I go to Europe and I see people just living in the normal areas and outside of the tourist. Zones. They look relatively happy, they don't smile insincerely and they look healthier. Very few people are obese. Just your few grandmas, may be a few of them, but that's it. I'm not trying to fat shame. It's actually to the contrary. The stress levels of these horribly paid jobs and the crap food that people have to consume to survive is what makes us so unhealthy. I go to the thrift store. I buy stuff at the thrift store. Sometimes it's better quality. There is so much shit in America. Useless shit. And you can't blame China because somebody's in charge of importing this garbage. And when we had more markets that were open and not overpriced, we could get better quality if we knew what we were doing. Just remember, when they try to blame China, there is some douchebag on a computer, weighing out the cost benefit ratio, and always going to the lowest common denominator, which is fucking you. You can't just rely on people to do the right thing, especially when you live in a culture that just robs and steals from each other. We are so individualistic, it's disgusting. I feel like it's 28 days later and I'm the character laying in the grass. You know, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and I look up in the sky and I see a plane flyover. It's like the rest of the world is just moving on while we in America are on a whole other journey.

The fix is to move to a super expensive walkable neighborhood in the city that everyone wants to live in and no one can afford

https://ilsr.org/articles/robinson-patman-groceries-atlantic/

Someone on here pointed me to this excellent article.

As with so many wonderful things in the US and the rest of the planet, it can be traced to Reagan era successes in the class war.

and they never have exactly what you need either. the number of times i've come home empty handed and had to buy online anyway is rediculous

And on top of this, we have to ring up and bag our own stuff now. There's always a line because someone doesn't know how to use the machine.

Were those little stores actually affordable to people on the bottom half of the income scale? Grocery stores are a great example. I would go bankrupt trying to shop for groceries at the corner store. People complain about the chains but I don't recall small grocery stores ever being affordable.

Thank your local corporate consultant and CEO. They have had every incentive to cut staff and increase prices to get paid and have a bigger bonus.

CVS is a shady company anyway. They sell homeopathic bullshit at the pharmacy. I remember seeing them selling bags of salt as a cure for asthma. Nope, I’m out.

Somehow CVS always has broken self-checkout and needs the most store personnel to operate self checkout.

And it just doesn’t work. Somehow it’s never smooth or reliable. That’s the one store where the cashier has the most advantage - I’d use the cashier every time if it weren’t for all the store staff trying to push customers to self-checkout.

just walk out with it bro nobody there is paid to give a fuck

Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have either already stopped or will soon no longer require customers to sign their receipts when checking out.

Who the hell makes customers sign the receipt? I've only seen an employee sign it, and that's for a return/refund.

An annoying thing which has been identified by 2 of the biggest corporations around? For all we know it's changing the "wet floor" signs to be more noticeable.

Bait is always less interesting than it advertises.

Why not link to the actual article?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/food-deserts-robinson-patman/680765/?gift=QFVDFKVE3HQ31cU_KmT1dMoNepnmHxqTbYqKlK_hiUE

The fact that they keep condoms locked up is obnoxious and stupid. Some teenager is not going to feel comfortable pressing that button and standing next to the condoms while waiting 20 minutes for someone to notice them. They’re just going to knock up their girlfriend instead.