this Kroger Albertson's merger you know is being fought by the FTC I think very justifiably four Attorneys General in Four States run by imiles the state of Ohio Alabama Georgia and Iowa have all weighed in with an amicus or do you say A meus O I would say Amicus with an amicus brief a friend of the court brief meaning they're not parties they just want to weigh in and say hey we think this merger is a great deal and ufttc should lay off the fine people at Kroger and their antitrust monopolistic desires and plans they've actually said in this Amicus that this merger will give Kroger quote the ability to compete more effectively in the wide open market for consumers retail grocery dollars I I'm not sure how that would happen Happ but you know somehow absence of choice gives you more Choice absence of competition creates more competition I'll tell you what though one thing I will say about Kroger is of any national brand they have the greatest disparity between the best and worst Kroger's like if you go into any McDonald's it's a McDonald's you you know what you're getting Kroger to total total crapshoot that's correct yeah I mean you can still the one in Clifton Heights I used to live in Clifton Heights for a long time it's a neighborhood north of downtown and that Kroger they built an entirely new one oh yeah yeah yeah okay it it still sucks but uh the old one I would have to go in there occasionally cuz it was open 365 so like if I needed something on Christmas or Thanksgiving it used to be like one of the few stores that was open so I would go in that store and it always had to have like two or three cops off duty cops there you would get pay handled you know in the produce section not even the parking lot you might get stabbed over in canned goods yeah it was a it was rough man but uh yeah I don't know what do you think about that merger uh I mean it really you know if you look at there's two different ways to look at it one is the national picture which you know if if you look at the things they would only control x% which doesn't look too bad but if you look at individual metropolitan areas some of them they would just have overwhelming dominance there so that would that I mean that is the more concerned it would it it'd be bad for consumers but it wouldn't be felt evenly across the country you would have certain areas where it would be much much worse and then others where it wouldn't really have much of an effect at all yeah some areas complete monopolies others just inadequate dominance which I mean I'm already living in one of those areas you know I live sandwich between two Kroger if I want to buy groceries anywhere with Kroger you know it's a major pain in the ass sure I mean I've been doing it I now buy as much as I can an Aldi and then supplement wherever but yeah it's it's not a it's a hassle um first time I went to an Aldi I was picking up some things uh for the in-laws and all that and I didn't um know about so you didn't want to spend that much well no no they told they told me to go to ALDI because well yeah I mean no but they told me to go to ALDI to get the uh some kind of chocolate that anyway um I didn't know that they didn't you had to put a quarter in to get your cart and that they give you bags so I'm walking through the thing with like everything in my arms looking like an idiot they everyone's laughing at me cashier like first time I was like how' you know yeah I learned both of those lessons the hard way too recently yeah but they do still have human beings working the checkout yeah uh the prices are good you know they don't have everything but what they have is good yeah they got a good selection of dips