Food availability is not something that should be held to market forces. There is no way that Kroger is so bad off that they couldn’t afford to take a hit on these stores in poor communities. No big company every deserves sympathy for monetary decisions. The only people it’s okay to not do things because of money are people too poor to do it.
Jesse Jackson is standing up for the poor people against the rich people who could afford to help but aren’t. Stop trying to paint that as a bad thing.
And, for fuck’s sake, don’t tell a fucking protester to STFU, even if you disagree with them. Barring it being some sort of pro-racism or other pro-evil protest, you shouldn’t be trying to silence them. Not unless you want us to silence you on the shit we disagree with you about.
And it isn’t the responsibility of the American people to have to shut up and take every corporate decision made in the interest of profits.
“Oh, your electric company would be more profitable if you didn’t supply power to my house? Well, I guess I have nothing to complain about.”
ETA: Who knew that capitalists could be such precious snowflakes that they feel bad when their profits go up, but not everyone showers adulation on them for doing so.
Are you saying the government should get involved?
How do you know? I’ve always heard that the grocery business operates on low profit margins.
And why is the onus on Kroger to keep on losing money, as opposed to some other company that could come in and take over the store?
What bothers me is the idea that every problem can be solved by protesting and marching and boycotting. As though there’s always an obvious Right Thing To Do and we just have to overcome people’s stubbornness to get them to do it, as opposed to figuring out how to solve the problem through knowledge and reason and bargaining.
I don’t know what planet you live on, but as a general rule, businesses generally see no need to negotiate with someone unless there’s something in it for the businesses, whether it is the promise of profits or mitigating the bad PR of protests. Having a bunch of people ask something of a business while pinky-swearing not to say anything that might give the business a bad newspaper story or two is a really stupid negotiating position that only a complete idiot would adopt.
But that doesn’t help - poor people are too busy working 26 hours a day at their three jobs for minimum wage. Plus it’s 15 miles to the other store, in the freezing cold, under a hot sun, and uphill. Both ways!
When I was a lad, we didn’t have grocery stores. We ate rocks. And we were grateful for it!
That’s ridiculous. Who are you to tell other private entities what to do with their assets? I grew up very poor and even at a young age I realized if a grocery store set up shop in my immediate environment it would be pillaged and have to import workers. Trailer parks can be like that.
Oh, on the silencing thing. You sort of do try that as well. At times with implied violence. You and your royal ‘us.’
If Jesse wants real change he needs to put minority investors in situations to solve the issue. Instead he grandstands among the poor while he is among higher end if next worth.
What are you doing to solve the issue of boycotts you oppose? Nothing? Just talking?
How about the whole grocery store issue? Doing nothing there, either, eh?
If you criticize others for not doing a particular thing you think is beneficial, I think you ought to be doing anything but being all talk and no action.
Nothing I need to do about the grocery store issue. It doesn’t directly effect me. I do things in my area to support local businesses and help them remain in the community.
Maybe people who are affected by the grocery store closing have a different opinion. For example, a famine in Africa may be a very big deal to those impacted, while you would probably tell them to STFU and be constructive about their starvation.
While offering healthy foods that require transportation and preparation to people who do not choose to use them doesn’t force them to do so, it does allow those who do choose to eat healthier to do so. Removing the stores that offer fresh foods means that those who do choose to eat healthier cannot.
If someone has been eating unhealthy, if they have access to healthier foods, they are able to change their eating habits. If they don’t have access to healthier foods, then that becomes impossible.
Eating healthy is expensive and requires more time, effort, and knowledge than eating prepared foods.
Who said anything about having the government force a company to stay open? Please cite what the hell you are talking about?
The pressure is on the private side, of boycotts or other tools used in private industry, that’s not a govt. If there is enough pressure, if enough people decide to boycott the profitable stores unless they keep some of their unprofitable ones open, then that is just a business decision that they make based on the market, not on a govt edict. Are you trying to say that people are not allowed to make their opinions about the way that companies operate known? That criticising a company for decisions that you disagree with should be forbidden?
Now, personally, I think that govt should get involved in subsidizing unprofitable stores, to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, healthy foods, within a reasonable distance of their homes, but that’s not using the govt to force behavior, just using it to assist and reward behavior.
I understand about “food deserts” My favorite grocery store, the one closest to me, closed a while back. It was bleeding money mostly because of shoplifting. It’s closing left the next closest store to me several miles away.
It’s closing was a big inconvenience for a lot of folks in the neighborhood, ones that walk or had to take a bus. I was lucky, I do have a car. But the chain that owned it shouldn’t have to keep it open when they were not making it profitable.