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Walgreens announces deal to buy Rite Aid for $9 a share
- digisign 11y agoI don't know much about Wallgreens, but didn't like how they've been opening stores across the street from RA here in Los Angeles, instead of the next deserving block. Also hope they don't get rid of the Thrifty (drug store) ice-cream, it is one of the only places to get a decent scoop at a low price for families. Not to mention lots of good memories.
- djloche 11y agoThe Thrifty ice cream was sadly overpriced these days at the RA I last went to. I could have bought a half gallon of ice cream at the grocery store right next door for the same price as two scoops at RA.
- chipotle_coyote 11y agoBut you could probably have bought a half-gallon of Thrifty ice cream at RA for the same price or less as the grocery store. :) You're paying a big premium when you're buying it per-scoop. I know part of Thrifty's original schtick was being low prices and still high quality, and if they were still keeping in line with that the price would be more like 50¢/scoop rather than $1.79 -- but AFAIK, the ice cream mostly went away after RiteAid bought the original Thrifty drug store and they've only started bringing it back over the last few years, at least in the SF Bay Area. I do hope they keep the ice cream, though, just on general principle: the bigger retail chains get, the less character they seem to retain. It was sad for me to see CVS buy Long's Drugs a few years back -- Long's stores tended to be bigger and just a little more charmingly eclectic.
- digisign 11y agoIt's one or two bucks for a very large hand-scooped ice cream, compared to ~$6 at a parlor. I'm not sure what you two are expecting--any less and they might as well be giving it for free. Also they're at all the RAs I've been to in SoCal.
- davidf18 11y agoI don't understand why this purchase was not turned down for on grounds of anti-trust. There will be less competition for lowering drug costs. How is this a good thing for American health care? There are four large pharmacy chains in NYC and now Walgreens owns three of the four. Not long ago Walgreens purchased Duane Reade. Now the competition is limited to Walgreens and CVS.
- cjensen 11y agoThis is just an announcement that the two companies plan to merge. Following this announcement, the government will analyze the deal and decide whether or not to oppose it.
- itslennysfault 11y agoThat's still "competition". Coke or Pepsi, Comcast or Time Warner, Everything is condensing down to two options. btw... I'm not arguing with you. It sucks.
- skhatri11 11y agoHearing rumbles that this deal isn't going to go through. But I will say from experience that when companies announce such deals they have already done their homework and generally feel pretty good about anti-trust issues. We'll be interesting to watch. Either way - Wall Street is selling Walgreen's on the news.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> I will say from experience that when companies announce such deals they have already done their homework... Well, not always. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_Warner_Cable_by_Comcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_War...
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoI think you just defined generally.
- n0us 11y agoI did always love Rite Aid though Walgreens is good as well. CVS is the only one of that type of store that I routinely avoid. I wonder if Rite Aid and Walgreens will follow suit in not selling cigarettes anymore.
- _RPM 11y agoCVS at my college never had my drug, so i avoid them in order not have my time wasted.
- itslennysfault 11y agoOut of curiosity... where did you grow up? I grew up in Chicago (where Walgreens is from) and I routinely avoid CVS and shop at Walgreens if I have the choice. My girlfriend is from NY so she never saw Walgreens until her 20s so she avoids Walgreens and goes to CVS.
- n0us 11y agoEast Coast, Virginia. I actually didn't have Rite Aid until highschool but CVS mostly dominates in my hometown which is odd because everyone I know from every socioeconomic background prefers not to shop there.
- bbarn 11y agoOdd. Chicagoan here too.. I find staff at Walgreens to be some of the most miserable employees I run into in the retail sector, whereas CVS employees generally try to be helpful and seem to not hate their life. I think once you cross the white pharmacy curtain, regulatory concerns and negotiated insurance rates pretty much make them exactly the same, but the rest of the store.. I pick CVS since they took over Osco. I was an Osco loyalist too.. and totally pissed when that happened.
- greggman 11y agoYes CVS sucks. I can't put my finger on why exactly. It just feels cheap. Like the paper bags they give me (which I have to pay for directly in California) are so thin as to be nearly unusable. They're like barely thicker than tissue paper making them not reusable. I don't know if that's the only issue that set me off on CVS. Walgreen annoyed me because they started replacing everything with their "NICE" brand which is about the lowest quality possible. That displaced brands of various things that were higher quality. I can't remember what I bought. Might have been cotton swabs (ie q-tips) because they stopped carrying q-tips and they were basically unusable. Plastic sticks that broke. Sticks that poked through the cotton. I can only hope enough people care to either vote with their wallet or complain (I sent them a letter in the hopes to have some influence).
- CyberDildonics 11y agoA 17.8 billion dollar deal yet every time I go in I'm asked to donate to 'the troops' which are not a charity to begin with.
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- hlmencken 11y agoThere are charities that support the troops
- heroh 11y agoall taxpayers are donors to the unwanted war "the point of public relations slogans like support our troops is that they don't mean anything... you don't want people to think about the issue, that's the whole point of good propaganda..." - Noam Chomsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7DdWmWUa_8
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- CyberDildonics 11y ago%40 of the US federal budget goes to the military. Beyond that broad number what do the charities do and how much of the donation goes to the things that impact troops' lives. Most charities have a dismal percentage of the money going to their cause.
- meritt 11y agoKnowing these two companies, the transaction is going to be printed on a receipt with one line per share and a few hundred feet of legal disclaimers
- sitkack 11y agoWhen I write for the Onion I will do an article, "Comcast acquires itself, raises rates" There is always more monopoly where that came from.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]