31–40 of 123 posts
Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr are the 3 presidents that have obliterated the working class. Unrestrained capitalism creates monopolies and those 3 presidents created an environment for monopolies to flourish. Reagan started things off by deregulating businesses and rewarding big business for "efficiency". Which really just translated into big businesses buying out the competition and jacking up the prices. Clinton con…
Its kind of interesting if Walmart and/or Costco has squeezed prices so low that you could potentially use it as the basis for informal neighborhood bulk buying co-op. Like an Uber app which coordinated grocery buying and splitting up bulk packaged foods into smaller purchase sizes.
Call around your local distributors and ask if they'll work with a food buyers club.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that's a thing for alibaba already
I don't think alibaba handles grocery as far as I know - at least in the US. Probably it is most similar to Instacart/Amazon Grocery delivery but the issue with these is that they are more oriented toward high value, high convenience, high immediacy, highly customizable orders for groceries items. The flip side would be a set time (i.e. Saturday or Sunday), a set location (i.e. local school parking lot), a set number…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only a democrat majority had been elected at any point in the last 40 years that could have fixed this.
Democrats have not had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate since before Reagan, and they're constantly up against the asymmetry that breaking things is a lot easier than building them. The side that wants government not to work has a huge structural advantage in any argument (even apart from their structural electoral advantages thanks to letting empty fields carry as much weight as cities) since they "win" by…
Republicans have not had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate since 1907.
Isn't this a roundabout way of saying that, absent government coercion, consumer preference tends to be towards buying cheaper groceries at a big consolidated store a drive away, than a more expensive nearby store? Isn't the real boogieman here rules (zoning, parking requirements, etc) and subsidies (oil industry) than mean we all live in diffuse single-use residential communities and have to have cars to get to work…
This seems to be missing the point, which has nothing to do with consumer preference. When Robinson-Patman was enforced, suppliers had to offer the same deal to all grocers, so prices were the same at the nearby stores. When it was no longer enforced, the big chains used their market power to extract special deals from suppliers, and thus, "Squeezed by the big chains, suppliers were forced to offset their losses by raising prices for smaller retailers"
Consumers vote with their wallets that they prefer the big box stores. Reagan removed bargaining restrictions on big box stores, which lowered prices. Bad or good for consumers? Does it matter if you need to drive 8 or 11 miles (non-desert vs. desert) to buy boxed cereals and processed food? CostCo rides the same dynamic, at scale. CostCo deserts? Want to fix it, HN-style? Create a startup! But more regulation? Ffs.
A startup that delivers groceries? Interesting idea...
Isn't this a roundabout way of saying that, absent government coercion, consumer preference tends to be towards buying cheaper groceries at a big consolidated store a drive away, than a more expensive nearby store? Isn't the real boogieman here rules (zoning, parking requirements, etc) and subsidies (oil industry) than mean we all live in diffuse single-use residential communities and have to have cars to get to work…
The article even tacitly admits the solution to the food desert problem is by... making groceries more expensive.
>The problem of food deserts will not be solved without the rediscovery of the Robinson-Patman Act. Requiring a level pricing playing field would restore local retailers’ ability to compete.
Consumers vote with their wallets that they prefer the big box stores. Reagan removed bargaining restrictions on big box stores, which lowered prices. Bad or good for consumers? Does it matter if you need to drive 8 or 11 miles (non-desert vs. desert) to buy boxed cereals and processed food? CostCo rides the same dynamic, at scale. CostCo deserts? Want to fix it, HN-style? Create a startup! But more regulation? Ffs.
> Low access is characterized by at least 500 people and/or 33 percent of the tract population residing more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery in urban areas, and more than 10 miles in rural areas
(source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_er... )
Interestingly enough, this is measured by the euclidian distance, not by the actual number of miles required to travel.
> Prior to that, small towns and poor neighborhoods could generally count on having a grocery store, perhaps even several. The small, corner grocery store back in the day didn't have much selection though. Hence the takeover of super -markets. For better and worse, their role has mostly been supplanted by gas stations and dollar stores which still populate a lot of these food deserts.
How did you read the article and come to that conclusion? Small towns and poor neighborhoods all had grocery stores, and competed fine with supermarkets, until Robinson-Patman stopped being enforced.
Isn't this a roundabout way of saying that, absent government coercion, consumer preference tends to be towards buying cheaper groceries at a big consolidated store a drive away, than a more expensive nearby store? Isn't the real boogieman here rules (zoning, parking requirements, etc) and subsidies (oil industry) than mean we all live in diffuse single-use residential communities and have to have cars to get to work…