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Anonymous A started this discussion 1 hour ago#137,448
Your groceries aren't expensive because of grocery store profits, their margins are 2%.
If it all worked out and the government came in, operated at the same efficiency, and took no profit you would shave 2% off your price.
This would also mean you as a city taxpayer were investing money at 0%. The gains would be less than the opportunity cost. The city could invest that in just about anything else for a better return, even exceeding 2%. The fact private companies operate at all, instead of investing in equities is already a charitable act.
So you gain nothing even if it works. And the city doesn't have the same experience and systems to operate at the efficiency grocery stores can run at today. So it would probably be a loss for the taxpayer to just match the prices available today.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 50 minutes ago, 17 minutes later[^][v]#1,455,873
It's why it's a great idea to tax food gradually during good times, then at bad times you can magically make food cheaper again.
The problem is government just become dependent on that tax from the good days, so instead you get people having to have financial aid to afford food, while a big part of the aid just goes back into tax