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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.