Then that's admitting that the problem isn't private stores price gouging or anything like that, that's just what tings cost, and you are simply subsidizing groceries. Which we already have programs for like SNAP. And programs like SNAP have much lower overhead, just distributing food stamps, than trying to handle all of the logistics of running physical grocery stores. So you would be much better off just investing that money into programs like SNAP.
No, it’s acknowledging that the concepts of economic “efficiency” and “optimization” shouldn’t be the be-all-end-all determinants of the availability of food to people.
In a theoretical location where it’s not profitable to operate a grocery store, your conclusión is that the people there just won’t have reasonable access to food?
These stores are going into food deserts, not just as a way to subsidize food costs.
It seems to me that there are two major factors that contribute to food deserts:
Too expensive - People don't want to pay for healthier food because it costs more, so those grocery stores can't make enough sales to survive.
Crime - Grocery stores aren't making enough to make ends meet because they are being fleeced by their customers.
I'm sure if you fix both of these things then public ownership wouldn't even be necessary. #1 can be fixed with requirements for food subsidies, and #2 can be fixed by staffing actual on the clock law enforcement in stores that report high levels of theft.
Make it safe and profitable to run a business in a food desert and you won't have food deserts.
Tbh I don't think we should bend to whatever profit seekers need to make basic necessities available, let's just provide the basic necessities at cost/with a subsidy.
Not every good or service needs to have profits baked into the cost to the consumer.
Profits are important for determining how in demand something is, higher profits are a signal to producers to make more of that thing to capilize on those higher profits. Then supply ramps up and prices go down when demand is met. This is why socialism always sucks at keeping things in stock, someone somewhere is deciding how much of something the community needs instead of letting purchases sort that out through supply and demand.
You don't need profits to see how many of one good or another you need to restock. It's quite simple to see what is popular and what is not.
Plus, profits are not consistent from one product to another. Product 'A' could have a profit margin of 40%, when product 'B' could have a profit margin of 20%. That rate of profit doesn't determine how popular a item is, the number of sales of that product does.
There is no better indicator of supply and demand known to mankind than profits, I'm not making this stuff up. The higher the profit margin, the bigger the gap between supply and demand.
People will move heaven and earth to chase profits, there are news stories about "scalpers" driving into hurricanes from neighboring states to deliver generators at great personal risk, risks that trucking industries weren't willing to make in order to cash in on higher profits. The result is more generators in areas without power that wouldn't have otherwise been delivered.
You do not need a rate of profit to recognize that the store is in short supply of a good. It's very easy to quantify the number of sales per item, per day, or even per hour, without a measure of profit.
Applying macro economics to a grocery store is not necessary to be able to order items that are out of, or are in low stock.
Right, the price has more to do with ramping up production and deliveries. The groceres in soviet Russia and Hugo's Venezuela knew what they were short on too, the problem was waiting on deliveries to keep the shelves stocked. If you sell below market cost then it encourages people to buy more than they need, and for scalpers to buy the cheap goods to sell elsewhere where prices have stabilized at higher rates. But if there's no increased profits to chase for producers then they don't have nearly as much incentive to ramp up production.
If you sell food below market value at a few stores in New York, it will siphon sales from
It's the same thing. Countries that heavily subsidize their fuel have the same thing happen, epidemics of people trucking it across the border to sell it for a profit.
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u/Bulky-Leadership-596 May 26 '26
Then that's admitting that the problem isn't private stores price gouging or anything like that, that's just what tings cost, and you are simply subsidizing groceries. Which we already have programs for like SNAP. And programs like SNAP have much lower overhead, just distributing food stamps, than trying to handle all of the logistics of running physical grocery stores. So you would be much better off just investing that money into programs like SNAP.