風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
經濟學家解釋盡管通脹上升但企業利潤創紀錄
2022 年 2 月 13 日
美國國家公共廣播電台 (NPR) 的米歇爾·馬丁 (Michel Martin) 與經濟學教授伊莎貝拉·韋伯 (Isabella Weber) 討論了伴隨企業利潤飆升而出現的物價上漲和通貨膨脹。
米歇爾·馬丁，主持人：
各地的價格都在上漲——加油站、雜貨店、停車場。 本周，聯邦政府報告稱，與一年前相比，商品成本全麵上漲 7.5%。 居民消費價格指數顯示，住房上漲4%，肉類價格上漲12%，購買二手車的成本上漲超過40%。
但這是另一個現實。 當家庭麵臨高昂的價格衝擊時，將這些商品上架的公司的利潤卻在飆升。 美國商務部的數據顯示，企業利潤率達到70年來最高水平，這引起了參議員伯尼·桑德斯和伊麗莎白·沃倫等進步派領導人的強烈抗議，稱一些企業利用疫情作為掩護，提高利潤。 價格遠遠超出合理範圍。
正如經濟理論所關注的情況一樣，對此有各種各樣的觀點，所以我們稱伊莎貝拉·韋伯為人。 她是馬薩諸塞大學阿默斯特分校的經濟學教授。 她研究了快速經濟轉型背景下的定價政策，現在她和我們一起談論這一切。 韋伯教授，歡迎光臨。 非常感謝您加入我們。
伊莎貝拉·韋伯：非常感謝你邀請我，米歇爾。
馬丁：所以我們看到幾乎所有東西的價格都在上漲，我們被告知這是供應鏈中斷或勞動力短缺，這兩者都與流行病有關。 與此同時，企業報告的利潤創曆史新高，這對許多人來說似乎違反直覺。 那麽您對為什麽這兩件事同時發生有何看法？
韋伯：是的。 我的意思是，首先，我們必須意識到供應鏈問題是非常現實的，對吧？ 所以在平時，公司，甚至是非常大的公司，主要競爭的是能夠快速交付產品，通過廣告吸引客戶等等。 因此，如果需求增加，他們基本上會通過提供更多他們正在生產的產品來做出反應。 但現在發生的事情是突然發生的，因為這個巨大的傳送帶係統，如果你願意的話，不能正常工作，東西會被卡住。 突然之間，公司，甚至是非常大的公司，在交付方麵都遇到了困難。
馬丁：我想人們都明白這一點。 要知道，如果人們想買東西，而這些東西供不應求，那當然會更貴。 但我想問題是，正常的市場運作和市場操縱之間的界限是什麽？ 有很多嗎？誰決定那條線是什麽？
韋伯：公司總是希望利潤最大化，對嗎？ 在當前情況下，他們突然無法再像以前那樣提供那麽多服務。 這創造了一個機會，讓他們可以說，好吧，我們麵臨著成本增加。 我們麵臨著所有這些問題。 因此我們可以向客戶解釋我們正在提高價格。 沒有人知道這些價格到底應該上漲多少。 每個人都有某種理解，哦，是的，存在一些問題，所以，是的，當然，公司正在以他們在正常情況下無法證明的方式提高價格。
但這並不意味著實際的價格上漲幅度是由成本的增加來證明的。 而事實上，我們看到的是利潤在暴漲，這意味著企業提高價格的幅度超過了成本。 在收益報告中，公司吹噓他們如何成功地領先於通貨膨脹曲線，他們如何成功地將價格抬高到超過成本，從而實現了創紀錄的利潤。
馬丁：拜登政府在 11 月份將目標瞄準了能源成本。 總統表示，他將讓聯邦貿易委員會調查能源行業可能存在的市場操縱或價格欺詐行為。 那會是什麽樣子呢？
韋伯：拜登總統表示，未成品汽油的價格下降了 5%，其中加油站的價格上漲了 3%。 換句話說，在加油站銷售天然氣的公司正在進一步提高價格，或者在這種情況下，並沒有像 11 月份那樣享受價格下降。 這是總統的論點。 所以，是的，總統必須介入。具體如何去做超出了我作為經濟學家的專業知識。
馬丁：在我們讓你走之前，你是否有這樣做的意願？ 我知道這嚴格來說不是您的專業領域，但是在與您交談過的人中，您的同行經濟學家中，對於這裏的前進方向是否達成了共識？
韋伯：嗯，我想說，我們正處於相當未知的水域，因為我們正處於具體價格飆升的情況下，這是我們很長一段時間沒有看到的，因為我們擁有這個全球供應鏈係統，是的 ，一直存在我們現在看到的漏洞，但在穩定時期一直運行得很好。 因此，從這個意義上說，我認為經濟體還沒有做好充分準備來思考我們麵臨的問題。 因此，我們需要考慮一種不同的反應，這要求我們進行非常開放的對話，而不是我們最近幾周觀察到的那種對抗和下意識的反應。
馬丁：那是伊莎貝拉·韋伯。 她是馬薩諸塞大學阿默斯特分校的經濟學家和教授。 韋伯教授，非常感謝您與我們交談。 這真是令人著迷。
韋伯：非常感謝你邀請我，米歇爾。
Economist explains record corporate profits despite rising inflation
NPR's Michel Martin talks with economics professor Isabella Weber about the price hikes and inflation occurring alongside skyrocketing corporate profits.
Prices are up all over the place - at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the car lot. This week, the federal government reported a 7.5% increase in the cost of goods all across the board compared to a year ago. The consumer price index showed a 4% rise in housing, a 12% increase in the price of meat, and the cost to buy a used car is up more than 40%.
But here's another reality. While families are dealing with sticker shock, profits for companies that put these goods on shelves - well, those are skyrocketing. Data from the U.S. Commerce Department shows that corporate profit margins are the largest they've been in 70 years, and that's caused progressive leaders like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to cry foul, saying some companies are using the pandemic as a cover to raise prices far more than is warranted.
As is often the case where economic theory is concerned, there are a variety of opinions about this, so we've called Isabella Weber. She is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has studied pricing policies in the context of rapid economic transitions, and she is with us now to talk about all this. Professor Weber, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
ISABELLA WEBER: Thank you so much for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: So we see the price of pretty much everything going up, and we are told that these are supply chain disruptions or labor shortages, both of which are pandemic-related. And at the same time, corporations are reporting record profits, and that just seems counterintuitive to many people. So what's your take on why those two things are happening at the same time?
WEBER: Yeah. I mean, first of all, we have to realize that the supply chain issues are very real, right? So in normal times, companies, also very large companies, mainly compete over being able to deliver their products quickly, attracting customers through advertisement and so on. So if demand goes up, they basically react by delivering more of the stuff that they are producing. But what's happening now is that suddenly, because this gigantic conveyor belt system, if you want so, is not working properly, stuff gets stuck. And suddenly, companies, even very large companies, have difficulties delivering.
MARTIN: I think people understand that. You know, if people want to buy things and they're in short supply, of course they will be more expensive. But I guess the question would be, what is the line between kind of normal market functioning and market manipulation? Is there a lot, and who decides what that line is?
WEBER: Companies always want to maximize profits, right? In the current context, they suddenly cannot deliver as much anymore as they used to. And this creates an opening where they can say, well, we are facing increasing costs. We are facing all these issues. So we can explain to our customers that we are raising our prices. No one knows how much exactly these prices should be increased. And everybody has some sort of an understanding that, oh, yeah, there are issues, so, yes, of course companies are increasing prices in ways in which they could not justify in normal times.
But this does not mean that the actual amount of price increase is justified by the increase in costs. And as a matter of fact, what we have seen is that profits are skyrocketing, which means that companies have increased prices by more than cost. In the earnings reports, companies have bragged about how they have managed to be ahead of the inflation curve, how they have managed to jack up prices more than their costs and as a result have delivered these record profits.
MARTIN: So the Biden administration in November took aim at energy costs. The president said he would have the Federal Trade Commission investigate possible market manipulation or price gouging in the energy sector. So what would that look like?
WEBER: President Biden has called out that the prices for unfinished gasoline were down by 5%, where the prices at the gas station went up by 3%. So in other words, companies that are selling gas at the gas station are increasing prices by more, or, in this case, are not handing down the price decrease that they had enjoyed in November. This was the argument of the president. So, yes, the president has to step in. How exactly to do it is beyond my expertise as an economist.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, do you see a will to do that? I know that that's not strictly your area of expertise, but among the people that you talked to, your sort of peer economists, is there a consensus about the way forward here?
WEBER: Well, I'd say that we are in pretty uncharted waters because we are in this situation where specific prices are shooting up, which we haven't seen in a long time because we have had this global supply chain system that, yes, had always the vulnerabilities that we are seeing now but in stable times has been working pretty well. So in that sense, I think that economies are not terribly well-prepared to think about the problems that we are facing. So we need to think about a different kind of response, and this requires us to have a very open conversation instead of the kind of confrontations and often knee-jerk reactions that we have been observing in recent weeks.
MARTIN: That's Isabella Weber. She is an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Weber, thanks so much for talking with us. It's been fascinating.
WEBER: Thank you so much for having me, Michel.
