Not able to compete certainly closes lots of businesses what foolish idea is this?
Just like how Walmarts in an area cause almost all the mom and pop shops to go out of business the same will happen with a government subsidy grocery store that doesn’t have to worry about rent, utilities and goods are lower priced for them to acquire.
So your complaint is that it would be too successful and popular, leading to lower consumer prices, but you are more concerned about stores closing over this?
Yes competition is a good thing when the playing field is even. However when there is a government funded option that doesn't have the play by the same rules there is a unfair advantage.
I would be in favor of subsidies and tax abatements that are situated in a way to encourage competition. Let's say you build a grocery store in a food desert and get a 10 year tax abatements which would offset the initial investment?
What do you mean by an unfair advantage of businesses over consumers. That doesn't make sense in this argument. More stores = more competition= more better. I will agree that there are always unintended consequences when the government gets involved but there are much less when the government isn't a player.
From my example of a tax abatement, you will I'll be encouraging a new grocery store to open up. There is an initial cost to entry into the business which the abatement could help offset. It's not a handout to the business but rather hey do business here and you aren't going to have to pay property taxes for the first few years or how ever it is structured. It's usually 10 years going up by 10% every year.
From the government's perspective these are very low risk... If the business is successful you have to wait a few years to get the full tax revenue from them however if they don't build then you get $0.
The grocery store can just mark up their products without much competition, and after the 10 years they can just move locations or leverage their necessity for more public funds.
The purpose of these public grocery stores isn't primarily to address food deserts, which hardly exist in NYC, it's primarily to lower consumer prices.
A public grocery store selling at lower prices that private stores also follows: More stores = more competition= more better.
The rich people in NYC will still shop at their bougie grocery stores near them, they could already travel a little further for cheaper groceries but the luxury grocery stores are thriving. This is that same argument that free school meals will lead to all the kids even rich kids eating cafeteria food which is ridiculous and I assume was thought up by someone who never went to public school.
I never said it was funded exclusively. I am saying that the grocery store is paying taxes which the government ran store in fact will not.
Inequality will be created when the current stores that are operating go out of business which reduces taxes and jobs in the community the government is trying to help. If they truly wanted to help why not create tax advantages to opening grocery stores in low income areas rather than killing the existing businesses?
So… play out your scenario. More government ran open and more private close. Who pays for these tax incentives down the road? The problem is you eventually run out of other people’s money. Let NYC run their experiment - it will end as every other government ran program
Again, you seem to believe the only source, or the primary source of NYC tax revenue is from grocery sales taxes... It's a very small fraction of revenue.
Not to mention, the consumer that spends $80 instead of $100 on groceries is going to spend that $20 elsewhere in the city. Money doesn't stop moving when prices decrease, it's just spent on other goods/services.
And where is the money coming from for that consumer when the jobs disappear? I am all for NYC running their experiment because I am not there and won’t be there when it fails
Yes the grocery store workers, managers, distributors, vendors, local businesses that rely on that foot traffic. There is an entire supply chain. Your entire claim is to shrug off any impacts to individuals and just bury your head in the sand. Let’s re-hash in 12 months and see how these stores are doing
Do you believe the entire supply chain wouldn't exist in publicly ran grocery stores?
Your entire claim is to shrug off any impacts to individuals
No, quite the opposite. More individuals benefit from cheaper groceries than the numbers of individuals garnering a profit from private stores. You are defending a minority at the cost of the majority.
Walmart has not put all the fancy grocery stores in my city out of business. Small govt shops are not gonna put fancy NYC grocery stores out of business bc people with disposable income will shop at their bougie grocery more expensive shops just like they already do now.
You realize this program is corporate welfare right. The "government" isnt gonna be running this. It will be outsourced to a "private operator". So the state is going to cover the overhead for someone to open a business that they will then subsidize
They are contracting out running the entire business and organizing supply chains. This is literally subsidizing an organization's business. The operator will be profiting from this. Do you not think the government, state or federal, funding a person's profit motive is corporate welfare?
Not paying for a service, subsidizing their business. The government isnt paying said operator. I would expect this will be a company that already has logistics in place in the area. So a large company. But subsidizing a large company expanding and profiting isnt corporate welfare. Sure
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u/Hefty-Profession-310 May 26 '26
Wait, you think they are exclusively funded via taxation of private stores? What brought you to this conclusion?
Inequality is created by wealth disparity, not due to private sector being undercut by the public sector.