The discourse is broken27 июл., 20:49Chains like Dollar General have proliferated by selling almost exclusively processed, shelf-stable foods because those have the best profit margins because there’s no risk of spoilage and your stock can stay on the shelf until it sells.
The discourse is broken27 июл., 21:28And a key reason food deserts exist in the first place is that grocery stores find they can’t maintain a profit. Oddly one of the actual benefits of mixed-income neighborhoods (aka gentrification) is that having shoppers who can afford high-end products helps keep them in business.
Secession anticipator27 июл., 21:31Yeah this would be a big issue. If the NYC stores have good meat and produce for 30% off then wealthier people from other places will travel there, especially if the mayor is talking them up. If they have low quality food that's insulting to the people they're trying to help
Alex28 июл., 15:37Wealthier people in NYC are more likely to have cars and reasonable work hours so not only can they travel there it's easier for them to travel there and buy a lot of groceries in a way someone carrying their bags can't (I lived without a car in NYC for 9 years, now live Albany and own a car)
Secession anticipator27 июл., 21:32You could have some kind of membership to shop but that's more administration and you're just re-inventing the co-op.
Lollerisms28 июл., 03:10If you wanted to make a less favorable comparison gating welfare to address is how the hukou system in China works and that is *rife* with abuses.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 00:37Also want to add this is not the policy he campaigned on, which came from a belief that creating city-run stores that eliminated profit concerns would offer substantial relief for grocery prices, not just a few percentage points.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 00:37Increasing income-based food relief would actually be a better, more equitable use of tax dollars, and one I’d support. This is subsidizing select items to put some smoke and mirrors around the fact his campaign promise was, as I said, dumb in the first place as far as broadly addressing costs.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 00:37Another aspect of this is that it won’t really be more than a test run by 2029 when his first new store actually opens, which is also when he’s up for reelection.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 00:37There’s already a push on his side to make this permanent before we even see how it plays out, and he’ll need to find city budget for this without an annual bailout from the state.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 19:27One point getting lost here is that you could have public-run non-profit groceries in areas that need a grocery, but overall prices would not be substantially lower. Again, that could be a good thing for addressing food access. But this has been sold as a way to address the cost of food.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 19:27The theory this comes from is the idea that everything would be not just a little bit cheaper but *cheap* if you simply removed the capitalism, and the capitalism in the case of grocery *stores* is a narrow profit margin.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 19:27Subsidizing losses at these stores is just a stunt to prove the model works and would make everything magically cheaper, and it’s much less efficient than existing food subsidies for the people most in need.
The discourse is broken28 июл., 19:27A non-profit store would be only slightly cheaper, but you would actually serve these neighborhoods and have less chance of resellers or restaurant suppliers or other issues this introduces.
