Chip Bok for May 19, 2022

As Chip is (unintentionally?) pointing out, company owners (CEOs) are gouging the public. The con-serve solution always has been to cut taxes for the rich.

IF there was sufficient competition, then the businesses who added the surcharge would be at a disadvantage and it would level out pretty quickly. On the other hand, if there is NOT sufficient competition, then Bok’s point will be valid.

Alas, far too many parts of our economy are NOT sufficiently competitive, so I’m afraid Bok’s got a good point here.

So. Higher-profit businesses will pay more taxes, and therefore raise their prices more. This will promote competition, and the competition will drive the higher prices back down. That’s how free markets work. I guess Chip Bok doesn’t believe in free markets. He must be some kind of Socialist.

And how much of this current spike in inflation is businesses just raising prices to boost their margins, because they think they can get away with it and blame it on someone else.

Will Never understand why conservatives willingly support subsidizing corporations out of their paychecks.

You could really drop prices – just repeal the 13th Amendment and declare all employees slaves. You would have full employment, prices could drastically drop and owners would see their profits soar …… right? /S

Are you living in poverty? Need a tax increase? Vote Republican!

Using huge windfall profits to buy back stock, keeping the stock prices high, instead if lowering prices or paying dividends, certainly should be discouraged through taxation.

This must mean that companies lowered their prices when they received their 2017 tax cuts (plus all the other tax cuts they’ve received). Oh wait, no they didn’t, they just bought back stock.

When corporate tax rates were higher, execs invested in their company and employees (including training, pay and benefits) to lower their tax liability.

Biden is thinking about BIG BUSINESS, you know the ones that have scored record profits while inflation climbs. The drop in the stock market is the first time they’ve had a drop in profits. I don’t think widget makers have much to fear for raised taxes.

Nothing like allowing the corporations to skate on fleecing the customers, right Baghdad Bok?

This is so true, business always passes the costs on to us. Also profits for Target is down 52%. So what will they do?

Then maybe we won’t buy your widgets. There is only so much that business can pass on to the consumer.

Trump Disciples, like Bok, continue to fight like hell against billionaire oligarchs and patriotic multinational corporations from paying taxes.

AS IF lowering their taxes ever reduces prices (which are determined by competition, NOT taxes).

The ‘one size fits all’ approach will hurt both big and small businesses.

I think the corporate income tax should be abolished. The cost of goods and services would go down. Competition between businesses would take care of that. Business would increase. More people would get hired. More sales taxes would be collected. Remember, all increases in costs(income taxes) are an increase in the price of the end product.

“ACME WIDGITS”?? I wonder if Wyle E. Coyote will endorse that?

By taxing the wealthy money is removed from the economy, which cools off inflation.

There is No use trying to explain Anything to a Sack of Hammers. It simply can Not be Dumbed down enough.

How exactly does taking money out of the private sector lower inflation?

They are already price gouging us horribly, might as well bring their taxes back to where they should be. I’m thinking not just pre Reagan taxes, but Eisenhower’s. At this point, they’ve largely price gouged as high as they can. I’m turning in my cable box this weekend. I’ve paid for the convenience, but after receiving my last electric bill, something’s got to go. When corporations price gouge, someone’s going to lose business from that.

This kind of thinking sells business/industry short. Raising prices isn’t the only way to improve the bottom line, contrary to what some cartoonists seem to think.

I run a small business and I do not want to pay more taxes, fees, surcharges, licenses, assessments – the list is almost endless. And, I pay a lot in taxes. When the recession hits me, I will downsize and a few good paying jobs will be gone. I will blame Joe Biden, his administration, his policies, and lack of knowing (and caring) how non-government supported businesses operate.

Wow. Someone needs a course in macroeconomics.

Prices are NOT set by taxes. Nor are they set by costs at all.

Prices are set by markets; demand v. supply.

A higher tax will NOT result in higher consumer prices. It will result in LOWER net profits, which is the idea.

Now, if the tax being imposed was so onerous that the company could not make a profit on its sales—with prices determined by markets—then it would stop making that product.

On your job, if your taxes go up, does the company step in and pay you more for it? Of course not. Your net pay goes down. Why? Because your pay is (imperfectly) determine by the human capital market. Same idea, same dynamic.

Unfortunately Chip has exposed corporations as the true culprits.

Already happening with fuel surcharges added to shipping.