[ExI] powerful image

[SR Ballard]

Spike, what are you talking about with the trucks? Shipt does not have “trucks”, just John Q Public buying your groceries and giving them to you. 

The majority of the risk would be to the retailer in this scenario — they would be accepting the majority of the risk of people paying via foodstamps. 

Companies like Shipt could simply increase deliveries to other customers to offset the risks associated with the government not paying out. 

SR Ballard

> On Jun 16, 2020, at 11:15 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> -----Original Message-----
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via
> extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] powerful image
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>> ...Addition of money allows for grocery delivery. If something like Shipt
> could accept food stamps + waive delivery fee (bill govt instead) then I
> think that whole issue would be basically solved... SR
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> I can think of a couple of obvious problems SR.  If the grocery store is at
> risk, the delivery truck is more at risk.  Imagine you are insuring that
> delivery.  What do you charge to underwrite that activity?  Suppose you bill
> the government and they can't pay?  Both the city of Chicago and the state
> of Illinois are facing huge revenue shortfalls and the Fed will likely not
> pay for that delivery.  The delivery company would attach an additional
> delivery charge to cover the risk they wouldn't be paid and the risk they
> don't get their truck back, or it comes back damaged.  
> 
> So... that delivery fee must be tacked on.  For groceries we already know
> that fee is huge, which is why we have grocery stores to start with: a lot
> of mass and bulk, making it incompatible with point to point delivery.  You
> can't order a watermelon on Amazon Fresh.  It would cost 30 bucks, if you
> are willing to wait three weeks for whatever is left of it.
> 
> I could imagine some kind of outdoor produce market of some kind, where food
> could be bought in bulk and distributed in tents.  They can be set up on the
> sites where grocery stores were before the fires.  Those could work if they
> lean away from factory food, the kind most of us eat, but rather sell raw
> produce in bulk, a sack of potatoes, a sack of rice, sacks of beans, a 20
> pound hunk of pork, that sorta thing.  
> 
> It would be retro in a way, but it could sustain the locals for the next two
> to five years as these grocery chains re-establish themselves, if they do.
> 
> I wouldn't want to be the mayor of Chicago today.
> 
> spike
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