[Opinion] ‘Wie vandaag een geel hesje draagt, heeft minstens evenveel redenen om een groen aan te trekken.’
standaard.be/cnt/dmf20190131_04144706Posted Feb 1, 2019, 8:32 AM UTC
Posted Feb 1, 2019, 8:32 AM UTC
u/historicusXIII It appears your article is paywalled. If you could please provide a summary for the users that would like to know a little more, it would be appreciated.
Wow. This is the 21st century version of 'let them eat cake'. Any measurement will cost money. Not doing anything will cost money (at least the article is correct there). But anything that's going to cost money is going to cost poor people a lot more.
Most of the argument in the article is : if you move towards the city, you will pay less on transport and life will be cheaper and better. Has it occurred to the author there might be plenty of people who want to live in the city center but simply can't afford to?
And 'make the companies pay for it' is just as hollow a slogan as 'build a Wall and make the Mexicans pay for it'. Companies exist because they pass on the costs to customers/employees/shareholders. So people will pay, not 'the companies'.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be talking those actions (we should), but at least have the balls to say that this is going to be very expensive and the poor people will face the biggest consequences.
Most companies don't sell life's essentials. I keep hearing this "they will pass on the costs", but that's only true if people are willing to pay more. Otherwise they'll just have to figure out either a different avenue to cut costs, or deal with less C-level income.
Do you understand companies by design are supposed to pass the costs on? They will increase prices. Now that means that people simply pay more, or people won't at all in which case the company goes bankrupt. Should that happen, the shareholders and suppliers will get the costs. That's probably fine for you, untill you realise it will also hurt insurers, banks, other companies etc. And guess what they will do with their increased costs? Now, you are right that if the cost increases are not too steep they could decrease costs. That is called restructuring and often involves 1000's of people losing their job.
Companies have many strategies to reduce overhead, passing on the costs is just one of many, and often a last ditch effort because of the brand image damage it'll incur.
You're so very doom and gloom, and you're ignoring an entire set of usual solutions just to make a point. You think that taxes is the only volatility in a company's cost structure? You've got suppliers, natural evolution of market, the demand for your product, marketing, employees earning more over time, etc.. all of which can increase and decrease the overhead costs dramatically depending on the type of company you have. These rarely influence the price until it really hits a threshold value. Until then a company will try to eat the costs, and try to find a solution that won't incur backlash.
I co-own a small business (40+ last year), so I do talk with a little bit of knowledge on the subject.