194
City councillor proposes city-run grocery store to tackle rising food costs (toronto.citynews.ca)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 6 months ago* (3 children)

Its an interesting question, obviously a union would raise prices of goods. Which prevents poor people working in things like nail salons from affording food as easily, as the unionized grocer becomes a highly coveted position which gatekeeps food from the people that cant get hired there due to demand.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    In an idyllic world where no capitalist greed is focused on maximizing shareholder value that might be a more significant concern. But in modern day, a union raising their wages by 10% might result in less than a 1% increase in user prices. Whereas the ruling class of capitalists are the true source of greedflation making products unaffordable.

    If anything in your example I would argue that the better solution is actually more unions. Those nail salon workers should also earn living wages to afford the goods, which unions would fight for. I would be shocked to learn of any case where a union could be compared to the average elite-class capitalist in terms of greed.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Playing with numbers while the stark reality of societal decay dances all around you. I can't blame you for being an idealist though. Being an idealist gives you standards to shoot for, and that is beneficial.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    greedflation making products unaffordable.

    What makes you think its greed more than something like this:

    https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/money-supply-m2

    What I think happened is during Covid the BoC bought all the covid debt the federal government issued via QE, ignoring their inflation mandate; then when we had a labor shortage from inflation the Federal government did mass immigration to depress salaries. Usually the labor pressure leads to wage pressure, but we tamped it down by tripling population growth. If you see the phillips curve you can see how labor and inflation are correlated.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent