EP 884 Supermarkets and Grocery Preferences Are Changing
Just as big box retail stores have given way to more boutique and on-line retail environments, grocery shoppers are drawn these days to stores with a curated selection of essentials at lower prices. Stores like the brother rivals of Aldi’s and Trader Joe’s are examples. Do we really need 10 choices of olive oil? Too much choice can be overwhelming. Our guest, Phil Lempert, the Supermarket Guru, also tells us that omnichannel shopping is becoming the norm, as we transition, post-pandemic, to a seamless experience of shopping on-line and picking up at the stores, allowing us to go inside only for the things, like meat and vegetables, which we may want to customize based on many factors. And the engaging Mr. Lempert walks with us through a number of items that have been in the news–Americans are purchasing less salty and sweet snacks and healthier alternatives to soda are on the rise, thus paving the way for the healthier future that the current Administration has been touting. There’s no one better to go down the grocery aisles with than out guest.
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Gallup ranks homelessness as one of Americans’ top three concerns. As it dovetails with the affordable housing crisis in this country, more and more people recognize how they, themselves, are a paycheck away from instability as it relates to having a roof over their heads. The homelessness we are experiencing today finds its roots in policies in the 1980’s which shred many safety nets. Given long waiting lines for federal low-income housing only about a quarter of those eligible for assistance actually receive help. Public housing itself has been starved of funding and demonized in the public discourse. And since the housing bubble burst in 2009, the shortage of housing has seen private equity players moving into the housing market and driving up prices. No one understands these issues better than Maria Foscarinis, the author of “And Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America” and the founder of the National Homelessness Law Center, which she led for nearly 32 years. As growing numbers of people find themselves in desperate circumstances living in anything other than permanent housing, we have begun criminalizing the practice of having no shelter. It is not a hopeful time for a growing number of Americans.
Whether your focus is on tariffs, the independence of the Federal Reserve or the reconciliation law and its tax and debt implications, the first six months of the second Trump Administration will have far-reaching effects on the American economy. Perhaps, it’s most important to watch the bond market reaction to the falling value of the dollar in relation to other currencies to forecast whether America’s dominance as the world’s economic engine is stalling. Given all that has transpired since his last visit, we decided to invite economist Michael Hicks back to put this whirlwind of activity in focus–to the extent anyone call follow the many mixed economic signals coming from this White House. Hicks is the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana. His critiques are sharp and insightful, as you will hear on this podcast.
How does America end up with a Secretary of Health and Human Services who is at such great odds with physicians in America on the essential safety and efficacy of vaccines? Leading medical organizations are now suing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over his agency’s COVID-19 recommendations regarding vaccines for children and those who are pregnant. And while that is the latest pushback, Dr. Jake Scott, a clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases at Stanford University, has been quite vocal about the falsehoods and patent nonsense that the HHS Secretary spews on the subject of vaccines. He curates an open database of hundreds of controlled vaccine trials. Among his numerous concerns are falsehoods about the number of shots children are required to have (state by state), the safety of the widely used vaccines, and the claims of conflict of interest which resulted in the dissolving of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He comments on a range of issues in this sphere, including the measles outbreak we are seeing currently and what it portends for the health of America’s children.
We may be the only podcast to continue the conversation about our responses to COVID, but that’s fine with me. It’s that important because we will be there again and yet we’ve barely touched the surface in doing a serious examination of our public policy responses. The COVID pandemic quickly led to the greatest mobilization of emergency powers in human history. By early April 2020 half the world’s population-3.9 billion people-were living under quarantine. People were told not to leave their houses; businesses were shuttered, employees laid off and schools closed for months or even years. In their book “In COVID’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us”, Frances Lee and our guest, Stephen Macedo, ask and dissect important questions: why did we ignore pre-COVID plans for managing a pandemic? Were the voices of reasonable dissent treated fairly? Did we weigh the costs and benefits of different policy options? It’s an important conversation and if we’re the only ones still having it, so be it.
The far right has been masterful at manipulating class anger to outmaneuver progressive goals and liberals often put ‘the smoking gun’ right in the hands of their political opponents. Can this tendency be reversed? Yes, but a lot of work needs to be done to change messengers, messaging and there needs to be a blunt focus on bread and butter issues. In her new book, “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back,” Joan Williams, a scholar of issues relating to social inequality, Joan Williams meticulously combs through the data to explain why Democrats lost to a once disgraced and maligned, Donald Trump, following his 2020 loss. Who did he win over–and why? She explores the growth that he demonstrated among what once were considered strong adherents to the Democratic Party, as far back as FDR and the New Deal. As an atypical Republican, he found a voice that spoke to class concerns borne of the neoliberal economic policies from the 1970’s on. Since class is such an important determinant in our politics today, go to classbubblequiz.com and see where you stand in this equation.
Americans spend endless hours growing, tending, and cutting their lawns. In fact, 40 million acres of land in the United States is covered by turf grass, making it the most irrigated crop in the country. To what end? It has virtually no value to flora and fauna and there are so many other ways to make your yard an oasis for the birds, bees, wildlife, flowers and trees. As we all wonder what we can do to help with the threats to biodiversity today and ameliorate the effects of global warming, the best thing to do is start in your own backyard. In her beautifully designed book “Grass Isn’t Greener: The Everyday Conservationist’s Guide to Bringing Nature to Your Yard,” Danae Wolfe, a conservation educator and skilled photographer, illustrates her cogent points page after page and picture after picture. We discuss creating spaces to support wildlife and the natural world without leaving home.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 in the Dobbs. vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, it was the decision that anti-abortion activists had been waiting to see for over 50 years. While the decision did not ban abortions nationwide, it did throw the matter back to the states. Some states had trigger laws at the ready which would activate anti-abortion legislation once such a ruling came down. Other states, which were pro-choice, got busy as well in trying to protect and expand women’s reproductive rights in various ways, including many which would help make it easier for women in the anti-abortion states to have the procedure in their state. Donors and providers also got to work, as the former have given pro-choice groups new resources and the latter became very creative in how they expanded their services. David Cohen and our guest, Carole Joffe, have co-authored a book called “After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion.” The book contains stories of people on the front line of this ongoing battle for abortion-related care. Carole reveals an amazing fact about the number of abortions in America since the decision came down. Stay tuned for that.
States, one by one, began legalizing marijuana, back in 2012 with Colorado leading the way. It was sold to the public as a way to unclog the criminal justice system, bring tax revenue and strong regulation, which would ensure quality. In truth the record shows that illegal shops have grown in number even in states with legal shops. Take New York state. In New York City itself there are 140 legal shops and 8,000 unlicensed dealers who can undercut the price of the product and for which no tax revenue is collected. And to add to the story of unintended consequences, in general today’s marijuana often exceeds 20 percent THC content compared to 3-5 percent in the pot of the 1990’s. Given that the legalization has resulted in former light users becoming daily users, the health consequences can only be bad. It may take years, but one day there will be a reckoning like we have seen with tobacco. Joining us to discuss all things marijuana and its new place in American society is Keith Humphreys a professor at Stanford University who specializes in drug policy.
These are tricky waters to navigate, but two scholars, Jessi Streib and Betsy Leondar-Wright, have co-authored a book called “Is It Racist? Is It Sexist?: Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas,” wade through it in their new book. It’s based on interviews with 125 white interviewees from many parts of the country and the result is a new way of understanding how inequalities persist by focusing on the individual judgment calls that lead us to decide what’s racist, what’s sexist, and what’s not. While they found a tendency to describe some people as ‘convictors’ and others as ‘acquitters’, as in a jury setting, they offer a very interesting metaphor of being more of a surveyor in determining what a set of facts, put in context, may tell us about situations we can all imagine happening, but may come to different conclusions as to ‘why.’ Our guest, Betsy Leondar-Wright, was somewhat heartened in this exploration to find that few people harbored explicit racial hostility toward people of color, but perceptions about the role of our history and that which is embedded in our institutions may not always rise to the surface when contemplating how certain actions toward ‘others’ occur.