This Mega-Merger Could Increase Grocery Prices. We Can Stop It.
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- čas přidán 4. 12. 2023
- If Kroger and Albertsons merge, they'd create the biggest supermarket chain in the country and your sky-high grocery bill will get even higher. We already saw this happen 9 years ago, when Albertsons combined with Safeway. But this time, the government could stop it.
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Americans need a nationwide labor movement.
its already started in a way. this year alone there has been at least 7 major strikes in major industries. The issue is the need for new legislation and enforcement. I know people typically don't want additional government involvement but at this point who else is going to make sure these corporations don't keep fleecing their consumers? Besides isn't that what the government is for in the first place? to assist in setting down rules for the populace that everyone needs to follow? There's more I can talk about on that subject and I know governments haven't done their damn jobs properly either, but it may be the only option outside of violent riots and civil wars. At least that's how I feel about the situation.
New Deal
@@jedison2441 Bad idea my friend since it would hurt workers and their communities when everything is shut down. This won't hurt the capitalists since they already have the resources to wait it out. What should be done is a nationwide general lockout of the capitalists and their lackeys from every building including the gas stations and shopping centers. Workers would produce and distribute the products in their communities with arrangements with other communities free of charge which would hit the capitalist hard. But are we ready for such an endeavor? No! The original commenter wrote correctly that we need a nationwide labor movement before meaningful action can happen.
So long as people continue to believe that unions are a bad thing, it'll never happen. Only lazy people and liberals want to get paid more for doing less, apparently.
@@jedison2441💯
Corpos: "May the best man win"
Also corpos: "Let's merge because I'm so tired of competing against you, bro. Let's raise prices together and leave people without any real choices!"
but they haven't competed lol. its always been Albertsons/Safeway more expensive, and now Kroger is just raising prices for the hell of it.
@@mystica-subs I made a more generic statement for today's economy. I can totally see why Kroger would raise their prices for their subpar products just because $$$ compared to Albertson's.
That's the real choice they're taking away by merging with Albertson's.
You think they didn’t talk to each other before this happened. They can just stop pretending now.
Paying so much for groceries yet the workers at the grocery store, farmers, and truckers don’t get a raise.
Its almost like the CFOs raise prices so that the CFOs get more pocket change
Local farmers markets in my area are now CHEAPER than these robber barons. Going direct to the source when things are in season puts money back into your community.
@@Raisesheeplovepeaceyep, local farmers markets, small businesses is honestly the way to go! Good for the communities and for you & family.
I am sick and tired of corporations having the freedom to squeeze us out of living comfortably. It seems that citizens of this country are an afterthought.
it doesnt matter what country your talking about...get real...
@@DrQandtheGang ”Other people in the world suffer, so why shouldn’t you?? Why are you bothering to try and make the world a better place??”
What a pathetic, defeatist mindset.
Corporations are incentivized to do what they do because the money is BROKEN. Study Bitcoin & save your purchasing power.
@@DrCrabnuts Darkling, he said, "We aren't the only ones."
How is that not wanting to make the world a better place?
Sounds like YOU don't want to make it any better, FOR ANYONE BUT YOU.
@@TimeSurfer206
That’s pretty uncharitable too and you’re guilty of what you accused the other person of as they did not say that either! Enough of this nonsense; The original comment was lamenting about how bad things are. Maybe instead of people playing the Suffering Olympics and vying for gold and then accusing each other of stupid nonexistent offenses, we should be empathizing with how this is affecting individuals and doing what we can to spread awareness.
Strange how continuing to vote people with business and law backgrounds into government has some drawbacks
No social workers in sight
😂😂😂Facts
Not all of our representatives come from those areas. Look at George Santos for example 😂
They have the time and the connections. That's the problem.
"Lawfare" is a tactic of legal warfare that is used by politicians and corporations to rig the economy in their favor. Lawfare, is a term that people in the developing world are already familiar with and fighting back against. Americans need to learn what lawfare is and start fighting back against it.
No more mergers! Make them illegal! No more companies buying other companies, more competition in the market. If you want to be the market leader, out-compete your competition.
We used to say no to mergers and acquisitions routinely, until Reagan came along and ruined everything.
Reagan ruined so many things. It would be awesome to get a politician that is very anti reagan
Reagan? wow he was president in the 80s and in the 80s we had a lot of stores .
A lot of our modern problems stem from Regan and Neo-Liberalism.
@@AirGee trickled down had nothing to do with these companies buying one another , this just started . companies started doing that in 2001
Yes give the money to the rich and they will help the poor and middle class. Reagan economics also known as trickle down economics. Cut back on regulations, give them money and they will help the other classes. Doesn’t work. The eighties were great, is when everything was painted over and we had no clue. Now the paints pealing and it’s not pretty. Yeah you didn’t get trickled on, they kept the money, hired lawyers, and got laws changed.
It’s not just higher prices for groceries, it’s lower wages for grocery store employees and union busting. It also means massive layoffs, no matter what Kroger says. This merger is dangerous and will only cause harm.
Corporate greed is running laps around government regulation and it really shows.
The corporations and the banks are the government
Almost as if by design...
Too often they are writing the regulations to drive up costs and keep others out!
Rightoids would prefer being hysterical over made up stories over making the rich accountable.
Government CAUSED the problem dude. You can't act like corporations are benefiting from a weak government, they are one in the same.
Stopping two grocery stores merging doesn't really help when everything being sold in each store is also owned by like 4 major food producers by 6 different farms with seeds fron 1 company. There are endless levels of monopoly behavior.
That is true, it's a very tangled web of bullshit.
Its just a start to dealing with the mess but a start that needs to happen
true, its not going to be enough - but not stopping this means the process accellerates and gets worse
holding the line is better than losing ground, even if it is not gaining back ground
It would help, but you have a good point.
Remember folks: If you see someone shoplifting food, no you didn't.
no i think gail lewis will
😂😂😂right!!!
Baby items too. I'll never see anyone take diapers, formula, or baby food.
@@lauraprescott1314 Absolutely. Stealing formula to feed a baby shouldn't even be a crime.
"Oh I thought they were just testing a check yourself out system like best buy just released on their app"
I think another big problem with grocery stores is wholesale price fixing. Walmart can secretly go to producers and demand a discount not given to other retailers. The same is true with Kroger and Albertsons. They threaten to go elsewhere if they don't get a lower price. This instantly puts smaller regional grocers at a price disadvantage from the start because there is no way they can compete. That is also what drove all the Mom and Pop grocers out of the market and has created the food deserts that we have now. We need to allow all grocery stores to operate on a level playing field for wholesale price.
the producers need to unionize together and negotiate as one, instead of each negotiating with walmart in secret so walmart can threaten them while they feel alone
If I buy 1 million units I can demand a better price compared to someone that only buys 100,000 units.
@@jonathanjones3126 There's a law on the books-1936's Robinson-Patman Act-that essentially says suppliers in any industry can't give lower prices and special deals to big chain stores if it costs the same to serve them as other stores. The law also says retailers can't try and bully suppliers into giving those discounts.
Problem is that the FTC and DOJ need to start enforcing it. Walmart routinely thumbs it's nose at this law and constantly violates it
@@scpatl4now hmm a fdr Era law that is probably unconstitutional, fdr was known for trying to get around the constitution.
Maybe the government hasn't tried to enforce it because the law would be thrown out?
@@jonathanjones3126 ...or maybe the neoliberals just wanted to pretend it wasn't there as has been the case thus far. It is there, and it needs to be enforced. We need more of those "FDR Era" laws if we want a comparative market again instead of the monopolies that are starting to ruin the market.
Between google, Amazon, Kroger, and the fact that 10 brands make all of our foods and controls production it’s seriously scary.
Merger... it's just the propagandized version of monopolization.
The quality of foods available have gone down drastically as well, while prices have nearly doubled!
You are right
Lunch meat is 40% water.
I have started returning products that don't meet the quality. I've never had to do that in the past. The other day I bought strawberries and they grew white fuzz on them the next day. I got my $5 back. Strawberries used to last for weeks in my fridge.
Why do Americans have such a broad aversion to being critical of capitalists and capitalist operations? :)
Something, something red scare gommunism 3 trillion dead
Decades of goofy propaganda.
I'm here to say that plenty of us hate the capitalist system and capitalist apologia.
Because those that are taught since birth that ‘this is the way things will only work, and any other way will lead to communism and a dictatorship’ are inclined to be fearful of change.
Red Scare propaganda that has lasted since then. Generally speaking, America may as well be the beating heart of capitalism, and you’d expect the heart to be very averse to any disagreement from within. So it gets squashed, often violently, like the Haymarket Massacre.
Its not only grocery stores. Within the last year one of my banks and 2 of my credit card companies merged. These mergers are happening so quickly and no one seems to be stopping it.
Wow. Someone is paying attention. This is actually the first intelligent comment I’ve seen. Truly hope you’re an entrepreneur. If not, it’s time to take it to the next level.
@@SoberBangBangVeteran and what is that going to do? any new competition a startup could manage is either going to be inconsequential, aquired by the big players or starved out of resources by the big players or undercut until they go bankrupt
these companies have consolidated so much that no competition is possible unless you are of a comparable size
further mergers and aquisitions need to be stopped and the big companies need to be broken apart
@@ceciliacole5098 oh ya I see you put a brain cell at task for my comment. That is absolutely right. When everything monopolizes I sure hope that your part of the monopoly because everyone else at the table will lose. Its the game monopoly but real life buddy. Im sure you played monopoly, right? There is only one winner in a game of monopoly. Its absolutely insane to be for allowing American companies to monopolies. It is why our defense budget is almost a trillion dollars. Like 50 contractors turned to 4 and now they price fix our own government and they cant fix it back the way it was.
@@ceciliacole5098 you literally got me hot for a moment and I had to take my shirt off
@@ceciliacole5098 efficient for extracting profit, very inefficient for the economics. go do some reading on monopolies and oligopolies
4:57 All I needed to hear is “Jim Cramer approves” and I know it’s a bad deal!
Greed destroys everything.
You could absolutely investigate how people who are on medicaid are stuck on medicaid, unable to work, because they don't have the skills to get a job with decent healthcare. I can't get a job because I can't afford the issues I have. So i'm stuck in a cycle of poverty. I make less money full time than part time because of how the system works. Honestly it's not worth working at all.
And the income gap between qualifying for Medicaid and actually able to afford insurance is massive. Some states have better programs for people in the middle, and some have none. You make $50/week over the limit, sucks to be you, no insurance. And you can't buy your own plan, because that's $600/month and you're only making an extra $200.
I love how our own government economists are saying corporate profits are the biggest cause of inflation right now but all the politicians are blaming wages.
Its sad how much the federal government is run by big money.
It’s awful. Hard working families are working their hardest and still can’t feed their families.
They let it happen cause they refuse to unionize.
This is what Republicans vote for. They want to be taken advantage of--it's their kink.
@@ceciliacole5098 I do have kids, but my husband and I both work in the medical field, so our family is okay. We help out at the local food pantry each month and see a lot of struggling families. A lot of them had good paying jobs but were laid off and are now working wherever they can to make enough money to sustain their families. The people I see at the pantry aren’t people that mooch off the government. They did the right thing, but fell on hard times. I’m allowed to have empathy for parents who are struggling right now. Besides, if food prices weren’t so ridiculous, maybe so many people wouldn’t have to rely on pantries.
@@shoveI this sums it up perfectly :)
@@ceciliacole5098So, like, the 75% of americans not.living comfortably just shouldnt breed? Thats oddly monarchist
Yup. I have no money. My child is off of diapers thankfully but even Costco is raising it's prices.
Safeway is the absolute worst. 1 bag of groceries is 80 dollars.
Eating out and cooking in is almost the same except that you know what is in your food if you cook it yourself.
And you don’t have to tip the server when you cook/eat at home.
I've been cooking and baking all of my own food for years already. I've noticed my rice is a couple more dollars per 15 lb bag than it was a few months ago, which was the same price it had been for ~4 years previous, but that's not enough to change how I do anything else or hit the wallet too hard in my case.
I definitely feel for those who don't cook all their own food, though. Or didn't cook it all, as that seems like it might change for those who are able to, at least a little bit.
people only eat out to have the experience of forcing someone else to work for nothing and serve them for a brief moment lol
@@saturationstation1446wtf kind of dumbass take is that?!
Share holding and cantering to them is americans biggest problems.
This merger should be blocked.
We need a Teddy Rosevelte who will break up all these effective monopolies.
Scowls. Teddy was one of the worst presidents in history
@@brialapoint2608 Every President in my lifetime has been way worse than Teddy.
He was a unique person. Born into a very wealthy and well connected family, his experiences in the military and growing up as a very sickly child may have humbled him. I Imagine those experiences may have shaped his outlook on life to that of the common man more than the wealth and privilege at his finger tips. His lineage got him into high politics and luck got him the presidency and that what gave him the opportunities of reforms. Politicians have always been those to consolidate and increase their wealth but not so much Teddy. For a progressive individual to come along will have to be another perfect storm.
He was only president by accident. Nobody willing to take on big money will ever be allowed to get that far again. Recently, look at Bernie & Ron Paul's prez runs for examples.
@@brialapoint2608what's THAT hot take based on? Do you come from a family of robber barons or something?
Its not just a US thing. Price gouging is happening all over the world 😡
Because central banks all over the world are printing money out of thin air. Bitcoin will fix this.
Beautiful global capitalism
We need price control
Negative.
Are you good with the shortages that come along with those price controls?
Ask anyone who use to live in a communist country how well price controls work
@@SoberBangBangVeteran
Your apparent, arrogant ignorance is beyond pathetic.
@@markgoodwin4500 good luck trying to explain it to him. I really don’t think he’s gonna get it.
What we need is a government that enacts policies that promotes free and fair competition... we need more government regulation not less regulation... In other words we need bigger government...
I know that's a dirty word among Republicans but it's the truth here...
I hope Americans collectively stand up against this
I remember Kroger in the early 2000s buying up all the local grocers in Indiana and it was terrible. There were price increases and food quality went way down and they could get away with it bc there were only corporations to buy groceries from. Kroger, Walmart, Meyer that was basically it after all the locals were bought. Fewer stores, less options, lower quality. It’s really sad to see how much worse it is now. I really hoped it would get better.
It isn’t just the continued merger of grocery stores , but the essential monopolies by grocery type (meat, dairy, produce, and shelf stable and non perishables) among the actual companies producing our food. It’s Its despicable and our government is to blame.
You can blame the government but just understand that this is only possible because our money is broken. Opt out & study Bitcoin.
@@CafeSatoshi Ah yes, bitcoin, where the mega rich have bought up and become whales already of a finite bitcoin supply just in case.
I'm confused, how does bitcoin fix capitalism? Because our current problem isn't even currency. It's real-life whales (corporations and individuals) buying everything and then driving up prices.
@@CafeSatoshi I'm still waiting for the actual use case of Bitcoin. Or for it to break through 7 transactions a second. Or for it to not use a swimming pool's worth of water each transaction. You bitcoin freaks are completely detached from reality, and this is coming from someone who wants decentralized currency and local gov't. It just isn't a reality with bitcoin, maybe you should study it sometime. Ethereum ain't much better.
@@AmateurHuman19
Hard money is the use case. Inflation is the root cause of nearly every major problem we face today (endless wars, homelessness, social unrest, political division, widespread poverty, stagnant wages, climate change, etc).
There are 2nd layers being built on top of the Bitcoin network such as Lightning that allow it to scale.
The swimming pool thing is ridiculous FUD put out by a Dutch Central Bank employee.. move on.
I've studied Bitcoin enough to know you haven't even scratched the surface. Read Broken Money by Lyn Alden or anything by Saifedean Ammous.
ETH & just about everything other than Bitcoin is centralized trash.
@@CafeSatoshibitcoin is functional enough to replace gold as it is used by boomers. It cannot replace cash, not least because it does not transact instantly.
Thank you! This proposed merger and all the monopolies need more exposure!
@ceciliacole5098 yeah, why don’t we let it all be one big company! They can even make it more efficient by giving out vouchers for their own store.
@@ceciliacole5098 no they're not, and no they aren't
Frozen OJ at Publix 1.99 to 4.49 c'mon man
Remember the Rochdale consumer cooperative! The Rochdale Principles help give people a say in their economy. Remove the greedy capitalists and collectively buy things. Co-ops bring democracy to the economy.
Sadly, every Co-op I've been to is more expensive than other stores.
You need economy of scale to buy food wholesale at cheap prices and to pass the discounts along.
I think you're confused between democracy and communism
@@markgoodwin4500 Cooperatives are voluntary associations where each person has ownership equity and a vote; it's Democratic because the access to a vote is based on the fact that you're a human being rather than being able to be disproportionate based on the amount of capital.
@@markgoodwin4500 What does that have to do with anything?
@@OgdenM With a move to a more democratic and cooperative society, one where labor and community controls the economy, values need to shift from being purely monetary to including other considerations. It is true sometimes cooperatives cost more but this often is because they don't cut as many ethical corners; they're more likely to pay their workers better wages, less likely to have mass layoffs, and community needs are invested in. It's also important to remember that a lot of the western states have electricity co-ops for power lines, corporations find it not as profitable to hang line across large stretches of the west but cooperatives are built for members. With capitalism things are only addressed if it's profitable but with cooperatives needs are addressed because they are needs of the community. Profitability is still important to stay afloat, but profit maximization is not goal.
In my view it is probable that things will most likely cost more in a cooperative society but I believe if more people have worker cooperatives and other forms of democratic representation they can command a higher wage to be able to afford to buy products with less negative externalities.
Grocery prices here in Minnesota have been going down for a year now
We're getting creamed out here.
Up here in Canada prices are going nuts.
Solidarity brothers and sisters!
Not to diminish the profiteering that the Supermarkets have engaged in but it should also be noted that the Marketplaces are not the ROOT cause of the major price hike in the food industry.
The root cause of this is the monopoly that already exists in the Food Manufacturing industry.
ALL packaged food is ultimately made by 1 OF 10 manufacturers, WORLDWIDE.
Also, nearly all agriculture has come down to basically 3 corporations, WORLDWIDE.
It is easy for 10 individuals (and even easier for 3 INDIVIDUALS) to coordinate in order to PRICE FIX.
Much of the general public thinks that the hundreds of brands they see means there are hundreds of companies that compete with each other, but all of those brands are ultimately owned by 1 of 10 parent companies.
The pandemic gave an excuse to rake the working majority over the coals. And they did. And there isn't much the working major can do about it, aside from demanding that mergers are highly scrutinized, and much more public and transparent.
Unfortunately, high prices are here to stay. The Food Industry spends millions of dollars every year on lobbyists and "campaign contributions".
True. But don’t buy processed foods and support the few little farmers and markets left if you can. If nobody buys, they’ll have to lower prices.
@@bmiles4131 That isn't scalable. Not everyone can buy from local famers.
Human labor productivity has massively increased too
Yeah if grocery stores are your concern. You should look at Cargill and food and land ownership.
People - I feel your pain but cast your votes SMARTLY!
And the fact that, after crushing virtually every small chain and independent grocer across the nation, Amazon and Walmart have a bought a huge share of the whole market isn't even brought up.
This is how monopoly economics has always, and will always work. Here in Las Vegas, Albertson's and Smith's already don't compete with each other, they simply divided up the city and collude on pricing, or more accurately, gouging.
If this merger goes through grocery prices will go up. How else do you thing the merger will be paid for.
Those price increases are what we call "Greed-flation"; Companies up the prices while not changing anything at all (while the actual inflation rate isn't very high).
Oh they change things, they make the sizes of containers smaller while charging more. Shrinkflation is absolutely on the rise.
Sure.. greedflation adds to overall inflation but the biggest cause of inflation is we're printing a metric F*%k ton of cash out of thin air. It's really that simple.
Stop being mad at corporations. It's a waste of time.
Nothing will change if we don't fix the money. Save yourself & study Bitcoin (just Bitcoin.. everything else is a scam)
Scarcity is manufactured
yes it is.
15.1 empty homes sit in the USA. A nation with approxamatly half a million unhoused individuals.
In that same nation between 30% and 40% of all "edible" food is wasted. A nation with strict definition of edible that include standards for food stuffs looking "normal" I.E. Carrots have to be straight and singular roots, apples and tomatoes round etc to be considered "edible"
Carrots are rarely straight, apples apples and tomatoes rarely as perfectly round as we see in the grociers isles.
Metals of all kinds are stockpiled by the billions rather then mined new, explicitly to raise the cost of all metals. Aluminum, brasses, and steel should be cheaper then plastics even after considering the additional costs of manufactiring with metals.
Then we get to the world of engineering products to fail just to create more scarcity.
Everything we use could be made within a few years of labor. If the goal is to keep thing just running at minimum, the early retirement age should be 25. (assuming school is finished by 22)
Its all a farce. A joke. A power grab.
I can't imagine what food prices will be like in 30 years when global warming is wrecking our agricultural industry and there actually is scarcity. Hope I'm long dead by then honestly.
@@homerthompson416
You misspelled geoengineering
i rely entirely on one "Kroger's" store within walking distance from me. if it went under or was sold off, i would very likely go hungry due to the price change. at worst, if it closed, i'd have to walk miles to get to the next closest store. no, i can't drive.
There are people in our communities that can't drive like teens, the elderly and disabled but corpos turn us against each other. Whispering in our ears that public transportation is synonymous with crime and poverty. They want us totally dependent on cars and their shitty chain business.
I'm so sorry man. I live in a suburb outside of Atlanta, GA. For the past few decades suburbanites in my town and others have blocked the expansion of the MARTA system outside of Atlanta because "It would bring criminals in" and "cause homeless to be everywhere". Some racists believe it'll bring black people because obviously black people can't afford cars to come here with. Spoiler they can. They just don't.
In reality having MARTA would boost the economy by transporting workers to jobs. It would end the death spiral of traffic and let people enjoy bars, restaraunts and small business no matter where they live.
It would also allow people who don't drive to go to other grocery stores.
Have you ever thought of L3@rNiNG 2 c0dE? --- says every capitalist shitbag
@@nunyabusiness3786 Do you happen to be an investor in MARTA, owner, etc. That is pie in the sky dreaming, ask any city who was sold that line of crap and found out millions of dollars later they are paying taxes for bus and trains that are empty. The transit companies lose money hand over fist and end up cutting bus lines and then there is no transportation to those trains.
The problem is that the people making decisions (Krogers, etc.) are not subject to the consequences of those decisions. That's the problem that must be addressed first.
When politicians do thier own grocery shopping things will change.
@@carlbowles1808 That is hilarious, most politicians and certainly those in office believe shopping and cooking are a woman's job, barefoot and pregnant. So guess you're saying things will never change. I do not like the idea of this merger at all. What is said in the video about the Safeway/Albertsons merger mess is exactly right with Haggans losing everything. If Kroger merges all we will have left is Walmart and slim pickings at Target. Essentially it will be Kroger and Walmart, that is a horrible idea. If all the stores went back to paying cashiers instead of making customers do the job for free they would not have all the theft from self checkout. It is a very easy fix that needs to happen before any merger. Do your jobs yourself! Hire people and pay them well. Don't expect the customer to work for free and not be ticked off about it. It would cut down on so many angry customers. Maybe, just maybe, if they made this fix none on the stores would want to merge.
Genuinely cannot afford to shop at Safeway and it's a huge part of the grocery store landscape here in Northern California.
Don't just stop the merger, break up the big grocers in a smart and effective way to foster greater competition without creating food deserts.
I have cut out fast food entirely from my diet. The food costs as much as a sit down restaurant now and if i was served anything like the quality of fast food at an actual restaurant, i would send it back and want my money back
Fucking $11 to get a bacon cheeseburger with the thinnest tiny patty imaginable, fries, and a coke at Whataburger. What a sick joke.
Our small town has two stores, Albertsons and Safeway. Our Albertsons finally sold to Haggens, we all know how that worked out, so we now are back to an Albertsons and a Safeway again. A Grocery Outlet opened up, which is fine if you want to visit multiple stores to take care of your shopping list or don’t mind paying lower prices on produce, meat, and dairy that is going to expire tomorrow, and plan your menus on the fly with whatever random items Grocery Outlet has on their shelves. To provide my family of 5 with a healthy diet I have to budget over $1000 per month. The next town over has a Waremart and a Walmart so we can go there once a month to stock up on canned, frozen, and bulk foods with sizable price differences, but having to drive 80 miles to get semi-affordable food is ridiculous. I’ve wondered if leaving my job to garden a few acres on the warmer seasons, canning, freezing, drying, and scratch cooking might save enough to pay for the missed income. It’s a sad mess.
If you have a monopoly, you have NO incentive to lower prices, especially if you're the only store in the neighborhood..imo
They make god-level amounts of money….and it’s STILL not enough.
This is kind of scary our food is already highly monopolized from the seeds , meat processing plants , machinery, fertilizer, and now the supermarket.
Canadian grocery giants Loblaws, Sobeys, and Metro own majority of grocery markets in Canada. Prices are outrageous there even before covid. US companies following suit.
The market is already dead. We need large corporations to be separated, and a halt to money in politics.
They say they could lower prices, but they know they won't. It's all about delivering maximum value to shareholders, you don't do that by passing on savings to customers when you have a virtual monopoly.
As a son of a pharmaceutical technician. My mom won’t be seeing a pay raise if they merge.. the workers in the pharmacy industry would also be hit badly by this.
It would drive up prices for prescriptions and medicines.
It would make them a non union. It would cripple the economy even more..
The workers in the pharmacy hasn’t had a pay raise for about 3-4 years now.. pharmacists can’t even work full time. They are limited to 4 hour work days..
The pharmacist that my mother works with had to move back in with her parents because she couldn’t even afford rent here in Cali.. A FUCKING PHARMACIST CANT WVEN LIVE IN CALI!!?!???
Kroger also owns Baker’s in the Omaha, Nebraska area.
I just caught my local grocery store in this. They forgot to replace the old price tag on frozen salmon-they had doubled it.
I appreciate your attention to this issue, but it would have been nice to hear what happens when you don’t have a big monopoly (Walmart or Krogers) in your area. The really small stores get gouged from the food supply chains, trying to make up for the losses from the monopolies. Prices are totally outrageous and choice is very limited, leading to food deserts. This is a real thing in the very heart of the Heartland.
Remember when people said that raising the minimum wage would cause higher prices? We’re those people lying?
WE NEED MORE PERFECT UNION!
i've known our culture was messed up from various experiences and observations i'd had when i was a kid but i never imagined i'd grow up and find out that 99% of the people i would ever meet would die early from some easily preventable situation because the people who "own" everything would make being alive too expensive for almost everyone.. it makes no economic sense at all. there is no growth happening anywhere except the most evil humans bank accounts.. i've only seen infrastructure decay and fail from neglect through my lifetime and the same has happened to most of the people i've ever interacted with as well. no one lives here. they just barely stay alive enough to face another day with no realistic idea of how they will be able to remain alive for much longer. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seems to be an exclusive privilege for wealthy european loyalists only. and i wish everyone would just be more honest about that. instead of scapegoating and gaslighting everyone with olympic level mental gymnastics to try to excuse why most of our species is getting tortured to death while we are in the most material abundance we've ever been. we make the stuff already. there are people who need the stuff. so let them have stuff. its dumb that we feel more wealthy because of how much we deprive others rather than how much we personally accomplish. its created a self defeating and sadistic end goal to what people consider "success" in our culture.. in order to be successful, you have to harm others and take pleasure in doing so.. but those others are all playing some vital role in your ability to be alive without having to live in a tribe and be at constant warfare with your cousins for daring to exist while not worshipping you or some dumb sh!t like that lol.
It will end in revolution 😢
Its funny how the party of "the small towns and farmers" has the main goal of hurting "the small towns and farmers"... and all those people vote them without knowing its to their detriment.
Its not funny, actually, its sad.
@@xythrr the problem is, the Republicans are worse. Actually both parties are owned lick stock and barrel and do nothing except what the wealthy overlords tell them to do. It's nauseating 😡
If this goes through, we need to send a message
A message has been needed for a long time, the US Population is too divided over pretty key points by our politicians (who work for the rich people behind the scenes) to effectively unite and get out the choppy boys.
Rite Aid purchased a locally owned and beloved chain called Bartell in the Pacific NW. Now Bartell stores are closing due to Rite Aid losing money. People are losing jobs and access to choice. Disgusting that Rite Aid blames its money woes on settlement costs for Oxcycontin lawsuits against them.
Same thing happened with food lion. They sold a few stores when forced and most of those stores closed!!! So no stores at all .
This wasn't inflation, it was price fixing and greed.
Somehow Microsoft bought activision blizzard and somehow Kroger will buy Albertsons. Money talks and the “everyday” people don’t got it.
They keep certain things low so that, even w/a 100% increase in other products, we can only say groceries are up "11% overall." 🙄
My grocery prices have doubled, & I've been a thrifty shopper for 20 yrs.
As someone who worked for Kroger for 4 years, I can tell you all it is a garbage company, inside and out. They ripoff their employees and their customers more than any other corporation I've ever seen.
I am a worker, and active union member at a kroger owned store in Colorado. In my state, if the merger goes through, kroger will have a monopsony for all the local produce in the state, even if they do divest from the Safeway/albertsons stores. Just know if the merger goes through in colorado and prices do go down on produce, the only reason is that Kroger is the one setting the prices from the farmers with virtually no competition.
shop at mom and pop shops, co ops and employee owned stores winco for example :)
My options are Walmart, Brookshires, & Aldi. We don't even have a farmer's market. At least I have my own chickens.
For cereal, think about making your own. You can pop parboiled rice in a hot medium like salt. It not only saves lots of money, it allows you to control the sugar.
The more convenience food you buy, the higher the grocery bill.
This is the result of corporate price gouging. So many corporations are making record profits. That does not happen with normal inflation. This is 100% price gouging. Boycott these companies. So many companies that I will never buy from again...
This is part of the reason I do most of my grocery shopping at farmers markets now.
It's funny, I used to avoid them because they always seemed so much more expensive... but now the farmers markets are the same price if not cheaper than the big corpo box stores.
I recognize that farmer's markets and co-ops aren't available to everyone, but it seems like getting out of the system if we can might be a safer bet.
Farmers markets only sell the produce that Walmart has discarded from being past the sell by date.
@@mapgar1479 That would be a very serious deception if true. What is your reason for thinking that?
@@Tzizenorec he has no reason - just spouting ignorant nonsense
@@Tzizenoreclook it up, they’re not wrong. farmer’s markets are a huge scam & very rarely sell their own produce. you can tell by buying some fruit & then soaking it in hot water with a cupful of apple cider vinegar. if the wax coating on the fruit appears, congrats, you just bought re-sold fruit from walmart, target, or another big chain & got completely conned.
most farmer’s markets aren’t actually produce from a mom & pop farm; not to mention, most farms are subsidized by the government thanks to donald trump. so you might want to think their comment is bs, but this person is very likely correct.
Coportwtions have shaped our national and state laws for decades. We need to steamroll them with new laws that respect the workers and consumers just as much as the stockholders.
Im a Kroger employee.last 15 years before that I work at an Albertsons for 20years... before the COVID hit Rodney gave himself ,the CEO of Kroger a 2millon $ raise. Then offered everyone a nickel raise. Last year before the announce this merger I wasn't paid for almost a month. We are in a class action lawsuit now. Kroger wants desperate part time employees. Abuse hostile work environment were employees are pitted against each other for hours....70 percent of Kroger employees experience food insecurity....and there slogan is feeding the human spirit.... No..just NO
I have shopped Albertsons for 40+ years. Lately I cannot get fresh veggies that are good! I stopped going. Rouses’s has had profits that are infuriating! A Louisiana consumer!
Lousiana has horrible produce. Used to find good things at our health food stores- now they suck too! Crazy. Flipping to local and home
Grown mostly soon- can’t buy anything without it being rotten recently. 😭😭
Sometimes I feel it's hard for me to care, process food that sits on the shelf is killing us, making us sicker and fatter. get off the sugar and highly processed garbage food
And buy organic food THAY cost double the price when people are having trouble being able to afford the processed shit now a days that’s not the problem it’s the prices
I've been away for a coupla decades, whatever happened to anti-trust laws?
The Fox is guarding the henhouse
I have two major grocery stores by me, and they're just a few blocks apart --- Mariano's (Kroger) and Jewel-Osco (Albertson's) and when this merger happens one will close and we will no longer have the push and pull competition in prices. This merger will remove choice and lock in high prices.
Wrong, one will get sold. That's the entire idea. Divest stores that would lead to oversaturation of a market.
Prices aren’t going to come back down. This ain’t the old saying where what goes up must come down. Some of us have been talking about this for a long time saying it’s going to happen.
sounds like you dont understand how currency works lol
@@saturationstation1446 why don’t you break it down Crayola style so I can slaughter the comment with common sense. Let’s see who has more education.
I wonder. If everyone contributed to farming around our local communities. We could let these corporations rot and we move on to greener pastures. Literally. The only real challenges to us in life is natural disasters and food. Everything else is a man made problem. We don't need to bite the hand that feeds us or be subservient. We just need to make our own. We need to fight and work to become autonomous from these corporations that clearly want to induce some form of feudalism.
can’t do that bc of subsidized food laws. there is a limit on how much of everything you can grow, sell, and even give away
sounds like they have a tight grip on our basic human survival abilities. its almost like we live under a regime that is self serving.@@bonnielovely
@@alanverduzco6513 correct
Don’t buy processed food like box cereals. They are ridiculously expensive.
Just plain oatmeal, walnuts, raisins, just a tiny extra effort in the morning to cook. Unfortunately I never look at prices. Grab & Pay for me. Have the prices of oatmeal, walnuts and raisins gone up as much?
This is why monopoly law exists. When theres less companies (or companies make a pact), prices go up because theres no alternative anyone could go to to make said corporation worry about losing customers.
#1, make stock buy backs illegal, # 2 tax excessive profits, # 3 break up monopolies !! #4 add regulations that punish price gouging,, VOTE BLUE AND SUPPORT UNIONS !!
Please do more family farming my people USA got tons of land for cultivating healthy organic food just do what God says rest the land every 7 years and you are good to go ❤
So glad I was able to quit and retire from jewel/ osco before all this went through completely….
They must sell stores to the competition? Right! Last time; one store turned into a thrift store, one turned into a self storage, and a third one turned into a charter school. These are the anchor store of their strip mall. What happens to all the other stores?
Boomer greed.
A few things our government could do that would help us US citizens; stop sending money to foreign countries, stop printing more money, stop giving food stamps and Medicaid to non-citizens, stop making corporations pay more taxes (when you raise taxes on corporations they raise prices of their products).
#AmericaFirst
#AmericansFirst
#CitizensFirst
Exactly but we're talking about the government and those things would make way too much sense
That's just ludicrous. Every one of those things would make everything worse. Foreign aid acts very much in the US interest all over the world. Would you rather them go to China for aid? Stop printing money? Here's some advice...figure out how US currency works and come back because you have no clue. Yeah...give big corporations more money and let the "undeserving poor" starve and die. I would almost say that comment is a troll or not serious...but people like you are a reason the rest of us need to make sure we vote in 2024.
lol come back when you learn how the economy works
I very much hope that merger is stopped. Mergers since the 80s just make it worse and worse
In Australia, we have a duopoly in Coles and Woolworths, which operate near 80% of supermarkets around Australia. They have been profiteering off the consumer for decades. Don’t let it happen to you! The only saving grace we have is in major metro areas around Australia, there are Aldi Stores, which force some competition back, and in my state, we have Foodland and Drakes which provide further competition, but basically can follow the lead of Coles and Woolies, and just keep their prices around the same mark.
The underlying problem is the market consolidation of the up chain supplier in the US. All these different brands are owned by the same company.
For us, the power of Coles and Woolworths allows them to dictate to the producers what their prices are, forcefully sign Non Disclosure Agreement, and for some producers when they try to cover their costs, they are driven to the wall by Coles/Woolworths, or left on the side of the road to sell to the remaining 20% of the non big two market, which means they can’t take advantage of the economics of scale.
It's only highly processed or manufactured foods that seem to have risen the most. A pound of beans costs only a little more than it did a few years ago. Whereas foods like chicken have alot of inputs and processing, as does foods like milk.
I think the problem is that they have to merge in order to compete with Walmart
Cramer never misses 😂🤣😆 4:55
FTC has to say no but also have a bulletproof argument to not be dismantled by board rooms filled with lawyers.
Seems kinds silly to worry about them being such a big corporation when there are huge juggernauts like Amazon and Walmart out there. Not to mention gigantic tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple. People will still have plenty of options locally. As far as prices, if anything, they'd probably try to lower prices to compete with Walmart, Winco, etc.
Don’t let them do it, it screwed Canadians, our groceries are so expensive due to lack of competition
BRO Albertsons has NEVER EVER been a good store. not a single location. Every time I have ever been in one, my entire life, I was always disgusted by how much more expensive they were than anywhere else.
I remember specifically going to a Kroger store and buying a can of Raviolis. It was 2.87 with taxes. Albertsons had the exact same can for 4.93 before taxes
So, just stepping back and looking at the bigger picture for a minute : price of commodities and essentials was kept artificially low due to a decade long run of historically low interest rates, and yet Kroger's dividends kept increasing by 15-20% y-o-y, every year btwn 2009-2022. In the same period, number of Kroger stores incr by only 10%, less than 1% every year. Such a sustained streak of dividend disbursement is simply not possible if Krogers were merely a grocery chain. It has an investment arm which has grown much more powerful than its core area of operations. And its not alone in transforming itself thus, other massive nationwide grocery chains exhibit same patterns in the parameters mentioned.
End result : the shareholder becomes the tier 1 consumer, and the consumer ends up penalized in a high interest environment.
Add to this the fact its the corporations that keep buying back their shares in significant tranches, *the largest shareholder is the corporation* that's increasingly fleecing its own consumer base .. and this is a sector wide activity.
This cannot happen without price fixing.
I think we should make it harder for businesses to merge or get it through acquisition.Often what ive seen is that most often when a merge or acquisition happens, the quality if the business or the benefits for employees is worse because
1. Their is now less competition, with new competition too small
2. Business men wish to recoup their losses as much as possible which is often why the make spending cuts.
I think a good solution is to limit mergers or acquisitions to only happen once. If a company merges with another company in a similar industry they cant merge with another one or gain another one through acquisition.If a larger company acquires a smaller company, they cant merge with another one. They can only acquire a company or merge with a company of similar industry once.