The realities of grocery-cart economics
'Once the government gets control of these three things, you are no longer free'
My husband grew up in a mom-and-pop grocery store in a small town. As a child he often would push the bread aside and sleep on one of the shelves to take a nap. His family actually had to close the store for a couple of days in order to attend our wedding.
There were two stores in their little town. When their competitor lowered the price on a desirable item to bring in more customers, my mother-in-law would do the same and then some, often selling these items below their actual cost in order to survive.
Their store, like so many others, eventually closed because they couldn’t compete with the big chains in the city that could afford to take more losses in order to attract customers. In the end, it was their customers who were the biggest losers. They had to drive into the city. Furthermore, once those little grocery stores were gone, there was less completion and chains controlled the market.
Today, groceries are sold by relatively few big chains. However, those chains still do what my mother-in-law did. They lower the price of some items to make money on other items. Still, most people would be surprised to know that groceries, even at today’s prices, are a relative bargain compared to other necessities. The average grocery store makes only about one and a half percent profit on the items it sells. Would you open a business with that thin a profit margin? Of course not!
It is curious that Kamala Harris decided to go after grocery stores for price gouging. The vice president in the administration that drove up the cost of living 19% in the last three and a half years wants to impose Marxist-style price controls on groceries in order to bring down prices!
If she puts price controls on certain products, stores simply will raise the price of other products just to survive.
Did she ever consider that the Biden-Harris energy policy had more than a little to do with higher prices at the grocery store? Just ask the truck drivers who deliver food to the stores how much gas prices have gone up due to this administration’s war on fossil fuel and the farmers who need that fuel to run their machinery.
While the free-market system isn’t perfect, it has given us the highest standard of living in the world, and it beats anything that comes in second.
Equally disturbing is Harris’ proposal to give first-time home buyers $25,000 and give builders cash incentives to build more starter homes.
Why are there so few of these homes on the market today? A starter home is just that, a first home, small and affordable for young couples just starting out. As young couples have families and have been in the job market longer, they usually move up. Not now! Government spending drove up inflation, which drove up interest rates! Young couples simply can’t afford to move up. They are holding on to their small starter homes trying to make do because they can’t afford those higher interest rates.
What caused the high interest rates? All that unnecessary government spending. Remember, it was Kamala Harris who cast the deciding vote on the bloated misnamed Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The Electric Power Research Institute’s US-REGEN model suggests that the tax credits alone would cost $780 billion by 2031.
If you have ever visited a socialist country, you saw that those who are considered well-off in these countries were living in tiny homes or more likely apartments. That is where Kamala Harris’ policy will take us! Why? Every socialist policy has to be paid for. There is no such thing as free money. As the government gets larger, the average citizen has less.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Democratic Socialist of America had a direct tie to the Democratic caucus in Congress. At one time almost every Democrat committee chairman was a member. When this was exposed, the link disappeared and members scrubbed it from their websites. Nevertheless, their policies haven’t changed. Democratic Socialism is still socialism. The only difference is the way it is achieved, by revolution or the ballot box.
Ask yourself: What are the things you need in order to survive? You need food, medical care and housing. Once the government gets control of these three things, you are no longer free. It really doesn’t matter what you call it.
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