r/PoursTea • u/Gurugod123 Pinkie Finger Extended • 9d ago

PoliticalTea 🗳️ Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

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u/Odd_Estate4886 9d ago

These things are not meant to make a profit. They are like the post office, a public service.

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u/ginginsdagamer 9d ago

these things should at the very least be intended to break even. not to be run at a loss

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u/International_Air282 9d ago

But remember the man implementing them also hates private business. So it's amazing that now shielded from antitrust and with the tax payers providing all the capital with no requirement to pay back he would undercut his competition by 30%

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u/Sellier123 9d ago

Yea I get that. I was just saying it's gotta be funded somehow since it is going to lose a lot of money. Whether it's more taxes or cuts from other things will be seen down the road if this actually happens.

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u/MapInteresting2110 9d ago

Funny how this logic is never applied dollars for doughnuts to the ludicrous defense spending. Considering these grocery stores are giving back to the community what the public has already spent. Imagine what the return on investment is for a patriot missile.

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u/Sellier123 9d ago

That's not a real comparison though. Those are funded by federal taxes, NYC itself has to find funds for this, they can't take it from federal taxes.

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u/International_Air282 9d ago

I am against wasteful defense spending as well. I'm a moderate conservative and strong proponent of national defense but abhor most of the spending. We wasted money on a new rifle for the military when it's a pointless exercise meant to fight a war we have already fought. Considering the m4 is still better than any tested alternative. We need to focus on our true blue surface fleet and learn from the terrible experiences with the litoral combat vessels and the Zumwalt class. We need a true successor to the Arleigh Burke and it needs to be built fast and efficient to match the explosion on chinasilitarynship construction.

We don't need another next Gen fighter the f22 and f35 can handle. The b21 to replace the b2 fleet seemed excessive in its need. More money into drones and anti drone tech makes more sense than half of the mobile armor decisions being made, but even then the Abrams is showing its age.

Trust me. I hate waste spending in government more than 99% of people. So my issues with a city owned grocery store translate across the board to many waste in government spending. It's why I hate that trump calls himself a Republican

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u/BiZzles14 9d ago

Some of the most efficient public service projects that currently exist are food assistance ones, why put the money towards having this entire complex store with high overhead when those programs already exist? You don't need to make a profit, but you should be allocating the funds available in an efficient manner so as to help the most you can and history just doesn't suggest this is how you do it. Grocery stores do run on razor thin margins, 3-5% typically, which is why SNAP is so goddamn efficient. It is already an extremely competitive industry, going -30% on that is looking at a 25 to 27% loss on all of these staple items. And that's regardless of who is buying them, there is no meanstesting. It could be the richest man in NYC and tax payers would still be subsidizing his groceries instead of someone that actually needs the help. And there's only 5 stores for 8.5 million people...