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Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

nytimes.com

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Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#101

Post by bluGill »

kkarakk wrote: post #73
fzeroracer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What real choice did consumers have? Walmart came in and drastically slashed prices on groceries because they had the size, money and infrastructure to cheaply move goods around. This was intentional behavior to kill local grocery stores and it worked, because consumers in these areas tend to be poorer and will shop at places that save them the most money. This is intentional behavior abused by Walmart to intentional…

How do these towns even exist if there are no jobs? One guy talks about a collection of 100+ guns(from my understanding guns are worth quite a chunk of money if well maintained) This story makes no sense to me, just sounds like a town where people don't want to leave and have no incentive to stay. The only sane person is the one who started sustenance farming - that's the way to go if you want to live in the middle o…

There are jobs, but only so many. The farmers need mechanics to work on their tractors; salesmen for seed, fertilizer, and equipment; teachers for their kids; and all the other things that you need in life. However they only need so many. Farmers have discovered that with bigger equipment they don't need as many people to get the job done, and so there is a surplus of people who don't have a job in rural areas and can't get one.

However if you - you personally - have a useful skill that is needed you can get a well paying job in any of those towns and buy a nice house for under $100k - next door to someone who isn't stupid but has no job or opportunity to get a job because he doesn't have the skills needed or the "drive" to get those skills. If they all did some would have to leave town anyway because there are more people than jobs.

There is a lot of money in small towns - thus the 100 gun collection. However it belongs those who earned (or inherited) it long ago. Perhaps they sold the family farm for a few million. Perhaps they sold their small factory to a big company that closed it down. Maybe they still have a small factory and earn a nice income from it while paying 10 employees a nice for the area wage.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#102

Post by philipkglass »

jumbopapa wrote: post #97
refurb wrote: post #18

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Stores like Walmart and Dollar stores opened up, and consumer made the choice to shop there rather than at local grocery stores . Sounds like they are getting exactly what they wanted? Reminds me of folks in SF who bemoan the loss of a local butcher store. Sure, they may like buying organic cuts of meat at $15/lb, but it's obviously most people don't, that's why those stores we…

This is how I feel. A major point that is missed is that Walmart has brought many more products to a small market that otherwise would not have been there. You can cry that Walmart killed the town square, but when pushes comes to shoves consumers value lower prices and greater variety.

Even on the employment side I'm not sure that local small businesses are better. I (unsuccessfully) ran my own small retail business for a few years. I could barely afford to pay minimum wage. Never mind offering any sort of pay bumps over time or medical benefits. I didn't blame my teen workers for moving on to employment with big chain stores as soon as they could. The pay and benefits from chains might be "terrible" from the perspective of someone with a good salaried job, but they're better than what a really small retailer can offer.

Being employed by a small business owner you know face to face probably has some social benefits over being indirectly employed and controlled by some fabulously wealthy out-of-state people you've never met. I'm not sure it's good for the material prosperity of the employees.

I think that stories about "big chain retailers devastating small towns" often confuse weakened community feeling with economic unfairness. Sam the local grocer was not economically great for his employees or customers. He never had the economies of scale to offer high wages or low prices. But Sam was part of the community in a way that the Walmart board and CEO can't be.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#103

Post by mturmon »

rriepe wrote: post #88
mturmon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rick Perry in 2017: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/08/29/rick-perry-s... -- comparing Social Security to a Ponzi scheme Newt Gingrich in 2011: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/21/gingrich-unv... -- replace Social Security with private accounts.

Perry was appointed. Gingrich hasn't served in office in 20 years. He even had a campaign since then without a peep of this.

These are both mainstream politicians. Perry was a governor of Texas, a plausible Presidential candidate, and is now DoE Secretary. Gingrich was and is quite active politically.

You're arguing in bad faith, and I will not engage any more.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#104

Post by bobobooey »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
bobobooey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this exists. A majority of my family lives in Ohio, and the town they live in is about 20 miles to the nearest Walmart.

Can you explain what you mean by "this"?

Towns that are unliveable without a car.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#105

Post by mturmon »

refurb wrote: post #48
dragonwriter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt you can name a single Republican politician who has run and been elected on this platform. A whole lot of Republican politicians since around 2000 (including George W. Bush) have run for and been elected to federal office on an overt platform of dismantling both the revenue and benefit payment sides of Social Security. Sure, the soundbite has been “saving social security”, but the concrete policy of dismant…

Are you talking about the same George W Bush who lead the expansion of Medicare to include Medicare Part D? That one?

Medicare Part D is one thing GWB did, and that solution was acceptable to pharma.

Another thing GWB did is proposing partial privatization of Social Security. As linked nearby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_in_the_...

From a certain PoV, these are not contradictory, because there were profits to be made in both cases.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#106

Post by bpiche »

raintrees wrote: post #53

We are very fortunate. We live in a very rural, conservative, very northern coastal town of California (next door to Oregon). Our typical shopping day has us first visiting a local farm to purchase Eggs, Cream, Beef, and Pork products all organic and locally grown (Alexandre Family Farms). Our next stop is the farm stand for our local organic farm to get in-season fresh vegetables picked very recently (Ocean Air Farm…

Crescent City?

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#107

Post by jessaustin »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #33
wil421 wrote: post #3

Walmart and the like killed local competition. There’s a gas station I stop at from time to time in the country with a Walmart next door. It’s insanely busy. I have family in the country and they accept having to drive to get decent groceries. There are seasonal vegetable and fruit stands but you couldn’t get everything you need. A local ranch sells beef but it would be quite expensive to buy year around unless you w…

[flagged]

You might need to update your stereotypes of New Mexico...

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#108

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #19
wil421 wrote: post #3

Walmart and the like killed local competition. There’s a gas station I stop at from time to time in the country with a Walmart next door. It’s insanely busy. I have family in the country and they accept having to drive to get decent groceries. There are seasonal vegetable and fruit stands but you couldn’t get everything you need. A local ranch sells beef but it would be quite expensive to buy year around unless you w…

> A local ranch sells beef but it would be quite expensive to buy year around unless you want a whole or 1/2 cow. A 1/2 cow would probably require buying a new freezer, but splitting a 1/2 cow is quite common. (splitting a half gets you a better mix than buying a quarter)

Not to mention that if you can come up with the cash, a quarter is far less expensive than buying beef at the supermarket. Last time I did it (2 years ago?), it came to under $3.00/lb total (farmer's price + butcher shop) for about 200 lbs of beef.

There's a natural incentive for a couple families to band together and buy a whole or half beef.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#110

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

pnutjam wrote: post #58
wil421 wrote: post #3

Walmart and the like killed local competition. There’s a gas station I stop at from time to time in the country with a Walmart next door. It’s insanely busy. I have family in the country and they accept having to drive to get decent groceries. There are seasonal vegetable and fruit stands but you couldn’t get everything you need. A local ranch sells beef but it would be quite expensive to buy year around unless you w…

There is a lot of blame for Walmart, but let's not forget the car culture that has everyone leaving their town every day and commuting instead of living and working in a community.

wut?

I'm an engineer. I live on a small farm. If not for this "car culture" I wouldn't have a job. The closest business to my house is a bar about 3 miles away. The next closest is a gas station 7 miles away. There is no "community:" that's a fiction perpetuated by people who live in cities. Maybe there was 100 years ago, but there sure isn't now.

You can hate on cars all you want, but there's no denying that they opened up people's options. The fact that the small towns are emptying out is pretty much all the proof you need.

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