The liberal world

I've been working pretty hard lately and I have a boatload of vacation time left this year, so today I took the day off to spend with the lovely Mrs. Jib. We would like to one day have a modest wine cellar, so today we went off in search of wines. The goal is to first build the cellar with inexpensive wines and then replace those wines over time with nicer wines. So our first stop in our wine hunt was the brand spanking new Trader Joe's on Monroe Street in Madison.

The story of this store in this neighborhood bemuses me to no end. The neighborhood as I understand it is your typical yuppie/liberal neighborhood. A couple of years back their neighborhood grocery store closed shop. Walgreens was very interested in the location, but the neighborhood threw a holy snit fit. No big box pharmacy was good enough for their neighborhood. It had to be a grocery store. And not just any grocery store. No, this had to be a grocery store that met their discerning values. Trader Joe's was lured to this environment, and it would seem that it is a perfect match. Trader Joe's sells groceries that are interesting, different, and unique. In other words, they sell groceries that people a couple of neighborhoods over probably wouldn't buy because they are expensive and a little ecentric.

In a way, Trader Joe's and this Madison neighborhood are an example of the market overcoming socialism. The neighborhood did it's damndest to control the market and determine for the market what kind of business would go into their vacant grocery store. It just so happens that void was filled by a grocery store whose target market is those very residents, and much profit, the bane of many liberals, will be made off of the neighborhood.

As for the lovely Mrs. Jib and I, we contributed a few penny's to Trader Joe's capitalist cause by purchasing several bottles of "Two Buck Chuck", the store's signature cheap wines.