At Columbia? Let’s be serious now.
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Bring back ClickHole
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There has been a lot of talk of food prices which are insane but my question is, is there an example where overall groceries have ever gone down? Is there a path to lower food prices now that they have been raised?
Obviously things go on sale but do groceries ever respond long term to pricing signals going down? Is this even a thing? Is there any world where overall grocery prices could move 20% lower now?
Sept 2016-Jan 2017 (and down for the whole year of 2016)
Eta: also October 2009-Feb 2010
Interesting but they seem very much like the exception and very small percentages. To get to something more “normal” we need like 20%+ drops right?
It’s also hard to tell between real inflation and all the profit gouging going on.
It doesn’t much go down for sure, but 2022 and most of 2023 were unusually high.
For sure. Given chain and producer profit margins it seems like so much of that was profiteering. Wonder if there is any world that actually reverses. I could see it stopping an increase but a world where there is a 10%+ decrease seems very hard to imagine.
The period in question was pretty good for Kroger, but maybe not a huge smoking gun.
Kroger Gross Profit 2010-2024 | KR | MacroTrends.
(Kroger is the biggest American grocer that I think it just a grocer unlike Walmart and Costco)
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Our main chain owners had record profits last couple years. That’s partly why our food costs are so much worse than yours too. We have two huge monopolies who price fix together.
I guess we are far better off than some countries!
I feel like I struggle with the current discourse around food inflation because it really depends on the cause.
Food inflation due to supply chain issues not being able to be figured out or due to companies creating larger profits simply through pricing inelastic goods higher = Bad
Food inflation due to the restaurant industry in major cities not being able to pay below poverty level wages for full time labor = Good
The price of eggs normalized, but the recent spike in prices was always a weird supply chain SNAFU.
Because we all know that crooked dems politicise indictments against honest hard working repupblican presidents.
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