Anonymous #2 5w

How is a case study cherry picking?

-6

Anonymous #1 5w

Governments can't run grocery stores.

-5

Anonymous OP 5w

You mean Kansas City can’t run a single government ran grocery store?

22

Anonymous OP 5w

It is one example brother

11

Anonymous #1 5w

A single example.

10

Anonymous #1 5w

Not just Kansas City. The Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, East Germany, Poland under communism, Mao’s China, North Korea, Zimbabwe,Nicaragua under the Sandinistas all ran government-controlled food supplyand all faced chronic shortages, empty shelves, rationing, or outright collapse. This isn’t a local fluke; it’s a repeated failure pattern.

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Anonymous OP 5w

America is greater and better than everything you listed🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

13

Anonymous #2 5w

Not just Kansas City. Detroit’s government-backed grocery initiatives failed within years. Baltimore’s city-run market subsidies collapsed despite millions in funding. Chicago’s Englewood “fresh food” projects shuttered in under five years. Philadelphia’s Fresh Grocer partnership ended with store closures and debt. Even Washington D.C.’s public-private grocery programs in Ward 7 and 8 have repeatedly failed to keep stores open. This model fails in city after city.

-2

Anonymous OP 5w

Wow they fucking suck at doing it correctly, I wonder what corporations have found success in the same places these initiatives are taking place

8

Anonymous #1 5w

So you agree, an American city with $18M in backing still couldn’t keep one grocery store open. Thanks for making my point that even America can’t make the model work. It’s not a failure in leadership. It’s a bad model.

-4

Anonymous #1 5w

Because capitalism works.

-7

Anonymous OP 5w

What about all the failed private businesses?

9

Anonymous OP 5w

I wonder if corporations already tried to feed the people of Kansas City in the same location? I wonder if it’s a systematic issue rather than a model issue

8

Anonymous OP 5w

Then why isn’t there grocery store businesses in these exact locations you’ve said

15

Anonymous OP 5w

that’s why there were not grocery stores in these areas prior?

9

Anonymous #2 5w

Because if private stores can’t survive there, it’s because the economics don’t work. That’s why a government store fails too, it’s the same supply chain, the same customers, and the same margins just without the profit incentive to adapt.

-4

Anonymous OP 5w

So the people there should just starve if they can’t drive?

12

Anonymous #1 5w

You’ve basically argued my point for me. You’re just not connecting the last dot. If private business can’t make the numbers work, government can’t either. It just wastes more money proving the same thing.

-1

Anonymous OP 5w

People have to eat regardless of whether it’s viable to sell food or not, the US government continues to go into more debt every year over farm subsidies (and everything else ofc)

8

Anonymous #1 5w

Grocery stores run on razor-thin margins. In high-cost, high-crime areas, those margins disappear. That’s why private stores fail there and why government ones burn money before failing the same way.

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Anonymous #4 5w

Yeah. Why did it close?

-1

Anonymous OP 5w

Yeah I understand this but it doesn’t solve the solution of hunger

3

Anonymous OP 5w

Crime

5

Anonymous #1 5w

Resolve crime, resolve hunger.

6

Anonymous OP 5w

Other way around

5

Anonymous #4 5w

So maybe crime should be prioritized.

0

Anonymous OP 5w

I mean yeah, I’m just saying it’s not really fair to pin this as a failure on part of public grocery stores because even private grocery stores cannot successfully operate in the area

6

Anonymous #2 5w

How do you resolve hunger if you can't sustain food distribution due to crime?

4

Anonymous OP 5w

How do you stop crime if you can't feed people that steal because they need food?

5

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

Private losses vs socialised losses.

2

Anonymous #2 5w

You’re assuming all theft is hunger-driven. If that were true, theft would disappear once basic needs are met, but high-crime, high-theft areas still see the same problem in other goods. Hunger doesn’t explain organized retail theft or why stores in these areas fail across all product categories.

6

Anonymous #4 5w

But the private store isn't responsible to taxpayers as shareholders.

0

Anonymous OP 5w

It can be argued we do a lot of things for a capital loss. For example, subsidies and child tax credits lose the government money. However, having a stable food supply or energy supply and encouraging people to have children (whether you agree with the personal and moral implications of that or not) is good for the state and society at large

1

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

That argument only works if the service is sustainable. If the model collapses under theft and cost before delivering the benefit, you’re not “investing in society” you’re burning money and still losing the service.

1

Anonymous OP 5w

Tbh a lot of are tech companies that we invest in aren’t sustainable but that’s not my point. My point isn’t to say that store wasn’t a bad idea, my point is to say that pointing at government ran projects and saying that they are bad because they are government ran and not the other implications around their goals and ideas is bad. I’ll concede that I don’t know Mamdani’s goals but I do know New York Cities overall crime rate has shrunk, so this shouldn’t really be as applicable

1

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

In a government store, the public is the majority shareholder which means every taxpayer funds both the risk and the loss. If the model fails, everyone pays for something that didn’t work, even those who never used it.

2

Anonymous OP 5w

I’m not seeing the grander issue? We pay for stuff all the time that could fail us at any given time. We pay (well we were paying) for science projects/studies that yeah are useless right now and fail but they could give us knowledge and insight that’s economically productive. Or they could be socially productive. Museums are sometimes publicly funded. Do you think they should all be privately funded? I mean you don’t have to visit one but you do pay for some

1

Anonymous OP 5w

Communes and community based efforts have figured it out. Ever heard of a community garden? Crazy concept but they give away all the produce for free. You can just come pick whatever you want. And it’s worked great in many cities all over America and probably all over the world

4

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

The difference is that museums and research projects don’t have to turn daily profit to exist where grocery stores do. If they can’t sustain operations, you lose both the service and the money. That’s why the model matters here in a way it doesn’t for a museum or a lab.

2

Anonymous #6 5w

Community gardens are great for supplemental food, but they can’t replace a grocery store’s full inventory or year-round supply chain. They also depend on ongoing volunteer labor; the same areas struggling to keep stores open often struggle to sustain that too.

4

Anonymous OP 5w

I mean technically nothing has to turn a profit. It’s only that grocery stores are expected to. You could expect museums and research projects to turn a profit. And there would be very little of them. My point is those services are not capitalist centered because we know that operating them at some kind of capital negative has a positive effect that’s not directly capital related. Is there a point to operate food distribution at a loss somewhere so that there can be a gain somewhere else?

1

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

Loss-leaders work only if the indirect gain outweighs the loss and that requires the service to survive long enough to produce that gain. In these cases, the stores collapse before delivering any measurable benefit, so you end up with the loss and no offsetting gain.

2

Anonymous #1 5w

and now a gold ballroom

7

Anonymous #1 5w

Farm subsidies ensure national production; they don’t keep individual grocery stores in high-cost, high-crime areas afloat. You can have a surplus of food in the country and still have a store fail for the same local economic reasons we’re talking about here.

1

Anonymous OP 5w

that’s true; when people decide to give up and cut further losses. My issue isn’t that this case study failed. My issue is you saying that because many failed in the hands of the government. I don’t think we should see a government run failures and capital run failures differently. There have been case study where capital run stores fail while government run ones succeed.

1

Anonymous OP 5w

You’re right, and please elaborate as to why our food should be controlled by a small group of people with the goal to make as much money as possible?

1

Anonymous #8 5w

It’s not about who “controls” food, it’s about whether the model can keep food on shelves. If the economics don’t work, it doesn’t matter if it’s run by private owners, a co-op, or the government either way the result is the same empty shelves.

0

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

A failure is still a failure, no matter who runs it. The difference is that when the government fails, everyone pays for it, and no one is held accountable.

2

Anonymous OP 5w

Okay so if it dosent matter how is this an example of this system not working? And yes it is about food, zoning laws prevent multiple grocery store from opening too close together, so it matters

1

Anonymous #10 5w

Very well aware as I spent ten years in service. But commissaries aren't the same as they operate on a market model without artificial price controls, and they serve a captive customer base. That's not comparable to a public store trying to survive in an open market.

0

Anonymous OP 5w

You could make this argument about a lot of models. The 2008 recession for example. My point is I think the benefit of letting people having access to higher quality food isn’t something enough Americans care about because we are a narcissistic and individualistic society. We wouldn’t try to give our citizens a better life without a material gain or power. If we cared, we’d let taxpayer dollars go to it without the need of a profit

1

Anonymous brattybottom51 5w

Caring about people doesn’t make a bad model work. If the system collapses before delivering the benefit, you end up with neither the profit nor the help. And if you’re so empathetic, why don’t you care about the violent living conditions these same people are stuck in that only keeps this recessive feedback loop in motion.

0

Anonymous OP 5w

I’d rather try something promising on paper then keep running the system that leaves the majority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck

1

Anonymous #8 5w

Because zoning laws don’t fix bad economics. If a store can’t survive once it’s open, it doesn’t matter how close the next one is you still end up with empty shelves.

0

Anonymous OP 5w

Guy you’re 28 at least and using yikyak 🫵😭 go be with your wife or some shit

-2

Anonymous #10 5w

Yeah, im 28 and in a student status, nothing to do today, and seized the opportunity for cross generational discourse with my current peers.

0