“a Kroger-Albertsons merger would not create a monopoly in the grocery market. According to a recent report by Retail Info Systems, Walmart remains the nation’s largest grocer, controlling 17 percent of the grocery market. The second and third largest grocers are Amazon and Costco. Kroger and Albertsons are only a distant fourth and sixth with market shares of 4.4 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.
Grocery stores have experienced a declining market share, while superstores and online competitors have grown. For example, like many traditional grocers, Kroger’s market share has declined in recent years while Walmart’s has increased. Even if Kroger and Albertsons were to merge, it’s not clear that their combined market share wouldn’t continue to decline. The merger would simply enable Albertsons and Kroger to bulk up and compete with larger competitors, like Walmart.
In addition, Kroger’s decision to sell stores in overlapping markets where Albertsons operates means the merger would not increase concentration in any market. This has traditionally been enough for the FTC.
The national grocery market is also becoming more competitive, not less. No longer limited to brick-and-mortar supermarkets and independent grocery stores, the grocery market now includes a growing assortment of e-commerce stores, like Amazon, discount grocers like Aldi and Lidl, and delivery providers like FreshDirect and Instacart. These newer market entrants have fundamentally altered grocery shopping.
The merger will heighten competition among larger competitors, which will drive down prices for consumers. While a merger would not make Kroger and Albertsons the dominant industry players, it would allow them to compete more effectively with others, putting pressure on all major retailers to keep prices low as they fight to preserve their customer base. In fact, Kroger and Albertsons have indicated that the merger will generate $500 million in new cost savings for them that they plan to use to cut consumer prices. In addition, they plan to expand their lineup of affordable store brand products and spend $1.3 billion on improving customer service at Albertsons stores.”
“The unions are claiming a victory for workers, but it’s not hard to guess the result. Higher prices will mean fewer customers and reduced profits. That means fewer restaurants and fewer jobs. Although the legislation only applies to fast-food chains with more than 60 outlets, it will drive up costs for mom-and-pop restaurants. They will have to compete for workers with chains that must pay a much-higher wage.
That’s not the only bad news. “Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed,” wrote famed economist Thomas Sowell. In other words, restaurants will not hire people who aren’t productive enough to justify the wage.”
“Texas border enforcement cops killed 74 people and wounded almost 200 more during vehicle chases over a 29-month period, according to a report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch. The chases occurred as part of Operation Lone Star, a controversial program that has spent over $10 billion in taxpayer funds to militarize Texas’ border with Mexico.
Operation Lone Star (OLS), which was launched in March 2021 by Gov. Greg Abbot, has devoted a tremendous amount of taxpayer dollars to increasing Texas’ border security, often using extreme tactics. Recently the program came under fire for using razor wire and blade-topped buoys on the Rio Grande in an attempt to keep out migrants.”
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“According to the report, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers working under Operation Lone Star frequently engage in unnecessary vehicle chases and other dangerous driving maneuvers when attempting to make arrests. As a result, unnecessary police chases have increased by as much as 1,000 percent in some Texas counties.”
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“In all, from March 2021 to July 2023, 74 drivers, passengers, or bystanders were killed in these chases, and 189 more were wounded. Those killed include seven bystanders, including a 7-year-old girl and her 71-year-old grandmother.”
“Bier breaks down the pathways remaining for legal immigration. Those include: the refugee program, which gives qualified applicants a 0.1 percent chance of being accepted for resettlement; the diversity lottery, which offers a 0.2 percent chance of success; family sponsorships, which are capped for anybody other than spouses, minor children, and parents of adult U.S. citizens leading to years-long waits; employment-based self-sponsorship available only to the wealthy or those whose work is “extraordinary” or of “national importance”; and limited, red-tape-bound employer sponsorships out of reach of all but the lucky and well-educated.
The chart of the byzantine requirements for legal immigration captures the problem well, like a maze puzzle with no real means of escape.”
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“”Immigration is now prohibited in a similar way to alcohol during Prohibition,” Bier commented. “Although it had exceptions for religious, medical, or industrial purposes, alcohol prohibition outlawed all other sales. For both alcohol and immigration, the result of prohibition has been the same: widespread violations of the law, black markets, the spread of criminal organizations, arbitrary enforcement, government corruption, and massive government expenditures of taxpayer money to stop the violations.”
So, with legal pathways to entering the United States out of reach of most would-be migrants, they turn to illegal means. That necessarily includes “coyotes”—smugglers who get people through migration routes and across borders for a fee. They operate in the underworld with all that implies; they might be decent people just working a job, or they could be dangerous and abusive.
“Despite the illicit nature of their work and being cast as villains in the public eye, smugglers have complex, multifaceted relationships with their migrant clients,” Jasper Gilardi wrote in 2020 for the Migration Policy Institute. “At times, the relationship can be mutually beneficial or even lifesaving; at others, it can be predatory and dangerous. Abandonment, extortion, kidnapping, and even death are common.””
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kicked off his latest visit to Washington Monday by making the case for Ukraine as the West’s only defense against an imperialist Russia, arguing that squabbling in Washington only benefits Vladimir Putin.
“Let me be frank with you friends,” Zelenskyy told a room full of military officers from across the globe at the National Defense University, “if there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill it is just Putin and his sick clique.””
“”If Kate can’t get an abortion in Texas, who can? Kate’s case is proof that exceptions don’t work, and it’s dangerous to be pregnant in any state with an abortion ban,” Duane said.”
“Iran has finalized an agreement with Russia to buy Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 jet trainers, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Mahdi Farahi said on Nov. 28, the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim has reported.
In a conversation with the outlet, Farahi said that these three advanced military aircraft will be at Iran’s disposal, and the relevant processes are “currently underway.””
“Google’s revenue-sharing deal with Apple was a major part of the trial because Apple is believed to get the bulk of what Google pays out in those agreements. Having a default search placement on Apple devices, which make up roughly half of the smartphone market in the US, is extremely important to Google. We’ve known for years that Google pays Apple for that default placement — this also stops Apple from developing its own search engine — but that’s about it. While Google tried to keep virtually everything about the deal away from the public, we still got a few new details.
In an apparent slip-up, Google’s own witness in the waning days of the trial told us how much of Google’s ad revenue Apple gets: 36 percent for searches done on its Safari browser. The monetary value of that 36 percent is still a mystery. Judge Mehta did not disclose how big Apple’s slice of the $26.3 billion pie is, allowing the DOJ only to say it’s “more than $10 billion.” But the New York Times, citing internal Google sources, put it at $18 billion.”
“We didn’t just find out some of Google’s secrets; a few things about Apple came out, too. Apple’s senior vice president John Giannandrea testified that his company talked to Microsoft about buying Bing in 2018. Apple ultimately decided against it, but not before using the possibility as leverage in its search default negotiations with Google, something Microsoft is still pretty sore about. Apple executive Eddy Cue testified that the company chooses Google to be the default search because it believes Google is the best for its users. But speaking of Bing …”
“Multiple Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, testified that Microsoft really, really wanted to make Bing the default search on Apple devices, to the point where it was willing to lose billions of dollars a year for the privilege. Samsung and Verizon, the trial also revealed, essentially refused to even negotiate with Microsoft over changing their search defaults to Bing. Perhaps they were thinking of Mozilla’s experience switching from Google to Yahoo. Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker testified that Yahoo offered more money and fewer ads, so Mozilla’s Firefox browser switched the default from Google to Yahoo in 2014. Mozilla switched back to Google a few years later, which Baker attributed to Google’s search being better for its users, echoing the point that Google emphasized in its defense.”