[lotsofpulp]

It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper.

Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.

Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor.

Which means the solution is giving poor people money.

But that is not a winning political position, so we have all these nonsense proposals.

[acdha]

> Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.

For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.

I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down.

The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.

[rsynnott]

> In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.

I'm kind of curious what is different about the US environment that makes this the case. Most large European cities have supermarkets (national chains) all over the place. To the point that it gets a bit silly; I've got about five Tescos in easy walking distance, which have the same prices as other Tescos (one is a Tesco Metro, which is slightly more expensive).

[acdha]

In the U.S., the answer usually comes back to racism. In the post-WWII era, a lot of mostly-white people moved to the suburbs. This pulled a lot of tax base and business away and also lead to a lot of neighborhoods being partitioned by highways so the suburban office workers could commute faster. In some areas, that combined with politics problems lead to riots in the 60s which further damaged many neighborhoods. All of that lead businesses not to invest or to pull out of less profitable neighborhoods. People who could afford cars would accelerate the shift by driving to the higher-end markets, so this can produce a negative feedback loop over decades, especially when businesses aren’t jumping to put money into remodeling or upgrading those locations.

Every time I’ve been in Europe I keep asking why we can’t have those markets, too. Trying to minimize time spent out of our cars and avoid contact with our neighbors has had a really big price.

[rsynnott]

It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?

[nobody9999]

>It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?

That's true. There are a couple of Costcos, but since I don't own a car (like most New Yorkers) it's not all that useful.

And supermarkets in NYC (in car-centric places some NYC supermarkets are smaller than gas station convenience stores) are definitely more expensive than supermarkets outside NYC.

What's more, the "food deserts" that Mamdani's proposal is trying to address don't have any supermarkets and folks are forced to take the bus or the subway to shop for groceries. I'd also note that most subway stations do not have elevators, making it much more difficult to shop for any length of time, especially for older, less mobile folks.

[ceejayoz]

> Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins.

And yet, plenty to spend billions on share buybacks.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/kroger-albert...

[lotsofpulp]

What else should Kroger do with their $2.6B net income from $147B of revenue? Buybacks are just a more tax efficient form of distributing profits compared to dividends, which is the reason people invest in stable businesses that are not going to experience growth.

Otherwise, it would be a charity.

[ceejayoz]

I mean, this line hints at at least one alternative they've in fact done a little in the past.

> Kroger said it would repurchase $7.5 billion of its shares after a more than two-year pause, with $5 billion of that to be repurchased in an accelerated fashion — the same sum that Kroger estimated Wednesday it has spent to lowering prices over the past 21 years.

[lotsofpulp]

That alternative is so that they can compete with Walmart and Costco and Aldi and Winco and survive.

How anyone can complain about a 2% profit margin, especially on a forum where workers earn high salaries because they work for businesses with 20%+ profit margins, is beyond me. Expecting every organization to be a charity seems a bit immature.

[ceejayoz]

> How anyone can complain about a 2% profit margin, especially on a forum where workers earn high salaries because they work for businesses with 20%+ profit margins, is beyond me.

I'd very much rather be in the business of selling $100B at 2% profit margin than selling $100k at 50% profit margin. Same for health insurers - they have enormous volume. Low-margin isn't a great defense, especially as it's a gameable metric; you can reduce margins in all sorts of ways.

Like, say, spending some on private jets. https://nbaa.org/membership/member-profiles/the-kroger-co/

[lotsofpulp]

> I'd very much rather be in the business of selling $100B at 2% profit margin than selling $100k at 50% profit margin.

How is this relevant? A business’s goal is to earn a return for shareholders. A business also needs sufficient profit margin to weather volatility.

It is quite evident that with current technology, the business of retailing groceries, and retail in general needs about a 2% profit margin to survive long term, and earn a sufficient return to be worth investing in. Same for insurance.

Obviously, this is an objectively low amount of profit margin, given that 0% is a charity. So again, how can one complain about a business earning too much money when there exists no competitor that can deliver these goods at a lower profit margin?

The argument is in the same vein of there is no labor shortage, just a shortage of buyers able and willing to pay enough.

[TulliusCicero]

> It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins.

And yet Aldi's prices in the states are more than 2% below Albertson's. Almost like there actually is more room for improvement?

[lotsofpulp]

Aldi is a limited service grocer that doesn't have to deal with employee unions and costly departments like meat/deli/bakery/etc.

That is the underlying story, is that fewer Americans can afford the full service grocer (or maybe don't want to patronize due to smaller household sizes and less cooking). Also, Aldi has successfully fended off unions, which are mostly a thing legacy grocers like Albertsons and Kroger have to deal with.

[Izkata]

Part of Mamdani's plan is to increase taxes on white neighborhoods, which could be used to offset cost and make it seem cheaper.

[nobody9999]

That's a straight up lie.

Please show me where any plan like that is published. And specifically which neighborhoods that every white person will pay more taxes. The actuarials say I should live another 25 years or so. I'll wait.

Or are you referring to the proposed 2% increase in income taxes for folks making over USD$1,000,000/annum, which has exactly zero to do with location (other than NYC as a whole)?

Such an increase, while suggested by Mamdani, is not within the purview of the mayor of NYC to implement. Rather, any tax increase must be passed by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor. The most NYC's mayor can do is ask the state.

Are you that uninformed? Do you even live in NY State?

[Izkata]

First bullet point on page 4: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iGn9ws9Ds0x_3kkB1tdM2pxLlbk...

From https://nypost.com/2025/06/27/us-news/socialist-nyc-mayoral-...

If it was just about wealth, why bring race into it?

[nobody9999]

What you linked says:

   The property tax system is unbalanced because assessment levels are 
   artificially capped, so homeowners in  expensive neighborhoods pay less than 
   their fair share.

Why is raising caps on property taxes in richer neighborhoods, regardless of ethnicity a bad thing? Why should a home worth $500,000 be taxed almost the same as a home worth $2,500,000?

As for "richer and whiter" neighborhoods, the median income for "white" folks is ~$108,000 and everyone else is 35-51% less[0]. As such, given the income breakdowns, "whiter" neighborhoods are richer neighborhoods.

Or are you arguing that more expensive properties should have a lower tax rate because more "white" people live there?

What's more you (and the NY Post, that racist rag) take a single word and completely ignore the actual intent of the proposal, which like pretty much every other tax, isn't set by the mayor, but by the state legislature and the governor.

Thanks for repeating white supremacist talking points. If I need more, I know where to find them.

[0] https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/new-york-ny-median-househ...

[Izkata]

You realize none of that actually answers my question, right? Why bring race into it at all if it's just about wealth?

[nobody9999]

Are you making the claim that only "white" people live in the neighborhoods under discussion?

Or are you making that claim that those neighborhoods should only have "white" people?

As much as I've given you the benefit of the doubt, it's pretty clear you're not posting in good faith in any of the multiple interactions we've had in this specific discussion. I'm done.