• Flying Squid
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    4910 months ago

    That’s late-stage capitalism for you. Making a profit isn’t enough. It has to be more profit than last year or your business is floundering.

    • @Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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      910 months ago

      Because if you’re not, you’re making less simply due to inflation.

      You would need to make $108 Billion in profit this year to have the same relative profit as $98 Billion last year.

      • Flying Squid
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        1210 months ago

        “Relative profit.” Who gives a fuck? $1 more than costs is a profit. Be satisfied with that rather than unsustainable never-ending growth.

        • @Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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          310 months ago

          Accounting for inflation isn’t growth is the point.

          If you’re not making more, you’re making less simply due to that.

          It’s real easy to say “just be satisfied with it” when you’re talking about a private company, but for a publicly traded company you’re fucking over millions of people with retirement accounts if you’re not keeping up with inflation.

          • Flying Squid
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            810 months ago

            Are you claiming that if Google only made $50 billion this year it would go under? That it wouldn’t be able to pay its employees? What exactly happens if they make less profit than they did last year?

            • @Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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              310 months ago

              What happens if they make less profit? Their stock goes down which affects millions of 401ks that are invested in the market.

              • Flying Squid
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                610 months ago

                Sounds like maybe we should go back to pensions, which don’t rely on the investor class.

                • @Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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                  310 months ago

                  How do you think pensions were set up?

                  The company holding the pension just invested in the market themselves instead of you getting to choose what to invest in yourself, and you lost all of that investment if you left the company before 20 years. There were more strict requirements for what they could invest in, and they had to be much lower risk than what an individual is allowed to invest their own money into. You still had issues with if the stock market tanked, pension funds would be affected.

                  Talk about people being tied to an employer over health insurance being terrible, you would lose your entire retirement if you left a company.

                  If you want to talk about a nationwide public pension system, that’s basically what social security is. And guess what, it’s invested in the market too. It’s one of the single largest holders of US bonds. Same with every other government pension system.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    010 months ago

                    The bond market is not the stock market. You’re being disingenuous now.