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There are just a few big companies left in many industrial sectors. Easy for them to reach an agreement to raise prices together. The people that run the two pa
by borissk 4y ago
There are just a few big companies left in many industrial sectors. Easy for them to reach an agreement to raise prices together. The people that run the two parties are not going to do anything about it (or let government administration do anything about it) until the people go out on the streets.
- dw_arthur 4y agoThis is a huge part of the problem. In my large metro area there are two local grocery chains and they are known for squatting on properties to block competitors from coming in. Thankfully in recent years other grocery chains have slowly started opening stores.
- dclowd9901 4y agoGo out in the streets and do what? We’ve protested about everything. Nobody cares. And why would they? We’re not the ones who put them in the seat of power. It’s these same large corporations that do.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoNah we haven't protested. The French are protesting. When you can see fire, that's when you know you're protesting. Marching with banners does fuck all.
- AlexandrB 4y agoWe had plenty of fires during BLM. Little changed.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoNah those were quickly rejected by the BLM leadership as "not one of ours"
- ahoy 4y agoIn my city, we had a month of enormous BLM protests. The result was an increase police budget and less funding for schools and parks. I honestly don't see that kind of mostly peaceful mass protest as productive anymore.
- jvmfjvfjvf 4y agoExactly what will rioting do? Have you seen the aftermath of Baltimore and Detroit?
- borissk 4y agoHave you seen the aftermath of Mariupol and Bahmut - this is what happened after the Russian people decided not to riot against the corrupted government.
- dffdsa432 4y agoYou're comparing war torn cities to US cities?
- blooalien 4y agoWith the way U.S. citizens are retreating to ever further extremes of their chosen political ~cult~ party and villainizing anyone even remotely resembling "the other", how much longer before U.S. cities are "war torn" too? What ever happened to United States citizen? Nowadays it's almost literally you're Democrat, Republican, or an enemy of both. (I guess that puts me squarely in the "no longer a proper citizen" camp, as I've zero "patriotism" left in this "everyone against everyone else" environment we call "civilized society".)
- amrocha 4y agoThey don't need to come to an agreement. It's in all their benefit to keep raising prices, so they can keep doing it while knowing that everyone else is also acting in their best interest.
- jvmfjvfjvf 4y agoUntil one company charges "fair" prices and takes all the business?
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe article addresses this: > Cargill and just three other agribusiness companies control about 70 percent of the world’s agriculture market, according to Oxfam. Brands like PepsiCo, Nestle, Mondelez, and Conagra produce and market the vast majority of the offerings found in US grocery stores. > Grocery retailers, too, have become increasingly consolidated. The ongoing Kroger-Albertsons merger, which could be blocked by the FTC, for example, has raised alarm bells from consumer advocates; if the merger goes through, Kroger-Albertsons and Walmart together would control 70 percent of their industry. There are also enormous barriers to entry if you want to become a Tyson Foods or Kroger competitor.
- jvmfjvfjvf 4y agoWhat's preventing farmers from selling at "fair prices" at farmers' markets?
- mind-blight 4y agoMainly volume. The margins are best at a farmers market, but there are significantly fewer purchases and pretty high up-front labor costs. Selling in bulk to a distributor allows a farmer to move many more goods with less labor (though at far lower margins) There are also problems with paying for getting seed in the ground. A lot of farmers are incentivized to sell contracts for their goods for cheap as a way to finance planting.
- 4y ago
- ctoth 4y agoTo make things worse, Albertsons and Kroger intend to merge, meaning that those two choices will look more like one very soon. In terms of protests fixing things, there's a reason I was so against what was done to the Canadian truckers even though I generally disagreed with them. The template for how to suppress protest activity in the 21st century is set.
- borissk 4y agoI didn't pay much attention to what happened with the truckers. How were they suppressed?
- ctoth 4y agoThey were declared to be "terrorists" and their funds frozen. Simultaneously, there was a fantastic PR campaign to discredit them as Racists and Nazis (I think they were able to dig up a single dude with a shitty flag.) It was quite the slapdown and as I said provided a template to any government paying attention.
- 13years 4y agoLocked up, fined, those who supported them have been fined or had their business shutdown. Bank accounts frozen. Crypto wallets blocked. Campaigns to discredit their grievances such that the population doesn't understand what they were protesting and why.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- paxys 4y agoIt's hard to see the end state of capitalism being anything other than a single company selling everything and owning everything. We can delay it by passing laws or however else, but absent a compete system overhaul it is inevitable.