Splendid Isolation

Longtime Friend & Reader Weetabix writes:

Given your history with grocery stores, do you have any thoughts on the Mamdani (Commie, Muslim) plan for government-run grocery stores (“public option”) in NYC?

I foresee:
– low prices because subsidized
– private stores and bodegas priced out of business
– “public option” stores lock everything up because of theft/vandalism
– public outrage at people’s unfair treatment due to what they brought on themselves
– “public option” stores close
– wailing and gnashing of teeth at the new “food desert”

…but, of course, I’m a cynic.

I have no thoughts other than Mr. Bix’s well-reasoned points — in fact, many thanks are due for saving me from having to think about the situation.

Every time Commies try this nonsense they encounter what we call “market experience”, and they call “greedy capitalism”.  There are many such (as outlined above) but allow to address but one, that of prices.

You can’t sell anything at “cost” (i.e. what you paid for the merchandise as it arrives at the store, or F.O.B. — free on board — as usually stated).  What that does is make your retail outlet a losing proposition (what’s nowadays referred to as “unsustainable”).  This remains true even if the operating costs of the establishment (rent, utilities, equipment, salaries etc.) are wholly assumed by city government, as this Marxist asshole proposes.  The drain on tax revenue will be horrendous, even for just the six stores — which by the way will also be denied the benefits of non-issued sales taxes under this loony scheme.  And I haven’t even touched on the city’s subsidization of yet-lower prices, which will not only drain revenues but also increase demand.  And speaking of which:

…ummm only six stores to cover the whole five boroughs of NYfC?  Expect long queues and lengthy waits at the registers as the stores struggle to cope with the (unexpectedly) high demand — and high demand there will be in plenty because if they think that only the Pore&Starvin denizens of NYfC will attempt to avail themselves of these lower prices, they don’t know much about New York.  [200 examples from personal experience omitted for reasons of brevity]

To use a not-so-long-ago example from Marxist establishments of, say, Soviet Russia (Moscow Version):

Whether the famously-impatient Noo Yawkers will stay as docile as their Moscow counterparts will be established on Day One of this Glorious Leap Forward — let me get out ahead of the thing by stating that there’ll be riots and rampant looting, you betcha.

But hey:  never let it be said that I stood in the way of stupid people making stupid decisions and trying stupid experiments, especially when the victims of said stupidity actually voted for all that.

I look forward to Comrade Mamdani’s “new” initiatives (and their unexpected! outcomes) with great anticipation, as will Reader Weetabix and the rest of you.

Let the (Hunger) Games begin.