rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

I don't know the answer to this but do doordash and similar services factor into this? They've grown and now take up a larger proportion of budgets than in the past, but I don't know if they're still growing or if they've levelled out (and if so when)

Anvil, my wife likes the Misfit/Imperfect services but I tend to go for targeted trips to stores

if we would all watch the price is right more frequently, we might have a better idea of the prices of our favorite consumer products

you should always be stressed when you go to the grocery store. you should be constantly stressed and vigilant about money. this is called being "disciplined"

uh, the sustainable kind of discipline comes through establishing good overall habits. the thought and effort is front-loaded, but once these are solid there's no reason for constant tension and vigilance. once your knowledge base has been trained on repeated experience, it's simply a matter of applying what you know.

Perdue Farms are selling Approx. 1.2-lb. tray of thin-sliced Chicken Breast for $14.99

They were selling the same product for $12.99 on November 25th 2020

I tried Pete's but wayback struggled with it

Glad I could start this conversation, a little horrified at how some of you seem to view poor people, but alas.

Year to year, our grocery bill has gone up about 20% since early 2020, pre-pandemic. We don’t go to bars or go out to eat as much as we did when we had less money, but it’s not like that 20% is an insignificant number to us.

The chatter about how inflation has stopped rising and people just need to get used to those price points reads disturbingly like implicit defense of huge food corporations price-gouging consumers because they can.

many places in America have a Dollar General and maybe a gas station mini mart, and that's it

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 19 January 2024 19:45 (one hour ago) link

The place where my mom lives has a Dollar General and a gas station mini mart AND a Family Dollar. That was built directly next to the Dollar General. And like ten miles of empty highway stretching off in each direction from there.

(cue theme song from The Jeffersons)

The wildly unscientific method by which I measure the rise of grocery bills is by the cost of the amount food I'm able to carry in two cloth tote bags on my walk home from work (i.e. not much). Pre-pandemic, that shit never came close to $100. Nowadays, I count myself lucky if it falls under $100.

I'm pretty frugal while grocery shopping, but will happily spend $60 in a bar without thinking about it

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, January 19, 2024 3:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

My man.

I read an article somewhere about how the big chain Dollar stores bully tiny crossroad towns into giving them massive tax breaks to build a store in their neglected berg.. and that becomes the de facto grocery store for miles around (think rural N Dakota, Nebraska, etc.).. people living on pot pies, ramen and instant coffee

butter and oil are wildly more expensive than they were, it's not just like junk food or whatever. also tons of stuff comes in sliiiiightly smaller packages - there's a million ways they get you

I once lived for three years on butter, rainbow pasta, herbes de Provence, nachos, and Vendange pinot grigio. Best years of my life but I don't recommend it as a life plan.

I used to have a local Safeway that was across the street from a Trader Joe's within walking distance from me. It was relatively small and I understood the logic of it. But that store abruptly closed, and now I have to drive to the Marina Safeway for items I can't get at Trader Joe's. It is not far but it is a much bigger store with what seems like 20 or 30 lanes of items - great if you want to spend hours shopping for food, but not for me

I went to them both today to stock up, to buy things that only one store or the other sells. Considering the common items, Safeway was easily twice or more as expensive as Trader Joe's. It was kind of shocking tbh

there is a growing list of items I get at TJ's because it's more affordable than the regular grocery

That’s crazy!

Yeah, Trader Joe's is waaayy cheaper for cheese, milk, frozen foods, decent wine, bread etc

But the meat & produce can be a little dodgy

Dan, they finally closed that weird dark Safeway like right next to the Bay St TJ's? I used to stop in either one on my way to or from work on Chestnut Street, very convenient for my commute.

Yes, that's the one. The whole block is now basically empty. I read that it's been bought but don't know any details

honestly felt like something out of the 90s tbh, i kinda loved it.

i have many strange memories of being in that Trader Joe’s rather early in the morning, more hungover than God, buying a salad and some
bubble water

When I was working in rural Texas every small town had a Dollar General and a Mr. Gatti’s pizza buffet. Not a goddamn thing otherwise but you could get terrible pizza and Dorito’s.

"i have many strange memories of being in that Trader Joe’s rather early in the morning, more hungover than God, buying a salad and some
bubble water"

that sounds very close to some experiences I had when I arrived in Sf in the early 80s

I recently learned that Trader Joe's is a regional spinoff of Aldi.

As I understand it, the Aldi business was inherited by two brothers and divided into two divisions: Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud. Aldi Nord operates in the US as Trader Joe's.

I was exited to visit an Aldi in Fresno, CA but it was pretty lackluster, didn't come close to Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's is not a publicly held company, so they're not obligated to say where they source products from (i.e. nation of origin).. sometimes they will say your pickles are from Bulgaria, but sometimes they say nothing at all

(the contain trump thread has become a grocery thread)

def don't want him anywhere near my groceries

TJ's started in 1967, I believe, and was bought by the German company in 1979. So not a spin off in the usual sense. When I first shopped there they had only 10-12 stores, all in SoCal.

Given how much so many commodities are subsidized in the US, there's really no excuse for prices of staple goods to go up. We literally have a strategic cheese reserve!

I'd give a pass for organic stuff, but TJ's seems to put pressure to keep those prices down, too -- not sure of the business reasoning behind that since that's exactly the stuff people are willing to pay more money for.

This is what we really need to see more of happening:

The economic headlines in Europe have been glowing recently: Inflation, according to official statistics, is finally coming down. But tell that to consumers still facing runaway prices when they head to the supermarket.

On Thursday, France’s biggest food retailer took a drastic step to confront the situation, announcing that it would no longer sell PepsiCo products because the prices were “unacceptably” high for consumers, escalating a showdown by French retailers to name and shame brands that aren’t lowering prices as inflation eases.

Carrefour, a global retail giant, put up posters Thursday throughout its 3,440 supermarkets in France where Lay’s potato chips, Pepsi and 7-Up soft drinks, as well as Doritos, Quaker cereals and other PepsiCo products, are typically displayed. “We are no longer selling this brand due to an unacceptable price increase,” the signs said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/business/france-carrefour-pepsi-prices.html

This, on the other hand, is what we really need to less less of happening - lads, the oracle has spoken.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/19/boris-johnson-says-trump-back-in-white-house-is-what-the-world-needs

Consolidation of the mainstream grocery store chains also certainly driving prices up too. Albertsons and Kroger seem to own every sub chain.

Wow while rambling about January 6th, a confused Trump blames Nikki Haley for January 6th and says she was in charge of security for the Capitol pic.twitter.com/uw6FzJsqD9

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 20, 2024

Consolidation of the mainstream grocery store chains also certainly driving prices up too. Albertsons and Kroger seem to own every sub chain.

Large chains can also operate at lower margins

yes that too

Safeway definitely owns Albertsons, but I'm wondering does Kroger now own them both?

O Hai

https://www.jamesgood.co.uk/sites/default/files/blog_images/illusion-of-choice-square.jpg

Tl, dr: there are maybe ten companies and they own all the things

Albertsons owns Safeway. Kroger has nothing to do with them.

Kroger and Safeway/Albertsons have already proposed a merger which is currently being reviewed by the FTC to see if it meets the standard of being better for customers than no merger. Hint: the FTC has a history of being a pushover for approving such mergers, based on being presented with specious arguments predicting wonderful benefits that will flow to customers, but after the merger happens flow to the executive officers, banks and shareholders instead.

You know the FTC has been a lot tougher under Biden, right?

Under President Joe Biden, the US has doubled down on efforts to block more mergers after decades of a light-touch approach by government. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter and FTC Chair Lina Khan have argued previous administrations were too permissive, leading to a rise in corporate concentration that has limited choices for consumers and contributed to higher prices.

“For too long, unchecked consolidation has meant big corporations getting bigger, giving them the power to raise prices for Americans and provide consumers with fewer options,” Biden’s National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said in a statement. The new merger guidelines are “an important step to lower costs for consumers, ensure a level playing field for small businesses, and ensure antitrust enforcement is fit for purpose in today’s economy.”

No, I didn't know. That kind of news is too esoteric for widespread dissemination. Thanks for the link. Ofc it is to a business news outlet. Such business news outlets would also normally take an editorial stance that thinks anti-trust is only so much 'red tape' and government obstruction of the free market.

Don't want to wade through everything, but just want to point out that both Dollar General and Family Dollar are not actually $1/99¢ stores like Dollar Tree or 99¢ Only--they sell affordable stuff not too different from what you'd find at Walmart or CVS (from food to toys to lawn furniture) priced in flat dollar increments ($1/$3/$15 etc.).

they're also understaffed in a way that feels like it should be illegal. John Oliver has a good piece on it. we go sometimes for cheap party stuff and I'm often left wondering if there's only two people working there at any given time

like i almost wonder if putting multiple checkout lines there is a ploy to make people think they're not always understaffed

When I was working in rural Texas every small town had a Dollar General and a Mr. Gatti’s pizza buffet. Not a goddamn thing otherwise but you could get terrible pizza and Dorito’s.

...and Subway! I had a family reunion one year down in the Valley and every town on the way had one, even in the places that couldn't sustain a Dairy Queen.

I spent most of those two years in Llano in the Hill Country, which is sort of an outlier (~3000 people but a rural hub) so it had a real grocery store, DQ and a couple of good barbecue places (and a Dollar General and pizza buffet) but I still wound up driving an hour to the outskirts of Austin on a regular basis just to have some variety of shitty chain options.

I was living in a hotel so the grocery store was mostly useless aside from snacks but it beat the Dollar General where the AC was broken down for an entire summer.

My rural Montana town has a Subway and a Dairy Queen. I see people ordering at the DQ drive-thru window but have never been to either place myself.

i wonder if trump will win