Kroger is primarily owned by large institutional investors - Vanguard Group, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway holding the largest stakes.

The FTC stopped a merger between Kroger and Albertsons. Kroger remains the largest dedicated supermarket chain in the US. Walmart is the largest overall grocer in terms of sales. It is unfortunate that it is China who benefits the most from Walmart.

Also according to AI - both BlackRock and Vanguard split their political donations between parties in the 2024 election - BlackRock PAC donated 51% to Republicans and 49% to Democrats; Vanguard PAC donated 50.49% to Republicans and 49.51% to Democrats.

If you ask AI if politics drive price gouging - you might get a somewhat vague answer - tossing around the phrase 'corporate exploitation' - not really anything referencing mid-term elections, but well?

Supposedly there are investigations ongoing in regard to Kroger price gouging and also selling customer information. Shrug.

As of yesterday - I am aware that prices on meat have soared to nearly another dollar per pound on lean meat - and the exact same brand of lean meat that I purchased during COVID 2020 at $3.49 per pound has risen, bit by bit in the past six year, to nearly $12.00 per pound as of today.

Walmart will sell the same lean to fat ratio ground beef around $7.97 per pound. But...Walmart sources globally then uses its own facilities for processing and packaging - like those in Kansas and Georgia.

I would suggest that, fine, worry about gas gouging sure....but food gouging is where some real shit will start.