Costco bulldozed a black and Korean neighborhood in my city using TIF money. All the earned and unearned press they get can fuck right off.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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me_irl
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I’ve been trying to tell people Costco is just a PR company with a retail branch for years. Are the warehouse workers treated better than their counterparts in other big boxes and massive retailers, absolutely. Are they the good guys in any other capacity, hell to the fucking no!
TIF?
Tax Increment Financing, a financial tool that deems an area blighted often using nefarious rubrics to meet that definition. TIF diverts sales tax funding for municipalities for decades from areas in lieu to fund rapid development deals. First and foremost these billion dollar for-profit companies can fund their own developments but prey on desperate city councils who see a short term win with supposed long term benefits. They often put these deals on a fast track with a lot of public protest.
TIF lures in struggling cities and leaves areas without funding for decades under the assumption that in the long term, sales taxes will be recooped. Developers and businesses often seek new development faster under these deals so these neighborhoods don't see the recoopment. It historically predates upon minority neighborhoods that have been prey to decades of divestment.
TL; DR: we citizens pay for development under TIF, see no sales tax for the average life of a development, and then the business finds a new city to leach TIF development off of for another new development.
Their target demographic didn't see a purchasing power increase in like 30 years, they can't charge more at the same volume of sales. And they can't move their product upmarket.
At this point them trying at the exact same price is also a publicity thing.
Neither of those people are Jim Senegal
The $1.50 hotdog isn’t exactly done out of the kindness of Costco’s heart. It’s hard to estimate the market price of bulk goods but everybody knows $1.50 is a great deal for a hotdog, and your brain elides that into a perception of Costco as “the place with great deals.” IKEA pulls the same trick with their cafe, though to less of an extreme.
True as this may be I don’t honestly have a problem with companies giving “good deals” even if their motivations are profit, that is after all how businesses work in the big capitalism. Valve doesn’t develop proton out of altruism necessarily either yet they’ve still done a huge amount for Linux gamers.
Gabe owns a yacht and is clearly extremely rich and I still don’t think anyone needs that much money. These guys are also still extremely rich so idk give em some juicy taxes when the government works
Sure but that's a valid trade. Same with their rotisserie chicken it's a genuinely good deal. It's there to make sure you have a membership, and they put it in the back of the store because you will inevitably Buy other things you see on the way there.
But as long as you are able to have a little bit of self-control and purchase things that you will actually use you can genuinely Save A Lot in bulk at Costco compared to other places. They make money because you shop mostly with them you save some money over constantly buying individual things that you use all the time.
Even if you didn't save money it's still more convenient to only need to go shopping like once every 3 weeks for bulk items once at Costco. So there's some time savings to be had which God damn do you need as much of that as possible these days
My only issue with Costco was I always had to go to another store also. Like yeah I can get a bunch of my groceries for a good price but the don't have these other things I also need...
Costco isn't really a place you go to every day, or even every week. Most people I know only go once a month at the most. You go to buy the big bulk items, and those last a while, weeks at a time usually.
Then you have the local grocery stores for daily and weekly things. Rotisserie chickens are at nearly every store, and from my experience they're all about the same size and price. Discounted ready to eat chickens aren't unique to Costco.
Yeah when I had a membership I just didn't like needing 2 stores. Like the paper towels be 50 cents cheaper but I need to drive 5 minutes each way and go to a whole other store just for 50 cents...
Sorry guys it's still the guillotine for you, but we'll let you choose face up or down.