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The entire big box economy is a big honking subsidy to people with cars living in the suburbs by the poor, the singles, the seniors, the urban, the cyclists.
It only works because of the highways and the parking lots and the infrastructure paid for by everyone (road taxes do not cover the cost of the roads) and enjoyed by the drivers. The companies charge twice as much for small packages as big ones because they can; the purchasers without cars and access to the big boxes, the ability to drive between the Walmart and the Costco and the Price Club, don't have a choice.
Read on for Treehugger's reasons. Is bulk buying bad after all?
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Does Buying in Bulk Save Money, or is it a False Economy?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:28AM (7 children)
The guy is correct about our car-based infrastructure being subsidized by all the people who don't have cars or use them much, however his whole diatribe against bulk pricing is just stupid and completely ignorant of basic economics. Small quantities of things incur more overhead, and every transaction carries a cost, so it's advantageous to a seller to sell larger quantities to a small number of customers rather than tiny quantities to a large number of customers. Moreover, this is seen in B2B as well: suppliers give bigger discounts to companies that buy in bulk, and they negotiate pricing based on unit quantity.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:03AM (3 children)
Thing is, we all subsidize things we don't use. It's called society. If childless taxpayers were exempt from property tax, schools would go broke. If gasoline tax monies didn't help pay for chronically unprofitable public transit, the subways would stop. Articles like this seem meant to inspire class warfare rather than address some glaring injustice.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:43AM (2 children)
Eh, gasoline tax monies don't even pay for much more than 50% of the roads. The rest of the expense for roadbuilding and maintenance is paid for out of general revenues, from income, property, and sales taxes. Roads are chronically unprofitable also!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:05AM (1 child)
Roads are a huge net benefit. Better logistics means that the whole of society benefits. Now, we could argue about the relative merits of different forms of transport - horses for courses, after all - but roads would make everybody's life better even if there weren't purpose-directed taxes supporting their construction and maintenance.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @11:26AM
Rail is a huge net benefit, but somehow we've moved away from those efficiencies to moving cargo around on the highways and roads. Moving cargo by water is a huge net benefit, but we've moved away from those efficiencies to moving cargo around on the highways and roads. Roads are a relatively inefficient way to move cargo, but the cost is subsidized. Socialism at work.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by qzm on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:10AM (1 child)
Really? No. Not even close.
But perhaps you would like to compare it to the fraction of the cost of cyclist infrastructure paid for by cyclists. After all, that would be a big fat zero, wouldn't it.
The vehicle infrastructure is well proven to return a high net gain to an economy.
As to the rest of this rant. It is just more topical snowflake wants everything their way without making the effort required. What they mean is they have not made the efforts required to get the benefits, and want the benefits anyway.
The only correct response is to tell them to fuck right off.. And that is the polite version.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 26 2017, @09:16AM
Not sure about where you live, but here cycle lanes are paid for out of property taxes. Most people don't cycle more than 10 miles from where they live, so the taxes are generally paying for cycle lanes that they can use. The proportion of the lanes that are paid for by cyclists depends on where they live and that varies hugely between locations, but here around 50% of people cycle to work as their primary means of transport and more cycle less regularly - there are very few people who don't cycle at all. And, of course, everyone benefits from improved air quality in the city.
This really can't be understated. One of the few things that pretty much all economists agree on is that the best way of improving the economy of a developing country is to build roads.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:01PM
sudo mod me up