this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Freeland touts need for grocery competition after Loblaw, Metro post higher profits (www.winnipegfreepress.com)
submitted 1 year ago by grte@lemmy.ca to c/canadapolitics@lemmy.ca
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[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's nice: "Touts". Good word, all action-without-action.

How about you just tax them? Tax their profits, tax their incomes, tax their capital gains.

Pretty soon they'll start investing that profit back into their businesses instead of just stuffing their increasing bank accounts and we'll all be better off. Plus, you can raise taxes any time you like, you don't need to "study" or "discuss", you can just do it. I'm sure the NDP would be totes fine with it, too. The Tories would scream about it, and that's fine. Let Poillevre get on stage with a mic and explain why Galen Weston deserves to make more money.

[–] frostbiker@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you tax an oligopoly, what do you think they will do in response? Lower their margins, or raise their prices?

What we need instead is more competition. Maybe something like lower taxes for independent or small grocery chains.

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you tax their profits, they can raise their prices all they like, those profits will just get taxed, too.

The point of progressive tax policy is to force businesses to take a reasonable profit and put the profits back into the business, instead of banking profit in non-productive ways, like stock buybacks or other financial engineering.

Right now, our tax policy is structured to incentivize profit-hoarding instead of reinvestment.

I'd like to see more competition, too, but I'd honestly settle for progressive taxation instead.

[–] frostbiker@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you tax their profits, they can raise their prices all they like, those profits will just get taxed, too.

They still make more money than if they didn't raise their profits. It doesn't incentivize then to lower their margins like competition would.

A business is not like an individual. A heavily taxed individual may choose to work fewer hours or retire early, but a business won't.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Then we need a bunch of crown corporations. One each for groceries, gas, and telecoms.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Make profit sharing mandatory so they have to split it with all employees

Or

Break them up

[–] Octospider@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

If only she was in some position of power to actually do something. Unfortunately, all she can do is "tout". Maybe she'll tell us to cancel Netflix and Disney+ again?