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At some point you have to blame the other people who kept it going for 50 years now.
Once again, much of the state of America can be summarized as "this awful experience is a direct result of the Reagan administration, but most people don't realize it".
The 1980s was a huge inflection point for our economy overall. It was the beginning of the baby boom. The end of Bretton Woods was just being felt. Instantaneous international markets were a thing for the first time.
You can pull as many threads as you want to make the case that it all points to the minutia of a single administration - but they just happened to be at the wheel when the tide was changing.
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 is false - if people have the option, they prefer the locally grown, locally owned and operated smaller stores that might cost more, or farmer's markets, or ethically sourced food. If a consumer has low income, or is in a food desert, they don't have the option, and the economics of Walmart mean that there's no way for such a small business to compete unless you're basically running it as a charity, or you're do…
If the close store is the same price, then for sure, everyone will prefer what's nearby. If it is one hundred times the price (hyperbole) then everyone will take the drive. At some point of price differential is the current situation where people who are already forced to have cars will frequently take the drive for less expensive groceries. It's prima fascia the case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it’s a roundabout way of saying that when government bureaucrats decide to stop enforcing a law passed by congress, grocery corporations will actively work to grow larger and close stores in Black neighborhoods. Don’t retroactively assign preference to the mother who walks to the grocery store a block away only find it is closed and was forced to take a bus to Walmart, that mother was not exercising a preference.…
> grocery corporations will actively work to grow larger and close stores in Black neighborhoods If black neighborhoods are underserved, go make a fortune in black neighborhood grocery stores or their suppliers.
Once again, much of the state of America can be summarized as "this awful experience is a direct result of the Reagan administration, but most people don't realize it".
This is an intellectually lazy argument. The 1980s was a huge inflection point for our economy overall. It was the beginning of the baby boom. The end of Bretton Woods was just being felt. Instantaneous international markets were a thing for the first time. You can pull as many threads as you want to make the case that it all points to the minutia of a single administration - but they just happened to be at the wheel…
Which baby boom are you talking about?
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 claim is not that bigger stores used their pricing power to get cheaper deals and passed that savings along to consumers who then preferred them and their lower prices. The claim is that the large grocery chains are able to use their pricing power to demand prices that squeeze suppliers, keeping the difference for the grocer, not for the consumer. Their ability to do this has increased the more consolidat…
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 claim is not that bigger stores used their pricing power to get cheaper deals and passed that savings along to consumers who then preferred them and their lower prices. The claim is that the large grocery chains are able to use their pricing power to demand prices that squeeze suppliers, keeping the difference for the grocer, not for the consumer. Their ability to do this has increased the more consolidat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When Robinson-Patman was enforced, suppliers had to offer the same deal to all grocers The law made it so no one had the position to squeeze suppliers for lower prices and as a result, consumers paid more for groceries. If the suppliers were shifting their costs unduly to small retailers, then there was a market for new suppliers. If retailers were a monopoly they would have raised prices, and that hasn't happened.…
> If retailers were a monopoly they would have raised prices, and that hasn't happened. Huh? Where have you been the past few years?? The price of groceries has gone way up, and this might have even determined the outcome of the Presidential election.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When it was no longer enforced, the big chains used their market power to extract special deals from suppliers, and thus Sentences like this make me realize nobody writing about these problems has any actual experience in the grocery industry. Grocery store margins are insanely thin. The relationship you have is backwards - suppliers and distributors have insane leverage over grocery stores. Massive brands essentia…
> suppliers and distributors have insane leverage over grocery stores. > The only leverage grocery stores offer is volume pricing. This is directly contradicted by the article: "Congressional hearings and a federal investigation found that A&P possessed an advantage that had nothing to do with greater efficiency, better service, or other legitimate ways of competing. Instead, A&P used its sheer size to pressure suppl…
The A&P case was from the 1930s. It goes without saying that the grocery industry is a lot different today than it was. Robinson-Patman was a pretty obscure law, and it probably wouldn't have had much effect either way on preventing the rise of the supermarket chains despite much of the conjecture in this article.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an intellectually lazy argument. The 1980s was a huge inflection point for our economy overall. It was the beginning of the baby boom. The end of Bretton Woods was just being felt. Instantaneous international markets were a thing for the first time. You can pull as many threads as you want to make the case that it all points to the minutia of a single administration - but they just happened to be at the wheel…
> It was the beginning of the baby boom. Which baby boom are you talking about?
The baby boom was 50s and 60s, so late 80s is when they started working and consuming things.