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Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

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Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#21

Post by arcticbull »

gruez wrote: post #20
arcticbull wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many p…

>There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Source? Looking at sasktel's website and rogers' website, this claim does not pass the sniff test. Their "basic" plan is $60/month (BYOD) for 15GB of data, whereas rogers gives you 75GB for $65. Even if you don't use 15GB of data and tha…

Probably marketing/promos for new customers vs. actual realized, and I strongly suspect if you click through those Rogers plans you'll land on a much higher total cost.

https://hellosafe.ca/en/telecommunications/cell-phone-plans/...

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#22

Post by 99_00 »

1. Online prices are not the same as in store prices

2. No one, other than random people in messages forums, is alleging collusion or price fixing. No one at any university, not the government, not the media.

3. The government’s investigation, which many of the conspiracy theorists site as evidence, shows a lack of competition led to 1 or 2 % increase in price over 12 years, and the vast majority of the price increases was due to things like war in Ukraine, Covid restrictions, fuel prices due to energy crisis.

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#23

Post by gruez »

ziddoap wrote: post #17
aga98mtl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains. As you point out the margins are super tight in food retail, it is impossible for it to be the cause of inflation. From the point of view of the average man however, the grocery store is exactly where he is facing inflation daily! This makes it the ideal scapegoat. The average…

> I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains In Canada, the grocery stores were caught colluding. Recently. Is it still a "boogeyman" when they were caught in a 15 year long collusion scheme?

As mentioned in the government report linked in the OP[1], grocery profits have only went up 1-2 percentage points. It's totally fair and justified to attribute that to evil grocery stores, but the rhetoric coming from politicians, journalists, or voters? Or is it something less nuanced like "greed grocery stores are driving inflation"?

[1] https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competiti...

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#24

Post by derefr »

arcticbull wrote: post #19
ziddoap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one reason is that Canada had a ~15 year bread price-fixing scandal come to light somewhat recently. And the same people that colluded on bread just so happen to sell other grocery goods. Some people think: "hey, maybe we should check out the other stuff they sell". Which seems reasonable to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada From an anecdotal standpoint, when many of the groceries I…

Sure, but even during the price fixing period Loblaws' profit margin was sub-5%, and currently sits a 3.3%. Yes, it obviously shouldn't have happened, but there's no piñata of profit just waiting to be smashed apart that would magically drop grocery bills.

The profit margin figure cited for grocers is the margin on their "main business" — i.e. revenue on grocery goods sold minus cost of grocery goods from suppliers.

But this ignores other ways grocers make money (at much higher margin) — e.g. by charging their suppliers for shelf space/positioning.

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#25

Post by mewse-hn »

arcticbull wrote: post #14
tomComb wrote: post #5

Oh man, we really need this for telecom too. And even more important than their collusion is their political corruption, so the government protects them from competition and funnels endless billions in taxpayer money to them.

You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many p…

> Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom.

There are a lot of us in Manitoba who know this was a crime and we can do fuck-all to change it

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#26

Post by arcticbull »

derefr wrote: post #24
arcticbull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but even during the price fixing period Loblaws' profit margin was sub-5%, and currently sits a 3.3%. Yes, it obviously shouldn't have happened, but there's no piñata of profit just waiting to be smashed apart that would magically drop grocery bills.

The profit margin figure cited for grocers is the margin on their "main business" — i.e. revenue on grocery goods sold minus cost of grocery goods from suppliers. But this ignores other ways grocers make money (at much higher margin) — e.g. by charging their suppliers for shelf space/positioning.

No that's their total net profit margin as reported in the earnings statements.

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#27

Post by [deleted] »

arcticbull wrote: post #14
tomComb wrote: post #5

Oh man, we really need this for telecom too. And even more important than their collusion is their political corruption, so the government protects them from competition and funnels endless billions in taxpayer money to them.

You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many p…

[deleted]

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#28

Post by ziddoap »

arcticbull wrote: post #19
ziddoap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one reason is that Canada had a ~15 year bread price-fixing scandal come to light somewhat recently. And the same people that colluded on bread just so happen to sell other grocery goods. Some people think: "hey, maybe we should check out the other stuff they sell". Which seems reasonable to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada From an anecdotal standpoint, when many of the groceries I…

Sure, but even during the price fixing period Loblaws' profit margin was sub-5%, and currently sits a 3.3%. Yes, it obviously shouldn't have happened, but there's no piñata of profit just waiting to be smashed apart that would magically drop grocery bills.

That's overall profit margin, right?

So they can collude on just a few essentials, like I don't know... Bread maybe? And make an absolute killing on bread and mask those profits by claiming that their overall profits are down?

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#29

Post by CodeWriter23 »

ziddoap wrote: post #17
aga98mtl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains. As you point out the margins are super tight in food retail, it is impossible for it to be the cause of inflation. From the point of view of the average man however, the grocery store is exactly where he is facing inflation daily! This makes it the ideal scapegoat. The average…

> I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains In Canada, the grocery stores were caught colluding. Recently. Is it still a "boogeyman" when they were caught in a 15 year long collusion scheme?

What does “caught colluding” mean? If it is some of Trudeau’s stooges said so, I would not believe it for a second.

Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector

#30

Post by ziddoap »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #29
ziddoap wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains In Canada, the grocery stores were caught colluding. Recently. Is it still a "boogeyman" when they were caught in a 15 year long collusion scheme?

What does “caught colluding” mean? If it is some of Trudeau’s stooges said so, I would not believe it for a second.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada

>If it is some of Trudeau’s stooges said so, I would not believe it for a second.

What a silly statement. But no, there were confessions and fines and everything!

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