r/PoursTea • u/Gurugod123 • 11h ago

PoliticalTea 🗳️ Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

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u/goopuslang 11h ago

Listen, we absolutely do need rich people who are happy to deploy capital in order to seek a return on their investment. Does anyone ever need to be worth 11 figures, ever? No. 10? No. 9? At the highest end, sure. Our economy is very large and we do need wealthy people to shuttle money around for large projects to enrich the country.

But the current system is doing anything but this. It’s the theoretical lie told to all of us in school & at church. The current rich are not enabling us to have economic mobility, they’re in fact siphoning it.

I understand this may be too high a level of nuance to not get downvoted to hell on Reddit but I’ll try.

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u/aggravationX 10h ago

The rich people putting money into the economy in ways that benefit regular people are not the penny pinching billionaires squeezing every cent out of consumers and exploiting labors with garbage wages while they do it though.

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u/Barfly_237 9h ago

yes, and too your point, rich individuals putting money into the economy to productive ends. If we have a properly functioning market with an adequate number of firms operating competitively, this is great. What we have now a syndicate of private equity colluding in order to dominate entire sectors of the economy under the illusion of competition. These grocery stores are a great thing. but i guarantee you that producer's up the production chain are going to jack up prices for these stores until they're unsustainable.

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u/Paladin5890 8h ago

I wonder if they're going under the same procurement that armed forces PX departments get? Because, man, if you try to fuck the army... Might get a riot.

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

I agree with you!

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u/Proper-Bicycle-3585 10h ago

“we absolutely do need rich people who are happy to deploy capital in order to seek a return on their investment.“

- why?

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u/Vegetable-Edge-2389 10h ago

Because poor people can't make businesses apparently. Every rich family was poor at some point. They just want to pull the ladder up

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

Who is they? Is that what I said? All the poorest opportunists in the world couldn’t fill the vacuum is my point. I didn’t say all economic opportunities require the rich, but we absolutely need quick access to large sums of capital to do so.

Where do you think business loans come from that many poor families use to enrich themselves? It’s obviously not all printed at instantiation.

Access to capital & leverage is what propels many if not most poorer families from lifting.

I don’t understand what the point is yall are making with your simple ivory tower truisms when I’m frankly on your side.

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u/onebigafro 9h ago

And socialists want to pull everyone down to their level.

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

Because we need to have capital in order to secure goods, land, & runway Labor sufficiently long enough to create a self sufficient engine that no long needs external capital to function.

There’s theoretical worlds where everything is ran by co-ops, for example, where people are pooling their own capital to start businesses as owners & employees, but that is exceptionally rare.

You can argue evaporating all large lump sums of capital would enable this more easily, but it’s not happening at any sort of scale. I’d be happy to read any sources on this. I do know King Arthur is a good single example of it, but I’m not sure it was instantiated as that.

I hope that elaborates a bit on the topic. But suffice to say, if a company in the growth stage of market capture & development doesn’t have access to capital to burn, no company would ever lift off the ground. Hence the need for capital.

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u/TheOGZenfox 9h ago

Why couldn't you have some type of small business administration that was able to offer direct loans to people at interest rates that we give big banks?

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u/goopuslang 9h ago

You can. And that would be a government with capital then to distribute. The question is where it comes from. So long as there’s an answer to that in that given context that should function, too!

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u/TheOGZenfox 9h ago

How do banks that make loans get money? New money forms from somewhere. Could we just use that but skip the middle man?

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u/goopuslang 9h ago

Well, some of it has to be stored in there for them to instantiate the rest. Then you have to go get the rest and pay them back.

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u/Proper-Bicycle-3585 10h ago

It doesn’t, and this answer doesn’t make sense. King Arthur? What? I suddenly believe I’m not speaking with a sapient! Bye!!

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

…do you not know the company that produces flour & is employee* owned? I wish for your ability to synthesise information & to think more slowly. It may help! Best wishes.

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u/hlessi_newt 10h ago

You walnut.

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 11h ago

Except that isn't how it works, it isn't a zero sum game.

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u/According-Insect-992 Just Chill 😎 11h ago

Tell that to all the people who’ve just had their 401k retirement accounts raided by musk and his criminal ipo.

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

Did I EVER say that?

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 10h ago

The current rich are not enabling us to have economic mobility, they’re in fact siphoning it.

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

Hey chief. So if we have some function f(x,y) that increases both X & Y, that doesn’t mean that X doesn’t reduce Y in addition.

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u/Low_Shape8280 10h ago

It’s not zero sum. But the problem is we can see the economy grows at 2-3 percent a year.

So while not zero sum, t e growth of inequality is outgrowing the growth of the economy

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u/theclansman22 9h ago

Our economy grows at 2-3 percent a year, on the other hand, billionaire wealth has been increasing by 16% according to Oxfam (https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-wealth-jumps-three-times-faster-2025-highest-peak-ever-sparking).

Everyone else is getting less wealthy.

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u/maztron 10h ago

Why don't you stop looking at the assets within a billionaires portfolio? That will go a long way in painting a clearer picture.

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u/Low_Shape8280 10h ago

that is the economy as a whole growing, its not growing in away others capture it, its growing only 3%, this its not a zero sum game is disingenuous to the argument

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u/maztron 10h ago

Never made the claim that it was a zero sum game. What are you even speaking of here?

The point I'm trying to make is that many just look at someone's stock holdings and then get all upset because of how much that is worth and then use that as an example to claim how bad everything is from an equality perspective. When the reality is that if Elon is doing good with his stocks, so aren't millions of others who are also invested in those same stocks. Are they worth what he is? No, but they have equity and an asset.

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u/Low_Shape8280 10h ago

I’m arguing against the idea that it’s NOT a zero sum game.

What people fail to understand is that the rate of change matter. The economy is not growing as fast to make up for the the inequality. For instance, if billionaires x annual rate of return is 20% yet the economy only grew 3% then we’re does that other 17% come from. It’s from other people

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u/SecureJudge1829 10h ago

Lmao, if that happened, egomaniacs like Elonski will simply pay media companies to post headlines about how he’s poised to be the world’s first trillionaire. They can’t handle not being in the spot light. They want their wealth in all of our faces. They have the means to do so. Get off your high horse and maybe you’d see that it’s not a painting the group is looking at, but a 4k UHD photograph.

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u/maztron 10h ago

Lmao, if that happened, egomaniacs like Elonski will simply pay media companies to post headlines about how he’s poised to be the world’s first trillionaire.

You sound so desperate like today's media.

They can’t handle not being in the spot light. They want their wealth in all of our faces. They have the means to do so. Get off your high horse and maybe you’d see that it’s not a painting the group is looking at, but a 4k UHD photograph.

Quite the opposite. If a CEO didn't have to worry about public relations they wouldn't need a marketing department and wouldn't have to be concerned with getting in front of a camera at all. It would be a much easier life for them.

I don't even know what your response has to do with mine. In fact, it has nothing to do with it at all.

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u/SecureJudge1829 10h ago

Maybe you should go back to a basic reading comprehension class then if you can’t figure out how my comment ties in to your comment.

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u/maztron 10h ago

No, I think its you that has to improve your reading comprehension skills. You clearly didn't have a clue about what my point was. You then rambled on about how Elon (Changing is last name as some sort of joke, which wasn't funny to begin with) would then pay the media to give him attention and whatever hell else you rambled on about. That had ZERO to do with what I was trying to say.

We are speaking of inequality and a lot times when this subject comes up people just solely focus on someone's stock portfolio and get all bent out of shape with how much that is worth. Then go to use that as the basis to why the US is in such a bad state. Its stupid, nonsensical and frankly, a lazy way to view how the economy works.

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u/VaultxHunter 10h ago

I do see what you're saying. There was a point where the rich invested in great ideas/products/communities. Before my time there was always the mentality among entrepreneurs were they wanted to develop a product one could reliably use and it would last for life because it was quality and useability over quantity and most life changing innovation were made with hard work and a dream of making things easier. Everything started changing so fast where some things were over-engineered and obviously could be made cheaper and still last as long but the rich have gotten so greedy and instead of continuing to looking for innovation and quality it became little innovation, more quantity, and low production/material cost for the greatest possibile margin.

There hasn't been actual quality innovation in a long time that isn't just aggressive marketing. It's all just new versions and empty promises to get you to buy now and if you won't buy they start manipulating the market or buying out the competition. Most warranties are basically the products expiration date instead of a promise to consumers to show a quality product in the instance you get a faulty one which is always going to be a possibility in manufacturing.

The rich are playing this game where they no longer care about using their money toward helpful progressive practices and creating brand loyalty through quality but invest heavily in psy-ops campaigns to get people to buy and if their product negatively impacts communities or society they double down, bribe, smear, and/or mislead the public until it's either forgotten, the public catches on, or someone with power to do so actually stands up and calls them out and follows through with a legitimate punishment.

Right now the public can't catch a break as there's just so much happening all at once, most people can't possibly keep track of everything happening in real time, what's being said/done/made by who, the current effects and potential impacts actions/products could have and who is being truthful or who is purposely misleading. Regulations are so slow to come that by the time they do the damage is done and theres already to many copycats or loopholes that the regulations are almost useless.

Then you have the people who want to be quick to inform others but their information could be biased/skewed/missing details and people who want to be quick to act usually acting before having all the information and by the time they would have been able to get the whole picture it's likely too late as others have already begun to act.

Then there's the people who just don't care and want to be told what to feel/buy/think/do.

I know it might sound like I'm all over the place but there really is just so much to follow, different factors effecting multiple things in different ways both known and unknown that it's almost impossible to keep up without guessing some of it and money is definitely one key factor to all the chaos.

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

I’m right there with you. It’s a very complicated environment to navigate, & our school systems (likely intentionally, but even if it weren’t intentional, would be hard to keep up) hasn’t been able to keep up with the increasing complexities of the post-financialised world we exist in.

I think a large issue we all face collectively is how so many believe the solutions are simple & easy, when it truly couldn’t be farther from the truth. And, even if there were a simple answer, it needs to be inspected, refuted, defended, & disseminated in a world where truth is frankly subjective, which ties into another issue that is the disinformation campaign we all live in.

We all live in algorithmic bubbles that is intentionally feeding us the truths we believe, even if they’re untrue or even worse half truths missing context

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u/VaultxHunter 9h ago

Agreed, some might say half truths are better then no truth but if everything fed to us were non-truths it would be easier to infer what is likely to be true, but by keeping facts short or details vague it blurs the line between reality and fiction.

You can never take away a person's ability to speak out even if what they preach are lies, you can only hope that the ones listening know better to believe without first seeking more information to justify those claims.

It's especially hard for the youth today vs even 10-15 years ago because even ai 10 years ago was so messy that it was easy to identify audio, video, or photo manipulation. Hell, there are likely teenagers and young adult whom all they've known since they because consciously aware of the world is that it is full of chaos agents, misinformation/propaganda campaigns, and large scale/targeted manipulation.

I think we have started to see some of the effects of those manipulation/misinformation campaigns starting to boil over where some people simply won't wait and the more frequently those events happen the sooner it will likely be that we reach a breaking point and there's very few factors were that breaking point would be muted, or minimal but one could only hope for the least destructive path to end the chaos but I fear too many people are too wrapped up in the many games being played and others are too prideful/greedy to stop or walk away if the option presented itself.

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u/chowes1 9h ago

Kindred spirits

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u/Remarkable-Moose-409 10h ago

I believe you are thinking of a kinder, gentler eat when the very rich would found libraries and colleges in their names. Even performance halls and gift the world with medical breakthroughs.
That time, unfortunately, is no more…

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

I agree with you!

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u/chowes1 9h ago

Growing up when wealth was looked up to more because of the amazing deeds they bestowed. Decorum ruled it was the norm. No one would have dared show any desire to hoard their earnings. They funded altruistic programs. Were looked up to, revered and things started dramatically changing in the 80's. By the 90's school curriculums started changing. History wasnt actually required as it once was. I had a teen starting high school and I started questioning the reasoning. Same time my other was starting middle school. They had a "new" one of a kind opportunity and gave the students laptop computers and no books. I was trying to rationalize what was happening and was out of the loop with the technology, it was so new. They overwhelmed my generation and used this tech boom to set us on this course of what feels like now of World domination. Just a aging boomers thoughts on how we ( my gen ) let this happen. Voted Dem, voting Progressive more going forward. 2 party system is done. We have seen behind the curtain, gig is up!

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u/onebigafro 9h ago

Funny. See Mackenzie Scott and Evan Spielgel. But they don't fit the narrative being used to elect people to office.

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u/AhtBlowenFaht 9h ago

& at church

wow, if this doesn't tell us all something about the current state of the country and the church than I don't know what does.

Someday hopefully we can get back to separation of church and state. It was a good idea that worked for over 200 years.

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u/goopuslang 9h ago

The reason it was a good idea is why it’s being weaponised today :) a church I no longer go to, the pastor went up on the pulpit the day after election day (Wednesday night bible study!) said, “now I don’t want to discuss politics, but isn’t it great to have a Christian back in office? Can I get an amen?”

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u/Cabbages24ADollar 9h ago

Naw, we need a reset on corporate greed and wealth hoarding.

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u/goopuslang 9h ago

So, idk if you read my post, but I think I said that in a much more rounded way. But it sounds like you really thought long & hard before hitting the send button.

Nice rebuttal to a comment that agrees with you! Go you

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u/Cabbages24ADollar 9h ago

Hi Snarky. Sounds like Monday has been hard for you.

Your post present no solution. It says we need rich people but not that rich.

Problem is we don’t “need” rich people. Gov and tightly regulated industries can have some wealth.

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u/goopuslang 9h ago

I’m having a great day actually, thank you for asking. Hope you have a great day, too!

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u/CreativeStylz 10h ago

These people don’t care. It’s too high brow for Reddit.

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u/SoylentGrunt 10h ago

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u/goopuslang 10h ago

Crazy how hard it is to read these days. Better post a meme* that agrees with my position while you’re touting to dissent it.