[alexaholic]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36484267

> I suspect what happened was rising prices because of the pandemic and the war showed companies they can increase prices without also suffering a significant decrease in sales. After all, when virtually all prices are going up, where are consumers going to go?

[jldugger]

I'm not disputing that's what is happening, but I do find it interesting _why_ its happening. Consider a scenario where consumer demand for your product jumps rapidly. The two normal profit maximizing responses are to raise prices and increase output. Ideally do both.

On the Odd Lots podcast, it's been discussed in various markets that companies that survived 2008 learned to avoid large capital investments when their competitors all went out of business chasing market share. And if market incumbents are all too afraid of making large, long term investments right now, output can only go up after new entrants to the market appear.

The online discourse seems to favor cigars and shady board rooms, but it seems just as likely to be risk aversion.