https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/08/excess-profits-of-big-firms-have-driven-up-inflation-report-claims.html
The report identified Shell, Exxon Mobil, Glencore and Kraft Heinz as among the firms that saw profits "far outpace" inflation.
This article is pussyfooting the issue. Oil companies have reported record profits for 2-3 years in a row. The article claims "greedflation doesn't have an exact science" while also quoting the same thing "... reap ‘excess profits’, setting prices higher than would be socially and economically beneficial".
i can't say I speak for others, but I was accepting of a year or two of companies "making up" for the hit they took during the height of the pandemic, but governments need to put them back into place and regulate their latest exploits. Enough has now been enough.
wherever governments are going to support the freedom for companies to make money at the cost of many thousands of people even being able to afford necessities. Either there needs to be a limit their profits to benefit all, or we need to restructure to tax those earnings to provide a UBI that provides all necessities.
Even with UBI, energy companies will just jack up prices. They charge the money you have because there's no real alternative. Them, medical care, and housing are all pretty inelastic in terms of demand until you're literally past the point where people have the ability to pay. (Which i think most of the Western world is.)
So at what point do you think folks in the western world will take inspiration from other places to not allow things to get to that juncture? Whether it be expansion of unions like Sweden to ensure power is returned to the people or we start having protests that escalate and start burning things down like France?
I'd say when the level of discomfort from doing nothing begins to exceed the level of discomfort from doing something.
It doesn't have an exact science because it's in the interest of the powers that be to not let that science get too exact.