Pee Kay: Soviet Style at your Checkout!

The Reality Behind the Greens’ $10 Million Supermarket Fines

Paul McCartney wrote about it; the Beatles sang about it –

“I’m back in the USSR

You don’t know how lucky you are, boy

Back in the USSR”

Now welcome to Chloe and Marama’s nostalgic trip back to the USSR, where basic economics are replaced by socialist bureaucracy!

From the Green Party’s web site –

The Green Party has announced a new Member’s Bill, the Commerce (Excessive Pricing in Retail Grocery Industry) Amendment Bill, that would ban price gouging by the supermarket duopoly.

“New Zealanders pay too much for their groceries, while supermarkets are raking in excess profits of a million dollars a day. So, the Greens are introducing a law to make it illegal to charge unreasonable prices for groceries,” says Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

“While Luxon’s Government has talked tough, prices at the check-out have continued to rise.”

“The Bill would prohibit supermarkets from charging prices that are excessive when compared to the cost of supplying the groceries, plus a reasonable margin,”

“Breaches would carry penalties of up to $10 million, three times the value of the commercial gain, or 10 per cent of turnover.”

How is that for getting tough on those robber barons who are the supermarket conglomerates!

Under these socialist crusaders glorious new plan to fine supermarkets $10 million for charging “excessive” prices, these “green” politicians, presumably, will suddenly develop the psychic superpower to determine exactly what a head of lettuce should cost?

Because historically, nothing screams “efficient supply chain” quite like a government official arbitrarily declaring a price too high or too low. What could possibly go wrong when a government committee tries to outsmart the laws of supply and demand? Just ask the ghosts of the Soviet Union, who spent decades waiting in hour long queues outside Moscow’s state-run GUM department store for a single loaf of bread just to prove how well price controls work!

During the Soviet era, Moscow’s GUM department store served as a primary vehicle for state-mandated fixed pricing, which, by ignoring supply and demand, created chronic shortages and massive, notorious food queues across Red Square.

Long before Chloe and Marama decided they needed to micromanage our grocery trollies, the Kremlin was busy creating chronic food shortages through the exact same brand of bureaucratic arrogance.

Behold the majestic triumph of socialist central planning. In the 1930s, Soviet bureaucrats ingeniously jacked up moleskin prices to boost fur production. Naturally, in a twist that absolutely anyone with a functioning brain could have predicted, hunters abandoned actual agricultural work to chase the easy state bonuses.

The glorious result? Millions of useless pelts left to rot in warehouses. While mountains of fur literally lay rotting, the state hijacked trucks and railroad trucks to haul this garbage instead of food. And then the leftist geniuses in charge were left wondering why everyone was suddenly starving!

Truly, a masterclass in socialist economic intervention!

That bureaucratic circus completely corrupted basic incentives. Instead of pursuing efficiency to manage losses, Soviet factory managers engaged in a race to the bottom. They aggressively over-ordered raw materials from the state to hit arbitrary production quotas, and terrified government officials happily over-allocated resources to save their own skins.

In a free market economy, bankruptcies act as a natural rubbish disposal for incompetent businesses. The Soviet system, however, preferred to endlessly prop up failing zombie enterprises, dragging the entire nation’s living standards down into the gutter.

Thankfully, even the most stubborn central planners eventually noticed that capitalist nations weren’t resorting to eating grass as they were in North Korea! Across the 20th century, former economic disaster zones like China and India finally abandoned the fairy tales of state-fixed pricing, choosing instead the massive growth triggered by the reality of the free market.

If we fast forward to today, are not Chloe and Marama simply dusting off, if not the exact same, then a very similar economic playbook for New Zealand’s supermarket owners?

Under their glorious scheme, a newly minted committee of bureaucratic geniuses will sit in Wellington, armed with calculators, apps and, most likely, vibes to determine the “fair margin” for a block of cheese or a head of broccoli.

Just as those Soviet nomenklatura thought they could outsmart the price of moleskins, the Greens genuinely believe a government department can monitor and micro-manage global supply chains, local weather disruptions, and volatile fuel costs; all by administrative decree!

The Green Party’s plan relies entirely on the type of economic logic championed by Ricardo Menendez March. The man whom the late, blunt talking Sir Bob Jones, in late 2020, once affectionately described as a “…horrible Green Party little turd.”

Witness the superb judicial philosophy of Ricardo Menendez March. Instead of actual, delineated law, this economic genius expects those who will be charged to adjudicate on alleged supermarket rip-offs simply by a vibe/feel check.

How is that for shades of Jacinda’s – “You will know hate speech when you hear it”

This “ Politburo” thinking, economic crusade, the “Excessive Pricing in Retail Grocery Industry” bill is the ultimate rerun of Soviet socialist arrogance. They want to criminalise what they believe is “price gouging” yet the draft legislation that leaves excessive pricing completely undefined.

Unbelievable!

Supermarkets would be left playing a high stakes guessing game of where a legal margin ends and a multi-million-dollar crime begins. Make no mistake, this isn’t consumer protection. This is a textbook socialist takeover of free enterprise, enforced by the arbitrary whims of bureaucratic price controls.

By assuming that threatening supermarkets with a $10 million fine they will somehow deliver cheaper food, rather than the inevitable reality of disappearing product ranges, and supply chains left to rot while Chloe and Marama engage in a hug fest of self congratulation on a job well done.

History has proven time and again that when a socialist state tries to dictate prices, reality bites back, brutally. The laws of supply and demand cannot be repealed by parliamentary decree. When a government sets an artificial price ceiling below market costs to look good to voters, producers stop making the product, and retailers stop stocking it.

I described earlier how the Soviet Union, for decades, had a state fixed price on basic groceries. While bread was technically cheap on paper, the state-dictated prices ignored production costs. This led to the iconic, soul-crushing queues, barren shelves, and institutionalised rationing that defined life under communist rule.

Most recent of these socialist interference was when in the early and mid 2000’s, Venezuelan leaders Hugo Chavez and later Nicolas Maduro enforced strict price caps on milk, meat, and toilet paper to fight “capitalist speculation.”

While this regulatory madness perfectly aligns with the Greens broader, radical, socialist platform, it slots comfortably alongside their punitive 2.5% wealth tax designed to strip assets from productive New Zealanders, and their massive $2.44 billion Maori centric marae rort!

From blind grocery mandates to aggressive asset redistribution, the Green identity has been totally consumed by an aggressive socialist agenda that prioritises state control over economic reality. Chloe can try to dress this up as common-sense policy, but history tells us exactly how this story ends with empty shelves, less choice, and absolute economic chaos.

This historical hypocrisy mirrors exactly where the Green Party’s leadership wants to take New Zealand. When a political elite dictates grocery prices by arbitrary decree, they do not hurt the big corporations; they break the supply chain, starve the shelves, and trigger equality of misery for ordinary families.

The ultimate irony of Chloe’s socialist economics is that the politicians enforcing these rules never suffer the consequences. Just like the Soviet nomenklatura, the wealthy political class pushing these blind mandates will remain perfectly insulated from the empty shelves and economic chaos they create. While regular Kiwis queue for essentials, the radical left wing elite will still have their wallets and cupboards fully stocked!

If we let the Greens run our grocery aisles by a regulatory vibe check, Soviet-style checkouts are closer than you think.

Ultimately, the Green Party’s $10 million grocery fine isn’t a bold new solution to the cost of living crisis. It is a spectacular rerun of catastrophic history, repackaged by a new generation of Soviet nomenklatura. If the Greens get their way, the only thing New Zealanders will be checking out is a front-row seat to a socialist economic train wreck.

There wouldn’t be manyNew Zealanders who haven’t stared into their empty wallet after the weekly grocery shop and wondered why the price of cheese is climbing faster than a Green MP’s moral superiority.

But we should not mistake this “Excessive Pricing” stunt for actual political policy. It is nothing more than a cynical, shameless vote-grab, cruelly preying on the genuine anxiety of families struggling to put food on the table. It promises cheap groceries, but delivers nothing but empty promises, empty shelves and economic fairy tales!

Footnote: Following the collapse of communism, GUM underwent a complete transformation and now operates as a high-end luxury shopping mall featuring Western designer boutiques.

Pee Kay writes he is from a generation where common sense, standards, integrity and honesty are fundamental attributes. This article was first published HERE