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I have always had a rebellious streak in me. When I was a kid I refused to join the communist youth organizations of East Germany, and as an adult living in the US my rebellion comes in in odd blog posts here and there

Do you recall the Souther California strike of grocery clerks? As much as I believe in free markets and capitalism, I also believe in the idea of corporate responsibility. During the strike it occured to me that some of the grocers were attempting to balance heir budget on the backs of their employees. Especially some of the clowns that seem to run Safeway came to mind.

I began to get more of my groceries at Trader Joe’s, a small chain of specialty stores that tend to have good value for the money. As a matter of fact their products and prices are causing 80% of my family’s grocery bill to go there as opposed to Ralphs (Kroegers). Yesterday I saw another affirmation why I like TJ’s better. I love cheese. Imported cheese. Swiss cheese. Norwegian cheese. Dutch cheese. Love it! TJ’s was selling Swiss Emmenthaler by a company called Emmi for about $5.77 per pound. Ralphs had the same stuff priced at $8.99 per pound. What a rip off! And they have the gall to try and tell us customers that their pricing is driven up by employee costs? They must really not have a very high opinion of their customers. Almost 40% more for some cheese. Crazy!

As a sidenote, I suppose it does help TJ’s that the controlling interest of the company was purchased by Aldi’s, a family owned grocery chain in Germany that has the record of being the only company in Europe to beat Walmart. Gotta love that twist.