The Triumph of Bidenomics!

wing2000 said:

...it seems you are not alone to occasionally shop Walmart.

The company [Walmart] reported 6% revenue growth to $161.5 billion and a comparable sales growth of 3.8% in its first quarter Thursday, which it said was driven by upper-income shoppers. Walmart was so optimistic it raised its outlook for growth to 4% from 3% for the year and expects adjusted earnings to be $2.37 per share, up from $2.23.

“We are seeing customers trade into Walmart,” Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told Bloomberg on Thursday. “We’ve historically been thought of for value, but now it’s value, quality and convenience.”

Walmart is nabbing Target’s ‘Tar-jay’ rep and Amazon’s delivery crowd as even the wealthy flock to the retail giant

The big box retailer’s blockbuster earnings are mostly thanks to its focus on groceries and e-commerce.

fortune.com

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Yeah, I think whatever cache Target may have had is gone now - all discount stores are annoying, just in different ways. I can put up with WM 's horrendous lighting and shabby appearance if it means they actually have stuff on the shelves. I'll be happy when I can just order everything online.

o_mlly said:

Not so encouraging news for the 25.000 or so employees Target fired in order to lower those prices.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/target-cut-25-000-jobs-in-the-past-year-even-as-it-increased-its-store-count-a0f84179

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Tis capitalism eh

Keep prices and profit margins high (keep investors happy)
Lower cost (reduce workforce, have us - the consumers - do our own check out)

wing2000 said:

The company [Walmart] reported 6% revenue growth to $161.5 billion and a comparable sales growth of 3.8% in its first quarter

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How much of that was the $150.7 Billion that was given to illegal immigrants for clothing, food, tents and other supplies?

That is the real problem.
The entire country is awash in money.

QvQ said:

How much of that was the $150.7 Billion that was given to illegal immigrants for clothing, food, tents and other supplies?

That is the real problem.
The entire country is awash in money.

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...so if I follow your line of thought here, people who bought merchandise at Walmart and then gave it away to [whomever] is a real problem?

wing2000 said:

..so if I follow your line of thought here, people who bought merchandise at Walmart and then gave it away to [whomever] is a real problem?

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NGO's who bought merchandise worth $58.7 Billion dollars as government subsidy.
And that drives inflation as there isn't any accountability or responsibility.
The government is known for paying any inflated amount for what it purchases.

QvQ said:

NGO's who bought merchandise worth $58.7 Billion dollars as government subsidy.
And that drives inflation as there isn't any accountability or responsibility.
The government is known for paying any inflated amount for what it purchases.

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They paid inflated prices at Walmart?

QvQ said:

Here is a site for Healthy Home Cooking and the inflation rate. Click the link below to see how much healthy home cooking has inflated

"On the site, launched by Make America Great Again Inc., users can select items from a list of household staples to compile a hypothetical grocery list. A calculator then compares prices for these items between the beginning of Biden’s presidency and now.

Checking off each item on the list shows an “under Trump” cost of $107.81 and an “under Biden” cost of $168.16. It amounts to a 55.98% increase.

BIDEN MART

Putting food on the table has become harder than ever thanks to "Bidenomics". As costs for everyday items continue to rise, American families are struggling more and more to foot the bill.

www.biden-mart.com

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That is a rather strange shopping list. Tell me, do many consumers you know buy much zucchini or eggplant in January in the US? Both of those seem like they aren't frequent purchases for most families and are typically bought in summer months when they are fresh. And ice cream is "Healthy Home Cooking"? That list is nothing more than campaign propaganda, cherry picked for items that increased in cost the most, and, as mentioned in another post, they don't really give any source for where there prices come from.

SimplyMe said:

That is a rather strange shopping list. Tell me, do many consumers you know buy much zucchini or eggplant in January in the US?

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Or sweet corn. Where the heck does sweet corn in January come from? Kenya? And for $0.71 an ear? In September, it's a quarter.

What I want to know is where they're getting coffee for $6.12/lb. Is that the lowest grade pre-ground coffee? I can't get whole bean for less than $9/lb.

iluvatar5150 said:

Or sweet corn. Where the heck does sweet corn in January come from? Kenya? And for $0.71 an ear? In September, it's a quarter.

What I want to know is where they're getting coffee for $6.12/lb. Is that the lowest grade pre-ground coffee? I can't get whole bean for less than $9/lb.

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I'll agree that many of the prices seemed off to me, as well. At the same time, for coffee, I'm thinking they are talking about something like Folgers, which my local Walmart has for just under $10 for 25.9 ounces -- which would be about $6.17/lb.

SimplyMe said:

That list is nothing more than campaign propaganda, cherry picked for items that increased in cost the most, and, as mentioned in another post, they don't really give any source for where there prices come from.

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Do you have any idea what you spend a month for food?
Do you have any idea what you spent in 2020 for food?
Do you know how much the price of canned fruits and vegetables has increased in the last 4 years?
From 2020 to 2021 groceries increased 24.6%
And the price has gone up every month since then
The inflation rate of groceries is abt 55% or higher in the last 4 years.

Per US BLS data, food prices are up 2.2% over the past 12 months (to the end of April 2024). That includes a 1.1% increase in 'food at home' and a 4.1% increase in 'food away from home'.

For 2023, food prices were up 2.7%.
For 2022, food prices were up 10.1%.
For 2021, food prices were up 6.3%
For 2020, food prices were up 3.9%.
For 2019, food prices were up 1.8%.
For 2018, food prices were up 1.9%
For 2017, food prices were up 1.6%
For 2016, food prices decline 0.2%

Gene2memE said:

For 2016, food prices decline 0.2%

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“Thanks, Obama!”

QvQ said:

Do you have any idea what you spend a month for food?
Do you have any idea what you spent in 2020 for food?
Do you know how much the price of canned fruits and vegetables has increased in the last 4 years?
From 2020 to 2021 groceries increased 24.6%

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Interesting to see that Trump was responsible for a major part of grocery inflation -- odd that you guys want to blame Biden.

QvQ said:

And the price has gone up every month since then
The inflation rate of groceries is abt 55% or higher in the last 4 years.

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Sorry, not buying the 55% increase, particularly without any sort of citation -- even Trump's campaign website wasn't claiming that type of inflation on food. Instead, the post by Gene2memE seems closer to what I've seen (and he gives a source for his numbers).

QvQ said:

NGO's who bought merchandise worth $58.7 Billion dollars as government subsidy.

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Source?

I genuinely wonder if the people arguing food prices here ever actually buy food. I also wonder if they understand basic math. Let's pick a round number. If the average increase in food prices is 10%, that means some prices are up way more than 10% and some prices are up less than 10%. It depends entirely on the food you buy what your actual percentage increase will be.

The fact is, Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades.

probinson said:

I genuinely wonder if the people arguing food prices here ever actually buy food. I also wonder if they understand basic math. Let's pick a round number. If the average increase in food prices is 10%, that means some prices are up way more than 10% and some prices are up less than 10%. It depends entirely on the food you buy what your actual percentage increase will be.

The fact is, Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades.

Between groceries and restaurants, Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years.​

​

That's according to the latest data from the USDA, which shows that U.S. consumers spent more than 11% of their disposable income on eating — whether at home or at a restaurant — in 2022, the highest percentage since 1991. ​

​

Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades

The high cost of food both at home and in restaurants continues to be a sore spot for millions of U.S. households.

www.cbsnews.com

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....maybe this push Americans to drop their habbit of eating unhealthy food sold by mega corporations?

probinson said:

I genuinely wonder if the people arguing food prices here ever actually buy food. I also wonder if they understand basic math. Let's pick a round number. If the average increase in food prices is 10%, that means some prices are up way more than 10% and some prices are up less than 10%. It depends entirely on the food you buy what your actual percentage increase will be.

The fact is, Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades.

Between groceries and restaurants, Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years.​

​

That's according to the latest data from the USDA, which shows that U.S. consumers spent more than 11% of their disposable income on eating — whether at home or at a restaurant — in 2022, the highest percentage since 1991. ​

​

Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades

The high cost of food both at home and in restaurants continues to be a sore spot for millions of U.S. households.

www.cbsnews.com

​

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We all know it's high. What we're arguing about are specifics. Also, the data in your article is from 2022. I don't know if there's any official food price data that's newer than that, but a fair bit has changed in the last 2 years with respect to inflation and wages.

iluvatar5150 said:

We all know it's high. What we're arguing about are specifics. Also, the data in your article is from 2022. I don't know if there's any official food price data that's newer than that, but a fair bit has changed in the last 2 years with respect to inflation and wages.

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It's probably even worse now, as food prices have continued to climb.

The article was published in February of this year, and references "the latest data from the USDA", which can be seen here:

probinson said:

It's probably even worse now, as food prices have continued to climb.

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Prices always climb. As your article points out, the rate at which they've been climbing has slowed quite a bit since 2022.

probinson said:

The article was published in February of this year, and references "the latest data from the USDA", which can be seen here:

USDA ERS - Food Prices and Spending

Retail food prices partially reflect farm-level commodity prices, but other costs of bringing food to the market (such as processing and retailing) have a greater role in determining prices on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. Monthly price swings in grocery stores for individual food...

www.ers.usda.gov

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I'm aware. I checked the dates and followed the link. It may very well be that we have to wait a while for official data, but given the lag in publishing it (which seems pretty long for most government data), idk that I'd hang my hat on the claim that "Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years". That seems to have been true in 2022; it may not be true anymore.

iluvatar5150 said:

Prices always climb. As your article points out, the rate at which they've been climbing has slowed quite a bit since 2022.

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Actually, the data in an earlier post in this thread indicates that the largest increase in food prices was 10.1% in 2022. It's not clear if this "2022" data takes that into account. If not, the percentage of income people are spending on food is likely close to the same, if not worse, than it was in 2022.

Also, if the numbers above are true, prices increased 10.1%, 2.7% and 2.2% respectively in 2022, 2023 and thus far in 2024. Unless people have also seen a 15% increase in their wages in that time, they're probably spending an even greater portion of their income on food now than they did in 2022.

iluvatar5150 said:

I'm aware. I checked the dates and followed the link. It may very well be that we have to wait a while for official data, but given the lag in publishing it (which seems pretty long for most government data), idk that I'd hang my hat on the claim that "Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years". That seems to have been true in 2022; it may not be true anymore.

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Fair enough. Time will tell.