WY Union Says Court Ruling in Kroger–Albertson’s Merger Favors “Ultra-Wealthy”
cowboystatedaily.com
cowboystatedaily.com
I may start going to farmers' markets this year.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/employee-owned-publix-lesso... (Employee-Owned Publix Offers a Lesson for Other Supermarket Chains)
> One chain that stands above the rest is Publix Super Markets. The Florida grocer has net margins (net income divided by sales) of 7% to 8%. Compare that with margins of just 2% for the two biggest grocery chains, Kroger (ticker: KR) and Albertsons (ACI). And Publix earned $2.6 billion in the first nine months of 2021, more than Kroger’s $2.1 billion, despite generating a third of Kroger’s sales.
Hardly a co-op: “The [Jenkins] family owns an estimated 20% stake in Publix, and its wealth is estimated at $8.8 billion, based on the latest Forbes magazine tally. Publix was founded in 1930 by George Jenkins when he was 23.”
Barron’s article on archive: https://archive.vn/zIy6g
If you want to start a (competing or not) coop, I encourage you to do so.
If even half of them are bothered enough, their summary 40% of ownership will comfortably outweigh the single 20% share.
This, of course, assumes that no one else affiliated with the big share owner has a comparably large share (like 10%). If a small clique owns, say, 70% among them, it's a different ballgame.
I kinda have a feeling 40% of the employees were not thrilled when several hundred of thousands of dollars were funneled via a PAC to causes such as outlawing medical marijuana, and getting Ron DeSantis elected.
Wegmans is the same way in their hometown. The new ones are in very targeted demographic areas and like a circa 2001 Whole Foods before Amazon made them dumb.
H-E-B and Whole Foods dominate the Austin market. WF because they originated here and there are many locations. H-E-B has a cult-like following in Texas, and are a tier above many national stores (Safeway/etc). They pay well, don't treat their employees like they're disposable, and their in-house brand is oftentimes better than the name brand. H-E-B even is known for being one of the first responders to natural disaster that happen in Texas, they even have their own disaster relief response team. Each store is slightly different in their offers, as they tend to cater them to what people in the area prefer. The list just goes on and on.
I think the government should provide most services everyone uses at cost, and have folks innovate/compete on top of that. Otherwise the services devolve into middlemen skimming off the top without adding value.
If something can turn into rent seeking, have the government provide it too.
for one, there's a limited number of stalls. It certainly wouldn't be shocking if whoever bribed the government coordinator the most got one of the stalls or if people the coordinators closest friends got priority access to the stalls etc...
I don't know the ideal solution. It might be more fair if there was a raffle for stalls each week. Instead we see the same people in the same stalls. Curious how a new farmer gets in to the market. Do they offer more money than someone already there?
Interestingly the link above is not to a government run farmers market. It's to a a government site that then links to a non-government, non-profit organization. So that farmers market is not government run
If this was a missile base or a oil refinery, maybe there'd be something to consider here. But we're talking about one of the oldest forms of public marketplace; plenty of marketplaces don't even have toilets or windows. My local one doesn't.
In Taiwan we do have lots of these kinds of things you describe, especially outside of Taipei. Seems every time I motorcycle through a smaller village I always see a farmer's co-op. I'm not sure if the government set them up or not, but I'm pretty sure the government built the ubiquitous enormous covered basketball court that I see in every tribal township that functions as a playground, market, and wedding venue.
1. For instance see: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/22/13707022/grocery-store-slotti...
The closing of Red Apple Market in the Central District, HT Oak Tree on Aurora, Viet Wah on MLK, Safeway in Greenwood, and QFC pulling out of the construction of the location on Stone Way has added up. Losing money in this industry is really easy, stocking a grocery store aisle can cost $100k to $300k.
New Seasons pulled out of Ballard (too far from their distribution network), and the Target in Ballard blows chunks (paid parking, angry staff, everything is locked, self checkouts that have damaged hardware).
The smaller players (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, PCC, Metropolitan Market) are often reliant on wholesalers operated by Safeway or Kroger, as major brands like Nabisco don't want to negotiate with each retailer and handle fulfillment, and the cost of dealing with wholesalers from other regions can kill a business (just look at the death of Island Pacific in the old Viet Wah space as an example).
However, government limits on concentrated ownership would ensure that free market place is functioning properly. What the neoliberal and Reganist's skip over is that free market competition seems to be an unstable state and will tend toward monopoly because the playing field isn't level. There will always be unscrupulous actors and things like the Fed messing with money supply. The role of the government should be to ensure a level playing field, one of which is preventing anti-market mergers.
Is it not simply inevitable that the entities that like having monopolies will continue to accrue capital (political power) to the point that they can influence the government away from preventing monopoly?
We have real world evidence: the usa, and its monopolies and functional monopolies. See: O&G, telecom, ISP, food monopolies for certain restaurants and grocery stores in food deserts.
Money and wealth have more influence and power than ever over our politics.
Populism is a dirty word.
Progressivism used to mean seeking economic fairness Teddy Roosevelt-style and now it means woke identity politics.
Whistleblowers of any kind have no protections anymore.
Any talk of reforming the system is seen as anti-American by the free market crowd.
There's more to binge on Netflix.
These entities have acquired more capital, and thus more political power. How do you prevent this?
Doesn't seem to happen, though. HN consensus seems to have changed from Google being an unstoppable monopoly to being unable to sustain its business model.
> I'd like to see nationalization considered
There's plenty of negative historical experience with nationalization.
The contradiction is resolved once you recognize that advertising is not productive labor, unlike food distribution. Nobody can beat Google at what they do, but there's ultimately not a sustainable organic need for what they're selling.
I don't think many tech companies are attractive targets for nationalization for this reason.
> There's plenty of negative historical experience with nationalization.
In immature, geopolitically vulnerable economies, often during times of general upheaval. A targeted, degenerative process that is properly incentivized would be different. A "finish line" where getting bought out would be a desirable outcome for most involved.
Yes, it is. Otherwise people wouldn't pay for it.
It's a perfectly reasonable avenue to explore in core productive industries like energy and food.
On the other hand, we don't let Medicare negotiate drug prices and the official policy is to just give them whatever they want. We rarely use our monopsony power as is. (This is finally changing as part of the IRA.)
IMHO this shouldn't happen. It's one of the most annoying ideological inconsistencies I find among the Republican party.
The political rhetoric centers on eliminating or reducing government regulations and privatization. Ok cool, it can be good in many sectors. There's a lot to be said about avoiding large bloated bureaucracies and undue government interference. However then as soon as the big banks or other big businesses get into trouble after engaging in risky behavior they're as eager as the Democrats to bail them out (well at least their favorites).
Personally I do believe in fiscal responsibility, and think it applies even more so at large corporate levels. You didn't plan and save enough in the boom times and spent record profits to do stock buybacks? Well perhaps your company should go into chapter 11 bankruptcy.
I think people don't realize that when a big business like say American Airlines goes into bankruptcy, it's rare that the airline and jobs will disappear. It often means the management of the company is booted with a chance for new ownership more competent management to take over. That's as it should be, IMHO. It's the weeding mechanism for free markets.
> so it's already our problem when private companies go into debt, why not force out the profit-seeking middle man?
That's generally not worked too well, unless it's fixed infrastructure like power, water, etc and those seem to work best at a state or county level. Then they're still structured as corporations, just ones that are publicly owned and locally managed.
The airlines got one in 2020 because they have some of the largest union contracts in the country and we don't want to lose that, but that wasn't a pro-management thing.
On the other hand, a social wealth fund would be good, because it's less risky than owning individual companies.
What basis are you extending to the government an abuse of it's power? Are there not still already numerous other options existing in the same location, sometimes even being directly across the street from each other?
I don't understand why so many want to be under the boot of city/state/federal, and everything in between. It's mind boggling.
I think people need to be more honest, is the success of the US in spite of the government, or is it because of the government that we are who we are today, and further the future. I will concede all my politics from that point if we can give a direct answer. And not the bullshit weasel answer where it is 'both', it can't be, one operates and limits the other overwhelmingly by force, that is not cooperation, that is coercion.