221–230 of 261 posts
Brings to mind Vimes' "'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness", from Terry Pratchett's Discworld: "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and…
Stupid question from someone who doesn’t live in the US. Do they actually only sell sub-$1 products? It seems they have been operating for 30y. Inflation must severely restrict the range of products you can offer over such a long time.
Dollar tree used to sell everything for $1: I don't know if they still do or not. The products they sell are limited, and very, very, very cheap. It is amazing, really. Dollar General and Family Dollar both sell things over a dollar.
Yes, everything is $1.
Stupid question from someone who doesn’t live in the US. Do they actually only sell sub-$1 products? It seems they have been operating for 30y. Inflation must severely restrict the range of products you can offer over such a long time.
This has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but to clarify: the business model used to be "everything (almost) is a dollar." Now it has shifted to "Everything is a (seemingly) low price, and all prices are rounded off." The strategy is predatory: You take a product like name-brand dish soap, divide it up into smaller containers (but not small enough to be obvious!) and presto, your soap is "cheaper" per unit, wh…
No, it does not work like that. They take no-name soap and water it down so a 32oz bottle is $1. The stuff is more stepped-on then frat house cocaine.
They also have smaller, more concentrated bottles. That is what I buy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that private equity firm is largely made up of capital from pension funds, charitable endowments, and university endowments. Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town. That allows all of us to diversity our risk across geographic areas. I’d much rather own a small slice of grocery stores i…
I suspect the correlation between shopping at dollar stores and having significant investment fund exposure is a lot lower than you're implying.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-dollar-stores-became-...
Stupid question from someone who doesn’t live in the US. Do they actually only sell sub-$1 products? It seems they have been operating for 30y. Inflation must severely restrict the range of products you can offer over such a long time.
It's not clear to me what the problem is that the article is outlining. The Dollar General near me has the exact same brands as you would find in any larger retail establishment, they just have found a way to stock the 80% that folks typically need. They are filling a niche between the gas station convenience store and traditional grocery/big box retail. They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After a couple of levels of indirection, I think the whole argument hinges on one anecdote. It might indicate a general pattern, but no actual authoritative sources back it up. Original Article quotes "growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are triggering the closure of grocery stores, e…
There is a presumption here that "local" grocery stores are an unalloyed good. In my experience, having grown up in these kinds of places, they were often more exploitive and extractive than the national chains. When Walmart rolls into town, many times it breaks a local monopoly that used this fact to its advantage with both customers and employees. A problem in the US is that there are many thousands of communities…
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This is the same argument about local newspapers - sure it is probably good to have local reporters covering local events, but replacing $5/line classified ads with Facebook Marketplace probably had a more positive impact on people vs. biased and poorly-read write-ups of a city counsel meetings ever did.
Moving local news to Facebook sounds like exactly the wrong thing to do. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/solution-trump-biden-polarizat... > Studies show a direct correspondence between the closing of newspapers and the polarization of people formerly served by those newspapers.
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Costco is a great place to buy non-perishables, dry goods, and stuff you can freeze the excess of. I agree it's hard to eat the fresh stuff but then again I don't have a family.
If I had the room for it it might make more sense, but alas I live in an apartment and can't store 12 paper towel rolls.