New York City Mayor Commie Mamdani is putting into action, sort of, his plan to introduce government-run grocery stores and bring down grocery prices.
Renting a Brooklyn storefront may cost anywhere between $60,000 to $600,000 a year depending on location and square footage. And there are other costs. Investors profit when they’re right about the opportunity and revenue exceeds costs. This means that they must satisfy customers.
Or . . . taxpayers can fund everything regardless of success or failure.
One goal a city official mentioned about the government-run stores: “We will listen to the community, so the food on the shelves will reflect what people in this neighborhood eat.” Meanwhile, stores catering to ethnic-food preferences of neighborhoods abound in New York City. Mission accomplished.
“Listening to the community” means that neighborhood people have to talk. In markets, they need only buy or not buy. Money talks, businesses already listen.
When nobody buys Product X, vendors stop selling it. When many buy Product Y, more units get stocked. Of course, customers can ask a store to carry some product. And the store can either oblige or explain that unfortunately nobody else wants to buy it.
Mamdani’s government-run stores will follow practices that either emulate the market — unnecessary, as plenty of private grocery stores and supermarkets already exist — or interfere with market processes and make everything more cumbersome and expensive. But the government subsidies will make everything seems cheap to the customer waiting in the long line.
The real costs will be the ever-suffering taxpayers’ job to pay.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Nano Banana
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