131–140 of 191 posts
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What if it was possible to stock products during the day?
It sort of doesn't matter. The point is that if the goods are being sold below market value then you will either have shortages, rationing, or accelerating losses. This has always been a problem in non-market socialism.
They don't run out, and Walmart doesn't go buy all of them to resell.
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It also doesn't seem fair to compete against stores that have to pay rent and taxes.
A gov run grocery store will have to pay rent and taxes. The only difference is it doesn’t have to make profits to pay its owners. The question is, why are you prioritizing being “fair” to people profiting off hunger, over being fair to working people trying to eat? Even if it is “unfair” this is a kind of unfair we should all support (assuming it succeeds at feeding people).
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Again: > The USSR has tried this. Lets not. would rule out things like "going to the moon" or "building roads". It's a pretty useless rubric. I am not doubting the USSR fucked all sorts of things up. I'm doubting that that inherently means those things must be impossible.
Updated - since my text was confusing. The subject at hand is subsidized grocery stores, the USSR is an example of failed centrally planned subsidized grocery stores.
The USSR is an example of many failed things. That they failed at those things does not mean those things cannot be done.
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It represents the privatized waste figure out of your grocery bill that is not going to the food you are bringing home.
See my previous comment: >That doesn't mean it's suddenly worth doing unless you can make the argument that it scales easily. Otherwise it's like saying "you know what everyone should do? Raise their own chickens! Sure, you might be only saving $1 or whatever a day, but multiply that 365 days per year and 340 million Americans, and that's billions we're all collectively saving!" And no, running a grocery store isn't…
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The whole egg fiasco is as far as I am concerned the biggest proof of price gouging cartel behavior there is. And people assume it is normal. Vast majority of product sold when inventory is low, they just go out of stock still at MSRP right to the last sku in the inventory. Then, you wait until more are available, also at that same price. Really, why would prices go up for the eggs in this situation if not for gougin…
>Really, why would prices go up for the eggs in this situation if not for gouging? [...] Supply and demand. Just like blocking the Strait of Hormuz doesn't make oil 2x more expensive to produce everywhere else in the world, you're still left with the problem that the world has ~20% less oil to go around. That means the price of oil gets bid up until it's high enough to convince 20% of oil consumers to stop using oil.
> “Some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that government cannot keep up with corporations. My answer to them is simple: I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win,” Mamdani said. Well it's interesting enough to try. Are they going to keep the stores open at a loss, that's not really competing then, is it? If they sell things that are much cheaper, restaurants could…
> If they sell things that are much cheaper, restaurants could start sourcing their food from there, too. Why get your chicken from some supplier if you can buy it from a cheaper government run store at much less. Restaurants already do this. They buy from wholesalers, because they're cheaper than the grocery store.
But now grocery stores could be cheaper than wholesalers if there are any subsidies involved or selling at a loss is a thing. Why go to wholesalers when you can camp out with a van by the government subsidized stores when it opens or when delivery comes.
Not saying this is insurmountable, the stores can implement a purchase quota: you get X amount of items per transaction and we take your ID or something. But it opens up that kind of a situation. Like I said, I hope it works, it would be interesting to watch.
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It sort of doesn't matter. The point is that if the goods are being sold below market value then you will either have shortages, rationing, or accelerating losses. This has always been a problem in non-market socialism.
Costco sells chickens as loss-leaders. They don't run out, and Walmart doesn't go buy all of them to resell.
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Those are pretty extraordinary claims with very little evidence. And, even if they are true, the obvious solution would be to enforce the already existing antitrust and competition laws, not to have the government directly engage in commerce.
Too much to write in a HN comment so here is a substack post (1) probably worthy of its own HN post. And how is that the obvious solution? You see who is in the Whitehouse and you think this is a champion of antitrust and lifting up the little man? Quite the opposite. NYC government is a separate entity than federal government with different limits to its powers. They can't do anything about cartel behavior. They can…
It seems to me both that:
1. If this article is true then independent groceries should have a slam dunk in keeping prices low. They aren't subject to the price fixing cartel of the big grocers so if they lower prices they'll drive demand to their store and win out on the market. Margins for staples are quite low anyway so volume is the best way to make profits. This means we should observe independent grocers right now outcompeting large chains or driving costs lower .
2. Alternatively if the price gouging is coming from consolidation of the CPG market then state run grocery stores will be just as ineffective at combatting high prices as independent grocers. I guess one can argue that a sufficiently large amount of state run demand can negotiate better CPG pricing but I'm not sure this experiment is big enough.to leverage this.
Personally I'm not a fan of state run businesses because the US is so polarized. Today's support can turn into tomorrow's opposition. It's hard to build a lasting institution when differences in candidates and parties can wipe out any wins or losses.
Instead I'd like to either see state subsidizing of staples and CPGs using taxes (paying into a food price stabilization fund used to negotiate and aquire staples and CPGs at cost and then resold to grocery stores at lower prices, along with maximum margin guarantees from grocery stores) or I'd like so see an incentive program for independent grocers along with a state blessed way of having disparate grocers negotiate better prices.
But I also don't live in NYC and this initiative's success or failure isn't being run on my tax money.
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It sort of doesn't matter. The point is that if the goods are being sold below market value then you will either have shortages, rationing, or accelerating losses. This has always been a problem in non-market socialism.
Costco sells chickens as loss-leaders. They don't run out, and Walmart doesn't go buy all of them to resell.
The idea that Mamdani is going to undercut a low margin business with higher labor costs is just silly.
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Updated - since my text was confusing. The subject at hand is subsidized grocery stores, the USSR is an example of failed centrally planned subsidized grocery stores.
The text isn't confusing; the conclusion you draw is just unsupported. The USSR is an example of many failed things. That they failed at those things does not mean those things cannot be done.
I was offering a tangible example of where the thing being proposed was a failure.