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The Dollar Store Backlash Has Begun (citylab.com)
The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back. From a report: A recent research brief [PDF] by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these "small-box" retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they're now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country. In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together -- and they're still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news. "While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress," the authors of the brief write. "They're a cause of it."
Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.
Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.
Interesting.
I've never been to a dollar store. I went to a Big Lots a couple of times and that was enough. My motto is: "if it's not at Farm & Fleet you probably don't need it."
Comparing dollar stores to Whole Foods is a joke, not only because they have nearly 2 orders of magnitude less stores but Whole Foods has ridiculous prices in comparison. The notion that they're making communities worse off is mostly absurd. The small part that it's not is that other grocery stores with more reasonable prices do exist and provide an even better value, even if they often require more effort to access. The problem is, that truth is pretty much wholly true only so long as people spend their money wisely in those other grocery stores or any potential savings will be lost.
But, yes, please continue this rant against dollar stores.
We have one near us - it’s not a grocery store. It is a great place to buy greeting cards, gift wrap (or gift bags), stuff like that. The kind of stuff which is priced unreasonably high elsewhere.
Seriously - why should a paper birthday card cost seven or eight bucks? Why should a gift bag cost ten dollars or more?
#DeleteChrome
isn't really that good. Family Dollar is a good example of this. Their canned beans are pretty cheap (unless you buy bulk dried beans) The Dollar smaller packages, or charges more for items than local stores.
If you look (in season) most people live close to a local farmers market. Their prices are usually much lower than local stores. Dollar stores in general don't have anything fresh that I've ever seen.
As far as things like meat, I don't think I've seen anything except hot dogs or canned chicken in the dollar stores.
Finally if you're financially constrained (receiving social services support), you don't get much "fresh" food from food banks, more government cheese. maybe some honey or rice.
I do some shopping at wal-mart, mostly buying their loss leaders, like their giant jars of pickles, never anything in the Meat Department because their prices and quality are not up to par with other local stores.
Well yeah, so does Wal Mart and local grocery chains. Whole Foods isn't somehow entitled to these customers. If you want this demographic, then you need to compete on price.
We have one near us - it’s not a grocery store. It is a great place to buy greeting cards, gift wrap (or gift bags), stuff like that. The kind of stuff which is priced unreasonably high elsewhere.
Your Dollar Tree store might be smaller than the one that's about 1.5 miles from my home. It has a party supplies aisle (as you mentioned), a food aisle (mostly snacks), a health and beauty aisle, a toy aisle, and a few others I'm not remembering. I used to hit their snack aisle once every couple weeks for boxes of raisins and "fruit and grain" bars to take to work (until I learned about ALDI, that is).
Seriously - why should a paper birthday card cost seven or eight bucks?
Much of that goes into licensing the famous cartoon character that appears on an expensive Hallmark greeting card but not on the cheaper cards that Dollar Tree sells for $1.00 and Walmart sells for $0.98.
The end of the article has a statement from one of the researchers bemoaning the fact that the Kroger's in her neighborhood, which is primarily fixed income and suffered a 50% foreclosure rate during the last housing crises doesn't stock more expensive foods, "The one in a whiter, more affluent neighborhood regularly advertises grains, nuts, seafood, olives, and wine." Uh, the Kroger's in your neighborhood doesn't advertise it because they won't sell and, surprisingly, stores tend not to stock things that don't sell. That's not The Dollar Stores fault, that's caused by a raft of other issues (racism, predatory payday loan stores, the list is lengthy) but denying access to low cost goods in the hopes that the Kroger's that 15 minutes closer to you will start stocking things that the neighborhood can't afford is asinine.
And the dollar store trickery abounds. In a duopoly like this dollar tree will stop at nothing to get over in dollar general. Counterfeit goods and other games abound. Make sure your merchandise is safe and inspect it in person
Grocery stores closed in a lot of poor neighborhoods during the recession, bringing down property values even further, and Dollar Stores moved in to fill the gaps. The presence of the Dollar Stores in those neighborhoods are now keeping out the traditional grocery stores, preventing those neighborhoods from recovering fully. The Dollar Stores are are nutritional deserts, and not really cheaper than grocery stores, so this is a losing situation all around.
(Posting this because I was curious, and annoyed that I was forced to skim the actual article. Skim! Outrage.)
2019 will be the year of GNU plus Linux on the desktop! With free software, you have freedom!
Another msmash fail. Why must we put up this bitch?
Anyone who can do basic math knows most of the 'dollar store' items are overpriced compared to Walmart/target whatever. They sell substandard products at BEST and where the item is similar, the dollar store has less product for the money.
Stupid(retarded IQ80) people see a low price and disregard the other data. This is why Walmart stores in Canukistan are really pushing 'by package pricing' for meat instead of $/weight. It's a scam for those who can't do the basic math, I've never seen such as a 'deal'. I look, I'm a budget shopper.
I live in a rural area, and in places like this the dollar stores are built to fill in the gaps between the Walmarts. They are geographically dispersed roughly every 10-15 miles where there is any kind of "populated area". Here, at least, where it is rural, they are providing a needed service.
Walmarts and the big gas stations along the interstates have killed off most of the independent gas stations and country stores that used to serve the small (1000 people) populated areas. You used to go to these stores for the basic stuff - bread, milk, candy bars, snack stuff. Most also had a small variety of hardware, fishing and hunting related stuff, and sometimes a small deli or grill. These are pretty much all gone. They used to be along state routes every several miles, and they enjoyed enough traffic to do well. The interstates took a great deal of volume (especially through traffic) off those roads and condensed them into major arteries. Those arteries have extremely limited points of access, and the land at each exit is so incredibly expensive that only huge chains can afford to have a business presence there.
So, most of these small stores have gone out of business. Now if you needed to run to the store because your propane lighter ran out of fuel and you couldn't light your grill, or the kids were pestering for batteries for their game controller, you had to travel 25-30 minutes to the regional Walmart. Dollar stores are filling those empty holes. They didn't cause them (well, certainly they have run some mom and pop places out of business, but the majority of the damage was already done a decade or more ago). Around here in the boonies, it's a welcome sight having a store like this within a few minutes of home.
In this area, they have popped up in the very rural country areas in the last 2-3 years. The local stores went out of business well before that.
Better known as 318230.
I live in remote rural Appalachia. The last couple of years have seen an influx of Dollar General stores al over the region. They have opened in isolated communities that had NOTHING. Not even a place to buy a coke or a pack of gum. At Dollar General you can buy household supplies, clothes, food, all sorts of things that make life easier, far easier than driving 50 miles to a Walmart.
This article is myopic and is only concerned with ghetto people who might live 5 miles from a decent grocery store. Try living 50 miles from one and see if Dollar General is a problem. To folks around here it is welcome and improves quality of life.
Listen - cheap goods aren't a magic bullet cause of economic stress.
If I made a farming robot that grew a variety of high quality food for $0.05 a kilogram, and sold it to people for $0.07 a kilogram, it would mean that a lot of folks would be spending less money - and I might even put some types of business out of a market niche - but that does NOT have to cause mass poverty.
Rather, it causes a limited market failure. Market failures are where the ideals of 'free markets' break down - because they tend to happen when there isn't any room for incentives left.
I'd say this is ideally where the basic role of government lies. Government in this case meaning a group of people that decides common shared action for their mutual shared benefit.
When goods are too cheap for markets to pay people a living wage to have them on market - that makes it a perfect role for a government to play, to literally share the burden of, for instance, making sure that no one starves from neglect, or is unable to live productive lives for not benefiting a company enough.
Those flaws are 'externalities' to a corporate mindset, but the whole reason we work together as human beings outside that mindset.
Being able to produce practically endless amounts of good quality cheap food is a legitimate cause for real celebration - I don't find the argument that because it can also cause limited market failure to be a flaw.
Back in time, corporations were things that often existed for a limited time to serve a common community need, which were then dissolved when that need was met - it's why we still have corporate charters on them.. I think that may have been a healthier way to view that balance.
I mean, we've been taxing folks to keep farms alive for generations now - it's a legitimate logical problem letting market forces eliminate our agricultural infrastructure. Basically every part of society still has some aspects of it that supersede some market ideal - no matter how capitalist we idealize ourselves to be.
Ryan Fenton
Indeed.
Like the subject says, you can't beat the prices of these stores for brand name items. I buy tons of stuff like cleaning products and simple food ingredients. They sell Spleda for like half the price of what grocery stores charge.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...and say "eww ban it now."
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
A couple wicking beds and two hydroponic ponds out in the yard provides me with enough fresh lettuce, peas, carrots, zucchini, and broccoli that I don't bother going to the grocery store for months. At first, it doesn't seem economical to grow your own veggies when looking at the prices of stuff at the store, but if you can grow enough to reduce the number of trips to the grocery store, the time and fuel savings really stack up.
It's impossible for there to be a market failure.
What happens is, as you imply, governmental meddling. The role of government is to fuck up the market mechanisms and then blame the market for the resulting failure.
Then why are there so many damn liquor stores in these neighborhoods? That shit is expensive.
Dollar Tree is great and they do have a limited selection of actual food.
I often shop there and appreciate the convenience and savings.
In the past I also loved Britain's Pound shops for the wide variety.
But the world's best are Japan's 100 yen stores.
I have never entered a Whole Foods, but I may after I cash in my 401k.
They sell small portions for high prices to people with little or no money. How do you think they're so profitable? Toothpaste & Toilet paper are the common examples. But the foodstuff is generally the same. You'll pay less at a regular grocery store but you'll generally have to buy more. Which, since you're generally buying dry goods kinda sucks.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Dollar stores don't provide union jobs. If they did nobody would have a problem with the goods they are selling but when union grocery stores go out of business due to high labor costs their political friends jump into action to stop the competition.
These stores are thriving because they are offering the products that people want to buy at prices that they can afford. Most sane people would not have a problem with that.
Dollar stores exist because the folks who aren't doing very well financially need somewhere they can go to buy basics. When even WalMart is too damned expensive for a non-trivial number of folks, there is something terribly wrong with the wage levels in this country.
I'm guessing if we bothered to do something about the income inequality gap, there really wouldn't be much of a need for a Dollar Store in the first place.
Since that is unlikely to ever happen ( didn't happen under Democrats when they were in charge, didn't happen when the Repubs were in charge either ) I suppose the big grocery chains could take it up with our inept Congress about how unfair things are that they can't compete with the Dollar Stores.
( Which is ironic because the big chains are what drove the Mom & Pop stores out of business in the first place )
I mean, we've been taxing folks to keep farms alive for generations now - it's a legitimate logical problem letting market forces eliminate our agricultural infrastructure.
Well, especially with food there’s a legitimate argument to make that a country needs to be at least marginally self-sufficient for purposes of self-defense. In the US, for example, it’s probably true that without any subsidies the vast majority of our food production would migrate to outside our borders (a fair bit of it is there already) - which could be problematic in wartime.
#DeleteChrome
Dollar stores causes economic distress? They don't provide union jobs, true, but in our town they exist alongside Kroger and Walmart. Whole Foods certainly would never survive in their neighborhoods (I live in one). These ILSR people are pissed at dollar stores for a reason, but I can't figure out what it is.
The author is trying to make this a race thing about food. Sorry, there is no great conspiracy, they are just dollar stores. If an area has a market for "fresh food", then usually it will be filled. The reality is that either people in certain areas don't want "fresh food" or won't pay for it, so the stores that would sell it either don't offer it or they close down. This is what the market does- it fills demands in order to survive and make profit.
Dollar stores aren't trying to be grocery stores, they are supplying a limited number of long shelf-life products that *sell* to people who want it, as a convenience, in an otherwise very much non-food store. At least the ones I have been in, 80% of the store are things like housewares, cards, gifts, personal hygiene supplies, plastic goods, balloons, decor, books, games, toys, office supplies, etc.
Dollar stores are great for finding some inexpensive supplies and gifts. I go there frequently. But you have to watch their SIZES of things- the pricing is not always good for what you get and can be had cheaper at Walmart or even a grocery store. But lots of things are much cheaper than can be had anywhere else, and some things not available at all anywhere else (locally).
If the goal is for people to eat better, that requires education, which creates desire and demand, which then stimulates supply creation. Supply will not create demand. The process is not perfect, but that is generally how it works (and no other process works better in the long run).
This is yet another bunch of jerks deciding to make trouble for yet another niche business. We seem to have a never ending supply of random complaining about anything and everything, from people who create nothing themselves (except unbelievable tales about how [whatever thing] is secretly the cause of [whatever social problem]).
Dollar stores are places to get cheap stuff. Why should people have to pay 2-3x as much to get the same stuff at the supermarket?
They are easier to deal with than the bloated China Mart big box store. And they are cheaper.
Corporatism != Free Market
Dollar Stores are a business that saw an opportunity to expand after other businesses couldn't make a profit. They ought not to be subject to scorn and ridicule for that, they ought to be looked at as bringing some business to the area.
That they don't bring the same # of jobs as the business that went under isn't surprising. Jobs aren't "free" to the employer - they have to make back all that money they're paying out, and if they can't - they close up shop because it's not profitable. So is anyone really surprised that the company which is expanding by not running an unprofitable business has less jobs, or pays lower wages?
Rather than pissing and moaning about these successful businesses, how about we start analyzing WHY the other businesses went out of business?
Lots of grocery stores flee areas because of:
* High crime - which equates to higher costs, and lower profits
* Lack of employee pool from which to draw candidates. When you get to choose from criminals, drug addicts, and morons - that leads to high crime and higher costs...
* Higher costs to deliver product to the area due to the high crime.
* High crime means the people who live there don't make as much, so they have less to spend...
See the cycle here? Start cleaning up the nest - flesh out the criminal activity, start 'snitchin', cherish education instead of shunning it, and maybe the businesses will come back. Until then, if you want healthier choices - move to where they are, or travel there to get them. But stop blaming the businesses that figured out how to deal with the bullshit in the neighborhood and actually make money.
What the fuck - you're missing the point so far I wonder if it's willful. These cheap food stores don't have nutritionally complete offerings. Poor people already - due to cost - don't eat as healthily. Which costs them more since our medical system is also lopsided. These dollar stores are keeping actual groceries out of the neighborhoods they invade. Yes, YES, they are evil.
I've never bought food there. Hell I didn't know they even sold food at dollar stores.
Dollar Tree is not Christian, they have no Xmas stuff.
That's why they are called "Pagan I Dollar Tree".
PA dump ching. Thanks, I'll be here all week.
That is not what an externality is. An "externality" is when an expense is external to the market (hence the name). Pollution is an externality. It is a cost to everyone but there is no market method to capture it without government or agreed upon action (with enforcement). Your example does not make sense. If you can grow food for $0.05 a KG, and the labor for your workers and to keep the lights on and pay the rent in your store requires you to charge $0.10, all that gets captured by the market.
Subsidizing farming or food production is something else economically. It is a national security issue. Food supply stability and independence comes into play.
I live in a small town that was absent a real grocery store for years. We had both a Family Dollar and a Dollar General though.
Guess what? Grocery stores weren't deciding not to come here because those dollar stores were too difficult to compete with!
It was simply a matter of analyzing the economics. Our population is only around 6,000 -- and you don't add more than a few thousand others if you add the next town over from us, along with people on the other side of the river, who live in another small town, in another state.
We finally DID get a full size grocery store here, but only because it was part of a long-term plan for a planned community of new homes that have been getting built on the outer edge of town for 5 years or so. They waited out the economic depression before constructing it, but decided it was feasible to do now.
Both dollar stores are doing about as much business as ever, BTW. They're simply the cheaper places to go for your toiletries and household items. Plus, they're more flexible in adjusting their inventory to the local community's needs. Family Dollar, out here, turns into a pretty respectable toy store around Christmastime, and then scales that back afterwards. They'll turn into a one-stop shop for your basic gardening and outdoor BBQ needs when the weather gets nicer. They NEVER claimed to be a place to buy your fresh foods though. They're just convenient for the non-perishables like you might grab to put in your kid's school lunch, or when you need something in a pinch.
I've seen these rants before about "food deserts" and the usual insinuation that racism and "white privilege" has something to do with it. Sorry, but no.... This stuff happens when either A) you live in a more rural or smaller town and the total population isn't enough for the grocery chains to cost-justify coming in, or B) you live in a high crime neighborhood that runs out the large grocers because of all the extra burdens it places on them. (I used to live in one of those areas too, and things like the requirement to hire armed security guards to patrol the parking lot and entrance, plus the fact the crime scared a lot of people off from trying to shop there in the first place, made it unsustainable for them.)
Is that there a bunch of rich liberals who want to buy Dollar Tree so they are pushing this article on the Media so they can get the stock cheap. Either that or rich liberals who are running companies like SafeWay can not compete against $ tree so they are writing hit pieces.
If it is not obvious, a global corporation will not lower employee's salaries to keep prices low. Employee salaries have nothing to do with prices. Employers will pay employees the bare minimum possible independent of how high the prices are. You could charge $55 dollars for a bag of Ruffles, and the cashier is still only going to be making $8/hr. However the rich liberal CEO will be getting huge bonuses that I am sure will be used to combat poverty and global warming..
"Much of that goes into licensing the famous cartoon character that appears on an expensive Hallmark greeting card but not on the cheaper cards that Dollar Tree sells for $1.00 and Walmart sells for $0.98."
What cards are you looking at?
Card at standard store: Bland holiday picture and bland well wishing.
Card at dollar store: Exact same thing.
What type of expensive IPs are you seeing being applied to cards because I'm not seeing any?
There are places where one can *sometimes* find legitimately clever and/or artistic cards that I will definitely pay a premium price for. Otherwise, the holiday cards are all the same cheap crap that I only buy because it's expected that when giving gifts you have "nice" packaging.
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Even supposing that higher-quality fruit and vege is the solution to their poverty, it's not the case that the Dollar Tree impregnates single women multiple times consecutively.
The stupidity is inherent, and then subsidized. You can't fix stupid, and you it would seem you can't shrink government either.
Good luck!
Here, I'll save you some time. Poor people saving money on products they need makes them poorer according to the author. There is zero reality in this article.
These are just fronts for Chinese products. It sends nearly all of the money on product sale to china. As such, this make local economies poorer and poorer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is what sociologists call a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Years ago I worked in public health, and there was an analogous process that occurred with illegal tire dumps. Someone would be driving to the dump and decide to save the tipping fee by tossing their tire by the side of the road. Then a second person would come along with an old tire, and figuring that two tires really aren't any worse than one, he'd dump his there too. The process would snowball at an extraordinary rate, and soon you'd have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of tires. The largest were called "tire mountains", weighed tens of thousands of tons, and were too expensive to move for reprocessing. It's cheaper to build a tire reprocessing plant on site.
Here's my point: there isn't anything inherently special about that spot along the side of the road. Destiny didn't mark single it out as the future site of a tire mountain. Some random person decided to treat it as a place to dump his crap, and because people are herd animals that triggered a crap tidal wave.
There's nothing inherently special or irredeemable about shithole neighborhoods either. But once the world decides they're places to shit on, there's nothing the people living there can do about it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
From writers associated with CityLab.
It goes like this: A flat statement about some social ill is made; Followed by conflation of issues to "support" whatever the opening statement is.
Should you happen to question the author on exactly what was meant and how they arrived to the conclusions, you'll be met with a level of hostility worthy of... Well THEY tend to end up in courts with criminal charges.
It's s though the "left" has decided FOX News tactics are correct. It's REALLY troubling.
In general most things bought at dollar chains are a rip off. causing you to actually spend more for comperavle quantity to what you would normally purchase. Thats not even touching on the quality, or lack there of, of said products
This story was on HN earlier this week, so of course Slashdot in an attempt to appear relevant, posts it a day late and a dollar short.
Your worse than Hitler- and maybe even as bad as the Dollar Store...
Unless one has had to deal with prices at what are sometimes called "corner stores", Dollar Stores DO look more expensive... But they aren't competition for Krogers, Walmart or Whole Foods.
They compete with those corner stores with REALLY prices and shelves loaded with "sugar", booze and nicotine.
Is quality at the Dollar Store the same as the "high priced" spread? Not really, but it's a whole lot better than either nothing or the price gouging of the corner store.
and soon you'd have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of tires.
Millions of tires? Because the county was too blind to the situation to pick up the tires when they reached 50 and post a "Do not dump" sign? I call shenanigans.
---
So what else is news? Things like these happen in every field, from the cheapo mainland China branded iClone, your South Asian-made T-shirts, right down to your favorite fast food chain and favorite online retailer.
You mean the "good" stores who chose not to go there because they can't be sustained in that market particular market... Are being "driven" out by a conglomerate that does a better job serving the neighborhood than the existing "corner stores" (basically liquor stores)? And you're saying nothing is better than being gouged by the liquor store?
What is your solution? Not just finger wagging and scolding. Solution. Tell ya what... How about we take your paycheck and use it to build the kind of store you think is needed.
No? I didn't think so.
Fuck the Institute of Local Self Reliance (never even heard of them before this article). I'm not paying more for stuff because they claim it's somehow bad for me to save money. More likely their corporate sponsors put them up to this "study" to get people to spend, spend spend. Suspiciously convenient timing too, right around Xmas.
Yeah, maybe, but this is the same response I see from those "professional" writers... And they STILL don't answer civil questions.
Odd how it works that the best that can be done is name calling.
sigh
There's more than one effect these stores seem to be having, but the situation is being oversimplified for political reasons. That isn't a "research brief," so much as it is a propaganda pamphlet from a lobbying group. These organizations spam editors of news aggregation sites, like Slashdot, with this drivel.
Some of the points made in the Guardian article that the pamphlet cites as a source are good ones. It sucks when a locally-owned retailer is blindsided by a large corporation that comes in and, dangling "jobs," manages to convince the local government to give it tax breaks that amount to an unfair advantage. From the perspective of the local-government, it will be counter-productive when the less-efficient local grocery (that employs more people) to be replaced by the hyper-efficient national chain that doesn't need as many employees, but the national chain is sophisticated in marketing itself, and politicians are shortsighted. From the perspective of consumers, the increased efficiency makes it cheaper to buy the same stuff, although they might end up with a more limited selection.
Sometimes, too, these stores aren't replacing much of anything, because there wasn't a store nearby. It's a complex mixture of bad and good effects, and one-sided pamphleteers from the "Institute of Local Self Reliance" don't help you to understand. It doesn't help to simply demonize efficiency because it means a company doesn't need to hire as many people, any more than it does to argue against economies of scale. That's a losing battle if ever there was one. Regulation can help to ensure desirable outcomes, but you can't enforce the perpetuation of outdated business models.
Society closing in on post-scarcity economy! Stores turning into walk-in storage and distribution warehouses with token pricing!
Next up:
Water wet!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So the idiot SJW pseudo-economists now try to organize against dollar stores.
Sure, they charge a dollar for stuff you can get for 89 cents at Kroger, but it's still two dollars at the 7-11 or four dollars at the mom and pop before Wal-Mart put them out of business based on price and selection.
I guess the dollar stores are run by a Republican cabal willing to spend whatever it takes to make the poor poorer, if that makes sense to your SJW mind.
If you are so concerned, open up some mom and pops in some of those neighborhoods and sell Whole Foods stuff. You'll make a bloody fortune.
What it does is depress prices locally, causing other prices to drop, like housing, and such.
Which only makes the locals more able/likely to purchase at those prices.
Which means the prices drop all around and depress the area even further.
Basic fucking economics, people. Low priced areas breed low-priced outcomes. Bring the wages and prices up, the economy enjoys some amount of prospoerity for a sustained period of time instead of a short period of time gained by thrifting the poor.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
LOL
This whole article is lol. Some random idiots blaming dollar stores for income inequality, racism and poverty. Did they cause climate change too? This news story sounds suspiciously like Walmart or other big box stores' sour grapes to foment some pseudo-opposition to discount retailers.
Because they wanted to buy all the good stuff before everyone else.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
This is also how so many lobbyists got into Washington.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Our Dollar Tree was put in a building which used to be a smaller supermarket.
Building was still in great condition, parking lot already there.
I'm wondering how many other dollar stores specifically look for these types of locations. It would save them tons of overhead when it comes to opening a new location.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Dollar Tree and Dollar General / family dollar are not competitors. Dollar tree is actually a dollar store. Dollar General / family dollar is a "discount seller" walmart is their competition. In most cases places like dollar general aren't even cheaper than walmart when you compare price per portion size. Places like dollar general and family dollar are predatory to low income communities and set up shop in these communities as it is generally more attractive to low income folk since the stores are closer, walking or biking distance than driving across town to walmart, if they even have access to a car.
their product quality is much, much lower and/or package sizes are smaller, compared to even walmart. all to save like 2 cents (if that).
even name brands that should be the same, are not. dollar stores get shittier versions of them.
grocery prices are ridiculously high for some things, especially staples like bread, eggs, milk.
the whole concept is designed to deceive and defraud.
sure, go buy your greeting cards there for 50c or a dollar, if its on the way to a real store, but leave with just that purchase.
not the people buying there but the greedy retailers with their exhuberant profits on everything, Those get poorer, but see if the world cares about those greedy bastards.
Feeding people through dollarstores is such a crime in the eyes of the greedy...
Why is it predatory to provide a service within walking/biking distance? The nearby dollar store was a life saver for me when my car ended up in the shop for a month. The nearest "grocery" store is quite a bit further away, and bus / taxi / Uber isn't exactly cheap for those who you seem think the dollar stores are being predatory of.
Edit: I should have said Dollar general, not dollar store-that's what's nearby where I live. Not everything is a dollar, but the food was still about on par with or cheaper than other grocery stores, so I don't get the predatory remark, especially when it saved the time and cost of finding transportation to somewhere else.
Yeah whining is so much better.
Arenâ(TM)t Indians Americans?
Kroger operates Harris Teeter to sell the upscale - larger range of stock. Prices on some items are a bit higher. Harris Teeter stores tend to be spotted more densely in areas that have higher incomes.
Except in areas where distance is the deciding factor in which store to patronize I doubt the dollar store is actually in the same market as the lower price grocery. I find their products and prices fit to some tasks so I occasionally purchase things there
I really donâ(TM)t know what leftists want. They complain about the lack of jobs and food deserts. Ok, so Dollar Tree finds a way to fill the need and they are the bad guy? Would you prefer nothing? Oh I know, they just want hard working people like me to fork over 40pct of their income to just give to people who as far as I can tell are just professional complainers and just want free stuff.
Now it's racist and perpetuates poverty when you have a business that makes products more affordable for poor people, and now some cities are using the police power of government to prevent those affordable products from reaching poor people. And that's to champion the cause of the poor.
The disease continues to fester and metastasize. Hopefully we'll reach peak idiocy soon, but the rate at which we're importing illiterate peasants from the third world doesn't give me hope.
We have a "Dollar general" about four blocks from me, and yes it is not a place to buy food, but for things like you noticed your running low on Soap or deodorant or Someone in the house needs some Pepto. or aluminum foil for the BBQ grill. the ability to hop on the bike run over and get these things is great. As far as food even the poor know better, about 8 years back after a bad accident i was on disability for a stretch of three years and had to stretch a fixed income and food stamps while i recovered. in most poor areas of a city you will find two supermarket chains Aldi and Sav-a-lot both are similar and you may have to visit both to find all the ingredients to make one meal. but the Produce is usually of a good quality the meat is somewhat questionable and the store branded caned goods are in general better than the name brand stuff (i still go to aldi's for the soup) being poor is not about being stupid, its being wise with limited resources. but i m guessing this aurther knows absolutely nothing about the poor.
In rural Arizona, dollar stores spring up in those places that don't quite have the population density for a full-service grocery, where they offer local service in in competition with a big-box store that might be a 20-minute drive away. I even see them tucked into strip malls that already have supermarkets. In such places, they offer more selection in such things as school supplies. Think of them as the next step up from convenience stores.
My local stores Don stock spicy foods. I have to drive a few miles out of my way to get said items. I always suspected grocery stores carefully monitored this stuff, i.e. does it sell? But what about new items? Why would you ever stock something new? It wasn't a big seller.
It's as though the "left" has decided FOX News tactics are correct. It's REALLY troubling.
That's why they have turned CNN into their own mirror image of Fox. Remember when there were major journalism houses that, although they had clearly labeled editorial opinions of their own, could be relied on for basic news accuracy?
"There's nothing inherently special or irredeemable about shithole neighborhoods either. "
In my experience, there absolutely is. For example, the shitty part of lake county ca is the city of clear lake. That's the side of the lake with the most mercury contamination. Or in yuba-sutter, olivehurst is the place with the most flood risk. Even in Santa Cruz county, it's way hotter in watsonville, and the beach flats are the flood plain.
There is at least a historical reason for shithole neighborhoods, if not an ongoing one, whether you have sussed it out or not. IME, ongoing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Cheap food isn't evil, fake food is. Most of what the dollar store sells has little nutritional value, but it still displaces real food stores which sell real food. Congratulations on failing to understand the argument, but commenting anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have the occasion to shop at a giant (east coast middle of the road (not whole foods) grocery store in a "different" neighborhood. The differences in what was on the shelves was not "stark" but noticeable. Less healthy, more fried. Same chain, but _selling what their market is buying _. This is the same thing with gas station food marts. They're selling crap food that folks want.
I'm scared what TFA presages : "requiring" stores to stock what the gov decides is healthy, yet not paying the stores to lose shelf faces, or pay them for spoiled past sell by dates foods.
Yes, millions of tires in some case. But *thousands* of tires is an enormous problem too. A dry tire weighs between 20 and 30 pounds. Fill it with water and you add another ten pounds. So a thousand tires could amount to around fifteen tons. It is not cheap to deal with that.
Obviously it's good practice to jump on something like this quickly, but it's not always clear (until a local government has experience with something like this) whose job it is to handle, and by the time you notice it and figure out whose job it is, the work to be done can outstrip your resources. These giant tire mountains tend to occur in places where government runs on a tight belt, which means an unexpected problem is followed by a fight over whose responsibility it is to fix.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This brief would be a lot more convincing if they didn't bury the lead. The statement
"Dollar stores are a poor substitute for grocery stores. A typical dollar store carries no fresh produce, only a limited selection of processed foods. And they aren’t necessarily less expensive. Packaged in single-serving quantities, their food offerings have lower price points, but are often more expensive per ounce."
should be the first thing they say. Instead they talk about how these dollar stores are "hurting grocery stores" which to me just sounds like they're complaining that grocery stores can't compete with dollar store prices.
If they can convince you that dollar stores are a more expensive proposition for shoppers and that their presence is preventing cheaper alternatives from opening in the area, then they're home free with their persuasions. Regardless of whether the assertion is accurate or not, that choice of ordering in their brief really weakens their argument a lot.
Dollar General is a discount grocery store. Not a store where everything costs a dollar, like Dollar Tree,
Sorry, the author is an idiot. The article is a mindless piece of trash.
There was zero evidence put forth by this article. Precisely what libtards always do. God I love watching their heads explode!
Theres a reason they arent in power anywhere. Fucking idiots think they can complain their way into a majority.
You can have those things, you just have to pay for them.
Indian dot - not feather.
As a leftist, i can tell you what i want: poor people to have as much access to and education about healthy choices--in food, finance, and their future--as rich people. Merry Christmas.
You may be shocked to find out that those to your right would agree with that statement. Equality of opportunity is very important.
People don’t know how to cook, and they aren’t willing to learn. So fake, ultra-processed “food” is what they get. Take a look at /r/cooking on Reddit some time, and notice how many people say something like “I am 22, living alone, and I have no idea how to cook, plz halp”. Those are the motivated ones.
People donâ(TM)t know how to cook, and they arenâ(TM)t willing to learn. So fake, ultra-processed âoefoodâ is what they get.
Western society is apparently designed to produce victims. Those people have been convinced that cooking is hard. They can be convinced otherwise. Educating them is government's job, at which it is deliberately failing for the benefit of corporations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...funny how when whites leave a neighborhood, its "flight", but when they stay, its "gentrification". When they see color, its racism, when they dont, its ignoring racism. When they dont participate in the culture, theyre "perpetuating whiteness", when they do, its "cultural appropriation". I guess you just cant please perpetually-offended racists... i just wish theyd stop imposing their racist worldview on everyone else
When was that? The Hearst era of “you provide the pictures, I’ll provide the war”? Or perhaps the venerable NYT and Walter Duranty’s whitewash of the Soviet Union? No, journalism has always been shoddy, because it has always been about selling ads. Truth was merely a coincidental byproduct, if it emerged.
I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised that people buy from dollar stores more than whole foods. Whole foods is a fucking rip-off that builds its business model of overpriced food based on the popular myth that organic food is better in any way, when really it's a collosal ecological waste that demands more water, more landmass (read: more loss of natural habitat) more "natural" fertilizer (read: cow shit) and more "natural" pesticides of the sort that are more dangerous to both humans and pollinators than their synthetic counterparts.
All of that waste just so that a bunch of smug assholes can have their grisgris.
Oh, not white, so not real Americans. Slashdot is full of 60 year old anti-social weirdos.
Everyone can make the same choices. We all have the same free will. Most of us simply choose unwisely. It's not even a rich versus poor thing. Even the "rich" make many of the same stupid choices the "poor" do.
Everyone is encouraged by the same liberal media to make the same wasteful and counterproductive choices.
Vegan communists will be the first to defend nonsense like "Avocado toast".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I invite people to read about the Great Recession and the Great Depression.
Even if you want to "eat healthy", there are better ways of going about it than buying into over hyped and over priced nonsense.
Simple frugal choices like cabbage versus kale.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The problem is the argument is generally bullshit. By that I mean, you could say exactly the same thing about convenient stores or really *any* store that sells any sort of food stuff that doesn't amount to much nutritionally and for which other larger stores might argue they can't move in. Yet there are plenty of examples of real food stores, like Walmart or Kroger, that simply never existed in a place because it never would be considered economical for them.
Meanwhile, in my rural part of the US we have multiple dollar stores and they've not displaced any of the food stores that existed before. We're talking towns in the 5,000-10,000 people range. Live outside of town and it'll be up to a 20 minute drive to the nearest store. It's common to drive longer once a month just to go to other stores in a city because the costs are even lower. And I virtually never buy food from dollar stores because it's almost never cheaper.
The simple problem is, there's a lot of people (maybe you included) who have substantial income where buying "real" food from "Whole Food" or similar places is actually a choice. For the rest of us, we're happy when fresh meat is under $1/pound (or $2/pound for beef). We plan our shopping on what's on sale or otherwise cheap (sliced bread, "butter", garlic, pasta, and sauce for several meals for $4). Discussions of "real" food at that point just aren't an option.
Now, if you want to start subsidizing ~50% of the population's access to stores and the cost of food even more...
As others have noted true dollar stores (as opposed to stores like Dollar General which are not fixed price) are great deals for the right things. Party supplies, household goods, holiday decorations, greeting cards, etc. They're not so great on other things but you also have to figure in the cost of shopping.
Am I willing to pay 20 cents more for that can of evaporated milk I need? Sure. I'm there. The eggs are fresh but medium size for the same price as large at the grocery store? I can deal with that. And hey! This soup is less than the grocery store!
The store near me has started carrying more fresh foods such as dairy and bread. So it's not all junk food. There's aisles of decent foods as well as frozen vegetables and fruit. They know their shopping target audience.
There's no real socioeconomic boundaries to the stores around me. They're in strip malls next to upper middle class subdivisions as well as low income apartments. And they're always busy.
I'd never be able to do true grocery shopping at a dollar store. They simply don't have the inventory. But when I need picture frames, pens, paper plates, and such there's no better deal out there.
You'd be amazed then at just how many of societies current problems boil down to this behavior. Conflict in the Balkans and Arabian states come to mind.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
"White flight," implying that white people have all the money and don't wanna be around those pesky brown people with their total lack of money. So tired of hearing this bullshit phrase. The real riot is when you combine it with so-called "gentrification." Here's how it works: white people are somehow more successful so black people start stealing from them and making their homes unsafe - white flight - "WHITE PEOPLE COME BACK" - gentrification "ruins black neighborhoods" by replacing their barely livable shitholes with decent housing but they're still uneducated thug culture psychos who refuse to work on improving their economic situation...so they start making the white peoples' homes unsafe again - "WHITE PEOPLE PLS GO" - and the cycle goes on and on and on.
We need to admit that so-called black "culture" is the biggest problem that black people face. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are the biggest enemies of black success, not white people. White people are just a scapegoat, a poor excuse to avoid responsibility for choosing to be shitty.
I was raised poor and lived around poor people, and I've seen what makes people stop being poor and what makes people raised in wealthier households become poor. Typically I find that poor people are poor because they make bad choices, even when they are educated enough to know better.
Take smoking for example; before people even start smoking, they already know it's addicting, they already know it ruins your health, they already know it's expensive, they already know that most people don't like to be around cigarette smoke, they already have been told by existing smokers to not start...And yet, they decide to start smoking anyways.
But let's not stop there.
They know it's stupid to drop out of high school, and face a lot of resistance on the way before doing so, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to get pregnant before they have a stable job, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to buy a new TV on a credit card and and even more stupid only make the minimum payment, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to live beyond their means and drop a shitload of money on interest instead of saving and investing, but they do it anyways.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, my dollar store always has lots of fresh produce, see previous answer and competition is good.
I know you were trying to sound intelligent but you only sound like an inexperienced child spouting platitudes.
Dollar stores donâ(TM)t compete with corner stores. If you wonder how a corner store prices can sell for so high in a âoepoor neighborâ with a dollar store or small grocery chain in the next block (I lived right across a dollar store only a few months ago) is because you donâ(TM)t understand the economics. Theyâ(TM)re not for you to buy it, itâ(TM)s an intermediary currency to trade food stamps for cigarettes and alcohol. You âoebuyâ the food with food stamps, give your kids s hot dog and ice cream, return the boxed food for cash (because there are no receipts, there is no paper trail) and then buy whatever you âoereallyâ need.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Kids make mistakes and hindsight is always 20/20, news at 11.
I was raised poor and lived around poor people, and I've seen what makes people stop being poor and what makes people raised in wealthier households become poor. Typically I find that poor people are poor because they make bad choices, even when they are educated enough to know better.
Take smoking for example; before people even start smoking, they already know it's addicting, they already know it ruins your health, they already know it's expensive, they already know that most people don't like to be around cigarette smoke, they already have been told by existing smokers to not start...And yet, they decide to start smoking anyways.
But let's not stop there.
They know it's stupid to drop out of high school, and face a lot of resistance on the way before doing so, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to get pregnant before they have a stable job, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to buy a new TV on a credit card and and even more stupid only make the minimum payment, but they do it anyways.
They know it's stupid to live beyond their means and drop a shitload of money on interest instead of saving and investing, but they do it anyways.
Argh. Wish I had some mod points left because this is a valid argument and you've been modded down because someone disagrees.
Some people just never learn from their bad decisions and they're stuck being poor while others learn, move on and up. It's human nature. There are many leftists that want equality of outcome for everyone despite these human failings. It won't work. All it will do is drag everyone, except for the anointed elite, to the lowest common denominator.
That's just bullshit. The Right consistently votes against programs that assist the poor. The myth of the "Welfare queen" having lots of babies so she can live "better than we do" is alive and well. The creed of the Right is 100% "you are on your own and if you are poor it's your own fault." Anyone who says any different is lying to themselves or not paying attention to the voting. It's fine if you feel that way but don't go acting like the Left and Right both want the same things for the poor and disadvantaged.
Showering money on poor communities is not the answer. It would be great if it was, but it isn't.
When money is poured into education, it goes towards salaries, health benefits and pensions, none of which actually helps poor inner-city children learn better/succeed. It may land a slightly better qualified teacher in the front of the classroom, but that doesn't change anything holding those children back.
If you want to know why a Safeway or a Kroger won't be built in a poor neighborhood anytime soon, asked Safeway or Kroger - they'll tell you about Muliti-million dollar investments, razor-thin margins, high-crime rates and other issues. The company that seems to have figured out is Aldi Markets - smaller footprint, smaller selection of goods.
Ken
You do realize the article was written by a fucking corporate whore aka repubtards.
I have 3 dollar stores near me, all different names. Dollar tree, dollar general, family dollar, and not ONE of them sells fresh produce. You sir are a liar. I've been to over 200 dollar stores all over the US and have not once seen fresh produce or fresh meats.
That is not what their business is built around.
How's those government handouts to big
Business working out? How's that wall working out? Seems that your president is so corrupt and childish, that the rest of the government refuses to work. So they shut down because they don't see the point of wasting tax payer dollars on something that HURTS mankind.
How's that stock market? Oh but you repubtards always like to say "lowest unemployment rate ever" LUL. Ignoring that half the people looking for jobs Gave up because the economy is so shit. How's that interest rate hike? Hope your locked in and not in a variable loan situation.
You reap what you sow, and all the bad shit will come back to bite you. And we will be here laughing.
Who said anything about showering the poor with money? That's a strawman. We are asking for the things you mentioned. Better education, better roads, better healthcare. You know, the basic shit needed to survive.
Why aren't we devoting more resources to education? More resources for our children? More resources for our healthcare situation?
Ohhh I know why, because it doesn't make the rich white man richer. That's why. So it's fuck the poor people.
Meanwhile, building a wall to keep people out will make a lot of the repubtards richer because the contractors have them in their pockets. That's all this is. A massive project to funnel money back into trumps pockets.
So, what's holding those people back?
Do you know why rich white people who live in the city send their kids to private schools? Because the teachers and school system is fucking better.
You are basically against giving teachers raises, building up their pensions, more money for school activities and learning centers. What's your answer then? Because you are saying "that won't work" without even trying it, and offer no reason why it won't work other than "it won't work".
You sir, are a privelaged white male, who probably has no idea of the suffering of others, but in the same breathe, wants to tell others how to live. Fuck off.
Modded down because you feel the plight of the poor man. How dare you try to stick up for poor people. Shame on you. Don't you know, if you're poor, you deserve to be poor and that's how god wants it. Deal with itZ
Nope, you're just ignorant and probably live in some backwater, redneck state. I buy fresh produce from my dollar store several times every week.
Are you feeling stupid yet? You should.
There has been an army of alt right trolls strangling the life out of Slashdot since IDK, 2014 or so at least. Around the first time I remember seeing SJW mentioned. I honestly think the moderation system is being gamed.
You may be shocked to find out that those to your right would agree with that statement. Equality of opportunity is very important.
Is it? Sounds like a banal platitude to me. Those are less important, and more like words on the wind.
> Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer.
Okay.. Parsing.. There are gaping holes in food access, ( got it.. ) Dollars stores didn't cause the problem.. ( I'm following ) "The savings ...makes the.. poorer" ( WTF? )
Should I assume this story is a deliberate waste of our time then?
This is an interesting business you're talking about, and you can trivially show us that a dollar store can do produce. That would be cool to see and should be a model for all other dollar stores.
Can we please have the google maps link for this store?
Dollar General isn't a dollar store. This demonstrates less about dollar stores, and more about shoddy journalism. Apparently, some news outlets think that a foolproof way to tell if a store is a dollar store is to look for the word "dollar" in the store name, rather than actually trying to find out any information about it. (The picture in the Wikipedia article shows that it was a dollar store in 1955.)
I see some of these stores, in the middle of no where, miles from any other "store". Pockets of old towns long since bypassed by multi-lane highways and interstates that use to have enough traffic to support 3-4 convenience stores, grocery stores etc. Now, somewhat cutoff, many have to drive 10-20 miles for food. These stores, sometimes fill a VOID and allow people to purchase items, without having to expend the resources to get to a larger city.
Is your finger somehow broken in a way that allows you to link I provided, yet you can't click on the "Find a store" button? It's not one store, it's hundreds of stores covering most of California, a large chunk of Texas, parts of Nevada and Arizona. The 99 Only Stores are very well known and if you've never heard of them, then you must actually live under a rock in a previously mentioned backwater, redneck state.
You are seriously out of touch.
you've been modded down because someone disagrees
As opposed to being modded down because someone agrees?
Put down the crack pipe.
More like being modded down for being a toxic SJW, playing the victim and fabricating issues to get faux outraged over.
Tire refurbish shops are BUYING these tires. It simply takes a call to a nearby tire refurbish shop "we are tired! location is XX and YY" they are coming asap to pickup up their free raw materials and process them into new tires, easy $20 profit made each small car tire or $200+ each large tire.
The problem with Clear Lake, CA and many polluted cities is CA and federal restriction of "ocean dumping“. It's a practice that nature has done for billions of years, balancing the ecosystem, of flushing surface soil to rivers and eventually ocean. But when your land is contaminated by company X that has been milked dry before you even realized the pollution, you are not allowed to dig up soil/sediment and dump them to sea by barge!
The problem with Clear Lake, CA and many polluted cities is CA and federal restriction of "ocean dumpingâoe.
Unbalanced quotes? You almost pulled off that C&P correctly. However, Clear Lake is polluted due to typically unmanaged tailings from historic mercury mining.
when your land is contaminated by company X that has been milked dry before you even realized the pollution, you are not allowed to dig up soil/sediment and dump them to sea by barge!
That's correct, nor should you be. That would just be polluting the ocean, and due to currents and bioconcentration the waste has a way of coming back to haunt us. But that's irrelevant to the current discussion, because the pollution of the lake is historic, and it's not really feasible to dig up the lakebed and take it out to sea. It would be too much material, and the very act of doing it would cause problems.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How many fucking times do we have to provide you with the data that shows that conservatives are MORE generous and give MORE to charity than lefty fucks?
That's the goddamn difference.. The right is generous with their own money. The left, well they're a bunch of goddamn Santa Claus' with other people's money.
Go fuck yourself.
"Real food stores" sell just as much fake food as a dollar store, if not more due to the size of larger retailers. The snack aisle at a Whole Foods is much bigger than any dollar store's snack aisle.
Furthermore, at my dollar store I can buy yeast, flour, salt, sugar and other basic ingredients. I can make bread from ingredients I buy at a dollar store. What the hell kind of point are you trying to make again?
The feather kind aren't white either. Moron.
Begun, the dollar store backlash has.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I hope you're right. But there have always been extreme libertarians among the nerdy. And I can sympathize. I am a high achiever, I work hard, and sometimes the success of group projects are due mainly to my own efforts with some half-asser hangers-on getting way more credit than they are due for my effort. If that were the extent of my experience and I were merely above average intelligence, it would be easy to conclude we should do everything to build a pure meritocracy and let the chips fall where they may, too bad you bought the ding dongs instead of the kale. But I'm well above average smart, perceptive, have a heart and a conscience, and have travelled the world and the hollers and I know that not only do a majority of the poor--a huge majority globally--get and stay that way through circumstances beyond their control (more often than not at the hands of exploitative people(s)), but that their staying poor makes my life worse. Not just in any cosmic sense, but it actually costs society more dollars to enforce the laws/support the institutions that leave the poor where they are, than it would be to give them a house, a good supply of food, healthcare, and weed, and a playstation.
"Food Deserts", 2018 edition. An article-length Concern Troll, I'd say. . .
The largest were called "tire mountains"
(my emphasis)
Then a second person would come along with an old tire, and figuring that two tires really aren't any worse than one, he'd dump his there too. The process would snowball at an extraordinary rate, and soon you'd have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of tires.
So the last million people came along with their old tires and climbed up the mountain of tires to put theirs somewhere at the top? Or did these guys all bring their tire flinging catapults?
we should've killed them at plymouth rock in 1629. fuck white man.
Instead of modding to -1 so hardly anyone sees it, how about you post your opinion on the topic instead you god damned fuckwipe.
ah, so just your little corner of the country, where only a minority of the whole country's population live in misguided contempt for the majority of the country. this is my surprised face. once again california being a part of the problem for both the democrats, and the country, and once again unable to provide a solution that works outside its own little enclave. i cant wait til that side of the countty slides into the pacific.
/s/government/parent/
1) Posting removes spent mod points.
2) Posting a response is not a requirement.
3) The moderation has worked just fine for the past twenty years.
Instead of crying like a little bitch, how about you post something that isn't completely fucking stupid? If you can't handle that, then fuck off back to Twatter or Failbook or where ever you came from, you dumb shit.
It's sad to see such a judgmental and plain wrong comment by someone who should know better. I would mod you -3 "not-insightful-and-spiteful" if possible.
I would've probably said tech support instead of dot
Many people cannot eat cabbage due to intestinal distress. Kale does not irritate in that manner.
Seriously, do you even bother to research anything, or are you here just to make random pokes at others? What a piece of shit you are.
Except in cities where there are no Krogers at all, but there is a Harris-Teeter presence. Like Charleston, SC. Kroger left Charleston decades ago (I worked at one that was always busy, but they pulled out completely when a couple of stores started to tank). Harris-Teeter was basically the only upscale grocer in the area, but over the last decade or so, they've expanded out to pretty much everywhere in the city and surrounding municipalities. They're not Food Lion, but they're not exactly Whole Foods, either.
It isn't so much that the school is better, it's that their children are more likely to be in a better environment due to other parents just caring more. Ask any teacher for what they need, and they'll tell you it's two parents who care not ipads. So their kids do homework, aren't disurptive in class, aren't violent, and on and on. It doesn't mean that poorer communities don't have parents like that, they simply have a higher ratio that don't. It doesn't mean your kid won't fall into a bad crowd at private school, it just lessens the odds.
There aren't great options here. Some parents of poor students care tremendously, and want their kids in charter schools where they'll likely do better. Not so much because there will be amazing teachers, but because there will be less problem students because it takes actual effort to set your kid up to go.
We can't legislate parenting, and if we could we'd probably screw it up.
Many people cannot eat cabbage due to intestinal distress. Kale does not irritate in that manner.
That is an outright lie. No, not many people have that problem. In fact, it's a vanishingly tiny number of people who do. Too bad for them, they will have to figure out a special treatment for themselves. Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, etc, etc.
Seriously, do you even bother to research anything
Do you?
What a piece of shit you are.
Take a peek in the mirror and you'll see the Faecal Lord himself.
Hey this person is so right how in the world is paying less a harm to society what the problem is is that most stores need to lower their outrageous prices