Why are groceries so expensive now…

Loblaw Reports 2024 Fourth Quarter Results And Fiscal Year Ended December 28, 2024 Results

BRAMPTON, ONTARIO February 20, 2025 Loblaw Companies Limited (TSX: L) (“Loblaw” or the “Company”) announced today its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter ended December 28, 2024(1) and the release of its 2024 Annual Report. The 2024 Annual Report includes the Company’s audited financial statements and Management’s Discussion and Analysis (“MD&A”) for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2024.

(www.loblaw.ca)

I know what you mean by your wording so I’m not jumping on that, but it’s worth noting that like, eating isn’t a luxury or something that smart people do or rich people or dumb people or whatever. If you have a grocery store in a town/country and it’s the only store (or the vast plurality of realistic options that are all owned by the same company with different faces), you basically don’t have a choice but to submit to this weird “math”, no matter how smart or dumb you are.

It’s not about who’s buying the end product, it’s about who is supporting the people and politicians who use that flawed reasoning to get support.

“The carbon tax will mean that your food price will double” is a massive lie, and should be a major factor is disqualifying whoever says it as being someone to take seriously. Unfortunately, people hear that gas will have an added $0.114/L and believe that that will mean immediate financial ruin for everyone across the country. Politicians that support controlling the rampant greed of companies aren’t getting support while the thieves are and that’s fucked up.

Its usually always the money supply

Operational Details for Government Purchases of Canada Mortgage Bonds

In the 2023 Fall Economic Statement, the Canadian government announced its intention to purchase Canada Mortgage Bonds (CMBs), beginning in 2024, up to an annual maximum of $30 billion while ensuring that the pace and volume of these purchases are appropriate for market conditions.

(www.bankofcanada.ca)

Here they are buying half of all mortgage bonds.

Inelastic demand. It’s easier to charge more for something if people need it to survive.

There was a graph of food price vs what farmers got paid. Farmer goods prices have been almost flat in comparison to big chain food prices rising continually with a drastic spike for COVID onward

Part of the reason is likely that farming equipment is bloody expensive. A new combine harvester can cost nearly a million dollars, and there aren’t a hell of a lot of used electrical machines on the market yet. Each farm will have several machines that currently run on gas or diesel. How many can the average farmer afford to replace how fast?

I heard somewhere private equity firms are coming for our pets already, buying up tons of local and regional pet hospitals, dog and pet food suppliers, etc. Basically they know kids are increasingly unaffordable and so they need to capitalize on the fact more millennials are staying childless and treating their pet as their child.

If we had competition, the prices would get run down anyway by people trying to expand their market share.

If.

Canadian grocery stocks have been going up like absolute gangbusters lately.

That happened a decade ago. You can’t find many pet supplies anywhere anymore because one company owns the distributors and the stores – and they don’t give a shit because they’re American and Canada is too small of a market to support, so it’s left to wither and die.

The same with Veterinary services. They’ve all be bought up, made into chains, or signed bullshit distribution or service agreements by a single (American) company and now it costs many multiples what it used to for no reason except greed.

Where does the money for the investor’s dividends come from?

From overcharging just a little bit for everything, collaboratively. (In that case)

That’s why they’re doing so well.

Electrifying farm equipment has huge engineering hurdles. They need a massive amount of power, which would mean very large and incredibly expensive battery packs. Those batteries would take either a long time to charge, or high current charging stations.

During seeding or harvest the machines often run for 16+ hours a day, and are literally out in the middle of a field. Where is the super-fast charging station going to go? They can’t easily travel all the machinery back to home base every night, and there’s no way it makes economical sense for a farm operation to get chargers installed at every field.

These are not necessarily insurmountable problems. There are a number of similarities to trucking, for example, and that’s an industry that’s starting to see electrification now. But the logistical problems are much harder than trucking. The biggest reason that John Deere etc… aren’t making electric tractors right now is that no one would buy one, because no one has any infrastructure in place for it.

Are there any electric tractors/combines on the market, let alone used ones? I mean industrial sized, not small yard work equipment.

EDIT: OK, yes, there are some small electrified tractors available now. Fendt has a line available to customers, John Deere has a prototype, etc… But they are the smallest size of industrial tractors, meant for work like greenhouses, feeding livestock, municipal work, etc…

This isn’t surprising. It is basic economics.

We still need to ask why so we can get at the root of the problem. Shrugging and subsidizing is just telling galen weston “keep increasing your prices, and we’ll start throwing tax dollars at you.”

I’m so confused anytime someone blames “greed” for price increases.

First of all, corporations aren’t people. And therefore, they cannot since, and cannot be greedy. They are inhuman profit maximizing machines. They always have been. Blaming “greed” doesn’t make sense because (a) it anthropomorphizes corporations, (b) “greed” has been constant across this time frame.

If greed were to blame for these price increases, then why were prices not rising like this for every other year in living memory? Blaming greed for price increases is like saying a building burned down in a fire because of all the oxygen in the atmosphere. Like… sure? I guess that’s true? But what is the takeaway? Being opposed to oxygen?

Back on topic - if you say the problem is greed, what policy proposals do you have to solve this problem? Greed is literally a biblical sin - what is your proposal to ban what is essentially one of the key components of human nature?

The Weston’s can’t survive in that castle on the paltry billions they have.

They need MORE!

Aren’t corporations ran by people? Who do you think decides on how a company operates?