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It's not really great for them when they leave the store and go back to being citizens of their communities. The dollars they just spent aren't being reinvested
by arrosenberg 5y ago
It's not really great for them when they leave the store and go back to being citizens of their communities. The dollars they just spent aren't being reinvested by the local owner, they're going to a private equity firm based in New York. That's pretty clearly extractive, rather than being a mutually beneficial relationship.
- nradov 5y agoMost grocery stores are also chains not opened by locals.
- arrosenberg 5y agoI wasn't arguing in favor of the current system, but against running further ahead in the race to the bottom.
- HideousKojima 5y agoAs opposed to my local Walmart, or Kroger?
- greedo 5y agoNonsense. The wages paid to employees are kept local, as is any sales tax.
- dcolkitt 5y agoAnd that private equity firm is largely made up of capital from pension funds, charitable endowments, and university endowments. Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town. That allows all of us to diversity our risk across geographic areas. I’d much rather own a small slice of grocery stores in 1000 towns across the country than a large share of the grocery store down the street.
- inetknght 5y ago> Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town. Trickle-down economics failed the U.S. before and will fail us again. Trickle-down economics are a lie sold by the mega-rich.
- rurp 5y agoI suspect the correlation between shopping at dollar stores and having significant investment fund exposure is a lot lower than you're implying.
- astronautjones 5y agoI share your suspicion.
- dcolkitt 5y agoAnd I'm sure those same dollar store shoppers collectively held approximately 0% of the equity in the locally owned business that was displaced. But as price-sensitive consumers they do benefit from the substantially higher economies of scale, the productivity efficiencies of management best practices, and the lower cost of capital that comes with a professionally managed multinational corporation.
- arrosenberg 5y agoNot really. The multinational corporation harvests the benefits, while the consumer gets to continue to not starve due to inflation.
- dcolkitt 5y agoThat's not true. The major dollar stores have significantly lower operating margins than comparable local groceries.
- mcphage 5y ago