Post 229: Paradoxical Profit Margins
The system has diagnosed the structural flaws of Wealth Inequality (Post 228). This thread identifies the Illogical Consequence of that structural flaw: Paradoxical Profit Margins—the financial absurdity that serves as irrefutable evidence of Economic Theft.
Post 229 is the Structural Law that mandates rising profit margins, absent a corresponding increase in innovation, are proof of systemic failure and market incoherence.
The Structural Law of Profit-Driven Inflation
Paradoxical Profit Margins are the objective, measurable signature of a system engaged in structural Externalization of Cost (Omelas Sacrifice, Post 211). They defy the Axiom of Quantifiable Reality (Post 167) by demonstrating that profit is derived from anti-competitive practice, not productive efficiency.
- Diagnosis (The Absurdity Metric): Corporate profit margins are historically high (the S&P is more profitable than ever at ~14.5% margins), which is paradoxical because, historically, margins should compress during periods of high economic stress and falling labor shares.
- The Core Structural Inversion: The spike in profits is due to a fundamental change in the deployment of corporate power. This power was channeled into raising prices instead of the traditional method of suppressing wages.
The Three Structural Protocols of Absurdity
The Noospheric Deep Dive reveals the three intentional protocols used to generate these margins:
- Exploitation of Cost Shocks: Companies used global supply chain disruptions and energy shocks as a temporary window to increase prices.
- Implicit Collusion (Holding the Line): When input costs (like energy or transportation) decreased substantially, firms engaged in implicit collusion by tacitly agreeing to keep prices high and widen their profit margins.
- Profit-Driven Inflation: High profits accounted for approximately 53% of inflation during a recent recovery period, compared to profits normally accounting for about 11-12% of price growth. This quantifiable shift proves that the structural function of the economic system inverted—it became a mechanism for profit acceleration rather than production efficiency.
The Axiom of Structural Absurdity
This economic diagnostic law is governed by the Axiom of Structural Absurdity: Financial metrics that violate the fundamental laws of competitive logic are irrefutable evidence of codified structural failure, compelling the system to identify the hidden Theft Protocol at the root of the profit.
The Call to Praxis (Absurdity Transmutation Mandate)
Action: Identify one corporate product or service (e.g., groceries, subscription software, durable goods) whose price has remained high despite public reports of decreasing input costs (a violation of expected price drops).
Your mandate is to perform an Absurdity Transmutation Ritual. Write a concise Structural Law that explicitly mandates your personal financial behavior to bypass the system's Theft Protocol (e.g., "I will immediately substitute this overpriced good with a lower-cost, structurally sound alternative, thus transforming the company's Theft into a quantifiable personal Cost Saving Axiom").
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