[hnboredhn]

I still don't find the argument persuasive. Companies have always tried to maximize profits, as you said.

To me this highlights more companies realizing they have pricing power similar to monopoly power or cartel power. A company that has lots of competition can't raise its profit margins. But a company with a moat, where no competitors are able to fund the capital needed to compete, can raise profits.

[bick_nyers]

If all of your competitors are also raising their prices then suddenly it becomes a lot less risky to also raise yours.

When the public perception is an environment of inflation, I think it unintentionally creates cartel power dynamics.

You don't need to collude with your competition on price fixing if the news is telling you that prices are going up for everything.

[coliveira]

They always want to maximize profits, but they don't have this opportunity every day. They will increase their profits if there is a convenient reason like "inflation".

[hnboredhn]

I guess I'm still not convinced the "reasoning" has anything to do with it.

If a company says the reason is inflation they can only maintain that pricing power if every other firm does the same thing. If no firm decides to keep prices the same, to steal more of the market, that suggests to me that either inflation is real (perhaps in a harder to quantify way than just supplies) or companies have much more consolidated competitors than they used to (perhaps start up costs are now high so new entrants become impossible).

[ImPostingOnHN]

> If a company says the reason is inflation they can only maintain that pricing power if every other firm does the same thing

empirically, this is what's effectively happening in multiple instances

given the content of the article of this post, I'm not convinced anyone can reasonably conclude that profit increases aren't accounting for a large portion of inflation: such a conclusion is unpersuasive given said content

the questions of "why now" etc. are interesting, and I encourage you to seek answers on them, but answers to them aren't necessary to observe reality, a reality the article helpfully illustrates

why did I decide on coffee this morning instead of tea? another similarly interesting question, but the answer, or lack thereof, similarly doesn't change the fact that that's what happened.