This is just going to get worse thanks to the current administration:
- tariffs raising prices
- stagflation
- job losses/layoffs/hiring freezes stacking up
- AI bubble to pop eventually
Seems like a bad cycle that will be difficult to break.
You’re skipping “flu season”…
COVID didn’t just go away. And they’re legitimately wanting to ban anyone under 70 from getting a vaccine this year.
Not only is it going to be bad this year because of that, but a lot of people’s lungs are already fucked. Throw stress and poor nutrition on top of that…
A shit ton of predominantly elderly trump voters are gonna die in the next six months from easily preventable diseases thanks to Trump’s administration.
Not to mention the primary directive for human life, for profit. Think of the shareholders because theyre always more important.
Grocery store chains are reporting an uptick in profit.
🤮🤮🤮🤮
one of the staples at the pantry here used to be chicken from walmart’s deli. the roasted and fried chicken that didn’t sell even out of the cold case the day or two after, or on markdown on the sell-by day.
the store now freezes what doesn’t sell, relabels it as ‘chilled’ with a new sell-by date, and puts it back out at full price, one or two at a time as they sell.
It’s pretty easy to have an uptick in profits when you charge more. Eggs are still double what they were a year ago. Because why not.
Yup, stores realized they could make more money while simultaneously dealing with less overhead.
Eggs are a great example. Let’s compare a $2/dozen vs $6/dozen difference. With $2 per dozen, you need to sell 50 cartons to make $100. Consider that you also paid for each carton, had to ship them into the store, pay people to stock the shelves, pay rent for the store, pay to keep the store lit and cooled, unsold product spoils, etc… And your margin probably isn’t that great on that $100. Let’s say your overhead expenses are ~$1.80 per carton. You probably spent ~$90 in overhead, so you only actually netted ~$10 in profit.
Now let’s do the same math with a $6 carton. You only need to sell ~17 cartons to make the same $100. And since you’re selling fewer cartons, your overhead expenses have dropped; Some of the expenses (like rent and utilities) haven’t changed, but you’re not paying as much in shipping, there’s less waste from spoilage due to smaller back-stock, etc… Let’s say that all combines to reduce your overhead per carton by 5¢. So now you’re paying ~$1.75 per carton. That 17 cartons would have only cost you ~$29.75 in expenses. So now you have made over $70, instead of only $10. All while comfortably selling less.
And of course, there are two big losers in this scenario. The first is the producer. The egg farmers. Suddenly, their demand has dried up. Not completely, because food is a fairly inflexible demand… But people are increasingly avoiding them if they can find cheaper alternatives. And that’s exactly what we have seen; Farms are almost universally in the red right now, and Trump just followed that up with a one-two punch. First, he removed a lot of their cheap labor (immigrants) and then he killed a bunch of subsidies that would have kept those farms afloat. But hey, they got what they voted for, right?
The other big loser is the consumer, who is suddenly struggling to feed themselves and their family. And it’ll likely only continue to get worse.
yeah our neighborhood lady who sold her leftover hen eggs for $0.50 a pop, she hasn’t changed her prices but now she’s about as expensive as the store. only her eggs are better. only problem is she’s only got like 4 chickens, so she can’t supply the entire neighborhood.
My church food pantry used to serve about 200 families a month. This past year we have risen to over 900 families per month. We used to service three counties but reduced it down to one and we have reduced our days from five to three days per week. We can’t get enough food and regularly run out. The only plus is that my community is primarily MAGA and they got what they voted for.
Hopefully your local MAGAs are too proud to take advantage of your churches program, because that would be socialism!
