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KETHERCORTEX | 1 year ago

> Yes, consumers may pay a liiiitle more for their eggs, milk or bread

> very important for low-income households and their financial planning.

Paying more is beneficial for low income households, I see. That looks like expert level mental gymnastics detached from the reality.

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mschuster91|1 year ago

> That looks like expert level mental gymnastics detached from the reality.

Bro, I literally used to be homeless for a while many years ago. Believe me, I know how reality looks like, and there was nothing more frustrating than finding out, whoops, you don't have the 20 fucking cents to buy the groceries you wanted because they decided to raise the price of butter over night. Price reductions are announced in ads all the time, but price hikes? You can only find that out when you are in the store but then it may be too late and you gotta reschedule what you buy at a moment's notice.

Grocery prices must be stable and not subject to arbitrary games.

roenxi|1 year ago

This is an argument that you felt bad. Is it an argument that you were worse off? Homeless people tend to have a huge stack of problems and how they feel isn't #1 as I understand it. And while I'd expect it to be a reasonable guide I don't trust the instincts of a homeless person to work out what is in their own best interests when those instincts are saying "systemically push the price of food up, that'll help". Frankly, it sounds like a traumatic experience and the response to the trauma would lead to bad policy.

I don't want to thoughtlessly minimise feeling bad, but between (having more food), (shelter) and (feeling good), society would be doing better to prioritise in that order when it comes to trying to help. We're talking about a situation where you have 20 cents; a 2% average reduction in the price of butter means you get around 2% more butter and associated calories. If we trade off price increases for higher average prices you'd literally just have had less butter to eat. Those differences will add up over a month, even if sometimes there is a tough shopping trip.

If the price stability thing is for poor families there are many better policies than pushing up the average price of food. Like pushing the price of food down, then finding ways to communicate what is cheapest this week. Ie, solving the "You can only find that out when you are in the store" part.