How Harris and Khan Are Planning a Department of Groceries

American Greatness ^ | 3 Sep, 2024 | Robert H. Bork, Jr.

[MtnClimber]

As envisioned in Vice President Harris’s economic plan, the FTC plans to use antitrust as a fulcrum to regulate prices and therefore private business itself.

Have you ever shopped for groceries at a Walmart, a Trader Joe’s, an Aldi, a Costco, a Whole Foods, or a Target?

If you have, you know that clubstores and supercenters offer a wealth of fresh produce, quality meats, frozen foods, bakery items, and canned goods. When you go to a big box retailer with a grocery section, it is no different than going to a stand-alone supermarket like Safeway, Wegmans, or Harris Teeter. You pick your choices and drop them in your grocery cart. You get in line and pay, just like you do at any other grocery store.

However, according to the Federal Trade Commission, Walmart, Costco, Whole Foods, etc., are not “traditional” grocery stores and therefore should not be considered in evaluating the competitive effects of the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains. This $26.4 billion merger, now on hold thanks to the FTC, would combine the strengths of two national chains in order to better compete with these super-efficient supercenters and clubstores.

This FTC’s antitrust action, which had its first day in court on Monday, provides a needed bit of agitprop for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign against “price gouging” grocery chains and their greedy executives. There is no denying that consumers have been burned by inflation. In August 2022 home food prices were 13.5 percent higher than they were a year before. Overall, food prices have risen by 25 percent since 2020.

But it’s worth asking why the inflation in 2022 food prices equaled the entire prior decade. Did corporate executives suddenly become greedy? And why are food prices subsiding now, back to levels at or below inflation? Are those greedy executives suddenly growing a conscience?

Market experts believe the jump in food prices occurred because of supply chain issues arising from the pandemic and the global effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war. I would add that the decision by the Biden Administration to accept the emergency-spending levels of the pandemic as a new normal is another driver of inflation—our federal budget is now adding $1 trillion every 100 days to the national debt.

While inflation is abating—a sure sign that competition exists and is working—consumer anger remains palpable. So political blame must settle on someone, and surely not on the administration that Harris serves. That villain was identified by Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “good old-fashioned price gouging” corporations causing “greedflation.” In this context, FTC Chair Lina Khan’s antitrust lawsuit against the Kroger-Albertsons merger supports the Harris campaign and its proposal to use that agency to regulate food prices. But this lawsuit is bad economics and made-up law.

Khan ignores the intense competition in the grocery market from retail stores like Walmart or Costco in which the grocery section is immense, sometimes bigger than a traditional grocery store. With competitive prices and an array of choices, these grocers draw millions of customers. It is precisely because of this grocery competition from the big box stores that Kroger and Albertsons felt the need to combine their logistics and stores to compete with these behemoths.

Ohio Attorney General David Yost gets this, which is why he is asking a federal court to toss this case to the curb. “The FTC’s tunnel vision in this case risks chilling the very competition that it seeks to protect,” General Yost said. “A full view of the competitive landscape shows no reason to delay this deal further.”

While ignoring powerful players in the grocery sector, Khan and the FTC are trying to get the court to adopt the novel theory that this merger should also be nixed because of its impact on unionized grocery jobs. This ignores Supreme Court precedent that antitrust law cannot be used to regulate labor relations. More to the point, what will happen to those union jobs if Kroger and Albertsons cannot become more efficient in the face of competition from large and highly efficient national retailers?

The Kroger-Albertsons merger credibly promises to generate $1 billion in higher wages and benefits for employees and $1 billion in consumer benefits. But the actual fate of workers—and the central need for antitrust law to benefit consumers—is beside the point for today’s progressive FTC. The point is to protect the Harris campaign while enhancing the political power of the regulator.

As envisioned in Vice President Harris’s economic plan, the FTC plans to use antitrust as a fulcrum to regulate prices and therefore private business itself. If the court accepts this scheme, or if a President Harris enacts her price plan, we will essentially no longer have a vibrantly competitive grocery market.

[MtnClimber]

Didn’t they try this in Venezuela?

[SaveFerris]

Planning a Department of Groceries]

Once the New World Order government (when it comes) takes over the grocery stores, they will issue a UBI (Universal Basic Income) and you'll be required to have the Mark of the Beast in order to BUY (and SELL). That's my guess, anyways.

The spirit of antichrist IS real - very busy of late.

Trying to erase Christianity, block the Bible, remove, squash, hinder, obscure, minimize.

This is preparing the way for THE Antichrist.

A Godless world to accept him as "messiah".

Except Tribulation Saints, who will be martyred for rejecting him as "messiah" and refuse the Mark of the Beast in the middle of the 7 Years of 'Peace and Security'

Without the Mark of the Beast, they will neither be able to BUY nor SELL - Look at how our world is racing towards Digital Currency

When these things happen and they WILL happen - it will be the biggest life-changing event on planet Earth - Jesus said then shall be Great Tribulation such as never was

(Lurkers please click HERE OR on my screen name to see my FR homepage for more information - will open in a new window from HERE - God bless)

Retail will be forced into installing more secure systems - When the Mark of the Beast comes I expect this kind of shopping to be rather "normal" in society - or will spread very quickly.



====

Revelation 14:9-12 King James Version (KJV)

9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

====

(now this part just talks about them (eventually reigning) during the Millennial Reign of Christ)

Revelation 20:4 King James Version (KJV)

4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

[Qwapisking]

if YOU don’t have a club card, prepare for empty shelves. that’s the promise of a “word salad” harris administration. What’s in YOUR wallet?

[Leep]

Once again..the incompetent government hacks responsible for thoroughly messing things up will now “fix” the problem.

Might I suggest falling on a sword or put some lead in your head?

[DIRTYSECRET]

A separate store for EBT card holders would work for me. Make them come there for their daily ration of rice and beans. Daily so the stuff doesn’t end up at garage sales. Maybe veggies but they have a short shelf life. Put the free government cheese there.

[quantim]

For a second I actually thought this was a Babylon Bee headline.

[desertsolitaire]

They did, and were reduced to eating pets, strys, and local zoo animals until those were all gone, then they became refugees.

[GaltAdonis]

They are going to solve our economic dilemmas by starving us all to death.

[JesusIsLord]

Kомисса́р Kahn reporting for duty.

[unread]

Obama’s army must be fed.

[Jonty30]

It’s called fascism.

[Jonty30]

One can be dead in four days. I can do that, I think.

[logi_cal869]

The author is a propagandist - or a dumbass - and the article is pro-Kroger/Albertson's merger...a move which will reduce competition.

But the author's logic is that it helps competition because opposing the FTC action is anti-government regulation, i.e., the 'war on greed.'

Garbage. Gaslighting.

[silverleaf]

Ask millions of Venezuelans why they came here.
Cubans, too.

When kamala’s idiot bureaucrats put “ price controls” on staples, eventually you’ll need ration cards to buy them, if you can find them.
And prices of “ nonessentials” will increase.

Hiring more workers or paying them more to supply and sell price-controlled goods? Nope.

Why raise price-controlled chicken and dairy when the land can just be used for more profitable crops or just sold.

[dfwgator]

Obama’s army must be fed.

---

With apologies to Elvis Costello:

Obama’s Army are here to stay
Obama’s Army are on their way

And I would rather be anywhere else
Than here today

[joe fonebone]

Still trying to find where in that pesky constitution thingie, that the fed was granted to right to regulate food prices...

[Cowgirl of Justice]

Oh, FFS.

Anyone remember the bread lines in Russia????

[TalBlack]

The article seems, like most of these articles do, to let Biden off the book on increasing the price of energy as another contributor to inflation. And not a small contributor at that.

[lastchance]

Yes and it was a rousing success. Got the stray dog population cleaned up right quick.