Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by edmundsauto » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #85

refurb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those evil corporations offering consumers lower prices and better selection!! They need to stop hurting consumers!!

Is that really the only response you have to large corporations artificially lowering prices to brute force local markets? What next, are you going to defend regional monopolies by ISPs because consumers should just choose a different ISP?

With Walmart, it seems like they lowered prices because people prefer lower prices. Is there evidence they did it to brute force local markets, or is that your interpretation of the facts?

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

#182

Post by mjevans » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

kkarakk wrote: post #82

shantly wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to subsidize moving these folks to rural "cities" where the stores are if you're going to be spending the money, right? Unless you're also discouraging more people from moving out into the sticks unless they can afford/are OK with the costs (actual, unsubsidized costs—so, more than it costs now) & challenges of living there, so the delivery subsidy program naturally tapers off over time. Otherwise you're commi…

People will NEVER support a government that asks them to move. That's the whole reason these towns exist. Look at China - they literally forcibly relocate people at economic gunpoint(their jobs will be moved and their homes will no longer exist by this date, their choice of what to do) and somethings actual gunpoint. That comes with a whole slew of societal issues. The elderly simple cannot adjust to different lifest…

Asks -> helps / co-ordinates (a planned and orderly shutdown of towns that are no longer necessary).

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

#183

Post by war1025 » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #141

war1025 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Dollar General targets places without any businesses, at least around Iowa where I have experience with them. They target places where there is some community, but not enough to support a bigger general store (i.e Walmart). There is a Dollar General about a half mile from my house. It is literally next door to the local grocery store. They serve similar but different purposes. Dollar General is where yo…

The entire strategy for dollar stores (Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, etc.) is to out price their local competition - hence why yours is right next to a grocery store. They carry higher-profit margin goods, which are mostly canned and processed foods, but ditch the lower-margin items like fresh produce. Grocery stores can't compete with them unless they also ditch their healthier foods. There are entire…

I would argue that Dollar General has morphed itself away from the traditional "dollar store" model and is focusing much more heavily on the "general store" idea of old.

Sure you can get cheap stuff there, but not significantly cheaper than the similar products that a grocery store would have.

Their edge is that they are open later and have more of a focus on stuff that you are likely to need last-minute.

For example, when our kids were still wearing diapers, Dollar General was a typical stop as soon as we got to my mom's house for the weekend.

Similarly, if you're out of shampoo, toothpaste, etc. Dollar General is going to have a better selection than the grocery store.

Need a birthday card? Dollar General.

My mom likes to go there for cheap outfits for the grandkids. We don't get clothes there, but they have a decent selection.

In my experience Dollar General is an asset to a small town. It complements the other businesses rather than driving them out. Contrast to Walmart, which will do its best to kill small business.

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

#184

Post by bsder » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

nmcfarl wrote: post #84

Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns - if only because attracting new folk without one is hard. We live in John Day, Or (pop 1700)(County pop 7200, area: about 2x Delaware), which we chose partially because of it's supermarket. The next closest supermarket is 90min away. (Walmart: 2h). Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is…

> Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns

No, it's a symptom.

The real problem is "the town should shut down". This is the standard "people are gung-ho about capitalism when things are going up, and angry about it when things are going down."

There is a lower limit past when a town no longer makes sense from a self-sufficiency standpoint.

If people in small town genuinely want to change that calculus, then they need to start talking about Universal Healthcare and Universal Basic Income. Unfortunately, those are the kind of solutions which small town people tend to oppose.

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

#185

Post by refurb » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #85

refurb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those evil corporations offering consumers lower prices and better selection!! They need to stop hurting consumers!!

Is that really the only response you have to large corporations artificially lowering prices to brute force local markets? What next, are you going to defend regional monopolies by ISPs because consumers should just choose a different ISP?

If you’re goal is to stop competition and keep prices higher, then yes we should stop Walmart.

I for one don’t want that.

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

#186

Post by mjevans » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #49

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…

"Lots of people vote against “socialism” and then collect Medicade, social security and disability." That reasoning is shallow. They can't opt out of paying the taxes that support those programs; so what sense does it make opting out of the benefits?

It's a poorly worded and incisive line. However the sentiment that they were trying to express does have merit in discussing under more specific and civil terms.

I too have observed an apparent abundance of individuals that decry various forms of social support programs only to change their story when it's suddenly a program that more-obviously hands them support. (There is also a strong argument for social support programs as a method of minimizing the loss to society of productive labor as well as prevention for forcing individuals towards lives of crime so they can put food on the table.)

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

#187

Post by refurb » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #119

refurb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not optimized for the greater good? Because some people miss their local grocery store?

What is the greater good in your mind? What end would you like to see here?

People have the freedom to spend their money on groceries as they choose and businesses have the freedom to sell groceries as they choose.

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

#188

Post by techsupporter » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #168

eaandkw wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a lot of people “suffer” from the problem of wanting to live in a nice rural area without a lot of people or hassles but then want most of the same amenities of large cities. And by working remotely and exploiting the situation it never occurs to them to open up their own business/ grocery store. I’m sure other people that live in those areas would love to have a well stocked grocery store as well.

It occurs to us, but doing tech work remote is much more lucrative and reliable. Also, are you sure people want it? If so why do these stores close?

> If so why do these stores close?

Because for every one or two fantastically wealthy-beyond-all-belief-for-the-area technologist who moves in, five people who don't have a job like that leave the region in search of something that pays an income. A lot of these bucolic rural areas with a few thousand people in a county exist because of an industry that was present decades ago that has now collapsed. So, sure, the property is cheap and the town is relatively uncomplicated...but people who don't make six figures (and, thus, can pretty much choose to live wherever we want) are leaving because the opportunities are gone. One or two tech-paycheck-family households can't sustain a set of businesses that had 7,000 potential customers before.

I've watched this happen with where my parents grew up and in my grandparents' hometowns before them. Everyone I know in Seattle who isn't in tech didn't move to Seattle to get a tech job; they moved from Idaho and Utah and eastern Oregon and eastern Washington to find work because their sub-10,000-person towns are (in some cases literally) drying up and blowing away yet, even here, they're being pushed out because of salaries. Yes, I'm leading into wealth inequality and it having gotten so bad that people are squeezed on the starting end because the towns where they grew up are collapsing and squeezed on the destination end because trying to live where the jobs are increasingly doesn't result in the level of income required to actually live there.

But those of us in tech can simply decamp to our 5,000sqft houses on three acres of land and pull in Silicon Valley wages in a Montana property market and feel quite clever. I don't blame the individual who makes this decision but it still seems quite perverse.

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

#189

Post by msla » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

AgloeDreams wrote: post #65

lotsofpulp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem the issue is with low incomes rather than with Dollar General.

Oh for sure, but stores focused on bringing high margin cheap imported goods and base minimum wage jobs into communities that formerly bought locally produced goods does not exactly help this problem. Dollar General's expansion would burn if the minimum wage were raised.

> communities that formerly bought locally produced goods

The communities I'm thinking of here never bought locally produced goods for most things. The communities set up along the railroads in the late 1800s never had enough of their own industry to make most things, and a lot of them in the Great Plains never had a climate fit to grow much beyond wheat and cattle. They owed their entire existence to the railroad, and the relatively lucky ones were able to transition to owing their entire existence to a highway when the rail industry bottomed out.

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

#190

Post by msla » Tue, Nov 05, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

AgloeDreams wrote: post #128

kd0amg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

communities that formerly bought locally produced goods How long has it been since these communities actually did that? Small towns can't really support the diversity of industry it takes to buy more local goods than shipped-in goods in a modern-day lifestyle.

Sorry, by locally produced, I'm referring to (mostly) foodstuffs, additionally, local small retailers that were resellers.

> Sorry, by locally produced, I'm referring to (mostly) foodstuffs, additionally, local small retailers that were resellers.

A town in the Great Plains doesn't have a climate fit to make most foods locally, unless you call taking shipped-in ingredients and cooking them "making" food.