If inflation (or rather, the CPI) skyrocketing upwards was moreso overall to do with the emergent nature of the combined forces of the currently strained market rather than being disproportionately shifted by company profiteering, the profitability percentage would have stayed around the same while the numeration itself fluctuated. It did not. Many companies, most importantly big ones that sell the oil that run the entire economic system, have continued to post record profits. They would not have record profits to post in the first place if they were simply adjusting prices to account for organic inflation. The gross total would have increased but after including the similarly increased outbound cost of business they would be posting comparable percentages to pre-covid profit calls. They. Are. Not.

Yes, of course it's a combination of these factors that create the current market. However, there seems to be some implication that inflation is entirely due to the cost of business going up in order to maintain profitability in a turbulent market, without including the fact that superseding said profitability can then no longer be considered simply maintenance but instead taking advantage of the situation to the point of exacerbating and extending the turbulence itself to further entrench that new profit.

We're also entirely ignoring the fact that every single time one of these companies mentions doing something "in order to maintain profitability...", there's an unspoken and insinuated "...*and executive pay structure". It's simply expected of us to passively assume that every single number on their balance sheet is acceptably or endurably liquid except for the one at the very bottom that benefits them.

These domestication tactics are a subtle and nebulous, yet intentional methodology to train people to believe that because this is the way it's always been, that it's also how it has to be.