“The Fed can’t force corporations to change their ways or rewrite the Wall Street business model on its own. But you could talk about it,” Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate banking committee, said.
But data published by the Office for National Statistics last month showed that once oil and gas producers were excluded, the profitability of U.K. manufacturing and service companies fell between the first and third quarters of 2022.In Germany, the behaviour of Volkswagen AG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG, which have reported record profits over the past year, shows how supply bottlenecks, coupled with resilient demand, have allowed companies to boost their margins.
Germany’s Big Three automakers have also been able to boost their margins by forcing makers of their components to absorb some of their higher costs for raw materials and transportation. There are some signs that they are adjusting to lower demand caused by higher interest rates and the depletion of excess savings built up during the pandemic.
It’s a mystery - Could Big Oil ever do something like this?