Newly elected New York City mayor wants state-run grocery stores

In Russia, we had Гастроном (Gastronom), where people often had to wait in long lines and there were frequent food shortages and lack of variety. It was the Moscow and other city dwellers who ate well. The state-run grocery stores where I am from in southern Russia were very poor and were forced to send the agricultural produce to the major cities. Russia now has a variety of grocery stores to choose from, many of which continue to have cheap foods. Zohran Mamdani wants to send NYC back in time and turn it into an anti-American communist pit.

He also plans to spend $65 million on “gender-affirming care.”

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SomeMichGuy · M

Russia's problem was a supply problem.

Major US cities have "food deserts" where there ARE no groceries.

Not the same thing.

And the NYC mayor can't dictate the economy in a series of 5-yr plans.

lol

emiliya · 22-25, F

@SomeMichGuy What do you mean by “supply problem”?

SomeMichGuy · M

@emiliya You are too young to know about the problems of the Soviet Union, but you do have an experience of Russian stores with empty shelves.

As you already noted, a supply problem. Not all demand could be met. A supply problem.

An economy needs good & services "on offer" as well as consumers capable of buying them. The Soviet Union had severe shortages of product in spite of eager consumers (esp. for, say, food).

emiliya · 22-25, F

@SomeMichGuy “Supply problem” masks the other problems. There was plentiful food, especially in south. Demand could be met. The centralized planning, preference for the elite cities and “nomenklatura”, lack of incentives, and very low pay meant it was not met.

SomeMichGuy · M

@emiliya You can say what you want, but whether it was bad planning, low production, corruption, poor logistics, shelves were often empty...which we call a supply chain problem.

Demand wasn't met.

It also didn't help that the Soviet Union regularly lied about population in order to seem bigger, a sad and useless feint.