[ExI] powerful image

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] powerful image




>...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...

I see, and who owns the risk from the time Mr. Public receives the groceries to the time the groceries are delivered?  I can imagine it becoming very dangerous in the CHAZ/CHOP to be seen carrying a sack of groceries.  People there are hungry and they know that no police will come regardless of what they do.
 
>...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...

Are those not debit cards?   Food stamps are used, the retailer is already paid.  As I understand it, those are debit cards.  I don't know otherwise.

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

Ja, or they could just refuse to deliver to CHAZ/CHOP, which is what I think will happen.

What I meant by risk is that at some point, a truck must somehow disgorge its contents to someone who has purchased the items.  That truck is filled with supplies that a lawless mob could descend upon and devour.  I can imagine the insurance company telling the trucking company: we have a new policy in place.  If one of your trucks gets within a two mile radius of the intersection of 12th and Pine, and the truck is robbed or looted at that point inside that radius, we don't pay, sign zee papers.

SR, our society is now under the functional dictatorship of insurance companies.  There is no conceivable way to break that iron grip that I can see.  Can you?

spike











> On Jun 16, 2020, at 11:15 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via 
> extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] powerful image
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> ...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
> 
> 
> 
> 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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