We Found The Radical Solution To Skyrocketing Grocery Prices
Zohran’s plan for city-run grocery stores has drawn intense pushback from critics.
But government-run stores already exist in the U.S. One chain with 250 locations charges at least 25% less than other brands.
It’s run by the U.S. military.
Producer & Editor: Spencer Snyder
Videographers: Evan Carter & Mark Comberiate
Video Production Manager: Isabel Atalaya
Video Production Coordinator: Jodi Clemens
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@tonightsbigloser1580
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
You're forgetting a very crucial factor, which is loss prevention. Commissaries and Post Exchanges still have a loss prevention team, but any odd person shoplifting is very easily dealt with because base access can be cut off and there are severe consequences. A lot of funding would be going down the drain with theft in a publicly accessible commissary and the math gets thrown out of balance.
@ahodges7
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
A good video for discussion and thought. The problem becomes scale. DeCA is "large", but nothing like what would be needed to feed the entire country, or even an entire state, or even just NYC. Also, they exist within the free market system of other grocery stores. I was a career military officer and we often lived on base and we usually bought our groceries at the Commissary, but not always. One thing that the video doesn't tell you is that the hours of the Commissary are very limited, usually not opening until 7 or 8 am, and usually closing by 5pm or 6pm and they are often closed entirely two or three days per week, while Walmart used to never close are post pandemic are at least open 0600-2300. That's not to say the Commissary isn't a great service provided to military families. If we needed groceries and the commissary was open and it wasn't way out of our way, we bought our groceries there. But, back to the scale issue – if the Commissary were to be scaled to the size of NYC, or an entire US state, the opportunity for fraud and grift would become inescapable. That is the core reason that state owned markets (and governments in general) in Cuba and Venezuela and former Soviet Union failed, and why the DeCa can still function. DeCA is just small enough to have it's budget and performance heavily scrutinized by Congress and the DoD. Also, like the video mentioned, there are lots of DeCA stores that loose money, but there are kept afloat by gov't subsidies a the few dozen commissaries at the largest installations that do make profit or at least break even.
@proffesseurevil
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Could we get some numbers as to how much money was saved by shoppers with that 2% decrease in costs?
Because lets face it, if we spend 1 Billion dollars and customers save 5 Billion, thats a damn good deal.
Every state should do that.
I could imagine that this stacks quite well, a bit like the IRS.
Every dollar we spend gives the average household 1,20$.
@chagildoi
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
While I don’t disagree with your intentions, you don’t really address the first concern. The concern is that a govt-run store wouldn’t be market competitive and instead would require a tax payer subsidy, effectively burying the cost. Then you say that taxing NYC millionaires another 1% would pay for NYC stores. So you take the city with the largest # of millionaires and suggest taxing the rich to subsidize the stores for everyone else. That doesn’t really address the concern, and even if, for the sake of argument, one didn’t object to that approach in NYC, it doesn’t scale well to the rest of the country. You’re basically acknowledging the concern and saying the solution is to tax the rich to pay for it, which is a little disingenuous give your early promise to “address” the concern.
@zvxcvxcz
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
1) The numbers do add up, if private can do it, then a government can definitely leverage the power of the state to do it cheaper
2) You can still go buy private whenever you want, this is silly
3) The government does a large number of functions better than any private company, private companies only compete at all by cutting out less profitable parts of the market, like not going last mile delivery. Where the government is doing something poorly, it's almost always because Republicans in government are deliberately sabotaging it because they want to privatize that industry and profit on the government dime to do the same job worse.
@OmegaSanctum
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
I mean its pretty easy to buy at a government run grocery store. Just join the military.
@andrew_owens7680
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
"We tried it, but it failed."
Following that statement should be a contextual and complete review of how much the people with a motivation to make it fail actively made it fail.
@evilofparadise
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
I love how the bottom line is that American government has the capacity and competency to do communism better than alleged “communists”.
@behrangsa
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Charlie Chaplin is ALIVE!?
@thunderbear42
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
0:15 even 8.53usd is barely reasonable
@ViolettaVie
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Doesn't the government subsidies corn, soy, and dairy?
@XboxUnitD77
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Ah yes my favorite type of politics. Blind ignorance to the problem and blindly ignoring the figured out solutions.
It's like it's willfully ignorant or corrupt.
@chloegrobler4275
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
this woman has a collection of stanley cups, she isnt struggling.
@spacecowboy1929
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Why not take a look at aldi and how they manage their stores, apparently their prices are lower then other stores
@zeragus707
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
just don't go into a store with a list of things to buy. Only buy things that have 50% off tags… there are always PLENTY of options…
@Zx797
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
So, it's not self-sustainable, correct?
@chrisr6794
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
It's crazy how all the people telling us this can't work, put so much money and effort into making sure it can't work.
@jamesaydelotte8666
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
This concept also works for medicine! Imagine that!
@lisadefries6718
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Coops been in Europe for decades and they do work 😊
@kratomseeker5258
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
privatization is the only problem we have with healthcare or anything else. am i advocating for socialism? there are some good points in communism if it resides with a democracy then i would advocate for it.
@ernestoyepez5103
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Sound fine, but there is a hidden subsidy.
Check the budget of the military..
Logistic, transport, purchase power
@danielking2944
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
If a family of four is spending $1,500 monthly, that explains why their trash cans are running over twice a week.
It puts my guts in a knot when I see obviously low income people with baskets full of pretty boxes of edible food like substances. $6 boxes of cereal that is so devoid of nutrients that you need to eat something else before lunch is an example.
Almost anything from the frozen food aisle that is fit to eat can be purchased for a fraction in the fresh vegetables and meat department.
Milk and eggs at unsubsidized prices are worth the price. If we paid that price we could have high quality locally produced milk and eggs by our neighbors.
@matteopaccani7756
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
people don't like socialism because they don't know what it is
@iceicebuddy
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Eating out once a week would be disastrous for my household. I see that as flat out reckless
@Santaclause450
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Instead of having government grocery store. Just have government food products in the stores. Like government cheese 😍 back in the days.
@TubersAndPotatoes
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Isn't one of the major factors for food deserts being that they're in high crime areas with high rates of theft?
Businesses can't survive if they are not profitable due to these losses.
But taxpayer subsidized charities can, any losses from theft can just be subsidized with public money.
Subsidies are a slippery slope, it's how America has become over reliant on Corn farming.
@countrysister700
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
My sister, stationed in Germany in the '80's, showed me the amazing US products she bought at her commissary and believed they were being deeply subsidized by govt and industry for morale, brand loyalty etc. Dr Pepper cheaper than my Texas grocer sold it. The fact that govt stores can operate to serve a subset of the population doesn't mean that artificial model is sustainable in the broader market.
@Kiwi-yz3lp
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
god forbid food be a human right and not an opportunity to profit off of peoples need to survive.
@gregyankelevich4207
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Stop rubbing people with taxes and that will everything affordable. Less regulations more private competition.
@GeneralKenobi69420
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Oh cry me a damn river. As if I'm gonna feel sorry for a fat business owner with a Stanley cups collection and a bigass house who spends 4 figures a month on groceries. Am I really supposed to feel sorry here? That's more than I earn. Jesus Christ. Get real
@libertarianPinoy
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
The problem with your argument is that military commissaries have the choices of products and price information they use because of free market supermarkets.
Free markets allowed producers to determine how much to produce and at what price.
If all supermarkets were government owned, they would have no benchmark or reference anymore. Government will start determining what choices you will have over time.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@Name.is2
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
As someone that served, the commissary is better than most American grocery stores
@debrastrayer8600
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Tennessee has grocery outlets that are FABULOUS
@nikolaitregouet
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
People… The government doesn’t give a shit about you. Wake up! You now have a list of names from the Epstein files to aggressively start correcting it😉
@greham
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
It's time for americans to realize that their GDP growth isn't actually that impressive since it's mainly doped by consumer-extorsion practices.
@Hans9078
February 8, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Just cut the fraud and corruption, we could pay for the subsidies with that.
That said I have low confidence that a government general public grocery store would work as well as the military run one.
Comments are closed.