256 Comments

Let's not forget how awful Kroger was to its employees during the pandemic. Thankfully, I live in the low rent district and our Kroger is really awful. It makes it easy to shop elsewhere but I wish there was more competition.

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Ta, Robyn. We're growing some of our food. The local grocery near our tenement is unionized.

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(DuPage County resident here) The last few weeks it seems that Jewel has been more aggressive in their sales and specials, while Marianos is kinda mailing it in. Makes me wonder if the merger is really going through.

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“The Jewel”

This is how I know you’re from Chicago.

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So much of our troubles with industry dates back to Ronald Reagan. In this case he repealed a law that required sellers to charge the same price for an item whether they sold a million units to Walmart or a hundred units to some Bodega. Once Walmart was able to get a discount on volume purchases they were able to undercut the profits of the little stores and drive them out of business.

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"So much of our troubles date back to Ronald Reagan"

-fify

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Our shopping pattern is going to Aldi for staples, then running across the street to Publix for fresh fish, BOGO deals, and the few brand name items that we need on occasion that they never put on BOGO or on sale (usually toiletries - we use the fancy Oral B dental floss, for example.)

What I discovered is that Target often has an Up & Up version of brands that is considerably cheaper, though, so about once a month I also make a Target run.

(Comedian Matt Mitchell has a YouTube series whereupon he rates the store brands of foods against the real thing. Walmart's Great Value consistently loses to the retail brand name, but Kirkland Signature from Costco actually beat the pants off the retail brands in a blind taste test.)

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Companies don't really need the excuse of something like COVID, they'll do it in better times if they think they can get away with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada

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We raise our own eggs, so I figure the cost to be somewhere around 35.00 per egg.

Kidding. A little.

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"in most cases I’m just gonna run to Mariano’s because it’s less than a block away." You kids today are so spoiled. In my day...

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Kroger can suck my Piggly Wiggly.

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I have been waiting literally YEARS for someone to start enforcing anti-trust laws, and I am here for it! Every single one of the anti-trust cases gives me life. I love Joe Biden.

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Before anyone gets all misty eyed about Trader Joe's they are going gangbusters against union organizing and just being generally shitty about workers. I read it here.

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Always have been that way...

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[Kroger division president Matthew] Marx hates capitalism and the invisible hand of the free market. He must be a Marxist.

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Yep. My grocery bill is up about five bucks a week since the Giant by me closed and I have to use the Safeway for most things. Def using Trader Joe's for longer lasting things tho. They are cheaper. And the Mom's Organic Market for what I can even tho it's sometimes pricier since I like their other policies and can buy some things package-free.

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"Except, I imagine, for the ones who get let go because “redundancy.”" Huh, I bet they all get a nice "package" and get paid a ton of money to go away. This may be built into their employment agreements with their current company - "change of control event" and so forth - in theory, so current management isn't incentivized against a deal that would be good for shareholders. So, they are probably all hoping to collect that payout and go be useless somewhere else.

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IOW, they'll be OK. Might have to put off buying that second HUM-V, at least until the next frat brother creates a bullshit consulting position to skate on for a year or so.

Fuck these corporate execs, is what I'm saying.

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But Megan McArdle scoffed at the notion!

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kevin drums favorite economicsknower was full of shit & a pedantic blowhard about this?

i'm shocked.

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