People in my riding are using food banks because they can’t afford groceries while Sobeys just reported a $187.5 million profit.
— Leah ProudLakota (she/her) (@LeahGazan) September 15, 2022
Time to tax the grocery chains and feed the people. https://t.co/k37Hpcfp39
As food prices increase due to numerous governments (especially Canada's) enacting policies in reaction to the Wuhan Flu and the false fear of global warming, a common refrain of leftists is to denounce grocery stores for their "corporate greed".
Like so many of the leftists who do this, Leah hasn't asked himself a simple question: why weren't any of these companies greedy in 2019? Why did they all decide to only turn greedy now at the same time of rampant inflation caused by far-left governments?
Leah doesn't ask himself a lot of questions: he doesn't ask what Sobeys' profits are "supposed" to be, nor how their profits compare to their overall expenditures ("margins" for those who are up in the hip business lingo). If Sobeys makes $187.5 million a year and spends $3,000 million in that same year, that's a lot of financial outlay for relatively little performance. If this confuses you, in such a scenario Sobeys' income is 3.1875M and therefore the margin is 5.88%. As a result, if Sobeys was incorrect on their forecast and instead made a mere 6% less† then they would have endured a loss. In reality, the actual margin for grocery retailers is between 1-3%, which means Sobeys' actual income is six billion dollars (or higher) and therefore their expenses are a whopping $6,250 million dollars.
† If this margin of error (ha!) sounds extreme, remember that 10% error in forecasting is classified as "very good". It's therefore extremely easy to plan for sales which are universally regarded as an excellent forecast and still go from profit to loss.
The anti-business ignorance of this crowd is even more shocking when it happens at the exact same time that the Canadian healthcare system is similarly "collapsing" (and they want huge spending increases to "fix the problem"). Over a decade and half (!) ago I noted that nobody actually supported government-run grocery stores, but the modern left is getting so retarded that what was once obviously a horrible idea is now being actively promoted.
Meanwhile another business needs to be robbed to pay for their evil and failing ideology.
