The important thing to understand is that groceries are a small part of a much larger system that exists to extract money from everyone and give it to a small number of people.
Those people own everything. Politicians, courts, the news, the police, etc. All the institutions you think of as part of society that exist to serve the people actually serve the interests of this small group of people, the extraction class.
They cause or at least refuse to prevent most of the suffering in the world, including yours. They’re destroying the planet itself with their unbridled, untethered greed. And they try to control opposition to them by owning the media, as well as the digital platforms we use to interact.
It’s kings and such all over again, just by another name. They bought out the checks and balances of the founding fathers so a lot of that is illusion at this point.
If it wasn’t, as one example, things like Google and Microsoft would’ve been split like Bell telephone already. Look at Clarence Thomas, as another example. Look at the high money duopoly that is our election system.
We’re back to kings. I’m sure Madison and all the rest would be thrilled.
On top of all this, the grocery stores themselves are gouging on those products, milking even more money out of us. All the grocery chains in my country made record profits from the pandemic onward and have been proven to be gouging, not that they'll ever face consequences
One of the most insane commercials I've seen lately is for Rocket Mortgage. It features some schlub walking towards his house carrying two bags of groceries while the narrator says something about how the two bags of groceries used to be four bags. Then the house starts talking to him, telling him he can turn his equity in the house into cash (thanks to Rocket Mortgage) which he could then use for groceries. The thought that there are people out there who are so financially illiterate that they think borrowing money to pay for fucking groceries is a good idea is genuinely depressing.
For good measure, one of the bags of groceries has purple heads of garlic on a stalk sticking out of it - which makes me think the whole thing was generated by AI.