[halflife]

This sounds extremely non economically viable.

The municipality which has monopoly on land taxes and costs will compete with stores that must pay taxes and rent? Won’t it just cause neighboring stores to close?

Won’t a better option be subsidizing taxes for grocery stores, and let the discounts competitively pass unto the customers?

[bastawhiz]

> and let the discounts competitively pass unto the customers

This is the same trickle down economics principle that has proven not to work over, and over, and over again. There's exactly zero reason to believe these businesses would pass on the savings to consumers.

Consider! Ingles (a supermarket brand here in NC) is criticized for holding huge amounts of abandoned/vacant/dilapidated properties [0], which stifles competition and lets them hold an effective monopoly and makes neighborhoods objectively worse. It's not about the taxes. Don't underestimate a chain's ability to eat costs by maintaining their market position.

[0] https://avlwatchdog.org/opinion-ingles-markets-often-raises-...

[wenc]

You're thinking a tax break which is an unconditional subsidy. That relies on the business passing savings through which folks are right to be skeptical about.

But that's not all subsidy mechanisms. The best ones are where pass-through is enforced, not assumed.

You already know of one that works: WIC. It lowers the effective price for customer, which the store receives as reimbursement.

It's not about trickle-down -- that's ideology. It's more about designing the right mechanism.

[halflife]

I didn’t specify on the subsidies themselves.

You can create subsidies which are inverse to the stores income. It doesn’t HAVE to go to large chains. There are many way to encourage small businesses to open. Competing with them is not one.

[lexicality]

> Won’t a better option be subsidizing taxes for grocery stores, and let the discounts competitively pass unto the customers?

I'm sure this time trickle-down economics will work and not simply line the pockets of business owners

[philipallstar]

It's not trickling down. Lower costs do result in lower prices.

[halflife]

When you have a highly competitive market with plenty of actors lower cost does trickle down. Otherwise you’re talking about an extremely complicated cartel which cannot exist.

[cherry_tree]

Do we have a highly competitive market? If so how do we measure that? If not how do we create one?

[asdff]

Major grocers are more inclined to form cartels on price than to engage in organic competitive action. These businesses are too large and incentives too perverse for free market dynamics to apply anymore.

[gruez]

>Major grocers are more inclined to form cartels on price than to engage in organic competitive action.

Even if we take at face value that this is happening, their margins are famously low (ie. low single digits[1][2]) that any improvements are likely negligible. In the best case scenario where they're run as competently/efficiently as a normal grocery store, but don't take any profits, you'd be saving like 50 cents on a $10 pack of ground beef. Of course, all of this would go out the window if it's less efficient, either due to government incompetence[3], or lack of scale.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ACI/albertsons/pro...

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-m...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_Valley_public_toilet

[ceejayoz]

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_Valley_public_toilet

Mamdani has clearly taken lessons like these to heart.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/nyregion/how-to-build-a-r...

"The Transportation Department workers arrived at 9:15 p.m., right on time. Mr. Boyce and his crew were ready, having fitted the roof and rear wall panel 30 minutes before. By Monday, the structure was nearly complete. “This is all like synchronized swimming,” Mr. Mansylla said. “To build a structure in New York City in, what, 48 hours? That’s as fast as it gets.”

[gruez]

Your article doesn't say anything about cost, only that it got built fast. Every time the toilet example gets cited, the punchline is the cost, not how long it took, although that was appalling as well.

From the wikipedia article:

>The toilet's original proposed cost of $1.7 million inspired media coverage and criticism of the San Francisco government.

[h3lp]

From the wikipedia article:

   Site preparation began in February, 2024;[12] the prefabricated restroom was placed by a crane in March;[2] and installation was completed on April 22, 2024, costing about $200,000 to the city.

so maybe government did the right thing, after trying all the other possibilities.

[b112]

Plus, the cost of building includes a lot of permits, inspections, studies, and money to sldo so. Taxes too.

Was all this waived?

[ceejayoz]

I'm a firm believer that part of progressivism needs to be reining in these sorts of NIMBY obstacles.

[ceejayoz]

Sure... because it was a prefab and still took two years at that cost.

[wahnfrieden]

The consumer cost of overcharges from price-fixed bread in Canada was estimated at 4-5 billion dollars. And that's just bread. Is that negligible?

Usually if someone steals a millionth of that, they go to jail for a very long time.

The same players are now under investigation for selling underweight meats.

[asdff]

The whole egg fiasco is as far as I am concerned the biggest proof of price gouging cartel behavior there is. And people assume it is normal.

Vast majority of product sold when inventory is low, they just go out of stock still at MSRP right to the last sku in the inventory. Then, you wait until more are available, also at that same price.

Really, why would prices go up for the eggs in this situation if not for gouging? Sure plenty of chickens were culled. But the remaining chickens aren't costing more than they did before the cull. Whoever is producing the remaining eggs being produced is producing them for the exact same overhead they have always been producing. Feed is still probably the same. Maybe cheaper with an excess of feed on the market needing to be sold and moved out of feedlots before the next crop comes in, from the chicken culling your competitors were doing. Water is still probably the same. Power is still probably the same. Staff are still getting the same pay. Property taxes are still the same. Really, who is getting the $10 from the $12 dozen of eggs? Probably some guys smoking cigars if we are being honest.

[gruez]

>Really, why would prices go up for the eggs in this situation if not for gouging? [...]

Supply and demand. Just like blocking the Strait of Hormuz doesn't make oil 2x more expensive to produce everywhere else in the world, you're still left with the problem that the world has ~20% less oil to go around. That means the price of oil gets bid up until it's high enough to convince 20% of oil consumers to stop using oil.

[asdff]

You say bid up. I say gouged. Potato Potato I guess.

[_whiteCaps_]

It literally happened here in Canada:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/loblaw-bread-price-settleme...

> The class-action case was brought against a group of companies that includes Loblaw and the Weston companies, Metro, Walmart Canada, Giant Tiger, and Sobeys and its owner, Empire Co. Ltd.

> The plaintiffs allege those companies participated in a 14-year industry-wide price-fixing conspiracy between 2001 and 2015, leading to an artificial increase in packaged bread prices.

[asdff]

Margins being low is fine when you've scaled across a nation. Annual gross profit for Kroger is $34b.

[gruez]

>Annual gross profit for Kroger is $34b.

What's the point of this observation other than for shock value? Yes, when you multiply small percentage by a huge number, you're still left with a huge number. That doesn't mean it's suddenly worth doing unless you can make the argument that it scales easily.

[asdff]

It represents the privatized waste figure out of your grocery bill that is not going to the food you are bringing home.

[gruez]

See my previous comment:

>That doesn't mean it's suddenly worth doing unless you can make the argument that it scales easily.

Otherwise it's like saying "you know what everyone should do? Raise their own chickens! Sure, you might be only saving $1 or whatever a day, but multiply that 365 days per year and 340 million Americans, and that's billions we're all collectively saving!"

And no, running a grocery store isn't something that scales easily.

[woah]

Oh, that must be why the grocery business is wildly profitable

[asdff]

You know what they say about massively consolidated multinational corporations with tens of thousands of employees and millions of square feet in real estate: no one making money there.

[ceejayoz]

Low margins, high volumes.

Walmart has low margins. Walmart is also wildly profitable.

[halflife]

That may be, but you can direct subsidies towards inverse relation to the store’s income. You can even add extra taxes for large chains.

But as others said, groceries are working on minimal margin. And all of them work with the same wholeselles (except those with vertical integrations), and this is a nation wide problem.

[asdff]

>That may be, but you can direct subsidies towards inverse relation to the store’s income. You can even add extra taxes for large chains.

Not really imo. Private market passes costs to consumers and leverages subsidy offers to achieve rat race outcomes out of competing local governments off each other. It is how you end up with the classic case of a city courting some business but offering enough tax abatement where the city isn't actually getting anything out of the business, and once the abatement expire the business just leaves for somewhere else that will cut them a better deal. City ends up hostage to the business demanding ever more favorable incentives and removal of all taxes (there's been free trade zones established in the middle of ho hum suburbs, stuff brought in there doesn't even count as imported to the US).

[halflife]

Interesting. I think it really depends on the competitiveness of the market.

In a highly competitive market, every cost saved would be passed to the consumer, obviously this is simplistic microeconomics and doesn’t actually works this way.

In my city, there’s a supermarket approximately every 150 meters. Food cost is high, but for the entire country. Actually research shows that food cost is higher in low density towns where there is much less competition.

[ilaksh]

I wonder if there is a way to improve pricing more systemically by combating some of this.

Or if there could be some kind of network and information protocol that could provide a decentralized alternative.

Maybe there could be an Internet protocol or NYC Internet protocol that food suppliers could list low price items with. Independent stores could order from here, shipped to their store, or maybe one or two city warehouses where they could pick up.

Maybe another system where suppliers could voluntarily detail cost disruptions, allowing government or other organizations insight and sometimes the possibility of helping alleviate those issues etc.

I mean the government already spends a lot to subsidize retail food purchases. Maybe another idea is just a very easily accessible new app for credits that is NYC only?

It's just that making a single store puts all of the logistical and other issues onto one government department and location, which has been shown in socialist countries to break down.

I am all for a few more socialist policies (I am lucky to have survived this long on outsourcing rates without a consistent healthcare plan), but it definitely needs to be a contemporary effort and not some centralized 1950s model.

[asdff]

This is probably not far off from how things already work in distribution. Most restaurants are ordering from the same food wholesalers in a given region. When I go to more "independent" grocers or local chains they still have much of the same offerings as major grocers in my area, so I'm guessing they also order from the same sets of distributors (or lease shelf space to the same groups). And I'm not talking just the packaged stuff. But when certain varietals come in e.g. Cosmic Crisp apples, its like all the grocery stores in the area are getting the Cosmic Crisp apples over the next few weeks with the same sticker and all.

I know for stuff like seafood there is a saturday night 1am fish market near our harbor where significant volume is sold wholesale to restaurants and grocers (but also individuals interested in filling a chest freezer).

So I think already there are just few places to order food wholesale in a given region so those prices are probably somewhat even. Then of course you go to vons, kroger, ralphs, save4less, the local korean grocer, and see different prices for the exact same commodified product like Cosmic crisp apple or 6 pack of coca cola, there is your markup that comes from the grocer itself on top of the regional wholesale price. Grocers like to have flexibility in markup to play psychological games like rotating sales, coupons, and offer rewards programs. Seems that sort of finagling isn't tolerated at the next level of abstraction in business to business sales.

Cost disruptions might be good to put the blame on who exactly in the chain is gouging prices. At the end of the day, the eggs in the egg shortage were not more costly to produce than beforehand. And the egg farms that were culled of their hens, were probably not that much of an anchor on operations given that they probably were not consuming their usual power, water, farmhands probably all laid off, land bought and paid for probably decades ago by this point, way out in marginal farmland where property taxes are probably quite low. Certainly not enough to quadruple the price of eggs. And how interesting how Trader Joes still sold $2.99 dozen racks during this whole crisis.

[KK7NIL]

Those are pretty extraordinary claims with very little evidence.

And, even if they are true, the obvious solution would be to enforce the already existing antitrust and competition laws, not to have the government directly engage in commerce.

[darth_avocado]

Why is government directly engaging in commerce such a controversial topic. The government already does it in various forms: VA hospitals, Medicare price negotiations, government subsidies in agriculture, owning 10% of Intel etc.

[philipallstar]

I wouldn't argue that the US healthcare system is so good that no market distortion can be detected from its current structure.

[asdff]

>Charges $100 for a tylenol because insurance or medicare will blindly pay for it

Yup no distortions here just good old fashion free market!

[philipallstar]

Indeed.

[asdff]

Too much to write in a HN comment so here is a substack post (1) probably worthy of its own HN post.

And how is that the obvious solution? You see who is in the Whitehouse and you think this is a champion of antitrust and lifting up the little man? Quite the opposite. NYC government is a separate entity than federal government with different limits to its powers. They can't do anything about cartel behavior. They can, however, open a municipal grocery store.

The government engages in commerce all the time. If we took that argument to its logical conclusion there would be no libraries as they compete with book stores. There would be no armies as they compete with Blackrock mercenaries. No public transit as it competes with private transit. No public events as that competes with ticketmaster. No public schools. No public universities. No scientific research grants. No sheltering or feeding the poor. No treating the sick. No treating veterans. No bridges. No roads. No harbors. No anything. What really would be the role of government after we stripped it of all its potential influences on the world of commerce? I can't even imagine what might even be left...

No, it seems a big role in this country for government is facilitating conditions for commerce. Educating the populace such as to upskill the nation's labor pool. Building roads free for businesses to use in transporting goods to market. Treating the sick before they get so ill as to be an undue burden on the medical system that threatens its entire latent capacity. Offering cheaper food seems in line with that. People aren't going to use the spare money to throw into a river; they will use their extra money to circulate back into the economy probably in more productive ways than Kroger buying back its stock or its executives or shareholders squandering it on oysters and boat fuel.

1. https://grocerynerd.substack.com/p/grocery-update-17-how-gro...

[KK7NIL]

That post was not at all worth my time, it just cherry picked data without ever putting it together to show intentional price manipulation or monopolistic behavior (no, showing concentration isn't enough).

> They can't do anything about cartel behavior.

Incorrect, several states have passed their own antitrust laws, there's nothing that limits it to the federal government.

> The government engages in commerce all the time. If we took that argument to its logical conclusion there would be no libraries as they compete with book stores. There would be no armies as they compete with Blackrock mercenaries. No public transit as it competes with private transit. No public events as that competes with ticketmaster. No public schools. No public universities. No scientific research grants. No sheltering or feeding the poor. No treating the sick. No treating veterans. No bridges. No roads. No harbors....

I do think the government should get out of many of those, so your argument doesn't really land for me.

> No, it seems a big role in this country for government is facilitating conditions for commerce.

I don't see how the government driving out competition by running its own grocery stores, presumably at a loss, is "facilitating conditions for commerce".

[asdff]

>I don't see how the government driving out competition by running its own grocery stores, presumably at a loss, is "facilitating conditions for commerce".

If someone is stealing your only $20 out of your pocket and I stop them and you now have $20 in your pocket, I've just created conditions for commerce on the part of you taking that $20 and spending it someplace else in the market than on the thief. When you give a dollar to a rich person vs a working class person, that dollar is far more likely to be circulated back into the economy in the latter case than in the former case. The poor person spends the bulk of their paycheck on needs and a handful of wants, real hard items, not speculative assets. The rich person bids up Tesla stock and makes Elon into a billionaire off a PE of 317 now, thin air pumped into the balloon in other words with all this money tied up in overpriced TSLA stock than empowering real work in the economy.

What do you believe the role of government is? Do you believe that every resource we use in life should be priced such that a handful of individuals have the opportunity to live fat off the transaction? Inefficiencies at every level of the supply chain?

[KK7NIL]

> If someone is stealing your only $20 out of your pocket and I stop them and you now have $20 in your pocket, I've just created conditions for commerce on the part of you taking that $20 and spending it someplace else in the market than on the thief.

Grocery stores aren't thieves, they're largely pretty terrible businesses with extremely thin margins.

But, to engage with your ridiculous bait and switch: whether I or the thief have $20 is irrelevant to the commerce as he'll presumably spend it at the market too, so even this ridiculously contrived example falls flat on its face.

> rich person bids up Tesla stock and makes Elon into a billionaire off a PE of 317 now, thin air pumped into the balloon in other words with all this money tied up in overpriced TSLA stock than empowering real work in the economy.

Here you go again with some ridiculously biased example, but I'll engage with it for your own sake: money that's invested doesn't just disappear, it goes into the pockets of employees and suppliers or gets reinvested in some other way, continuing the cycle.

> What do you believe the role of government is?

Limited.

[Karrot_Kream]

Good article, thanks for sharing. I haven't tried to verify its claims but at face value pretty illuminating.

It seems to me both that:

1. If this article is true then independent groceries should have a slam dunk in keeping prices low. They aren't subject to the price fixing cartel of the big grocers so if they lower prices they'll drive demand to their store and win out on the market. Margins for staples are quite low anyway so volume is the best way to make profits. This means we should observe independent grocers right now outcompeting large chains or driving costs lower .

2. Alternatively if the price gouging is coming from consolidation of the CPG market then state run grocery stores will be just as ineffective at combatting high prices as independent grocers. I guess one can argue that a sufficiently large amount of state run demand can negotiate better CPG pricing but I'm not sure this experiment is big enough.to leverage this.

Personally I'm not a fan of state run businesses because the US is so polarized. Today's support can turn into tomorrow's opposition. It's hard to build a lasting institution when differences in candidates and parties can wipe out any wins or losses.

Instead I'd like to either see state subsidizing of staples and CPGs using taxes (paying into a food price stabilization fund used to negotiate and aquire staples and CPGs at cost and then resold to grocery stores at lower prices, along with maximum margin guarantees from grocery stores) or I'd like so see an incentive program for independent grocers along with a state blessed way of having disparate grocers negotiate better prices.

But I also don't live in NYC and this initiative's success or failure isn't being run on my tax money.

[asdff]

>Personally I'm not a fan of state run businesses because the US is so polarized. Today's support can turn into tomorrow's opposition. It's hard to build a lasting institution when differences in candidates and parties can wipe out any wins or losses.

Certain states the government actually operates the liquor stores so this isn't wholly unprecedented. Government also does this sort of thing for armed forces. It is interesting how the US military with its associated progression, benefits, services, and provided housing, is sort of a gleam into what a communist united states might have looked like in another timeline. Kind of ironic when you get a pro military pro capitalist person I guess. They have more experience with de facto communism than most and seemed to have liked a lot of aspects.

[pollorollo]

Government owned grocery stores already exist [1]. They are run by the U.S. military, have 200+ locations, and charge at least 25% less than other brands [1].

"Surveys consistently rate the commissaries as one of the military's top non-pay benefits." NYC wants to provide similar benefits for residents.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Commissary_Agency [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOXdtPBGXI

[gruez]

From your own article:

>In 2024, DeCA estimated that it saved patrons $1.58 billion and had an operations cost of $1.7 billion, $1.5 billion of which was funded from appropriations.[8]

Isn't this the "selling $1 for 75 cents" business model (aka moviepass) that people made fun of a few years ago?

[ceejayoz]

Sure. It's also the business model of your local library.

[pollorollo]

I think this is the mindset required for this conversation. There is no way to make a library drive a profit, let alone financially self-sufficient. However, the library exists because the city values the externalities, specifically an educated public and reduced crime. For those purposes, libraries are incredibly cost efficient.

The same argument can be made for public grocers. Reducing poverty has cascading effects including better health and lower crime rates.

[gruez]

Well no, because the library is often the sole provider of book lending services and there's no private sector alternative. The same can't be said for grocery stores. To continue your analogy, it would be closer to the government setting up its own streaming service, even though there's netfilx and several other competitors. Even though people hate netflix for its price hikes or whatever, it's unclear how the government can do a better job here than netfilx (or other competitors), aside from strongarming/expropriating rights holders.

[ceejayoz]

> To continue your analogy, it would be closer to the government setting up its own streaming service…

https://www.pbs.org/

[ceejayoz]

> This sounds extremely non economically viable.

Many things government does are not economically viable. That's why they get left to government.

> Won’t it just cause neighboring stores to close?

The idea is to build these where that has already occurred.

[woodruffw]

It’s the idea, although they’ve chosen a weird location for that: La Marqueta is about 300 feet from a grocery store (City Fresh on East 116th). So this pilot store will effectively compete with private groceries for business, muddying the strength of any results (in any direction).

(I say this as someone who is broadly in favor of NYC trying to run city-owned groceries in areas that are underserved.)

[halflife]

Of course, there is a term called coercive monopoly. It exists especially in large infrastructure projects where the startup cost is tremendous so only government, or a single entity without the possibility of competition can enter.

Groceries are not one of these. If you have a problem of high grocery costs, there are many better ways to tackle that other opening a government owned store. But it does make for a great photo op.

[yohannparis]

Why does everything needs to be economically viable?

[halflife]

Not everything does - transport infrastructure, healthcare, sewage, for example do not.

But economic viability -> competition -> research and development -> economic growth

[koolba]

Because that’s what has traditionally allowed western countries to have a wide availability and inventory of goods vs communist economies.

[bojan]

But why does the availability have to be wide? Maybe those stories can do few things, but do them well. Sell staple foods and healthy choices.

[halflife]

Because than people won’t come to your store. People buy where they can purchase the maximum of their shopping cart in a single place.

That is why you have loss leader grocers, where they pull people with dramatic discounts on specific items, but the total cart costs the same

[orwin]

That's not how it used to work. That's still not how it works in my country. I buy my bread from a specialized shop, my cheese from another, and my fresh produce from yet another. I know people who only buy their meat from a butcher (I do it sometimes, but not always).

[halflife]

It really depends on the countries culture

[yohannparis]

I understand your point of view. But in cities of all sizes, it's easier to not have to do that. For example in NYC, a medium size city, you can easily go do your shopping in multiple places, and not at the same time.

[halflife]

Yes, and some people do that.

Some consumers go to specific stores to purchase specific qualities of brands.

But most do not, especially for convenience products. You get it where you can.

[jmyeet]

Counter point: China.

Economic viability isn't what led to "wide availability and inventory". No, it's imperialism. It's exploitation of the Global South. It's paying slave wages through subsidiaries in West Africa to cocoa farmers while making sure those countries stay poor, for example.

We also wage economic war on our our anointed enemies like Cuba and then use the inevitable result of that economic warfare as a reason why our system is good.

[darth_avocado]

> Won’t it just cause neighboring stores to close?

Hopefully they kept all those profits around from the time they price gouging consumers in the name of “supply chain issues”, “transitory inflation”, “bird flu” etc. I still remember all the headlines about bird flu and how egg prices were doubling because of it. Turns out the egg production barely dropped and it was all a ruse to make more money.

[SpicyLemonZest]

You can't conclude it was a ruse without knowing the elasticity of egg demand!

This is ultimately the kind of thing that worries me about a municipal grocery store. Will voters allow it to respond in rational ways to market conditions, or will they expect the city to go out and extort some egg suppliers when market prices rise above what they consider reasonable?

[ceejayoz]

The DOJ thinks it was a ruse.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-egg-producers-fa...

As did a jury:

https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-price-gouging-lawsu...

[SpicyLemonZest]

It could potentially be a ruse by egg producers. Certainly there's reason for suspicion. But darth_avocado's claim was that grocery stores were in on the ruse and must have extracted huge profits from price gouging consumers. I think that's obviously false. You'll note that in the jury case the plaintiffs were themselves megacorporations, and substantially larger ones than the producers they were suing at that.

I don't blame consumers for deciding they don't care about the underlying market structure and just want cheap eggs. But you can't run a store on that basis, and if the city feels like it has to there'll be problems.

[tencentshill]

He won by not being a capitalist. He campaigned on doing something to actually meet the basic needs of the people who elected him. This is the cost of that promise. This will force them to compete on those terms instead of directly on money.

[ModernMech]

Who knows, let's try it and see. I've heard all my life about how new ideas are potentially not economically viable, so we keep trying old ideas which proven not economically viable. My feeling is that the economy is such a large, chaotic, dynamic system that most people, including experts, have no idea what is theoretically viable or not viable. So making decisions based on "my first order analysis is that this is not economically viable" is misguided. You have to try it first and see how the system actually responds.

[thinkingtoilet]

Oh no! Struggling Americans will be able to buy food cheaper! What will we do?

Also, if anyone has any reservations about a government run grocery store, go ask your representatives to come out against military commissaries. I bet you will not be able to find one active politician who will try to remove that. You know why? Because government run grocery stores work. End of story. Period. There is no discussion. You are wrong if you disagree. We do this. It exists. It works. And people love it. Try to find one politician that will end that service.

[halflife]

Grocery costs has to come from some formula. If the mamdani stores actually do sell at a lower cost, where did the discount come from?

[thinkingtoilet]

Again. This exists. There is no theoretical here. Go look up how the military commissaries work. That will answer your question.

[halflife]

military commissaries are subsidized with taxes.

So would these stores have lower prices because of tax subsidies? What prevents rich people from exploiting these subsidies?

[thinkingtoilet]

Yes. They will be subsidized, just like other food-based welfare programs.

As for the rich, is this really your concern? A few rich people getting some cheaper groceries is so bad that we have to deny poor people from getting affordable food? Why do so many Americans hate poor people? You know there's literally trillions of waste in agriculture, military, pharmaceutical, oil, etc... subsidies and that's just the tip of the ice berg if you examine the tax code. If you're deeply concerned about rich people gaming the system, why don't you start in those places and then when we figure that out, we can worry about rich people shopping in one of five total grocery stores.

[ModernMech]

Rich people hate being seen with us poors. Just look at Coachella, they can't even do it for a weekend. Really, that's enough to keep them out. You seriously think they're going to give up Trader Joes and Wholefoods to save 50 cents on their beef?

[wahnfrieden]

In some neighborhoods there are only luxury grocery options.

Groceries also form cartels as the other commenter mentioned. The biggest grocers in Canada did it for many years until they were penalized for it (though it’s likely still continuing in other ways - the same players are now under investigation for selling underweight meats)

The estimated cost to consumers from bread price-fixing was $4-5 billion

[halflife]

It’s about supply and demand. Luxury grocers provide a shopping “experience”, where low cost grocers do not. In a luxury neighborhood it would make sense the shoppers are looking for experience more so than low cost.

[rsynnott]

What’s a ‘luxury neighborhood’? In any large city, most central areas are generally a bit of a mix; “this is only for rich/poor people” is more of a suburban phenomenon. If the shops are only catering to the high end, a problem can develop.

(I am less sure why this happens to such a great extent in large US cities vs elsewhere, vs more of a balance of shops, but it does seem to.)

[wahnfrieden]

The poster appears to be Israeli. I’m not an expert and have never been but I understand spatial wealth segregation is quite extreme there and may explain their take. Here’s one study: https://www.ref-inst.org/en/articles-and-studies/spatial-ine...

So it may just be that where they are from, the concept of “luxury neighborhoods” which do not need to cater to the poor and disadvantaged populations does indeed exist, due to segregation factors

[wahnfrieden]

The neighborhoods I'm talking about also have many people living in poverty or near it. Looks like you live in Israel which is perhaps less integrated / more segregated than Brooklyn (I don't know though, I haven't been to see first hand)

[tacostakohashi]

I think that's essentially the entire point, considering that most of the economically viable grocery stores already exist.

[hitekker]

The nyc subreddit which I'd say is pretty pro-Mamdani shared your concerns.

https://old.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1sjq9v9/mayor_zohran_m...

[WalterBright]

In Seattle, the proposal for a government grocery store included exemption from paying property taxes and rent.

[halflife]

So they have an unfair advantage over the competition.

Or it’s just a way to neutralize the ineffectiveness of the management, since it’s not profitable based, who’s going to be fired?

[jmyeet]

To anyone who espouses these claims that the government isn't capable of anything or that it's somehow a moral hazard I just have to ask: how's that working out for you in particular and society in general? Does it feel like things are going well?

What we have now is the result of unfettered private control. Private companies collude to raise prices and lower wages. The standard of living in real terms has been in decline for over 50 years. Education, medical, housing and food costs continue to spiral. Where we do have publicly owned alternatives, such as with municipal broadband, those publicly-owned alternatives are always far better.

Are we going to make the same argument that EPB in Chattanooga is somehow a moral hazard and has an unfair advantage to Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Spectrum?

Let's just say that it's true that they do. Why is that a problem? Why is it good that billion or trillion dollar companies can charge higher prices than the government can so their owners can buy another mega-yacht at the expense of the people who depend on that service? Because that's what's going on now.

[shimman]

You sound extremely privileged and frankly out of touch (not uncommon with the HN demographic).

Do you think working families in NYC don't deserve the same monetary relief that massive corporations get with their own welfare programs? Why should trillion multinational companies take our public money to subsidize their businesses and we can't do the same for workers?

Why do you prefer helping non human entities (corporations) over literal humans?

[halflife]

Subsidies can go to small businesses owners. Not just large corporations.