Lack of inflation would support this premise, though in this context "they" could include workers.
mbs
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 7:11 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Kerry's Tax Cut Makes Me Wanna Ralph
Shane Mage wrote:
>Almost all CIT comes from big corporations who hold a monopoly or
>oligopoly (shared monopoly) market dominance. Again, by elementary
>theory, these monopolists have set their prices, wages, and supply
>costs at the level they calculated to produce maximum profit.
>Therefore they have very little (at best) ability to pass through a tax
>on profit to their workers or consumers.
If they all pay roughly the same tax, then it's part of their cost structure, so they can just add it to their markup.
The idea that large corporations today are monopolies who set their own prices is quaint, and would be news to just about any corporate manager. Do you ever read the business press?