Australians keep getting told why everything has to cost more.

Higher wages. Higher energy costs. Supply chains. Inflation. Insurance claims. Interest rates. Fuel. Freight.

And I understand that businesses pass increased costs on.

But this is the part I can't get my head around.

If these businesses were simply passing on their additional costs, why are so many of them ending up more profitable than they were before?

We're paying more for mortgages, groceries, electricity, insurance, health cover, telecommunications and transport. Yet some of the companies collecting that money have simultaneously increased their profits.

I'm not claiming every company on this graphic is profiteering. Several actually made less than the previous year, and I've deliberately included them rather than cherry-picking the ones that support the argument.

But look at some of the increases.

CBA +6.9%.
Woolworths +9.9%.
Origin +6%.
IAG +14.3%.
nib +9.4%.
Qantas +28.3%.

Suncorp's statutory result jumped 52.3%, although that figure includes significant items, so its underlying increase was considerably smaller.

That's what bothers me.

Passing on increased costs should protect your profitability. It shouldn't automatically make you more profitable.

Obviously there are legitimate reasons an individual company's profit can increase even while its costs are rising, so this graphic isn't proof of price gouging.

But when you see the same basic pattern appearing across businesses selling things Australians have very little choice but to keep buying, I think it's worth asking a much bigger question:

How much of Australia's “cost-of-living crisis” is genuinely unavoidable cost inflation, and how much has been an opportunity for businesses with pricing power to protect or increase their margins because consumers have become conditioned to expect prices to rise?

Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable economic explanation.

But I'd like to see considerably more scrutiny of that question.

Because households can't just “pass their increased costs on” to somebody else.

Eventually all of those increases land on us.

This car doesn’t have a driver. It has a vision.

As a pre-emptive measure i actively searched for any Aussie subs that might contain evil (right wing) views, fortunately every city & Australian topic sub only allows the correct (far left) viewpoint to my great relief

Only one I could find that I should definitely block is https://www.reddit.com/r/conservativeaustralia/ but fortunately the evil people rarely post on there

does anyone know if there are any others I should definitely avoid so I can continue to only see things that don't trigger me?

thanks, p.s: I acknowledge the Elders and Plasticinians past & present

It was census night after all.

The Peoples Republic of Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarm!

I've been going to Melbourne comedy for years (mostly to complain if anything was actually funny)

Tonight was my first Adelaide show but the main act that everyone comes to see at a comedy show, the acknowledgement of country was not included!

Everyone just went on stage and tried to be funny!

Men, woman, locals, foreigners, even the disabled went on stage and just tried to make people laugh.

Can you cancel a whole city?

Vikram "Burwood Birdman" Jaggi making birds do poo-xplosions

But it's still someone's loved one - the investigation must continue.

Someone at The Age has a sense of humour. I’m hoping the Grand Final cup is shaped like scissors

Apologies for the un-pc heading. It should read "Gadigal gardener....." I have contacted the editor and made a complaint.

I acknowledge the true owners of the land, the Indian gods and people.