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Does Buying in Bulk Save Money, or is it a False Economy?

posted by martyb on Monday September 25 2017, @10:33PM   
from the what-does-Betteridge-buy? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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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Original Submission

• Re:Wut Re:Wut (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:51PM (1 child)

  by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:51PM (#573075) Journal

  That's fine if you either own the apartment or have a long-term rental. A lot of poor people are on six-month leases and end up having to move at the end of it. Those extra storage units that you've built have to be moved to the next place or rebuilt. If they need to be moved, then it's likely to mean that you can't just move in your friend's car and need to rent a van, which may offset all of the savings that you've made.

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• Re:Wut (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:28PM

  by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday September 26 2017, @01:28PM (#573089) Journal

  I don't know how it is where you are, but poor people in New York City don't move around all that much. In public housing they're there in that spot for generations. With rent control/stabilization, they can't afford to move any place else.

  There is the different class of poor, the homeless, for whom mobility is high. But then, we're not really talking about whether bulk shopping and storage thereof makes sense for them. They're more worried about the portability you're talking about. Even then, though, homeless in a city like New York could do much better for themselves if they were resourceful. There's so much wealth here in terms of cast-off material and foodstuffs that a Cro-Magnon person would think he had died and gone to heaven. Even a native American would do just fine here because the things they ate are still readily available as the modern New Yorkers consider them weeds or beneath them and don't touch them.

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  Washington DC delenda est.

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