Mayoral candidate plans to open goverment run supermarkets

The cost of food in NYC, and indeed almost everywhere these days is high. NYC prices for everything except tranq and Oxy are higher than virtually any place else in the world. New Yorkers can’t afford the rent, food, or hardly anything. Some live in less than 400 sq ft of space! Your laundry room is bigger than many “apartments” in NYC.

The leading candidate for mayor, a communist islamist born in India, has a can’t-fail way to address the high cost of food. Open city run grocery stores. Those greedy, grasping supermarket companies are gouging the customer to fund yachts for their CEO’s! Mamdani proposes to capture the yacht markup and turn this over to starving New Yorkers.

Of course, a quick check of the SEC website shows that the largest supermarket chains in the US, Albertsons and Kroger, have pre tax profit of about 2.3% of sales. So on the average grocery bill of say, $200, the customer will be able to score $4.60. The price of one bagel with a schmear from a street vendor. Whoo boy, that will solve the starvation problem, right?

Anyways, rather than just mock what is surely as stupid an idea as government funding for solar panel companies, I paused to consider what a government run store would be like. In Russia, under the commies, they had these. There was rarely anything for sale in them. When there was ANYTHING for sale, people lined up to buy it whether they needed it or not. Really. You can imagine the service level from the employees. Think NYC DMV, with less courtesy.

So Mamdani the commie, who has never had a real job of any sort (except C level rapper-really), will open grocery stores. One of the most difficult jobs in the world is supermarket manager; 80 hour weeks. Some of the most complex supply chains and store operations challenges imaginable to be overseen by a guy whose job experience would not qualify him to shag carts.

First challenge is, where you going to locate these stores? Real estate is legendarily expensive in the five boroughs of NYC. A typical suburban supermarket runs about 40,000 sq ft. (Enough space to house 100 New Yorkers!) Best bet is that they will have to go in say, tough areas. So wear your bullet proof vests to the store! With only five locations, they will be within walking distance of maybe 2% of the populaton. There is no parking, of course. Inconvenient stores, for sure.

Imagine you are in a Mamdani managed, Mao’s MegaMart. Because communists don’t believe that you need more than one choice of any given product, you will have only off brand and organic corn flakes, mustard, jock itch cream, etc., to choose from. Only organic versions of everything. On the shelf, in the condiment department, is Schmoes yellow mustard. And Schmoes catsup. No Grey Poupon, no Heinz. No need to waste space and expense providing consumer choices; choice is wasteful! Take it or leave it. (Ignore the fact that that Joe Schmoe is Mamdani’s cousin.) You cart some Schmoes.

Having bought your bland yellow mustard and catsup, you proceed to the bread department. There are no specific hamburger rolls, as the comrade colonel who chooses the assortments believes just using a slice of bread is good enough for you. So you look to buy the bread, but they are out. Someone forgot to order it. Even if they had it, it would taste like cardboard as all unhealthy ingredients are excluded. Its actually made out of Kale and wood shavings. You resign yourself to bunless burgers.

Now head over the meat department. We know that meat is a major contributor to global climate change, so they don’t carry any animal based product. How exciting to have the choice of beef and chicken flavored compressed grasshopper parts. But they do carry Hallal, (Muslim mayor). You buy grasshopper burgers.

Having finished your shopping, you take your groceries to the checkout line. The cashiers are the dimwitted rejects from the DMV. The two of them look at you with open insolence. The store has 8 checkouts, only two are open. The lines snake back to the incontinence remedy department. The city employees, who cannot be fired even for sexual assaultm, process one person per vernal equinox. They do not supply bags.

There is no wifi, but the speakers play endorsement ads for the mayor and his comrades in the city government. And ads for Schoes brands. Time passes glacially.

Starting to feel the warmth of everything that government run supermarkets bring to you? Its hard to see how this ill advised concept have much impact on the the diets of strugging New Yorkers. No sane person will ever shop there. Unless they are the only choice, a key feature of communist run governments. Portent of future plans?

But the opportunity for every sort of grift, graft, fraud, kickbacks, etc are simply ENORMOUS! And hizzoner comrade Mayor can demonstrate his virtue! And reward family and friends!

The Mao’s MegaMart enabling legislation is a lock for passage by the City Council. Each own mansions in the Hamptons, and they each need extensive pool cleaning, and will get a bite of the rotten apple.

I predict an atomic level disaster from this ill conceived government program, what about you?