Not necessarily. That would turn it into something more like a public utility than like a for-profit business.
I mean, it’s “not socialism” when the fire department or the power utility aren’t private, for-profit corporations, but it is if the grocery store is? LOL
My in-laws had a housefire a couple of years ago, and they live in the boonies outside of a small farm community.
The volunteer fire department handed them a bill afterwards and told them “give this to your insurance. We only want what your insurance will pay so don’t worry about it if they only pay part or don’t pay at all”
Its a dystopian racket, but at least its pulling a bit of money from the haves to get it to the have-nots and helps sustain a vital service to the community
There are less than 6500 food deserts in the country. Having access to cheap healthy food is available to the vast majority of people living in the US. We’re talking edge cases, capitalism has been quite successful with the food supply chain here.
Do you think 6500 is a low number? It’s not like each food desert affects only one person each. More likely than not, each is affecting more than a thousand people. Especially in a population dense area like Chicago. We are talking millions of people living in food deserts.
Also, after reading a bunch of your comments, I’m not sure you are fully aware of what a food desert is. But hey, that’s Capitalism.
About 5% of the population. Whereas the rest enjoy the best supermarkets on the planet. This should be about fixing the edge cases, not trying to pretend we don’t have amazing choice and wealth in food for the vast majority.
We should strive to improve. But the modern food system which is overwhelmingly capitalist has produced the most food secure system to the most people ever. Calling it a failure over 5%, especially without context and scope is foolish.
The modern food system is not capitalist. We extensively subsidize farming, so that farmers will produce excesses despite a lack of corresponding market demand. This socially-funded excessive production is the foundation of our food security.
Capitalism does not produce such a system. Capitalism sees production in excess of actual demand as wasteful, and seeks to eliminate it.
I know, the issue is well known. I’m sure I was down voted because the city is primarily black so to mention the fact of it’s high crime rate in a discussion that pertains to it is wrongly offensive to them, que sera sera.
A lot of the discussion related to retail theft is heavily racially-motivated and insincere. A short comment without nuance can look indistinguishable from a scary dogwhistle news segment, even if the short comment is accurate
The stores left because of the crime, not because there isn’t a market for them. I’m sure there are tons of people in Chicago who would love shopping at a local grocery store.
It’s not sustainable to run a business when your loss to crimes outweighs any potential profits
The crime stories (yep, they made a big buzz and media ran hundreds of stories about that one shoplifter in San Francisco) wildly overstated the actual amount of crime. It’s just so interesting that corporate news oversold that story, so much so that a person that didn’t know better would think that was a pervasive thing in urban areas and cities are all hellscapes of disorder and flames.
Meanwhile, shareholders rewarded Walgreens’ management with a boost to stock prices after they reported they’d be pulling out of ‘crime-ridden’ areas. They didn’t leave because of the crime, they left for the stock bump and told the crime story to make it look less-bad
It’s funny how the solutions for the failures of capitalism often end up looking just like socialism
Is city ownership socialist though? Are the workers unionized? Do they have the right to decide what is and isn’t stocked?
Not necessarily. That would turn it into something more like a public utility than like a for-profit business.
I mean, it’s “not socialism” when the fire department or the power utility aren’t private, for-profit corporations, but it is if the grocery store is? LOL
Are fire departments for profit?
You do get billed afterwords. At least my dad did when his house burned down 20+ years ago. However his insurance covered the bill.
My in-laws had a housefire a couple of years ago, and they live in the boonies outside of a small farm community.
The volunteer fire department handed them a bill afterwards and told them “give this to your insurance. We only want what your insurance will pay so don’t worry about it if they only pay part or don’t pay at all”
Its a dystopian racket, but at least its pulling a bit of money from the haves to get it to the have-nots and helps sustain a vital service to the community
That sounds kinda dystopian to me
There are less than 6500 food deserts in the country. Having access to cheap healthy food is available to the vast majority of people living in the US. We’re talking edge cases, capitalism has been quite successful with the food supply chain here.
Do you think 6500 is a low number? It’s not like each food desert affects only one person each. More likely than not, each is affecting more than a thousand people. Especially in a population dense area like Chicago. We are talking millions of people living in food deserts.
Also, after reading a bunch of your comments, I’m not sure you are fully aware of what a food desert is. But hey, that’s Capitalism.
About 5% of the population. Whereas the rest enjoy the best supermarkets on the planet. This should be about fixing the edge cases, not trying to pretend we don’t have amazing choice and wealth in food for the vast majority.
So you’re talking about “edge cases” and also claiming it effects over 17 million Americans. That’s a lot of human suffering.
We should strive to improve. But the modern food system which is overwhelmingly capitalist has produced the most food secure system to the most people ever. Calling it a failure over 5%, especially without context and scope is foolish.
The modern food system is not capitalist. We extensively subsidize farming, so that farmers will produce excesses despite a lack of corresponding market demand. This socially-funded excessive production is the foundation of our food security.
Capitalism does not produce such a system. Capitalism sees production in excess of actual demand as wasteful, and seeks to eliminate it.
We subsidize farmers, so we don’t have a famine. Has nothing to do with it being socially funded.
The stores all closed down due to high crime rate, I don’t blame them.
This is true. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted.
I know, the issue is well known. I’m sure I was down voted because the city is primarily black so to mention the fact of it’s high crime rate in a discussion that pertains to it is wrongly offensive to them, que sera sera.
A lot of the discussion related to retail theft is heavily racially-motivated and insincere. A short comment without nuance can look indistinguishable from a scary dogwhistle news segment, even if the short comment is accurate
The stores left because of the crime, not because there isn’t a market for them. I’m sure there are tons of people in Chicago who would love shopping at a local grocery store.
It’s not sustainable to run a business when your loss to crimes outweighs any potential profits
The crime stories (yep, they made a big buzz and media ran hundreds of stories about that one shoplifter in San Francisco) wildly overstated the actual amount of crime. It’s just so interesting that corporate news oversold that story, so much so that a person that didn’t know better would think that was a pervasive thing in urban areas and cities are all hellscapes of disorder and flames.
Meanwhile, shareholders rewarded Walgreens’ management with a boost to stock prices after they reported they’d be pulling out of ‘crime-ridden’ areas. They didn’t leave because of the crime, they left for the stock bump and told the crime story to make it look less-bad
By definition, if the business venture isn’t profitable, then there isn’t a market.
REI in downtown Portland pulled out and publicly said it was because of rising crime, but it was really because the employees were trying to unionize.
Yeah. We all know how much Walmart is struggling to make profits.
Invoking crime for this practice is just a tactic to pretend it isn’t red lining.