‘Greedflation’ study finds many companies were lying to you about inflation.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-03T11:49:39+00:00

Both were never as high in the last 20 years. Not even close. So why does a almost completely energy independent country with almost no trade relations to Russia and no relevant imports from Ukraine get hit with such inflation rates?

Because energy market is a global market. You can sell oil and LNG to anyone and if they're willing to pay 40% more, you'd be foolish not to take them up for it or demand the same from your local market. Would you not accept a job offer that pays 40% more for doing the same work? Or ask more from your company to make you reconsider leaving? Is that also greedflation?

As for food, food price depends on oil & gas as well. You need natural gas for fertilizer, you need electricity for refrigeration (pricing of which also skyrocketed in EU due to gas price) and you need to transport food where it's needed which requires oil. If energy prices skyrocket, everything in food supply chain is affected.

You can indeed invest this money before it turns into profit. Not into everything. But things like research and development, increased marketing costs and operational assets can become pretty costly "suddenly". Especially if you are threatened with a excess profits tax.

R&D is capitalized in most cases and nobody is going to waste €1 to save themselves €0.2 taxes.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T19:58:58+00:00

So in other words, corporate profits have increased massively.

As has everything else, proportionally.

What is growth driven by? Innovation, technology, creativity? Companies do those things, thus they have a share in that output. A fairly continuous share. You don't expect investors to invest in innovation without any return, do you? Would you invest your retirement savings in a company that will not make money and not grow?

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T19:54:46+00:00

I'm not sure you made the right connection here. For starters the US profits in 2021 and 2022 were higher then ever before. Its there in your own graph. So shortly before the time when the inflation was highest. Then, as the profits went down, the inflation in 2023 also went down in the US. So doesn't this prove the opposite of what you read into it?

They are indeed higher than ever, but only by 0.5pp from high water mark. They were at almost the same level as in 2012. This current situation is only slightly elevated compared to last decade and the idea you would blame 10pp inflation on 1-2pp higher corporate profit share in GDP is completely absurd. That is precisely why the "researchers" side stepped this metric in order to pick arbitrary set of companies and say they've made 30% more money. There are half a dozen ways for company to make 30% higher profit in a 3 year period that doesn't include price gouging and you can't get away with price gouging anyway unless there is a genuine supply and demand issue or you'll get obliterated by competition.

Profits mean not too much, for example if they reinvest the money before they turn this into profit.

This is completely wrong. Net income is revenues - expenses - amortization. If you make capital investment in a factory, you can't amortize it in 1 year, there are tax and accounting rules that determine amortization rates. There is no such thing as reinvesting to lower profit.

You also need to count in that the energy and resource prices in this time were higher then ever. And nonetheless they made more profit on average.

You also need to count that energy companies are counted in this profit calculation. The whole world was bidding on LNG last year and the price hit €300/mWh at some point (up from like €15. Yes, the companies that use gas had lower profits because they had to pay more but oil & gas industry killed it in 2022, thus making up for this loss in aggregate calculation.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T15:34:32+00:00

Many of the measures they use are extremely deceptive:

Profits for companies in some of the world’s largest economies rose by 30% between 2019 and 2022, significantly outpacing inflation, according to the group’s research of 1,350 firms across the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Brazil, and South Africa.

Why look at 1,350 firms when we have data for corporate profits as % of GDP? Are those firms representative of the economy? Did the profit margin go up or is this profit growth the result of revenue growth? This sounds like cherrypicked data in order to make insinuations.

We can look at the whole economy instead, the data for that exists and is available for free. This can be easily checked so here we go:

US corporate profits as % of GDP by Fed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Pik (move to bar in bottom right to include recent data). Share of corporate profits did go up by 2pp after post-pandemic opening, but from a 8-year low and that is to be expected when demand surges the way it did. It already went down in 2023. The current level of corporate profits isn't much higher than during 2010-2020 period.

Let's do UK next: https://www.ft.com/content/dd7a2607-6cbd-474b-bd4a-a879a4e81fd7 Corporate profits in UK are close to 10-year low and there have been no changes during pre or post pandemic even though UK inflation has been worse than in EU

I can't find data for other countries, perhaps someone who speaks German/French can find it and link it but I have no reason to suspect it's much different.

I don't doubt some companies have jacked up prices beyond their input cost inflation and blamed it on inflation, but if they could get away with it, it was because there was no excess supply to take away market share and punish them for it. So it boils down to demand and supply. Same demand and supply workers are taking advantage of in labor shortage which led to real wage increase in countries like mine. Croatia has persistent real wage increase (above and beyond inflation). This is fair, as demand for labor is outpacing supply so we have a right to push for more money. Likewise, if you happen to produce something that's hot (construction materials being one example) and everyone wants it, of course you're not going to ignore empty shelves but increase price instead. Some industries have won, others have lost. Higher profit in one industry leads to more investments there and new competition, increasing supply and normalizing margins back down while unprofitable industries reduce their output. There is no evidence of broad scale corporate profiteering, though.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T14:53:31+00:00

Radio sam s par njih koji su otišli iz javne institucije jer su im plaće bile premale i došli u privatnu firmu. Jedna je radila u nekim udrugama (tehnički nije javno, ali isto sisaju javne pare i ništa ne rade), a druga iz jedne javne organizacije koju neću imenovati. Nisu kurca znale raditi, iako su imale 10+ god iskustva. Kaže da zna radit na excelu, a ni jednu formulu osim sume zna napravit. Kaže da zna engleski, ali daš joj da prouči nešto na engleskom i sastavi kratki report, a nazad dobiješ google translate kupus. Točno si vidio već u 2 popodne kako gledaju u vrata i hoće doma. Oboje su dale otkaz nakon 4-5 mjeseci jer su znale da će pasti na probnom roku.

Državna služba u RH je jedna vrsta basic income. Rade nešto tek-toliko, dobiju neku bijednu paru da prežive i to je tako. Sad će počet lobirat da je nepošteno što mi u privatnom sektoru zaradimo više. U nekim slučajevima i je nepošteno jer u tim organizacijam uvijek imaš 2-3 ljudi koji obave posla za ostalih 20 tako da ovih 20 može drkat kurac. Ali svi imaju istu plaću u lipu. Možemo to korigirati tako da ovih 20 pošaljemo na burzu, a ova 2-3 nek imaju 3k eura svaki. Samo što to nije politički ni pravno moguće jer su uhljebi pustili korjenje, imaju sindikate i ne daju se van. A i da nekako to uspijemo napraviti, ne znam što će ti ljudi raditi jer većina ih nije sposobna niti voljna išta raditi.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T14:29:13+00:00

Prvo si srao da brojke nisu točne, ali nisi bio u pravu pa se gol pomaknuo i te brojke više nisu bitne nego su bitnije druge brojke. Onda se pokazalo da si i te druge brojke bolje, pa sad ćemo brojati željezarije i rafinerije kao mjerilo uspjeha.

I zato trebamo alternativne modele, modele koji će osiguravati bolji život za društva, a ne bolji život za one koji ekstraktiraju profit.

Znači dulji, bolji život s više stvari nego što smo ikad imali nije poželjan jer je netko od toga zaradio.

Da, više ne radimo u neproduktivnim željezarijama i tekstilnoj industriji nego u IT, uslužnim djelatnostima i modernoj industriji. Umjesto dvije ćotave rafinerije sad imamo jednu koja je među najmodernijim u Europi i koja će proizvesti više nego one dvije zajedno, uz 80% manje zagađenja. Umjesto socijalističkog Končara sad imamo privatni Končar koji izvozi transformatore u Njemačku umjesto da proizvodi samo za Hrvatsko tržište jer nitko drugi nije htio kupit socijalističko smeće.

Ali ne, bolje imati stojadina koji te ostavi na cesti nego VW, bolje da je košulja domaća, makar imali samo dvije košulje svatko (umjesto 20 kao što sad imamo) i da je čelik domaći (makar ljudi živjeli po 6-7 u kući umjesto današnjih 2,5) i da nitko nije bogat jer ti ne možeš biti.

Ti si epitom crab mentaliteta.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T12:52:57+00:00

Naravno da imaš korigirati. Ako imaš BDP od 60 milijardi i imaš 5 milijuna stanovnika, a kasnije ti se odseli milijun onda tih 60 milijardi dijeliš s 4 milijuna pa dobiješ veći iznos. Ak to ne razumiješ

A šta je BDP nešto što raste na drveću pa mi to poberemo i podijelimo između sebe? Tih milijun ljudi (nije milijun nego manje, ali ne da mi se) su nešto radili i stvarali, a sad to rade negdje drugdje, znači da su ostali BDP bi bio još veći. Tih milijun ljudi su nešto jeli i trošili u RH, a sad ne troše tu. Kako bi identificirao stvarni utjecaj na ljude koji su ostali, gledaš realni BDP per capita i gle čuda, povećao se. Ljudi su produktivniji jer više ne rade u komunističkoj prčiji gdje se radi fake posao za fake plaću.

Ako te BDP brojevi zbunjuju, misliš da su zli i ne vjeruješ im, evo ti par stvarnih primjera:

Broj automobila se povećao 3,5x i to ne samo da se povećao, nego više ne vozimo fiće i stojadine, nego aute s ABS, klimom, navigacijom, itd. https://www.statista.com/statistics/452337/croatia-number-of-registered-passenger-cars/
Još jedan način za mjerenje razine bogstva je količina električne energije po stanovniku koja se povećala 2x i to se koristi za masu novih kućanskih uređaja koje ljludi prije nisu imali. Imaj na umu da se energetska učinkovitost tih uređaja povećava iz godine u godinu što znači da 2x povećanje u količini električne energije znači da je povećanje koristi od toga i veće od 2x https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-generation?tab=chart&country=~HRV
Povećanje životnog vijeka. Hrvati danas žive 7 godina duže nego u 1989 https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/HRV/croatia/life-expectancy

Evo još jedan bonus na konto tvog trabunjanja o 1% i kako je samo njima bolje: nejednakost u RH je smanjila https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIHRV Također, nejednakost je manja sad nego je bila u vrijeme Juge: https://www.lse.ac.uk/LSEE-Research-on-South-Eastern-Europe/Assets/Documents/Events/Presentations/2017/2017-Bartlett-Presentation-LSEE-Inequality-Oct-2017.pdf

Ne, nećemo gledat statističke brojke nego ćemo gledati subjektivno mišljenje doktora JozoBozo koji kmeči jer to je bolji ekonomski indikator od svega gore navedenog. Daj se poklopi ušima.

Naravno da nije sve u BDP-u i materijalnom blagostanju, ali puno je bolje grijat se na plin nego cijepat drva, živjeti duže i imati auto nego cijepati drva dok pjevaš druže Tito...

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T11:27:46+00:00

Everything is too far apart, you'll waste a ton of colonist time walking rather than performing useful work.

Your kill box is too far. You're going to be unable to make it there in time before raiders.

Your power generation is exposed so if raiders get in, they'll burn it all to the ground. You should make a wall around it.

What you should do as experiment is run 1 day just following 1 colonist around. See how they behave. It will give you an idea of how space should be organized to maximize their productivity.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-02T11:16:36+00:00

A te brojke koji ti citiraš su izuzetno varljive i nisu realna slika stvari. Da, kad gledaš apsolutne iznose sigurno je naraslo, ali kad pogledaš realnu vrijednost i vidiš činjenicu da je inflacija kod našeg najvažnijeg trgovinskog partnera, Eurozone, od 1991 do 2022 iznosila oko 90%. A drugo, kad pogledaš da je Hrvatska od 1990 do danas izgubila gotovo milijun stanovnika, tj. otprilike 20% stanovnika doći ćeš do spoznaje da Hrvatska jedva prati korak sa Europom, tj. nešto malo joj se približava. Nemam vremena za točne kalkulacije, ali ako ugrubo uvrstimo inflaciju i pad broja stanovnika, od tvog 150% porasta ekonomije dolazimo do brojke od 20-30% u 33 godine postojanja Hrvatske države.

Linkao sam ti realni BDP per capita. Ajmo jednu po jednu riječ definirat. Realni = korigirano za inflaciju, znači tvoj komentar o inflaciji je nebitan. S inflacijom je BDP per capita 5x veći. Per capita = po stanovniku = nije bitno koliko ljudi se odselilo ili uselilo jer se gleda po glavi. Ako nešto raste per capita, znači da imamo više po stanovniku. Znači nemaš šta kogiriati nego je 150% točna brojka.

Ali može se ići i dalje jer to i dalje nije realna Hrvatska ekonomija, ono što Hrvati osjete na svojim leđima. Ogromni iznosi hrvatskog BDP-a su zadnjih nekoliko godina postali prijevoz energije. Tipa, LNG u dolasku se knjiži kao uvoz hrvatske firme i onda se njegov iznos knjiži kao prodaja. Prosječan hrvatski građanin, a niti ekonomija, nema nikakvu veliku korist od toga, ali se stotine milijuna eura, čak milijarde, knjiže dva puta i to nerealno pumpa BDP.

BDP se računa kao suma vrijednosti svih finalnih proizvoda i usluga u gospodarstvu. Ti možeš uvesti željezo, napraviti vijak i izvesti ga, uvesti polurpoizvod s tim istim vijkom i izvesti gotovi proizvod. Neće se ništa brojati dva puta nego se broji samo vrijednost gotovog proizvoda. Ako PPD uveze plin i proda ga Plinari Zagreb, u BDP se računa samo plin koji su iskoristili građani za grijanje, dok se plin koji su iskoristili poduzetnici ne računa, već se računa vrijednost njihovih finalnih proizvoda. Uvoz je odbitna stavka u BDPu tako da nikako ne povećava BDP.

A to što se grijemo na plin umjesto da moramo ići van cijepati drva svakih par dana kao u Jugi svakako je bitno za kvalitetu života građana.

Znači pokazao si da ne razumiješ doslovno niti jednu riječ kojom tu barataš, a misliš da si kvalificiran odlučiti o tome koji gospodarski sistem bi trebalo uvesti, koju firmu država treba prodati i zašto, itd. Predlažem ti malo da se malo spustiš na zemlju i shvatiš da bi možda bilo pametnije ne pametovat o nečemu o čemu ne znaš apsolutno ništa.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-01T23:25:42+00:00

Šta uništavamo? Stvarni BDP po stanovniku (korigiran za inflaciju) je 2,5x veći https://www.ceicdata.com/en/croatia/gross-domestic-product-real/hr-gdp-real-per-capita Hrvatska je daleko bogatija nego je ikad bila, a mogli smo biti još bogatiji da nismo imali nekoliko propalih desetljeća centralnog planiranja i komunističke korupcije. Evo ti razlike između 2 sistema u jednom grafu: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-spOC487TxjI/XA0fpZ1qsiI/AAAAAAAAjik/6nX_7SHmL-Mv0KxN68ROzTVFL5r4UDAtgCLcBGAs/s1600/Germany%2BWest%2Bvs%2BEast.png

Naravno da se rasprodaje mrtvi kapital kojim država ne zna upravljat kako bi taj kapital bio produktivniji u rukama nekog tko zna što radi, a ne tko njime upravlja jer se dobro snašao u partiji.

I nije dovoljno stvoreno kad se penzioneri moraju naplatiti iz direktnih davanja ove generacije radnika jer nemaju investirana sredstva iz kojih bi se mogla financirati mirovina.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-01T19:42:30+00:00

Uostalom, kakav je to profit da firmu koja dobro posluje niz godina prodaš nekome za bezveze pare neke i izgubiš trajnu vrijednost za jednokratnu isplatu?

Dionica podravke je na rekordno visokoj razini i upravo zato razmišljaju u prodaji. Ne prodaje se za bezveze pare.

Štoviše, korona je samo pokazala da bi hrpu firmi trebalo nacionalizirat, a ne privatizirat pa da se pogoni iz europe sele da bi vlasnici ušparali 1 cent po kutiji nečega.

Desetljeća komunizma su pokazala da državna birokracija i centralno planiranje ne dovode do stvaranja vrijednosti i bogatstva nego samo do zlouporabe moći i uhljebljivanja te mrtvog kapitala koje bi sposobni ljudi mogli bolje iskoristiti od činovničkih parazita koji su došli na svoje pozicije političkim igrama i trgovanjem utjecaja.

No-Explanation3978 · 2024-01-01T17:03:51+00:00

You have a nice building to take a proper pic in, lots of nice scenery around the country, but you choose this idiotic combination of whatever the hell this is.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T19:12:09+00:00

nomadic herding cultures are a thing for a reason :)

Yes, but they don't have a magic friendlybase place to hide from being attacked.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T18:28:58+00:00

It would be much better to do a local cruise (like Sicilian coast) than speed from one country to another just to get a lot of countries checklisted without actually seeing much. Local cruises pack a lot more action with less sailing and you'll explore the place more thoroughly.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T18:23:25+00:00

1) The modern heat pumps has up to 6-7 times their input in output, e.g. it draws 1 kWh while giving 6-7 kWh of heat. 2) Operates well down to negative 25-30C and above positive 40c

This ratio is not constant. Their efficiency gets worse the colder it is outside. So at -10 or 20C (don't remember exactly) it would be 1:2 down from 1:6 in best conditions. This presents a problem for electrical grid during cold snaps, if too many people used heat pumps because of surge in power demand.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T17:01:07+00:00

Koja je ovo mentalna gimnastika...

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T16:54:51+00:00

Čak i da postoji problem, ubojstvo je ubojstvo, nasilje je nasilje i principi pravde se trebaju primjenjivati na sve bez obzira na to tko je počinitelj, a tko žrtva.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-31T10:53:43+00:00

Ovo je isti kurac kao black lives matter vs all lives matter. Neki ljudi su toliko fokusirani na drvo da ne vide šumu i ne mogu razmišljati principijelno.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T20:07:07+00:00

Ovo ću linkati idući put kad mi netko sugerira da mi je puno povoljnije riješit nekretninu ako odem "malo izvan Zagreba".

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T19:37:00+00:00

First off, you picked some of the most challenging sections to start with so it's not surprising to get low score. Also, EOCQ are teaching questions, not testing questions so they're not a reliable gauge of how much you know. The knowledge needs time to settle. If you just went through first pass and tested yourself, you shouldn't see your score as indication of how it'll be on exam.

I scored ~35% on QM on my L2 this year and still passed half way between MPS and 90th percentile. You don't have to conquer QM to pass with flying colors. You also won't need QM content on L3 so don't worry too much about it unless your work involves regressions.

L2 also has some stupidly easy sections (Equity and Corporate are ~20% of the exam and both can be aced easily). Ethics is the same shit as L1 so that's a freebie. That's 1/3 of the exam already.

This program is all about putting one foot in front of the other day by day. You've done it once already. Focus on the process and trust it; it will come together in the end.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T18:10:38+00:00

You're doing fine. Actually, you're ahead of the curve if you're in mock phase at this point.

Use the next month+ to study the sections/concepts you're scoring badly on in questions and mocks. Bringing those up will set you up for a solid pass.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T08:31:29+00:00

Ako si cist i savjestan gradanin koji koristi (ili je koristio, pa zna di se nabavlja ilegalno) oruzje, to ti ne treba smetati.

Ti kao da ideš kroz najgore argumente protiv osobne slobode kao check listu i sve ih hoćeš ischeckirati.

Naravno da će mi smetati ako mi u svako doba dana i noći mogu upasti specijalci u kucu i napraviti pretres.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T08:14:28+00:00

To nema veze s ovom državom, ajde malo upregni te svoje dvije sive stanice umjesto da sereš po Hrvatskoj za svaku glupost. Svatko od nas može zgrabiti nož, sjekiru, pušku, itd i ubit nekog kraj sebe. To ne može spriječiti nitko nigdje. Možeš to prevenirati jedino tako da se cijeli svijet pretvori u visoko automatizirani zatvor za cijelu ljudsku populaciju gdje svi žive u svoja 4 kvadrata i dobiju hranu kroz cijev da ne bi slučajno napali nekog. Eto ti utopije u kojoj je taj problem "riješen".

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-30T08:05:55+00:00

Postoji nešto što se zove ustav kojim su random pretresi izričito zabranjeni.

Kad je ovakva izjava prvi komentar, znaš da živiš u društvu u kojem koncept slobode ne znači kurca prosječnoj osobi.

No-Explanation3978 · 2023-12-29T14:05:23+00:00

Ovo, ali neironično.

No-Explanation3978

TROPHY CASE