Home Depot profits by 17.1 Billion dollars.
Earnings for the year reached $17.1 billion, up 4% from a year earlier
So, what do we take away from this information?
Prices are really high at Home Depot, many items that were previously higher than normal have now tripled in price.
Why is that?
Why has the price increased so high?
Everyone is quick to blame inflation and the supply chain but is that really what is behind the higher prices?
The obvious issue here is that prices have gone up at Home Depot and also Lowes because apparently people are willing to pay the higher prices.
That goes against the way the economy has always worked.
So you see this kind of issue and the first thing as a consumer and customer that comes to mind is why home depot and others are still charging higher prices?
Normally the way the system has always worked is that prices tend to decline.
Prices usually go down because retail building supplies and really just about any business want customers to buy more and keep coming back…
But that is not really what is happening here.
What is happening here is that Home Depot, is going to pay workers up to 1 billion dollars more…
Thats great because perhaps employees will be more friendly and not run the other way when they can clearly see that you need help finding something.
The thing here that is so disturbing here is that you can no longer depend on these so called “big box stores” for fair pricing.
Which means that other retail commerce may begin to take away business from stores like Home Depot, a great example is paint stripper, previously priced at $17.90 two years ago is now $35.92 that is crazy but I guess when you want to make 17.1 billion dollars in profit you have to price gouge the customer.
Then instead of lowering prices you raise employees wages, Ok, I do understand that employees deserve to make every dollar they can and I do not begrudge them that however where is the free market in all this?
Really what this indicates is that the free market principals are out the window and in that case some other market principle must be taking place and when you see that happen problems will soon follow.
While we may not know what Home Depot is doing with its business model we can see that there are some clues that tend to show what is happening.
Environmentally friendly products seem to have replaced some products that actually used to work.
Fire logs that are environmentally friendly.
Creosote buster logs that no longer actually bust up creosote, Bug spray that does not actually do anything to bugs.
Paint stripper that does not actually strip paint.
Many chemical products that used to work great are no longer that great so really when you look at all of these product issues what comes to mind?
Environmental activism and if that is what is going on with Home Depot and you would be hard pressed to deny that then what we are seeing here with this retail business is a problem that will continue to get worse.
When you refuse to sell products that actually work because some people might not use it correctly or responsibly then what you have is a nanny mentality and when that happens eventually buyers stop buying.
Profits go down…
When that happens What happens Next?
They start laying off employees…
So while Home Depot may start paying employees more some of them will no longer be employees leaving the remainder to do more work and of course for more money but in reality can this work?
Perhaps at first but over all as it has always been eventually employees will grow tired of doing much more and a little more pay.
What is kind of humorous is that while we can see what is happening to this company and others in the marketplace the people who run these companies do not see and do not understand and so they continue to do what they think is what they want.
The problem is that without customers getting what they want it really will not matter what the people who run Home Depot want.