[lstamour]

I dunno, I think it’s actually Pick three:

  - extreme corporate profits
  - better wages
  - US jobs
  - lower prices

You can’t optimize both for extreme shareholder returns and extreme wealth at the top and also pay first world good wages/living standards and have lower prices. Unfortunately, in this race, shareholder returns is often still the last thing compromised on, it seems.

[AnthonyMouse]

That's not actually pick three. It's that if you have uncompetitive markets (and therefore high rents/inefficiency), you end up with worse wages, loss of US jobs and high prices. Because then the price companies can charge is no longer tied to their labor cost, so they can cut labor costs without lowering prices.

This is clearly what's happened and needs fixing, but even after that, you still have a trade off between high-paying US jobs and low consumer prices.

But the answer to that one isn't as obvious because it isn't linear. In a competitive market, competition with labor in other countries might cause you to get paid $1000/year less, but lower your cost of living by $2000/year.

[JumpCrisscross]

> can’t optimize both for extreme shareholder returns and extreme wealth at the top and also pay first world good wages/living standards and have lower prices

Ignoring new entrants, sure. In a competitive market, shareholder returns entice new entrants. Flatten those and you lose that edge.

For many markets, the competition caveat is missing: this is something we can improve with policy. But pushing down profits for labor's sake is a false economy; it leaves the industry less resilient in a global context. Put another way, a solid repeatable business plan is finding a market leader suppressing shareholder returns and exploiting what they're missing from a separate jurisdiction.