it's the kind of elementary mistake in basic economic theory that is rampant amongst stupid conservatives but that liberals just have not made in this country for decades. 

in fact, the grocery store collusion was the exact example that we used to talk about oligopoly in first year economics. we went through this exact issue. no, the stores aren't going to compete. are you nuts? they know better than that. they will instead fix prices, and there's a mechanism in which they do this.

what the fuck are you talking about? oligowhatchamasay? i'm talking about competition!

right.

what is an oligopoly?

“A rule of thumb is that an oligopoly exists when the top five firms in the market account for more than 60% of total market sales,”

https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2023/may/what-makes-a-market-an-oligopoly

Characteristics of oligopolies

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Some characteristics of oligopolies include:

• Profit maximisation
• Price setting: Firms in an oligopoly market structure tend to set prices rather than adopt them.^[22]
• High barriers to entry and exit:^[23] Important barriers include government licenses, economies of scale, patents, access to expensive and complex technology, and strategic actions by incumbent firms designed to discourage or destroy nascent firms. Additional sources of barriers to entry often result from government regulation favouring existing firms.^[24]
• Few firms in the market: When there are few firms in the market, the actions of one firm can influence the actions of the others.^[25]
• Abnormal long-run profits: High barriers of entry prevent sideline firms from entering the market to capture excess profits. If the firms are colluding in the oligopoly, they can set the price at a high profit-maximising level.
• Perfect and imperfect knowledge: Oligopolies have perfect knowledge of their own cost and demand functions, but their inter-firm information may be incomplete. If firms in an oligopoly collude, information between firms then may become perfect. Buyers, however, only have imperfect knowledge as to price,^[23] cost, and product quality.
• Interdependence: A distinctive feature of oligopolies is interdependence.^[26] Oligopolistic firms must take into consideration the possible reactions of all competing firms and the firms' countermoves.^[27] Every oligopolistic company with strong commodity homogeneity in its industry is reluctant to raise or lower prices, as competing firms will be aware of a firm's market actions and will respond appropriately. Anticipation among firms about potential counteractions leads to price rigidity, with firms usually only willing to adjust prices and quantities of output in accordance with a price leader.^[28][29] This high degree of interdependence stands in contrast with the lack of interdependence in other market structures. In a perfectly competitive market, there is zero interdependence because no firm is large enough to affect market prices. In a monopoly, there are no competitors to be concerned about. In a monopolistically-competitive market, each firm's effects on market conditions are so negligible that they can be safely ignored by competitors.
• Non-price competition: Generally, the oligopolistic enterprise with the largest scale and lowest cost will become the price setter in this market. The price set by it will maximise its own interests, such that other small-scale enterprises may also benefit.^[30] Oligopolies tend to compete on terms other than price, as non-price competition, such as promotional efforts, is less risky. Along non-price dimensions, collusion is harder to sustain.^[31]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

that's what i learned in school. i don't know what they taught you at the ayn rand school for homo economicus tots.

so how do you get grocery prices down via competition, then?

you don't. you're stupid.

you need to reduce input costs, which in most cases, in canada, has to do with high transportation costs. further, the cost of fertilizer has been spiraling out of control for years.

you overcharge for bananas, you might wake up wearing some cement shoes, and sleeping with some fishes.

in theory, if you set up a freshco across the street from a food basics  they might compete with each other, but i can point you to several intersections where there's a freshco on one side of the street and a food basics on the other and they tend to engage in price setting rather than competition. the difference is that they don't buy food from each other, they both order it from their own suppliers, so they in theory might compete. but it's the same suppliers, the same labour costs and, therefore, the same price. they're not going to compete - that would harm both of them and they both know it. things like condiments move in lock step. i've basically never seen them compete, but have noticed prices are usually the same for most things on both sides of the street (and i'm picky so i'll go to both stores and actually shop).

then there's the cartels, like bananas. bananas are always exactly the same price everywhere. no exceptions. ever noticed that?

you could say "but the store will stop them". they might. they probably won't. what does the cashier care? what difference does it make to the produce manager?

that's what the fucking clause was for, you dumb fucks.

where do you imagine that the convenience store gets it's food from?

it buys it at the grocery store and then charges you for gas and labour to go get it. that's why it's twice as much; it's the unwritten relationship. it's cheaper to just use instacart; it's the same thing, and fresher produce.

if you get rid of these clauses, you're allowing third parties to step in as middlemen and hike the price. it will create inflation, not lower costs.

this is utterly irrelevant and has nothing to do with prices. small grocers source from large ones. i walk by people selling fruit outside the stores all of the time and the prices are generally higher because they just bought it at the store. what this is actually going to do is lead to more resellers and may create problems with people buying up stock in bulk, clearing the stores out and marking it up down the street. there's now nothing stopping them from doing that, so why wouldn't they? those clauses are broadly reasonable and something i'd mostly support as they ensure price stability, which tends to keep prices lower. this policy is utterly wrong, economically, and will likely completely backfire.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/competition-bureau-empire-property-controls-deal-9.7356543

a smart analyst should have looked at the vulnerability nafta has inflicted on canada and decided we're too reliant on foreign investment. it's not the americans that are the problem, exactly. it's the amount of foreign control over the economy.

to react to the tariffs with more foreign investment is to suggest an inability to understand, to analyze and to learn. it is to completely miss the point.

something that we've heard frequently recently from mark carney and his cronies is the idea that they can only plan around and focus on what they can control. it sounds reasonable on it's face.

then he calls a conference trying to get a trillion dollars of foreign investment, which is basically selling the country off to the highest bidder.

this week, canada has seen two foreign investors in the auto sector, both european, completely bail on their commitments. auto companies from korea have likewise been sketchy. it would seem as though foreign investment is unreliable and unpredictable, wouldn't it?

if the government truly wanted to focus on what it could control, it would be building crown corporations, funding r&d and engaging in massive keynesian spending to get the economy working. instead, it's trying to balance the budget.

that's not adding up, is it?