everyone to keep the economy they where destroying affloat.

That money eventually found itself into retail and other areas and rose inflation. Most if not all companies profit margins are steady. Which means, input costs have risen.

Your 70% number comes from where? Id be interested in analysing its source.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstreetstats.finance%2Fli...

The narrative that food is rotting in warehouses and people are dying because of the cutting of USAID is pure fabricated propaganda.

This is all I have to say about this.

Corporations don't pay taxes. Consummers do.
Increase Corporate taxes 50% and they will increase prices by 50% to compensate and maintain stable profit margins.
Depending on the industry, if profit margins fall below certain thresholds, the business will close its doors.
Whats the point in investing in a business if it doesnt yield a higher return to its shareholders than Treasury bills??!?!?!

The ta regime barely covers expenses and though it does milk the economy and transfers money to the wrong people, the largest theft of ressources is monetary inflation / currency devaluation.

Fix the money and technological advancements like AI will explode productivity and the economy will return to its natural state, deflationary.

As productivity rises, prices will go down, everyone benefits from it and gets wealthier as prices drop over time.

This is how we get wealthier as nations and abundance. But it'll never be possible as long as the money is controlled by the state, and the government keeps going into debt spending.

Sticky price increases is driven by 1 thing only, monetary supply.
The term inflation relates to inflating the monetary supply (money in circulation).
This is what causes permanent increase in pricing. Not corporate greed. (though there are isolated instances of this, its not the norm).

CPI is a manipulated statistical metric trying to show that prices are only increasing by 2% on average per year.

The natural state of an economy is deflationary. Technology reduces costs, which generaly should lead to more efficient production and reduction in costs.
We can clearly see it in things like TV prices, even with inflation.

Automated Tellers reduce costs. The prices will still increase because of monetary inflation, but will allow Corporations to maintain profit margins while other costs increase. They will still, in the end, have to increase prices to maintain the profit margin, but it will slow it down.

The devaluation of the dollar through inflation is the main problem.

For the USD, the best currency, it has lost about 99.9% over the last 100 years. (this is the winner of the currencies).

That is 7% devaluation on average per year compounded.

For CPI to be on average 2%, this means 5% deflation of prices (reduction of retail prices) was stolen away through monetary inflation. 5+2=7% devaluation per year.

Banks, Central Banks and the Governement have been very hard at work since the early 20th century doing everything they can to hide this from the general population. Technology should be reducing prices year over year, they shouldnt be increasing.

As for cable cutters... yes, streaming has replaced cable and its accelerating. See here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coolest-gadgets.co...

And yes, I agree, the monthly payments for heated seats is totaly ludicrous. But the reason car prices havent fallen, is the same as above. The stupid monthly subscriptions are car manufacturers trying desperately to keep their profit margins stable, while costs increase (labor, base materials, etc..) due to monetary inflation without rising prices to steeply.

Cheese doesnt make you fat.

Can't expect the bots on modern slashdot to pay attention to details.

Probably allot, like any social media.