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I posted a bunch of evidence on Twitter for how 1) grocery stores have razor thin margins, 2) food producer margins are more average but haven't changed in two decades, 3) of course farmers aren't the ones getting rich so 4) no, the food companies are not gouging you on prices. It's monetary inflation. Grocery stores and food producers are trying to keep up. Most people agree due to the inherent audience selection, but the tweets kind of went viral and reached a broader political audience, so a bunch of people came in like, "How come they can put chips on sale for 50% sometimes!?!? Checkmate Alden." (it's because they don't understand fixed costs vs cost-of-goods sold) or "How do you know any of the filings are real? What if they're literally all just lying on their audited SEC filings?" Post-truth, some of people are. The grasping for price controls is the short-time public and political instinct that ultimately makes things worse, every time.
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Replies (64)

↩ replying to Lyn Alden
We are living in a time of historical value, it's such an honor to be in a time where we have the power and can dictate the future of the financial system. One of the biggest pleasures of my life has been homeschooling my 3 kids and teaching about the state of the work and system and having what I can Bitcoin University for several hours a week . with the chores they do I pay them in SATs and they love it ..... not to mention them talking about stacking SATs all the time ! they have been selling their things for Bitcoin and I'm loving it ! ______________________________________ #Bitcoin #ember #DCA #dca #hodl #HODL #sats #stacksats #soundmoney #corruptfed #stayhumble #btc #emberapp #Btc #zaps #zap #coffee #powerlaw
Yep, I grew up knowing this. My grandfather at one point owned and ran a small grocery store. He'd talk about how the thin margins were from time to time. People clamoring for price controls are lost on this one. Shortages always follow and loss of businesses.
A few years back, a friend who ran a successful restaurant in downtown Seattle was telling me their margin was 12% and that was really good compared to the surrounding restaurants running at 6% to 8%. That was pre-covid. Margins are down at least 30% since β€œrecovery”, whatever that means.
Until the US Federal government balances the budget, and stops borrowing from bond buyers to pay yesterday's bond buyers, none of this is going to get better. And we have a dosfuctional government that REFUSES to have real discussions about how to balance the budget.
There is cost of storage and for food products best before date is an issue so they do sales. Also they sometimes buy more than required just to meet the required producer or reseller quota. If they buy 100 of the x product they will get additional discounts. So they buy 50 more to meet the 100 quota and sell you 50% off. Instead of pointing fingers to everyone just check who you voted for.
↩ replying to M-Vil
People here are just throwing up words like socialism and communism. β€œIt is a mental illness" what does this even mean, what does it teach? Socialism in its essence is having some good ideas and concepts even for the time we live in. Blaming every bad thing on it that happens in this world just isnt the right stance. We simply need to acknowledge, that the systems that we have learned have pros and cons. And that we need critical thinking to put the good ideas into new systems and learn from bad ideas. Simply stating that socialism is a mental illness does nothing for humanity. It merely triggers hate, it provides no solution.
↩ replying to npub15zpf...s7sm
I think you are wrong, and the way you think is the root cause of the problem! socialism stands on the idea that a group of a few people can chose what is "good" for the whole of the people, and to me, anybody ylthat thinks the he knows what is better for me better than I do is mentally ill. socialism is ideologically the opposite of freedom. that is why in practice all socialist experiments ended in transforming countries in prisons. pandering to socialists is self destruction.
The American people do not have the history knowledge of other countries that they need to understand current American economics. Price controls that guarantee a loss for producers means that the producer simply shuts down. Now that product is not available to anyone anywhere at any price. At least you aren't overpaying for it.
Price controls on the horizon should heighten the urgency with which you prioritize self sufficiency. This is like an immune response to a cold. I like price controls, because they lead to an acute collapse in the standard of living of the Average Joe. This creates the conditions that accelerate the likelihood that the Average Joe will adopt bitcoin. Most won’t, but increases at the margin are valuable. It’s also not like I’m the one advocating for collective starvation. I’m just a casual observer noting the positive of the likely eventuality.
For a couple of years now, we've had a politician, Jagmeet Singh, and his entire political party (NDP) calling for price controls in Canada. In his latest stunt, he spoke directly to the camera while holding up various grocery items, like a bag of apples, and said, "This is $9. It's completely unacceptable! It shouldn't be this much!" What are the chances that Jagmeet Singh knows anything about the apple industry? Does he understand how long it takes to grow a tree, how many apples it produces, the timing of the harvest, the costs of picking them, shipping, and distribution, etc.? Probably close to zero, yet he pretends to know what the price should be. Meanwhile, the media refuses to inform their readers about the low margins of grocery chains. In Canada, the big bad chain is Loblaw, whose margins are around 3.5%-4%. Instead of highlighting these low margins, the media and politicians continuously push the narrative that Loblaw is making record profits. One must wonder, how can Loblaw be making higher profits while maintaining the same margins? Could it be that inflation is causing the numbers to go up while simultaneously reducing the corporation's purchasing power? Across the world, we're being led by complete morons, while NPCs gobble it all up. They are so incredibly dogmatic that they refuse to listen to any alternative perspective. We're in a lot of trouble.
↩ replying to Nic β›„
Canada has the same problem as Australia - left-wing radicals occupying the third major party position in the liberal democracy which drags the Overton window into psychotic socialism. Our Greens play that function here, and more recently the renewables lobby have funded β€œTeals” who are all champagne socialist Karens. They are poisonous to discourse and show exactly why democracy is doomed to fail.
↩ replying to Nic β›„
Yeah, it’s frustrating when complex issues get oversimplified like that. Running a grocery chain isn’t just about setting prices, there’s so much more to it. Inflation and supply chain issues definitely play a big part. It’s important for people to look at the bigger picture before jumping to conclusions. We need more honest conversations about these things.
In NZ the commies went after the supermarkets for apparently gouging and the β€œcommission” came back with some enormous profit number which made good headlines. However, if you take the number divide it by the population it worked out to be ~$1 per person per day to provide the service β€œsupermarkets” to over 5 million people. I don’t know about y’all but I think a $1 a day to be able to turn up any day of the week between 8am and midnight and purchase anything from steak, broccoli, eggs, milk, lightbulbs, to toilet paper (most of the time 🀣) seems like a pretty frikin good deal eh? Commies are always looking to sensationalize profits of any business that serves more people than their bureaucracies… monopolies don’t like competition. #fuckihatecommunists
As someone just recently exiting the US PR and corporate communications industry, I can attest to the fact that PR is nothing more than modern-day bread and circuses. A vapid distraction designed to obscure the populace from the fact that centralized banking is printing fiat currency at a rampant and uncontrolled pace. The American Comms practice right now is solely focused on maintaining a casino-like atmosphere full of β€œweirdness,” novelties, and edgy brand mash-ups. The hope is that people will just carry on, oblivious to reason, truth, and fact. To these bad actors, #Nostr and #BTC are dual threats to an illusory view of the world. The numerical realities referenced here represent the objective truths that central banks are so desperate to conceal.