Big Banks Just Stole Your ATM – What’s Next?

banks pull ATMs, double ATM fees, bank customers switch to credit unions, bad bank practices

It’s not just grocery chains and food manufacturers squeezing households. When a big bank quietly rewrites the rules on accessing your own cash, the shock waves hit the dinner table too. For many families, that “something else” is grocery shopping, meal prep and the already–tight food budget. But there are alternatives, ways to stick it back to Big Bank.

BREAKING: The First Crack In The Dam

One of the nation’s five largest food distributors is now quietly pulling back from the massive wholesale margin increases that helped drive the grocery inflation wave since 2021 — including the notorious “auto-padding” markup that insiders say added up to 30% to thousands of products. Is the dam finally cracking? And what does that mean for consumers?

Welcome To The New Normal

farming, food production, WalletGate, SpokenFood investigates, food price gouging

If you want the New Normal to end, stop shouting into the void and start shoving this data into the agencies that are supposed to protect you. Send this story — and the Mona Lisa Graph — to three places: the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau, your State Attorney General, and your U.S. Representative’s office. Tell them exactly what you now know: diesel prices collapsed, Big Food’s costs didn’t rise, and the CPI never came back down.

C&S / SpartanNash Merger Tightens the Noose

C&S Spartan Nash merger, FTC stays silent, WalletGate, SpokenFood investigates

Let’s do the math. If C&S touches roughly 7,500 stores pre-merger and SpartanNash’s wholesale network spans another 2,500, that’s about 10,000 retail outlets whose shelf pricing can be influenced by a single procurement ecosystem. Add in 60 distribution centers, unified freight contracts, centralized purchasing power, and national vendor terms, and you’ve created something close to a food-supply monopoly in everything but name.