Grocery stores have smaller margins and more options compared to pretty much any industry, yet politicians seem to think they are the cause of all of our ills.
If any store used dynamic pricing to expand their margins, the others would just do the same and compete away those margins once again, with the marginal gain being handed back to consumers.
Dynamic pricing on personal data is bad I think, but temporal dynamic pricing is actually very good for everyone and I hope it doesn't get thrown out by some reckless legislation-writing.
There's also price-fixing, which famously occurred in Canada recently.
Not to mention cornering a market like Walmart would and removing consumer choice entirely.
The algorithmically-driven store will start by randomly showing them some random prices and seeing how they respond. If they are willing to accept high prices, the store will keep charging them more. If they leave the store and go somewhere else, the store will revert to lower prices. The store will discriminate against people who won't comparison shop for whatever reason (busy, limited access to transport, rich enough that they don't care, etc.)
However, the store's extra margins won't lead to lower prices for other consumers, even in a fully competitive market. Raising prices for consumers who won't comparison shop will do nothing to change the marginal cost of serving a consumer who does, so this won't change the competitive dynamics for those consumers and they won't see lower prices.
> Raising prices for consumers who won't comparison shop will do nothing to change the marginal cost of serving a consumer who does
Of course it would. In a competitive environment (which grocery stores are), this excess capital gets reinvested into beating the competition.
That's not true though. Excess capital does not necessarily get reinvested in an efficient market. If that were the case, companies in relatively efficient markets would spend a very small portion of their free cash flow on dividends and share buybacks, which is not the case.
Let's look at Kroger specifically: https://ir.kroger.com/news/news-details/2026/Kroger-Reports-...
Of $7.2B free cash flow in 2025 they spent $3.9B on capital expenditures and about $3.6B on dividends and buybacks (those numbers don't add up because of things like loans, sale of assets, and stock issuance).
Additionally, even if companies in competitive markets did reinvest all their excess profits from personalized pricing, the benefits would only accrue to consumers that the algorithm thinks are price-sensitive.
The grocery market is. Margins sit at 1-2%, there is absolutely no reason to believe dynamic pricing would change that. Grocery stores are one place where free markets have created incredible consumer surplus because competition is high.
How would you do it if pricing is dynamic and changes every day?
By the time competitor finds out about the price, you might have already reduced it, making it look like theirs is more expensive even after they applied discount.
The point of pricing water to that level is that it would induce other people who have access to bottled water to bring it to that market, as is desirable
Or is your point that all people in a market with leaded water should be paying $100 for pure water because it is inherently worth that much per the market.
I didn't say everybody. I said anybody who can.
What you describe is exactly why it's important to have an incentive for the people who do have those resources to employ them towards getting bottled water to this lead-poisoned region...
No, the point is to selfishly profit-maximise. I'm not trying to be difficult in saying that. The thing you describe is not the intent, it's the hypothetical effect. It may or may not do that (I don't think it typically does, take toilet paper during COVID for example).
Yes, the point for the individual setting that price is to selfishly profit-maximize. The point for us accepting a system that does this is because it signals to other water-bottle-holders that there is a dire need nearby and pays them to meet that need.
I don't think the example of a meme-driven pseudo-shortage of a paper good during a once in a lifetime global pandemic (causing both supply and demand shocks and significant information problems) is a very good point.
Now technically it would be illegal for the grocery stores to collude in price fixing like that, but they'll hide behind the fact that all of them will buy their surveillance pricing data from Google [1].
Google will tell all of the competitors exactly how much they can charge you for your eggs, and you'll get the same price everywhere.
[1] https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/will-google-organize-the-...
This is an assumption that doesn't necessarily have to happen. Some markets remain uncompetitive, otherwise you would see every market collapse to 0 margins if this were always true.
You can't compete that away because the consumers being hurt aren't sensitive to competition (for example, they don't have a car and therefor can't get to a different grocery store). It's an inherently anti-competitive practice.
I agree that temporal dynamic pricing might be good in some circumstances, but this bill doesn't ban it.
That seems bad.
Yes, about 31% of returns in 2022 were for people who didn't pay federal income tax. By a massive, overwhelming majority, they are lower-income levels, who also receive the most direct cash and cash-like benefits from the government.
https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-doesnt-pay-incom...
>You believe in the world's most expensive healthcare, the world's most expensive universities(/hedge funds), corrupt spending on corporations, wars on behalf of the empire, and our vassal states, and 'lavish' benefits for only corporations and white people (as has been the case since we invented whiteness)?
Surely you realize healthcare and university expense is, in part, driven by all the free money the government pumps into the system, right? How successful would universities be at charging $80K a semester if not for federally subsidized student loans? I'm arguing against all the things you just listed - you seem to be confused.
>Am I correctly understanding that this status quo is your preference?
The status quo for the last 20 years is a bad thing. Our ballooning debt, as a direct result of profligate spending on all the things I listed, is a problem. Again, you seem to be very confused about my position.
>I'm also curious which benefit is specifically 'lavish'. The only social programs I'd describe as such are the programs that create billionaires.
What social program do you think creates billionaires? Even being charitable to your position, Walmart's revenue is about 4% driven by foodstamps. Even big bad Walmart isn't successful because of social programs.
As for lavish: "The government’s failure to count its largess as recipients’ income allows welfare households to blow past the income level above which a working family no longer qualifies for government help. Take a single parent with two school-age children who earns $11,000 annually from part-time work. The government considers this household in poverty because its income is below $25,273. But this family would qualify for benefits worth $53,128. It would receive Treasury checks of $3,400 in refundable child tax credits and $4,400 in refundable earned-income tax credits. The family would also receive Food Stamp debit cards worth $9,216 a year, $9,476 in housing subsidies, $877 of government payments for utility bills, $16,033 to fund Medicaid, $3,102 in free meals at school and $6,624 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. All this puts the family’s income at $64,128, or 254% of the poverty level.
A hardworking family earning anything like $64,128 in salary wouldn’t be eligible for any of these welfare benefits in four-fifths of the states. Meanwhile, the welfare family would be eligible for another 90 small federal benefits and sundry state and local welfare programs."
>Or do you just think that politicians shouldn't talk about rent, fuel, and food prices?
Considering politicians from both sides have repeatedly made each of these issues worse through things like rent-control and zoning restrictions or environmental restrictions and the Iran war, yes, I do think politicians should just be quiet and do less: they'd cause less damage.
>Or is your contention that the working poor just stupid for believing anything will ever get better in our two party system?
Basically any average citizen is silly for thinking their vote has an impact. Per "Testing Theories of American Politics", the preferences of the average citizen have a "near-zero, statistically non-significant impact" on public policy when the preferences of economic elites and organized interest groups are taken into account.
You are annoyed they don't pay income taxes, but where are the accolades for their generosity?
> What social program do you think creates billionaires?
Elon Musk would not be a hundred billionaire without government contracts and vast government subsidies. Likewise for Ellison and Palantir and whoever else gets to hoover up our defense spending. So too for any entity that receives the myriad benefits of 'public private partnership' in domains that used to be exclusively government run. Deloitte makes bank on 'administering' public programs. The Multi-billion dollar retail Tax prep exists entirely because the government is bribed not to compete. Private prisons/concentration camps are 'social programs' that produces billions in private wealth. etc. etc.. etc...
> Take a single parent with two school-age children who earns $11,000 annually from part-time work. The government considers this household in poverty because its income is below $25,273. But this family would qualify for benefits worth $53,128.
> It would receive Treasury checks of $3,400 in refundable child tax credits and $4,400 in refundable earned-income tax credits.
... A person who make this little would not pay income taxes, so these credits cannot be realized.
> Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF is temporary
All of these programs are difficult to retain access to. I've never met anybody among the working poor able to realize even half of these meagre benefits.
A random family in NYC would pay, on average, $20,439 annually, just on child care, per child, thus, this hypothetical single parent is contributing at least $40k in labor to produce future workers. It's not unreasonable to give them compensation for this thankless task.
As another point of comparison, Norway spends 18k per year for every kindergartener in their nation regardless of the parent's income. This is what is known as, under capitalism, an investment with a 50 year compounding return.
Starving, homeless children produce negative externalities if they are not cared for, so the return on the investment is even more potent in this case.
All this said, you've asserted that 53k, by itself, is 'lavish'. But you are speaking to someone who regularly makes that much money in between blinks on a half-decent day in the market, so I'm not really convinced that it is.
> Basically any average citizen is silly for thinking their vote has an impact. Per "Testing Theories of American Politics", the preferences of the average citizen have a "near-zero, statistically non-significant impact" on public policy when the preferences of economic elites and organized interest groups are taken into account.
This is why organized, sustained political action is required above and beyond elections. So that, in aggregate, these near-zeros can create change. It's not an invitation to check out and advocate for centrist reactionary nihilistic libertarianism, which is what I have to assume your true position is.
70% of the people in the lowest quintile have 0 adults working fulltime, and therefore produce effectively 0 labor value. They don't contribute, they take. Would you be OK with requiring a work, education, volunteer, or caretaking requirement for any welfare programs; to ensure that these people are actually working for society?
>Elon Musk would not be a hundred billionaire without government contracts and vast government subsidies. Likewise for Ellison and Palantir and whoever else gets to hoover up our defense spending. So too for any entity that receives the myriad benefits of 'public private partnership' in domains that used to be exclusively government run. Deloitte makes bank on 'administering' public programs. The Multi-billion dollar retail Tax prep exists entirely because the government is bribed not to compete. Private prisons/concentration camps are 'social programs' that produces billions in private wealth. etc. etc.. etc...
None of those are social programs: they required the person or company to "work" by providing a service or good that benefits people, rather than get a handout. There's a debate over the government mismanaging and misallocating the budget, but Lockheed selling a F-35 or Ellison providing compute to the government is not welfare.
> Government welfare: [The low income, underemployed family] would receive Treasury checks of $3,400 in refundable child tax credits and $4,400 in refundable earned-income tax credits.
>>... A person who make this little would not pay income taxes, so these credits cannot be realized.
You do know what a refundable tax credit means, right? "A refundable tax credit is a credit you can get as a refund even if you don't owe any tax. - IRS"
>All of these programs are difficult to retain access to. I've never met anybody among the working poor able to realize even half of these meagre benefits.
All these programs exist and receive billions of dollars at both the state and federal level. If people aren't receiving those dollars, all the more reason to abolish the program and stop the hemorrhage of cash.
>A random family in NYC would pay, on average, $20,439 annually, just on child care, per child, thus, this hypothetical single parent is contributing at least $40k in labor to produce future workers. It's not unreasonable to give them compensation for this thankless task.
NYC is 200% more expensive higher than the national average for COL and 400% higher when counting housing. It's a terrible place to try and raise a family on a low income. NYC's budget deficit varies, but is in the billions. Subsidizing a future barista or UberEats driver to the tune of $100K or more in childcare across 5 years is ludicrous, especially when you consider that again, about 40% of people pay 0 federal taxes. Stats aren't readily available for NYC taxpayers by income, but I can guarantee that NYC would literally lose money on this "investment" at a population level.
> As another point of comparison, Norway spends 18k per year for every kindergartener in their nation regardless of the parent's income. This is what is known as, under capitalism, an investment with a 50 year compounding return.
And the US spends $18,614 per public school pupil. Again, we're already spending the money but not getting the return (see: PISA scores, graduation rates, educational outcomes).
I completely agree that ROI should be considered when making government decisions. With that in mind, let's focus on reducing low ROI migration and illegal immigration. "Immigrants without a college education and all those who immigrate to the U.S. after age 55 are universally a net fiscal burden by up to $400,000... The average newly arrived immigrant who entered the country illegally is expected to have a net fiscal burden of about $130,000 in adjusted terms, so preventing future unlawful immigration is important...Using these figures, every refugee in FY 2022 is expected to increase the federal budget deficit of the U.S. by nearly $152,000 over his lifetime".
>Starving, homeless children produce negative externalities if they are not cared for, so the return on the investment is even more potent in this case.
The US already has SNAP, WIC, TANF, Section 8, and more. Again, these children aren't starving/homeless because we aren't paying for them, but because their parents are misallocating the money we give them.
>All this said, you've asserted that 53k, by itself, is 'lavish'. But you are speaking to someone who regularly makes that much money in between blinks on a half-decent day in the market, so I'm not really convinced that it is.
Now multiply that $53K across the population, and you'll see a major contributor to the $1.9 trillion deficit.
> This is why organized, sustained political action is required above and beyond elections. So that, in aggregate, these near-zeros can create change. It's not an invitation to check out and advocate for centrist reactionary nihilistic libertarianism, which is what I have to assume your true position is.
What action do you want to advocate for? More taxes, more wasteful spending, more people not contributing to society but just taking? Before you advocate for policy, learning some tax basics like what a refundable tax credit is would go a long way.
To a lesser extent it is the same with loyalty programs - my grocery stores often discount items to 50% and on my receipt it there is usually something like - you saved 20 Euro - which could be 20 to 30% of the bill. A lesser mind than the average consumer's may suspect that they keep all the prices permanently inflated by 20 to 30% and if some schmuck dare to buy their favorite cheese when not discounted - it is on them.
I was taught that the power of consumer choice could reign in markets, but when I look around I see more and more companies working harder and harder to make themselves completely insulated from consumer choice.
Now our darlings are companies that are like massive prisons that promise that everyone will be interned in in the future.
The highest ROI for any business is to buy their own politician. That allows you to block competition and other inconveniences at a legislative level.
https://qz.com/supermarket-prices-grocery-food-inflation-pan...