Economic Outliers

The new Target at 65th and Hwy 50 is bustling. Lots of traffic at that intersection, as predicted, and [presumably] less traffic at all the other retailers in a 7,500' radius. I would expect, say, that the new WingStop across the street has lost business as shoppers drive into Target and buy 50# bags of chicken wings themselves...along with a 2# brick of butter and a half-gallon of Frank's Hot Sauce. Nothing like buying in bulk for your family of three; cheapness reigns supreme, above all else, in these tough economic times.

Stores like this have been calling in more clerks and opening a few more checkout lanes on the midnight shift on the first few hours of the first day of the month...for obvious reasons.

I really don't want to sit here in my little cave and bash the tens of millions of Americans using electronic benefit transfer systems. I know and enjoy the company of many who use this program...but I've already blogged about their lifestyles. I regularly see whole South Sacramento neighborhoods that are dependent on EBT.

Really, it has nothing to do with these people. They are economic outliers, relative to the value the food subsidy program has towards the Archer Daniel Midland's and the RJR-Nabisco's and the WalMart's. They are the real beneficiaries -- they grow and process and package and transport and sell the notional foodstuffs consumed by the growing number of food subsidy recipients.

They would have been beneficiaries anyway, if the economy was better, as these same items are consumed in good times and bad. The only difference is who is paying for them. My cousin in South Sacramento, this isn't a gift -- that he was able to buy a few food items for his dysfunctional living arrangement is just a bone thrown by those who don't benefit by starving people, and who clearly would suffer if the starving masses ever went marching.

Come on -- public monies flowing to the same multi-national corporations? They'd have a hard time engineering this shit in a real economy.