I wouldn't want to take a bus ride with a buch of perishables though. I guess it's possible, but I enjoy having my car.
You have to be rich to be poor.
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I wouldn't want to take a bus ride with a buch of perishables though. I guess it's possible, but I enjoy having my car.
I wouldn't want to take a bus ride with a buch of perishables though. I guess it's possible, but I enjoy having my car.
An hour one way is fine for milk. What else is really that perishable?
Time until death.
It's not the whole story. The real low hanging fruit is decent jobs. employed people can be effectively poor if those things he mentioned are a problem. What about the millions of people who simply cannot find decent work?
All over the world, the poor get poorer. Nothing American about this, except that it is excaerbated by American suburban planning.
Though city life has its plusses, with denser planning comes decreased room to breath, room to move, room to live, which are also parts of my defintion of 'quality of life.'
Having lived in the city before, the dogs and I now enjoy our safe and secure yard in the 'burbs. Our quality of life increased in doing so, imo.
If society wants a lot more people with money to live in or nearer to the city, it needs to take a much more serious stance on all kinds of violent crime.
Though city life has its plusses, with denser planning comes decreased room to breath, room to move, room to live, which are also parts of my defintion of 'quality of life.'
Having lived in the city before, the dogs and I now enjoy our safe and secure yard in the 'burbs. Our quality of life increased in doing so, imo.
If society wants a lot more people with money to live in or nearer to the city, it needs to take a much more serious stance on all kinds of violent crime.
I try to avoid big supermarkets. On the face of it they look cheap but in reality they're not. They're constantly making the sizes smaller and keeping prices the same. They also regularly advertise offers that are not processed at the till (which I think is fraudulent).
Meat is very expensive. Take chicken for example. At a supermarket you'd probably think was cheap it might be £10 per kilo. At a more upmarket supermarket it might be £13 per kilo. Well I can get it at a local small supermarket which is less than a 5 minute walk down the road for £6 per kilo.
Large supermarkets constantly fluctuate their prices. For example, I often buy Muller yoghurts which are usually just under £3 each (without offers). Sometimes they have offers on like 2 for £3. They've even had the individual ones on offer for less than the multipacks before.
I've also noticed the selling techniques of large supermarkets. Some products go from eg. 2 for £2.50, up to 3 for £3.50, and 4 for £4.50 to get people hooked and then lift the prices. One product I used to buy was put into a new packaging and made 100g lighter - but kept the same price. They repackaged that as a mini-meal and brought out a 'new' product which was the original weight and bumped the price up.
Large supermarkets have no competition. People go there primarily for convenience rather than because they're cheap and because there's no competition once the shoppers are in, they just need to entice them to buy far more than they usually would. I also often find that large supermarkets have run out of food to buy: a few bits of chicken left, a dozen tubs of mince, pork chops which are 50% bone to add to the weight on the packet.
Anyway I don't really know how I started ranting about supermarkets because I was just going to reply about the poor.
Back to the OP, I've noticed this for quite a while. As a child I used to think it would be a good idea if everyone paid a percentage of their wealth for something (and then grew up and realised how flawed that was). I think it's something very unfortunate, but sadly an inevitable fact of capitalism. Financial help should be available for poor people in need simply for the reason that being poor is a spiral of decline. As this thread makes clear: being poor means you have to pay more for goods (because you cannot buy in bulk etc). Clearly if someone is penniless and homeless, they're very unlikely to get a job, and certainly would be unable to get anything highly paid.
Meat is very expensive. Take chicken for example. At a supermarket you'd probably think was cheap it might be £10 per kilo. At a more upmarket supermarket it might be £13 per kilo. Well I can get it at a local small supermarket which is less than a 5 minute walk down the road for £6 per kilo.
Large supermarkets constantly fluctuate their prices. For example, I often buy Muller yoghurts which are usually just under £3 each (without offers). Sometimes they have offers on like 2 for £3. They've even had the individual ones on offer for less than the multipacks before.
I've also noticed the selling techniques of large supermarkets. Some products go from eg. 2 for £2.50, up to 3 for £3.50, and 4 for £4.50 to get people hooked and then lift the prices. One product I used to buy was put into a new packaging and made 100g lighter - but kept the same price. They repackaged that as a mini-meal and brought out a 'new' product which was the original weight and bumped the price up.
Large supermarkets have no competition. People go there primarily for convenience rather than because they're cheap and because there's no competition once the shoppers are in, they just need to entice them to buy far more than they usually would. I also often find that large supermarkets have run out of food to buy: a few bits of chicken left, a dozen tubs of mince, pork chops which are 50% bone to add to the weight on the packet.
Anyway I don't really know how I started ranting about supermarkets because I was just going to reply about the poor.
Back to the OP, I've noticed this for quite a while. As a child I used to think it would be a good idea if everyone paid a percentage of their wealth for something (and then grew up and realised how flawed that was). I think it's something very unfortunate, but sadly an inevitable fact of capitalism. Financial help should be available for poor people in need simply for the reason that being poor is a spiral of decline. As this thread makes clear: being poor means you have to pay more for goods (because you cannot buy in bulk etc). Clearly if someone is penniless and homeless, they're very unlikely to get a job, and certainly would be unable to get anything highly paid.
plarq
Crazy forever
Some of the products are approaching deadlines, esp. for short shelf life things like yogurts. I often buy them on halved price.
I kept track of commodity prices, and watch prices of grains etc. since most animal-related products are related to grains.
I personally don't notice such monopoly, since you can drive, you have lots of choice around the town. I suggest you to take notice of prices in different supermarkets, and nearby stores.
Bad behavior of consuming goods is a good reason for the already poor to suffer, the more you spent on the less important commodities, your life sucks more--however it is applicable to already poor people. And it is only applicable for urban temporarily employed people living in poor neighborhoods.
Progressive tax.
I think people are kind of missing the point. It's not that some food is more expensive for the poor. It's that, generally, things are more expensive for the poor. I have a laptop in my house that I can search job ads with, read about my field of work, or use for another gazillions things whenever I have a free moment. If you cannot afford a computer and internet, then you're 'paying' for a similar thing with commute time, as you go to the library to use their computers. My library is pretty close, and it's still a 10 minute jog away. If I needed to jog 10 minutes to use my laptop, I'd get much less out of it.
Credit is more expensive, which makes it harder for someone with a really good idea to turn profitable. Etc.
They should cut their drinking, smoking, and cable? Any social welfare system: from welfare cheques to subsidized healthcare will be more effective if people are being wiser.
Yes, obviously we need to increase available jobs. We need to be moving capital and entrepreneurship around as much as possible. Anyone can be an entrepreneur and employ people. But Patroklos is talking about situations that I know about too. Someone is poor, but then spends upwards of 20% of their income on things that I don't buy.
On the whole, people value the short-term more than the long-term. Part of accumulating wealth is overcoming that instinct.
Credit is more expensive, which makes it harder for someone with a really good idea to turn profitable. Etc.
They should cut their drinking, smoking, and cable? Any social welfare system: from welfare cheques to subsidized healthcare will be more effective if people are being wiser.
Yes, obviously we need to increase available jobs. We need to be moving capital and entrepreneurship around as much as possible. Anyone can be an entrepreneur and employ people. But Patroklos is talking about situations that I know about too. Someone is poor, but then spends upwards of 20% of their income on things that I don't buy.
On the whole, people value the short-term more than the long-term. Part of accumulating wealth is overcoming that instinct.
One thing I think needs to be much, much more heavily emphasized in public schools is Entrepreneurship. Like a literal class devoted to how to obtain a license to participate in particular trades, how to write (and submit) a business proposal, as well as how to research a business idea, and in some cases handle paperwork like W2 forms for employees.
High school currently only seems geared towards making perfect employees and entrepreneurship becomes harder and harder with every new law or exclusive contract made. With this trend, we'll definitely see more unemployed about, as only employers will know what it takes to teach their kids to also be employers. A kind of class divide by education.
Funny how the "time is money" phrase kind of gets ignored by many when applied to the poor.
CIVPhilzilla
Reagan Republican
What also isn't mentioned is how local city governments fight these big retailers who can bring low prices to those who need it most because it competes with the labor interests of the city. Like Chicago fighting the building of a Walmart in the city.
amadeus
Apply directly to the forehead
Citation needed.
I think it depends on what metric you're using, Amadeus. Now, there's about 4 billiion people who're getting more wealthy every year, so it doesn't count for them. But there are about a billion people who have less resources every year, because their ecological capital is being degraded.
If someone was harvesting firewood last year for meals, and this year has to harvest dead root for fire, you know they're poorer.
As well, in modern societies, the 'poor' are better off in some ways, but worse off in others. Have rent and food gone up in price faster than wages?
If someone was harvesting firewood last year for meals, and this year has to harvest dead root for fire, you know they're poorer.
As well, in modern societies, the 'poor' are better off in some ways, but worse off in others. Have rent and food gone up in price faster than wages?
Narz
keeping it real
There were 4 billion people who became more wealthy from May 2008 to May 2009?
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Industrial production just about everywhere fell, services tend to follow the same trend, and the world population is still increasing, albeit slowly. So I doubt it.
Narz
keeping it real
Exponential growth indefinitely is not possible. Models based upon infinite growth are flawed. To put it short, we're living beyond our means.
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
BS. My dad owns a grocery store in said area. Biggest difference between an affluent area and a poor area (both in NYC so the delivery distance isn't a problem) has always been "inventory shrinkage". For some items, he can be sure that for every 10 unit sold there will be 1 or 2 that will be stolen or damaged. To stay profitable, he would have to mark those items up by the corresponding percentage.
Furthermore, that shopping cart theory was probably pulled straight from someone's ass. So what if people can't grab everything in one go? They may not be able to buy stuff at those wholesale quantities but they still need to buy stuff. Maybe they will take the bus and go to the supermarket multiple times per week, but that just increases the chance that they will do impulse buys. None of your theories can account for the general lack of stores in poor neighborhoods and the high prices charged there. If you seriously there is a lack of good, efficient supermarkets in less affluent areas, why don't you put your money into it? Why doesn't anyone else try to fit into that market niche? Why? Because the higher price is justified by the increased inventory risk.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I think everyone is getting a bit caught up on the example of groceries here. I believe the point was that a combination of false economy and limited means creates an inescapable spiral for many poor people. Whether or not you agree with this, debating how many groceries you can fit on a bicycle or how long you can keep milk out of a fridge isn't really the point. 
aelf
Ashen One
I can't help but think ' so what? '.
Should society through the State intervene to better their conditions?
Maybe if you didn't feed latte to dogs, you'd understand.
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