Couldn’t the collective threat that everyone just diasporas mitigate inflation if businesses tried to pull any funny business?
Why does it work for Monaco?
Sellers raise their prices because they have buyers ready to pay that higher price.
Say your have the best restaurant in town and you have a line down the street and everyday you sell out of food before lunch. If you raise your prices the line will get shorter as some of your more price sensitive customers decide to go elsewhere. Keep raising them and your shop will be empty as nobody wants your food at those prices. The “right price” is where you get the most money you can for the work that you do in a day. Right?
You should be looking at your wages exactly the same. Ask for 10k per hour and you’re going to be jobless. As for 5 per hour and you’re gonna have lots of offers but not make enough money. Try to find the “right” wage. This is why wages have been going up faster than inflation pretty much every quarter since some time in 2022.
And no, we shouldn’t punish you or our hypothetical restaurant owner for setting your prices properly.
Also, taxes don’t remove money from the economy so it would be neutral from an inflation standpoint. But that’s a much longer story.
How would this similar dynamic apply to say, like potato chips and a grocery store, both who are overcharging and/or shrinkflating?
If there is somebody willing to pay more for what is ultimately a limited supply of potatoes, why not sell to them. If the price per ounce of chips is too high for you, you’ll buy less chips. People who just can’t live without those chips might buy less candy to make sure they can afford them.
All the while people who make chips are asking for raises because the chip market is hot and the boss just can’t get enough people into the plant to make them. The workers know their boss needs them badly so they are comfortable asking for more. The boss relents because he needs them in there making those chips or he’s gonna lose money with potatoes rotting in the warehouse.
