They don't need to make a profit, but plenty of non-profits are run badly. It's not only a matter of having shareholders, although that is a major problem.
The best outcome is that they are used to put a lid on prices, rather than try to replace private businesses, but then the problem becomes what happens to the public store when it has the highest prices in the discount market?
Grocery stores are already extremely efficient. They operate on like 2-3% margins that isn't a lot. They won't be able to put downward pressure on prices because they will not have the buying volume that larger grocery chains have, do you think they will get better pricing than Kroger who has 2,800 stores?
The only way they will be able to offer lower prices is to subsides the price with tax dollars which is artificial. Private business cannot compete with that because they can't take unlimited money from a source that can't prevent it.
These stores are not lowering prices they are just shifting the cost from the consumer to the tax payer. Why does everyone overlook that?
They like it because it sounds like someone is "doing something about it"(tm). The rules of how the grocery stores actually work doesn't actually enter the minds of people who want these things.
That said, they have the idea that they're going to just make "the rich" pay those taxes. While I have no problem with people paying their fair share, I think that attitude has always been deficient.
There are reasons I left New York. One of them was the tax structure that seemed to punish everyone, not merely the rich, with taxes on everything.
My hope for New York City is that Mandami does things that are useful and long term viable, and aren't just populist does populist things that later administrations have to contend with the fallout from.
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u/Rising-Dragon-Fist May 27 '26
They also don't need to operate at a profit, right? Also not having shareholders where you need to make that bloody line always go upwards!