Political Discussion

[TenderLovingKiller®]

For me, while I wouldn't say I'm in poverty. I'm close. I don't have a rainy day fund and if I lost my job or had to take a pay cut I would be in poverty.

To me the student debt relief will take the crippling weight of student loans away and improve the quality of life. I can't buy a house on my own because of my student loan debt. My credit score is heavily impacted and things like leasing a car cost me a lot more than someone with very good credit. I get screwed on interest rates on anything I can get approved for.

I very much feel like I will never be able to own my own home, and will be paying student loans into retirement. And can't afford basic luxuries like vacations or will be able to save up and accumulate wealth.

No doubt. I feel for you and anybody else carrying crippling amounts of debt. I am not a policy wonk so I am not going to pretend to know what the answer ultimately is and like I’ve said anything is better than nothing at all but wouldn’t it be better if instead of giving just student debt relief people were given universal debt relief. It doesn’t have to be equal but ideally it should be equitable.

 

[Nee Lewman]

Reading through the AOC Twitter thread I do see that there are some Millennials that do not support the student loan relief.

Why? They have managed to pay off their student loans already and will get no benefit from the student loan forgiveness.

Example. One person who graduated in 2009 with 46k of student loan debt. Says he was able to pay it off in 11 years, but he had to work his ass off hard for it. Working 40 hours a week for 11 years straight 60 hours a week in the summers, lived at home the full time with his parents and didn't go on any vacations.

People like him are proposing that instead of forgiving an amount, they should be setting the interest rate of the predatory student loans to 0%, reverting the loans back to their original balance. And for those who already paid off their student loans, they should be getting a refund for the interest paid.


I hated how this guy implied that those with student loan trouble are lazy. And people called him out on that he is in a better financial situation than most who graduated in 2009. But as far as he is concerned. His propose for 0% interest is better and should be what the Dems do. And many people support him on that.

I don't think that plan works to solve the issue at all. It doesn't provide benefit now to anyone who actually needs it. Only people who don't need it. It still leaves people paying off their student loans for 10+ years.

I mean if I understand your situation and his proposal, it would effectively mean you would wipe out your loan. I could misunderstand one or the other though.

 

[nolalady]

Same people who call Medicaid and food stamps socialism, but have no problem with getting stimulus checks.

The same people who call Medicaid and food stamps socialism, but believe that Social Security and Medicare benefits are "earned entitlements". They are also the group of people that don't mind leaning on Medicaid for senior housing expenses.

I was debating posting this here or in the COVID thread. But I figure this is more of a political discussion.

On the West Coast, many local municipalities have started enacting hazard pay laws for front line workers such as grocery store workers.

Seattle is the latest city to enact hazard pay legislation which went in effect earlier this month. It pays workers an additional $4 an hour in hazard pay for the remaining duration of the pandemic.

We think this is good news right? A story about right being done by those working hard on the front lines?

Unfortunately, the opposite is true. For those that work at Kroger it has cost them their jobs.

Kroger announced they are closing their 2 Seattle locations and released the following statement.



These are just the latest 2 stores Kroger has closed over hazard pay requirements. Kroger has also closed other stores on the West Coast in recent months in municipalities that have also enacted hazard pay requirements. Long Beach and Montebello have also passed Hazard Pay requirements for grocery store workers. Kroger closed 2 stores in these locations earlier this month. A Ralphs location and a Food 4 Less, which are apparently other grocery store brands Kroger owns.

Los Angeles and Berkeley have proposes to introduce legislation to require hazard pay for grocery store workers. Kroger opposes and has threatened city council members that should they pass this it would result in Kroger likely having to close their locations in these cities.

Kroger will close more stores over hazard pay laws for workers

Kroger will close two stores in Seattle over the city's $4-an-hour hazard pay requirement for grocery workers, an escalation of the grocery chain's push against newly-passed hazard pay laws growing on the West Coast.

www.cnn.com

I've heard about grocery store razor thin profit margins for years, and I have to wonder how any of these places--grocery and retail stores--are actually profitable if we properly compensated people at a living wage. I wonder how many places will go out of business if the new federal wage is enacted. I also wonder what this really says, in economic terms, about the viability of many of our stores right now and into the future. I know that I'm seeing more and more stores close permanently, and I wonder what impact these sorts of razor thin margins, this practice of paying people the lowest wage possible (while keeping wages stagnant), and the future of consumption patterns in the US.

I am concerned with huge chains saying that they cannot employ Americans AND give them a living wage while hoarding all the profit at the top for dividend payments to share holders. I wonder how any of these shareholders think that this system is sustainable. I know that the Feds are suppressing inflation by keeping interest rates at 2%. They did this because when they tried to raise it (Yellen did this during the Obama years) and they found that people could really no longer afford to pay anything over 2%. We are reaching a place where increasingly larger and larger groups of people cannot afford things that we had no problem affording a couple of decades ago. What happens to all these shares and all these shareholders when no one can buy anything? Are we going to be a completely credit based system where people are in debt until they die? Because that's basically where we are now.

I'm just wondering how any of this remains sustainable.

Todays MAGA craziness from my father:

You voted for Biden idiot. He's been corrupt his entire career. First thing the old pre Trump republican party and the democrats are one big corrupt uniparty. They are globalist, socialist, Nazi, communist, there is no real difference. Their goal is world domination. Heard of the great reset? All the build back better...crap. The UN 2030 project goal? The Trump MAGA movement is worldwide and it's goal is to restore the power back to the people. Just going to say, the game isn't over. There is still lots of weird shit happening suggesting that Biden isn't the current president as they claim. Its all just as illusion before shit breaks.

And, Biden, the democrats and the RINO Republicans stole the election from Trump. The actual votes were Trump close to 100 million and Biden less than 40 million.

Remember the Actual constitutional date to swear in the president is March 4th.

SCOTUS has five elections case before them Friday. If the act on the evidence presented it changes the Biden "win."

Iolololol The Great Reset is a marketing campaign by Davos. Sure a bunch of leaders met to talk about economics, but none of them were there to solve anything. Here's a great article about it:

And through articles, videos, webinars, podcasts, and a book by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, it provided a coronavirus-themed rebranding of all the things Davos does anyway, now hastily repackaged as a blueprint for reviving the global economy post-pandemic by “seeking a better form of capitalism.” The Great Reset was a place to hawk for-profit technofixes to complex social problems; to hear heads of transnational oil giants opine about the urgent need to tackle climate change; to listen to politicians say the things they say during crises: that this is a tragedy but also an opportunity, that they are committed to building back better, and ushering in a “fairer, greener, healthier planet.” Prince Charles, David Attenborough, and the head of the International Monetary Fund all figured prominently. That kind of thing.
https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?source=Article-In&referrer_post_id=336263
In short, the Great Reset encompasses some good stuff that won’t happen and some bad stuff that certainly will and, frankly, nothing out of the ordinary in our era of “green” billionaires readying rockets for Mars. Indeed, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Davos speak, and the number of times it has attempted to rebrand capitalism as a slightly buggy poverty alleviation and ecological restoration program, will recognize the vintage champagne in this online carafe. (This history is explored in an excellent new book and film by the law professor Joel Bakan, “The New Corporation: How ‘Good’ Corporations Are Bad for Democracy.”)

Through its highly influential Global Competitiveness Report, the WEF has played a leading role in the transnational campaign to liberate capital from all encumbrances (like robust regulation, protections for local industries, progressive taxation, and — heaven forbid — nationalizations). Long ago, however, Schwab realized that if Davos didn’t add some do-gooding to its well-doing, the pitchforks that had started amassing at the foot of the mountain would eventually storm the gates (as they came close to doing during the 2001 summit).

The Great Reset Conspiracy Smoothie

The Great Reset conspiracy theory blends together legitimate critiques with truly dangerous anti-vaccination fantasies and outright coronavirus denialism.

theintercept.com

So your dad saying that this is somehow a socialist/communist plot is laughable at best. The great reset is financier capitalism at work.

To be honest if you look at it from an equity standpoint, student loan debt relief mostly benefits certain demographics and most of the people who benefit are not in poverty. Ultimately though neither I nor my SO have any student loan debt remaining I support any debt relief in any form but just wiping out a portion of student debt is certainly not the most equitable based off the demographics of the people currently carrying student debt.

This is an interesting concept for me, because I don't think that student loan debt relief is meant to impact people in poverty. The problem we are having is the disappearance of the middle class. When you look at why this decline is happening, you can definitely pin a decent portion of it on student loan debt--but more importantly it's the stagnant wages for white collar workers for the past 20 years and the shipping of tech jobs overseas. The government can't force employers to pay people's way into the middle class, so they are looking to solve this problem a different way. It's the middle class that consistently pays their fair share of taxes, and thus, why the government heavily relies on those middle class wages to generate tax dollars, since the rich get out of paying a lot of taxes due to loopholes and off shore accounts. This isn't meant to help the poor. This is meant to grow the middle class. Ultimately, it won't work until people's wages are no longer stagnant but don't bring that up to Uncle Joe.

 

[TenderLovingKiller®]

This is an interesting concept for me, because I don't think that student loan debt relief is meant to impact people in poverty. The problem we are having is the disappearance of the middle class. When you look at why this decline is happening, you can definitely pin a decent portion of it on student loan debt--but more importantly it's the stagnant wages for white collar workers for the past 20 years and the shipping of tech jobs overseas. The government can't force employers to pay people's way into the middle class, so they are looking to solve this problem a different way. It's the middle class that consistently pays their fair share of taxes, and thus, why the government heavily relies on those middle class wages to generate tax dollars, since the rich get out of paying a lot of taxes due to loopholes and off shore accounts. This isn't meant to help the poor. This is meant to grow the middle class. Ultimately, it won't work until people's wages are no longer stagnant but don't bring that up to Uncle Joe.

Yeah, I completely get who it’s designed to help and I completely agree that they need assistance also. My point was I can see why some on the Left (and I am not talking about the greedy selfish pricks) would be leery of giving debt relief to a segment of the population who likely come from the middle class and in a lot of cases have decent jobs while people that were born into poverty and may have never had the opportunity to attend college and have generated other types debt are not assisted. I think a broader policy that help more people would be ideal but any form of debt relief is good in my book. I hope AOC continues to lean on Biden about this. It’s not only good policy it’s also good politics. You wanna sure up that suburban college education vote for the 2022? wipe out $50k of their debt.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

I've heard about grocery store razor thin profit margins for years, and I have to wonder how any of these places--grocery and retail stores--are actually profitable if we properly compensated people at a living wage. I wonder how many places will go out of business if the new federal wage is enacted. I also wonder what this really says, in economic terms, about the viability of many of our stores right now and into the future. I know that I'm seeing more and more stores close permanently, and I wonder what impact these sorts of razor thin margins, this practice of paying people the lowest wage possible (while keeping wages stagnant), and the future of consumption patterns in the US.

I am concerned with huge chains saying that they cannot employ Americans AND give them a living wage while hoarding all the profit at the top for dividend payments to share holders. I wonder how any of these shareholders think that this system is sustainable. I know that the Feds are suppressing inflation by keeping interest rates at 2%. They did this because when they tried to raise it (Yellen did this during the Obama years) and they found that people could really no longer afford to pay anything over 2%. We are reaching a place where increasingly larger and larger groups of people cannot afford things that we had no problem affording a couple of decades ago. What happens to all these shares and all these shareholders when no one can buy anything? Are we going to be a completely credit based system where people are in debt until they die? Because that's basically where we are now.

I'm just wondering how any of this remains sustainable.

Kroger has actually seen record profits in 2020. This despite voluntarily giving all workers $2 an hour hazard pay for a couple months early last year. People are spending more time at home, therefor buying more food from the grocery stores. The pandemic has also seen the rise in fee driven services, such as grocery pickup and delivery. More ways for grocery stores like Kroger to make a profit. Their razor thin margins are not as razor thin as they claim.

Kroger also has the lowest average wages among competitors at around $10 an hour. Most grocery / super market chains have an higher average wage. Kroger paid out a lot of divid ends to shareholders in 2020 as well.

They can afford to pay the $4 an hour hazard pay. They just are choosing not to and making a stand against it.

And you will have people that completely agree with them. For example, I post this on another forum as well and this was one of the replies I got.

They'd pay out more than the extra they earned last year in under a year this way. And not all stores are equally profitable. Claiming they can afford to just pay it and have no consequences is ridiculous. Why would you keep a store that isn't earning the average profits open if you know it's going to lose money?

Kroger's not going to bail out stores that are losing money. They are going to close them. And they should. It would be a violation of their duty to shareholders to bail those stores out.

 

[nolalady]

I have joked, but the second your dad started insulting you or trying to cut you down over this, should have been the moment you made him choose between continuing to beat off to his Emperor Trump fantasies or getting to have a relationship with his son. Absolutely unacceptable for him to talk to you like this, for any reason.

I totally agree.
You don't have to put up with abuse just because it's your dad. It's okay to cut your dad off. He is using you to beat up on because he probably has already alienated anyone who isn't totally far right. You don't have to be his foil because he sent everyone else running. You deserve to be treated and talked to like a person.

 

[TenderLovingKiller®]

I totally agree.
You don't have to put up with abuse just because it's your dad. It's okay to cut your dad off. He is using you to beat up on because he probably has already alienated anyone who isn't totally far right. You don't have to be his foil because he sent everyone else running. You deserve to be treated and talked to like a person.

If it were my Pop, we likely would have gotten in a Drunken Fist fight long ago. Then probably not talked for 6 month then my dad would randomly text me about The Chicago Bears or White Sox and likely would avoid talking or apologizing about the issue that sparked the fight t begin with. It wouldn’t necessarily resolve anything but it also wouldn’t be an issue going forward...well, unless he got drunk and ran his mouth again, then we’d cycle through this process again.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

Aren’t loss leaders a cornerstone of the entire industry?

Yes.

The top loss leader is rotisserie chickens actually.

But I don't think it works when comparing one store to another.

I get that a story in a city would have smaller margins because of higher property values and not be as profitable as a sunburn store. But I have a hard time believing an extra $4 an hour will make those stores turn a loss. Even if they do, it's only temporary. And the grocery stores provide vital and essential services to their neighborhoods.

Also, I don't think it's a coincidence that all the stores Kroger is closing on the pretense of not being profitable are in cities that enacted hazard pay. They are making a statement that they will not play ball with this. They don't want higher wages.

 

[waruv]

I've heard about grocery store razor thin profit margins for years, and I have to wonder how any of these places--grocery and retail stores--are actually profitable if we properly compensated people at a living wage. I wonder how many places will go out of business if the new federal wage is enacted. I also wonder what this really says, in economic terms, about the viability of many of our stores right now and into the future. I know that I'm seeing more and more stores close permanently, and I wonder what impact these sorts of razor thin margins, this practice of paying people the lowest wage possible (while keeping wages stagnant), and the future of consumption patterns in the US.

I am concerned with huge chains saying that they cannot employ Americans AND give them a living wage while hoarding all the profit at the top for dividend payments to share holders. I wonder how any of these shareholders think that this system is sustainable. I know that the Feds are suppressing inflation by keeping interest rates at 2%. They did this because when they tried to raise it (Yellen did this during the Obama years) and they found that people could really no longer afford to pay anything over 2%. We are reaching a place where increasingly larger and larger groups of people cannot afford things that we had no problem affording a couple of decades ago. What happens to all these shares and all these shareholders when no one can buy anything? Are we going to be a completely credit based system where people are in debt until they die? Because that's basically where we are now.

I'm just wondering how any of this remains sustainable.

I think your takeaways are appropriate, and the simplest answer is probably that it'll be some combination of

• Prices Going Up
• Reduction in Number of Jobs and/or Number of Worker Hours at a Site (fewer people on at any given time, more reliance on automation or contractors)
• Reduction in Footprint / Energy Costs / Availability
• Loss of Choice

We don't have to look too far to see how some grocery stores handle this now. Trader Joe's probably pays just short of a living wage for crew members right now and has a relatively happy workforce and a stable business model in grocery. How do they do it? Operate in areas where money is plentiful, offer products no other store offers, cut out branded products, take up a minimal amount of real-estate, and have generally higher costs for their non-branded products than other stores have for their private brands. There's a lot of little sacrifices there, but your average TJs is probably a tenth of the size of your average Kroger - that alone is a massive savings on real estate and energy. Aldi, their sisterish company in Germany, is even more extreme: smaller, basic products with easily the lowest prices I've seen at a grocer. They run a completely bare bones staff (usually a cashier or two with that second cashier also doing back of the house work) and very much a "take it or leave it" mentality. Aldi also pays its small amount of staff better than most grocers do.

I believe the reasons the margins are so low is because grocers, perhaps rightfully, believe that price is king for food and they need to appeal to as many people as possible. This means big stores, huge selections, competitive prices, and constantly stocked shelves. At some point, as you said, that will end up breaking or more grocers are going to embrace a more niche model like Whole Foods, TJs, Aldi, etc. have and decide that they can win with higher margins by drawing in a specific kind of customer.

(As an aside, I am wondering if the profit margin of grocery is a bit of a myth: like it's low but they sell SO MUCH volume that it's not really any more dangerous than a less volume heavy business at a higher instance. I imagine the cost of employee wages for a supermarket represents a substantially lower percentage of overall costs than it would for other retail or service businesses)

 

[Turbo]

Should've said by the end of the day.

How can anyone still support this spineless buffoon?

 

[RenegadeMonster]

The average Market Basket has more than a million in sales per week easily. Busy stores can easily take in even more more, especially around around the holidays or when weather drives people to stock up. That is pretty common in MA / RI in terms of sales figures I saw 10 years ago. I worked in the industry in 2011 - 2014 in management during the recession. The 5+ million a week stores do exist.

However, when looking up the actual grocery store sales national wide I found this:

In 2018, median weekly sales per supermarket were $455,777. Per day, that is $65,111.

I guess there are lots of stores in rural America.

It's true the profit margins are narrow. Don't know if it's true, but I was told when I was working at a grocery store in high school in a training video all about their razor thin margins and how only 1 penny per dollar sold actually goes towards profits. But let's say that's true. And the story in Seattle is a $1 million a week store as it's in a city. That means that store is generating $10,000 in pure profit a week with their volume of sales. And remember, the profit comes after expenses like property, wages, loss and so on. That's not too shabby. And I'll bet those are pretty good numbers compared to other retailers.

 

[Joe Mac]

The average Market Basket has more than a million in sales per week easily. Busy stores can easily take in even more more, especially around around the holidays or when weather drives people to stock up. That is pretty common in MA / RI in terms of sales figures I saw 10 years ago. I worked in the industry in 2011 - 2014 in management during the recession. The 5+ million a week stores do exist.

However, when looking up the actual grocery store sales national wide I found this:



I guess there are lots of stores in rural America.

It's true the profit margins are narrow. Don't know if it's true, but I was told when I was working at a grocery store in high school in a training video all about their razor thin margins and how only 1 penny per dollar sold actually goes towards profits. But let's say that's true. And the story in Seattle is a $1 million a week store as it's in a city. That means that store is generating $10,000 in pure profit a week with their volume of sales. And remember, the profit comes after expenses like property, wages, loss and so on. That's not too shabby. And I'll bet those are pretty good numbers compared to other retailers.

If you can afford to pay a staff member a living wage, screw this race to the bottom minimum wage, you can’t afford that staff member. Also the cheaper German owned supermarkets (you all know the two) here run scarily thin margins but pay the staff very well and have amongst the best benefits and staff training, education and progression opportunities. Cynically run companies will use any excuse to cut pay to give to shareholders. We’ve got to fight back and ensure that they can’t do that.

 

[ayayrawn]

How can anyone still support this spineless buffoon?

(R)

 

[Jan]

Aldi also pays its small amount of staff better than most grocers do.

Aldi were the last to introduce scanner checkouts a few years back. Before their cashiers were extremely impressive. They were so incredibly fast and had to have all checkout codes for their inventory memorized. That money was hard earned

 

[Joe Mac]

Aldi were the last to introduce scanner checkouts a few years back. Before their cashiers were extremely impressive. They were so incredibly fast and had to have all checkout codes for their inventory memorized. That money was hard earned

What do you mean by not having scanner checkouts?

 

[Joe Mac]

Also when I comes to paying people correctly in the supermarket sector that includes properly paying farmers a fair price to produce a high quality product that adheres to robust food safety standards.

 

[Jan]

It was maybd 10 years back, when the cashier had to enter product numbers into the register by hand , i still remember vividly how fast they were at Aldi. Germany was generally later than God's or gb with scanner checkouts but Aldi was a couple of years later than the rest here

 

[Jan]

Also when I comes to paying people correctly in the supermarket sector that includes properly paying farmers a fair price to produce a high quality product that adheres to robust food safety standards.

And that is where especially the two Germans you mentioned are not excelling at fair practices

 

[Joe Mac]

And that is where especially the two Germans you mentioned are not excelling at fair practices

Yes. Although that said they actually engage with our farmers unions over here an make attempts. The big British supermarket, you all know the one, operating here absolutely don’t. They screw the farmers far worse and charge higher prices while they’re at it. The two bigger local supermarket chains are better but still nowhere near as good as local butchers/greengrocers etc who of course are much more expensive.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

It was maybd 10 years back, when the cashier had to enter product numbers into the register by hand , i still remember vividly how fast they were at Aldi. Germany was generally later than God's or gb with scanner checkouts but Aldi was a couple of years later than the rest here

Around here this changed around 2000. A lot of grocery stores switched over having to enter codes to having touch screen registers with lookups build in.

5 years further down the road we started getting those self checkouts.

Other than occasionally having one cashier, many CVS's around here (minus the pharmacy counter) are only self checkout registers. It's all automated.

My local target wen that way sometime within the last 2 years. They never had self checkouts, then they had 8 of them it's rare you see a cashier open.

Big Y, another supermarket brand that is regional around here. Think of them like a cross between whole foods and Wegmans. They are a "word class foods" supermarket and everything is easily at least 2 times more expensive here than it is at Market Baskets. They even have switched over to automation and half of their checkouts are self checkouts.

Stop and shop has gone further than self checkouts. They now have robot janitors. Spill on Aisle 6? A robot is dispatched to clean up the spill. Kids love the robots, but those are now jobs people no longer have.