How does that last part happen? Like this:
A Montana farm sold mint to an American toothpaste company. One day the toothpaste company mysteriously ceased its orders.
Wal-Mart, the toothpaste company explained, had decided that by its calculations a cheaper toothpaste could be made by importing vats of mint oil from China. Wal-Mart, known for trying to reduce costs by 5% every year, said it wanted to buy the cheaper paste and would find somebody else to make it, if necessary. The farm took a serious financial hit.
Wal-Mart’s business practices are good business. That doesn’t mean that they are good for anyone else.
Please share widely!
We expect capitalism to work that way, though. That’s supposed to be its genius. Capital is supposed to flow toward the more efficient and more efficiency implies fewer employees. And yes, we would expect cheaper, Chinese mint oil to supplant Montanan mint leaves. (The only thing that might stop that would be a consumer demand for real mint or a regulatory intervention should the Chinese mint oil prove toxic.)
<
p>A month or so ago, Ezra Klein or Atrios (forget which) pointed to a study showing that Americans have per capita many more square feet of retail store space than Europeans. That suggests that our retail sector has excess capacity and that there will be pressure to shrink it further.
<
p>As you and others have documented, Wal-Mart engages in some practices that are anti-social. They appear to be under-regulated. I hope they’re unionized. The loss of retail jobs, however, has to be counterbalanced by jobs in other sectors and by a sturdy social safety net.
My understanding is that mint flavor comes from the oil. The Montanan leaves end up being converted to mint oil anyway.
Are they converted to Soylent Green when their mint is no longer in demand?
But what are you saying here? Should we destroy mechanized looms, too?
I thought we were talking about business practices. That Wal-Mart’s practices create greater efficiencies is apparent. That those efficiencies do not benefit the communities or the society the company operate in is becoming evident.
It isn’t always a thing. Sometimes it’s a process.
<
p>The job-shedding aspect of the looms, after all, was not their tangibility; it was their efficiency. I bet there was also a concomitant change in quality: garments from hand-woven material may be more artful and more traditional than ones manufactured on looms. Likewise, perhaps, the difference between Wal-Mart’s customer service and that of smaller local stores.
wasn’t that they were more efficient, but that it was most efficient to operate them in ways that were harmful to workers and to society. Children working 16-hour shifts is great from a business perspective. For everyone else – not so much.
It’s a regulatory problem: length of workday, ergonomics, safety, etc.
damaging practices not similarly a regulatory problem? Safety, pay for hours worked, right to organize, etc. Is Wal-Mart too big to nail?
What are you saying about the Montanan mint farmers though? Surely, one doesn’t want regulations telling Wal-Mart (or anyone else) where to buy their mint.
<
p>To my mind, Wal-Mart has recognized the lax regulatory environment as a business opportunity. Most drivers drive above the speed limit because of non-enforcement. Wal-Mart pays too small and infrequent a price for its violations.
regulations telling Wal-Mart where to buy their mint, it’s Wal-Mart telling P&G (or whoever) where to buy their mint. If I buy that brand of toothpaste, I’m not going to know that they’ve suddenly started using ingredients from China. Suppose Wal-Mart tells the manufacturer to start buying some other ingredients from China? Maybe I should have bought that counterfeit Colgate at the dollar store after all. A net effect is to push more and more production to China, even of units that are not sold in W-M. A producer is not going to keep using domestic materials and parts in some of their output and Chinese in the stuff going to W-M; they’re going to make it all the same way.
It doesn’t seem out of line or unusual for a company to make requests of its supplier. Doesn’t that happen all the time, e.g., in the auto industry or in aerodynamics?
<
p>Are you arguing for protectionism? I’m concerned, too, about the safety of Chinese exports but, again, that seems like a problem with testing and regulation. No?
but I don’t have anything against the Chinese. Some of my best relatives are Chinese. China is to the world market what the US was 150 years ago – a purveyor of cheap goods, some of them fake, some of them harmful. We eventually got a system of standards in place to guarantee a degree of safety in our products. The Chinese are at the beginning of that process, and I am sure they will make rapid progress. Until they too get some working standards in place, it’s risky to eat food products or use stuff like toothpaste that comes from there.
<
p>I don’t think a buyer “all the time” tells a vendor where to purchase raw materials or parts. In the two industries you mention, it will specify what alloys or other material to use, and minimum qualities for those things, but I don’t believe Boeing would tell GE where to get the metal it uses in the jet engines GE builds. As far as I know, Wal-Mart is the only retailer that tells its suppliers to go to the cheapest source for materials. Retailers undoubtedly do tell suppliers that they won’t pay what the asking price is for an item, but telling them where to buy materials? Probably not. Wal-Mart gets away with that stuff because of their huge market share.
.. is when the company in question can leverage their market share to anti-competitive results for their suppliers. If you don’t do business with Wal-Mart, by definition you’ve decided to cap your business. This becomes anti-competitive because those people who give in drive your prices down. So, in this case, the influence of a single retailer can produce price pressure over an entire supplier market to the detriment of normal market forces. Of course buyers should be able to influence sellers, but when their influence is over-represented in the marketplace, the resultant race to the bottom ceases to be just ‘market efficiency’ and becomes ‘One retailer is dictating my business model and I don’t even sell to them’.
I have nothing against the Chinese, but I think that people need to understand exactly what is happening when we shift from a domestic supply to a Chinese (or other foreign) supply.
<
p>Over the course of the past 150 years, we, as a country, decided that certain “efficiencies” were not worth it. For example, it is certainly more “efficient” for a factory to spew soot into the atmosphere than it is to clean that soot, however we, as a society, said “hey, we need to look at the bigger picture here”.
<
p>Same goes for things like worker safety, slave labor, child labor, etc.
<
p>China has not realized that yet. Their goods are cheaper because they pollute, because they don’t allow unions, because they don’t take on the cost of worker safety, and because they have desperate people working long hours for little pay. Plus, they have a repressive authoritarian Communist regime backing up the whole operation.
<
p>By shifting production to China, corporations are skirting costs that we, as a society, have imposed on goods manufactured here. We can no longer compete. Yet we can’t survive only as a nation of importers either. Something has to give. Trade needs to be equalized — but it isn’t. Or we need to act like the Chinese, and allow pollution, slave labor, outlaw unions, etc.
<
p>The key to economic change is that change must be more gradual and localized than it has been. When the loom knocked the weavers out of business, there were other jobs for the weavers to transition to, and new jobs were also created in making and repairing the mechanized looms.
<
p>That isn’t happening now. Change is happening too quickly, and there are no jobs in the US that either exist or are being created for the people who are displaced. That is why our underclass is growing. That is why our economy is faltering.
<
p>Although it sounds like a good deal to be able to buy a DVD player for $50, would it be all so bad if that DVD player cost $100 but it was made here? Sure, the company might not sell as many DVD players, and maybe not everyone here would be able to have one or multiple DVD players, but wouldn’t we be better off employing our underclass instead of supporting them with social programs?
<
p>This is going to get worse. Manufacturing is what brings progress in other fields. Practical experience brings about innovation. The next big advances will probably not be here, they will be in China. We will be left further and further behind.
<
p>All so we can gorge ourselves on cheap goods from Wal-Mart.
maybe my dvd players would last more than 2 years…
<
p>It takes far more energy to bring mint from China to America, and doing business with China any degree more than necessary just gives me a creepy, ugly feeling given that government’s horrendous human rights abuses — especially of late. Between those two factors, why the heck should we not add obstacles and expenses for buying mint from China instead of Montana?
<
p>FYI: America is a Democracy, not a Capitalistocracy. Americans are first and foremost citizens, not consumers. If we democratically decide that it makes more sense and/or it’s better to buy mint from Montana than China, we can do that. It should be up to the people, not Walmart and their campaign coffers.
Chinese agriculture uses less petroleum-based fertilizer per unit output (substituting labor for fuel input). Fuel requirements for container ships are far lower per ton (or per volume) than land based shipping, road or rail.
<
p>So, depending on where the farms are in China relative to port, depending on where the toothpaste factory (or whatever) relative to US farm and US Pacific-coast port, etc… it’s not clear that energy usage sways one way or the other.
<
p>
<
p>There are lots of other reasons to be concerned of course, ranging from domestic employment to balance of trade to consumer safety to national security… but it’s not clear that energy use (or impact on global warming) sways the argument one way or the other.
The Triangle Factory Fire
<
p>FDR’s regulated capitolism generated plenty of profit and stability – unregulated capitolism like “mother nature” has no safety net at all.
In order to compete with outsourcing that relies on the advantages of child labor, sweat shops and sometimes straight out slavery, American workers must sacrifice wages that sustain them in relative security and dignity.
<
p>
<
p>Historically we have stived to raise the standards of other countries to be closer to our own. The Wal-Mart strategy lowers American standards to match those of 3rd world countries.
Businesses are in business to MAKE MONEY. Not only do they want to do this but they have a fiduciary responsibility to stockholders to do this.
<
p>You mention farmers… the invention of the cotton mill, tractors and other technological advances have put thousands and maybe millions of farmers out of business. Think of how many accounting departments would have to increase their numbers by a factor of town of computers/software wasn’t invented.
<
p>People speak reminiscently about the local hardware store where they worked (when they were 12) and now Home Depot has caused that hardware store to close… well I call it progress. Instead of 12 local stores employing 120 people maybe we have a Home Depot employing 80 people. And the 80,000 customers will be getting better prices, more selection and longer store hours.
<
p>We pick Wal-Mart to beat on for their cheap chinese goods but let’s not forget so many other companies who manufacture goods in China (and other countries) such as every TV sold in the US, most computers/cameras and other electronic device and how about NIKE. Does NIKE get the ire up of people watching the NBA games because every sneaker they make is employing people in another country NOT the USA and Wal-Mart is helping Americans far more than Nike!!
<
p>Stop trying to protect us from ourselves. It’s part of our FREEDOM!!!
<
p>One of the biggest complaints from leftys over the last 8 years has been the “Orwellian” feelings and “1984” claims as big brother was watching us, listening to us… and yet now that we have Obama and company why is it ok for Government to be taking care of us, saving us from smoking, saving us from trans-fats, saving us from Wal-Mart, forcing a Healthcare Insurance system on us, forcing how we build homes, remove septic systems and OBTW, we STILL have the Patriot Act listening to our calls, reading our emails and now cameras at intersections… I want PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for me and my family and I’m sick and tired of taking care of people too lazy or stupid to do so on their own.
/////////////////////
<
p>This is nothing more than a cultural paradigm worthy of serious re-evaluation, IMHO. In the grand scheme of things, making money just for the sake of making money is worthless. The real bottom line is quality of life, which depends less on having unlimited choices but by learning how to live happily within our means.
is superior in capitalistic countries to that in socialist countries? Yes, indeed, it is a cultural paradigm; I suggest that you examine it a bit more closely.
According to The Economist:
This list is mostly small, homogeneous societies. I suggest those societies are generally happier than melting pots like the US.
<
p>USA was 13th, France, Germany and Britain finish 25th, 26th and 29th respectively.
<
p>But it’s 2009. Ireland’s economy has stalled out, and Iceland’s has collapsed. Spain’s unemployment rate was 17.9% in July and expected to go above 20% next year.
<
p>Etc. Etc.
When you look at the government’s more honest, albiet less heavily reported, approach. Things suck all over. You know what you get in those countries with more socialist tendencies? Protections for those 16% that we don’t have, which has a stabilizing force for the whole country. A country without proper safety nets is like a cascading free-fall when a few extra people fall off the ladder. There’s a nasty tendency that the few can multiply quickly, dragging entire rows of ladders down, since we didn’t catch the first few to go in the first place.
<
p>It’s rather hard to compare the US to countries like Norway or Sweden, which clearly have better standards of life despite the fact that they may make less overall cash. It may even be hard to compare a US to a Canada, which also has IMO better standards of living. But it’s pretty clear, no matter how you look at it, that we could make dramatic improvements that would help us catch up with those smaller countries in terms of universal standards, but it would require many policy changes and quite probably a cultural watershed moment. Perhaps we’re on the tipping point right now, though: I think the result of the health insurance reform efforts will be illuminating on that front. If we can get a good public option and other important reforms passed, surely we can get other bills that will improve quality of life through, too.
I have relatives there who would disagree with you and the Economist magazine. Is that the best you can do? Of the other countries, all of which I have been to except Australia, I might give you Switzerland as having happier residents. Does it hurt you guys so much to admit that you live in the country with the best economic system in the world? (Though I do agree that it is far from perfect)
your “personal experience” in these or with these countries negates The Economist‘s findings? And let’s define your “personal experience,” too, just to be clear: you have relatives who live in Ireland and you “have been” (a vacation? business trip?) to the other countries except for Australia. Hard to argue with those credentials….
<
p>Perhaps if your “personal experience” in the U.S. were such that you didn’t have a computer which allowed you to participate on this forum, you didn’t have a job or any means of income, and you were uninisured and suffering from serious medical conditions, I suspect your “personal experience” with the United States might be far from one that prompts you to characterize this nation as the “best economic system in the world,” no?
<
p>
Vision of Humanity’s ratings, as well. When you get finished reading the thousands of pages of economic and social data that informs this annual ranking, I look forward to your analysis of where they are wrong, as well:
<
p>Global Peace Index for 2009
<
p>1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
2. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Austria
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Canada
9. Finland
9. Slovenia
11. Czech Republic
<
p>For the record, the United States is ranked #83 this year, right in between Ukraine at #82 and Kazakhstan at #84. We’ve made some progress as we’re up from #97 in 2008 and #96 and 2007. Things are looking up!
Also interesting:
http://www.happyplanetindex.or…
<
p>
<
p>The 2009 Top 10:
<
p>1 Costa Rica 76.1
2 Dominican Republic 71.8
3 Jamaica 70.1
4 Guatemala 68.4
5 Vietnam 66.5
6 Colombia 66.1
7 Cuba 65.7
8 El Salvador 61.5
9 Brazil 61.0
10 Honduras 61.0
<
p>… make of it what you will.
You have to be kidding. Print stuff like this and you subject yourself to ridicule. It includes some of the biggest hellholes on earth.
<
p>The point being that any measure of well-being is inherently subjective, and that our current GDP-centric paradigm is not necessarily the only or even best measure of success.
<
p>Would I choose to live in any of these “top 10” countries? Hardly…. But I freely admit that I’m a spoiled American who’s addicted to certain creature comforts. That doesn’t mean my lifestyle is healthy from either a personal or a global point of view.
But please don’t feel guilty about our lifestyle. Seeing little kids dying from hunger and disease in West Africa hardened me in the sense that I can’t be that critical of our country. That said, I am very conservative in my own lifestyle and I don’t like the fact that we are so materialistic either.
I hear what you’re saying, but people don’t want to have a discussion where we achieve equality by tearing down standards (unless we’re talking about public employee healthcare and pensions…)
Unfortunately what people want may not be relevant; we may not have much choice in the matter.
Never having heard of this group, I just read about its founders on the Wikipedia. How can you believe this tripe? These Kofi Anan/Jimmy Carter inspired groups always have the same cast of socialist countries at the tops of their lists. Though I must admit that it was good to see Slovenia and the Czech Republic listed.
Countries, ordered who has most frequent sex:
<
p>1: Greece
2: Brazil
3: Russia
4: China
5: Poland
6: Italy
7: Malasia
8: Spain
9: Switzerland
10: Mexico
<
p>US, per usual doesn’t even make the top 10, limping in at 19th place. At least as useful as the Happy index, Peace index….
You have got to be kidding here!
“For the record, the United States is ranked #83 this year, right in between Ukraine at #82 and Kazakhstan at #84. We’ve made some progress as we’re up from #97 in 2008 and #96 and 2007. Things are looking up!”
It’s because of this kind of foolishness that you moonbats have no credibility with the average person in the U.S.
Stick with your poetry.
U.S. food stamp list tops 34 million
to having so many people need food stamps. As NoPolitician says below,
receives according to his needs. I really want to hear how this perfect world is going to work.
wrote anything remotely like your red-baiting BS, it’s obvious your comment is misplaced. Please try to be more careful.
utopia going to work?
If I read the comments to which you are responding, the commenters are expressing preferences not policy prescriptions.
<
p>It’s one thing to say one prefers sunny days and another entirely to say one advocates the banning of clouds. So too I don’t think you have run across advocates of a planned economy so much as preferers of a happy one.
I think that we all want a happy world; but we won’t get there by singing “We are the world” or “Give peace a chance.” Somehow I think that you know that, anyway.
Well, I’ll stop singing then. I was getting hoarse.
That entirely depends on how you define quality of life, no? Certainly material security plays an important role, but there clearly are other factors that contribute to our subjective sense of well-being. The definition of the “good life” — and how we achieve it — is a bit of a chimera that perpetually shifts depending on our expectations.
<
p>Furthermore — from an historical view — material well-being does not obviously to depend upon a particular economic system, figuring that the post-capitalist/consumerist model is a relative blip in the broad spectrum of human history. Sure we have more stuff now than ever before, but are we truly better off for it?
A bit of a tangent, but I thought this piece on today’s Morning Edition was interesting.
<
p>
<
p>I do wonder what this says about us as a society?
True enough… as long as you’re on top of the dogpile. While life may be just peachy keen here in the US and in other “Westernized/developed” countries, it comes at the expense of some sweat-shop laborer in Bangladesh or the Nothern Mariana Islands.
“The stockholders have a reasonable expectation that the board members will do their best to run the corporation smoothly and will make money…”
<
p>I understand you have a different opinion but I think the VAST overwhelming majority of Americans believe companies exist to make money (since the ones who don’t go out of business (in a pre-Obama USA anyway)).
<
p>Which is exactly why I called it a “cultural paradigm”. Certainly any entity needs to have a sustainable business model in order to keep in operation, however this does not necessarily entail profiteering at the expense of others. I think the common view often confuses the former with the latter.
You seem to be saying (I don’t want to put words in your mouth) that you are ok with profits as long as they are not excessive… it that right? Are you trying to say you want to cap profits? They don’t seem to be “profiteering at the expense of others.” compared to the Industry or the S&P…
<
p>Profit Margins % Company Industry S&P 500
Gross Margin 23.8 24.0 38.0
Pre-Tax Margin 5.1 5.0 10.7
Net Profit Margin 3.4 3.2 7.3
5Yr Gross Margin (5-Year Avg.) 23.4 23.7 37.9
5Yr PreTax Margin (5-Year Avg.) 5.4 5.3 16.6
5Yr Net Profit Margin (5-Year Avg.) 3.6 3.5 11.5
That a sustainable business model doesn’t necessarily require profiteering. I work for a not-for-profit corporation, for example. We need to have a business model that sustains operations, but we’re not in the business to make a profit.
What would the stock market look like? What would drive initiative and innovation. Like it or not, there is an element o “greed” which is good and had driven our country (and the world) to be where we are. Bill Gates did not start MS and build that company for philanthropic reasons regardless of how he acts today. NPOs are great and I’m on 2 NPO boards myself but they could not sustain our economy. I am also hoping that Obama’s notion of reducing the tax benefit to charitable contributions goes nowhere as the NPOs will take a huge hit.
<
p>There’s a great phrase: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Seems to have kept the human species going thus far; I don’t expect it would come to a screeching halt just because our economic priorities shift.
<
p>
<
p>And where exactly are we? There’s another phrase: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” All the benefits of our cosumerist lifestyle comes at a cost. The question is, what would our society look like if we substituted a “care” paradigm for a “greed” paradigm? Quite a thought, eh?
<
p>
<
p>In the grand scheme of things, this should be relatively low on our list of concerns, I think.
Do you get any money from government, the private sector, or donations?
<
p>If so, by definition you are not sustainable.
If they get any money from government, the private sector, or donations, they are not self-sufficient.
<
p>Self-sufficiency is a proper subset of sustainability.
If all that existed were non-profits like Tim’s, where would the money come from?
<
p>This is why communism collapsed. This is why China promotes entrepreneurship and private property (without the legal protection.) The could not exist without some form of production and profit.
<
p>Self-sufficiency = sustainability. At least on earth.
sustainable != self-sufficient. You refuse to understand the difference, and I refuse to argue with a pig.
Some days are better than others, but on the whole I can’t complain. Frankly, I’m just thankful I have a job and can provide well enough for my family.
Speaking of families…I want to remind every that the 99 Restaurant is once again running the “Kids eat FREE” program if the Red Sox win a baseball game. So, every time they win a game, kids eat FREE the next day (all day). We take advantage as much as we can and even ate twice (lunch and dinner) one day.
So in other words, I’m paying higher prices when I eat at 99 to support your freeloading family.
<
p>Just another way of looking at it.
because my dentist takes welfare and medicaid clients.
Obama and the Dems will be trying to tax me for it. The difference between your example is people aren’t FORCED to eat at the 99 vs. the government steaaling my money from my paycheck to pay for bottom feeders… big difference.
the “I’ve got mine, and I like it when you give me more, but screw anybody who wants me to share” attitude.
I do believe in WORKING to get something and allowing others to WORK to get theirs. I don’t believe in WORKING to get something which you have to GIVE to people too “inadequate” to get on their own. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!! I’m not trying to SCREW anybody but you’re doing a great service to your DEM party by being misleading and putting words in my mouth… you must be working on the Healthcare Support Team! More freebies supported by other’s hard work!!
…is sure we’re free to work IF we can get good work. Also, health care is so basic to survival that it SHOULD be free to everybody (even you!) without regard to one’s employment status.
EVERYONE deserves a HOME, everyone deserves Life Insurance (the Life Insurance companies are all EVIL), everyone deserves a car… a summer home… where in the constitution does it say everyone gets healthcare insurance???
…health care is essential to survival. Your other examples are either nice to have or taken care of. (There is such a thing as public housing.) I have long been of the belief that if health care and education were guaranteed much else would take care of itself. Besides (and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this but apparently it needs repeating) every other comparable nation provides health care with no questions asked. We obviously differ philosophically; I for one DO think there’s something to be said for society taking care of our collective selves and each other, that yes, we ARE our brothers’ keepers.
… are constructs and as such, the parameters under which they operate are definable. Profit is indeed a parameter with merits, including it’s ability to incentivise efficiency and, when utilized in a market, to influence prices toward an equilibrium point.
<
p>However,… other parameters which we might define might include those that ensure that Corporations are good citizens. One side effect of the profit motive is that it also becomes a motive to externalize costs by any means necessary (including buying the rule makers). This results in the costs of a Corporations business being borne by society as a whole, often in a ‘hidden’ way (carbon footprint isn’t new, it’s just new to think about). This means that constraint against mere profit motive is necessary to ensure good corporate citizenship. More importantly, the profit motive’s drive to externalize costs distorts real value from price, usually in ways that cost more to mitigate than they would have if just force the cost to be factored in at the production level by the Corporation (envirnmental clean-up is almost always more expensive than the cost to have mitigated the cause at it’s original inception in production).
Any theory taken to extremes causes problems.
<
p>Yes, capitalism has a motivating effect, but the economy is like an eco-system in which each part is dependent on the others. The system as a whole is only as healthy as the weakest part.
<
p>Social responsibility lifts everyone, including the stockholders – they are also someone’s employees, customers and business associates. Ford paid his employees enough to be able to purchase cars. Everyone benefited.
<
p>Bernie Madoff made money, so did Enron, Ameriquest, Haliburton and Bechtel. Profit at any cost should not be the model.
<
p>Increasing profit through innovation and increased productivity is the way to sustainable growth instead of a race to the bottom.
Profit is more important than jobs, but then what do you do with all the people out of work? It sounds like your ideal is for businesses to operate with as few employees as possible getting paid as little as possible. Yet, the last line of your above comment suggests that for anyone unemployed or underemployed it would be their fault. So which is it? We can either have policies which regulate to ensure that most people have good paying jobs and don’t need assistance, thus fulfilling the American Dream across the board or we can not worry if most people can’t find work and put them on the government dole. You cannot have it both ways and the prospect of no job AND no assistance is completely unacceptable. You have once again proven how wonderful it is to be making enough that Obama intends to raise your taxes, but you are completely out of touch with reality.
….that is at the core of civilization, and all of the great religions.
<
p>Adults take care of children [starting with their own].
<
p>The healthy assist the sick.
<
p>Social structures and society need to generate sufficient surplus to care for the extent population, or a Malthusian implosion of some variety will occur. While some disagree, there appear to be solid historical examples for this.
<
p>One discussion of this sort of collapse takes the form of the book discussed at the site I provide.
For a while, their prices were quite low compared to other grocers and their quality was OK. A few dented cans, slightly lower quality produce and meat.
<
p>BUT, over the last two or three years they have changed. Their prices have increased dramatically and their quality has declined in kind. Veggies have a shelf life of about 2 days and they’re often beginning to rot in the bins. The meat is gross, ground beef is the processed type that comes pre-packaged from who knows when and where.
<
p>There have been times I’ve gone to the other local grocers, bought more items of much better quality and actually spent less.
<
p>People will catch on eventually. It takes time sometimes.
They’ve lost my appreciation. Not too many people can look at their produce section and feel compelled to compromise cost for quality, and as I said, the cost difference isn’t so compelling anymore.
<
p>So I’m not convinced their current business practices will follow with continued success in the long term. Probably short term gains though. Maybe they will change their ways once they lose more business, if they lose more business.
year to year sales growth. They are unstoppable at this point so I disagree with you completely. Check back a year or two from now and see if they have slowed down. I’m sure you won’t.
but that is due to the massive price increases they’ve put in place. I don’t believe it’s because people are buying more products. I would imagine people are actually buying less in order to accommodate the price increases on things such as food and clothing.
<
p>And now since oil has dropped so much, they are also pulling in profits from that, since with the lower cost of oil, they have not dropped their prices to reflect that savings to their company (even though their main reason for raising prices was the high cost of oil).
<
p>They can go ahead and be ahead of the game right now, they’ve lost 50% of my weekly basic needs expenditures. I’ve also been chatting up everyone I run into about it too, letting them know that things have changed, you don’t save money at Walmart like you could before, your will find great prices and better quality in other grocery stores.
<
p>By the way, a name brand 5.5 oz. can of catfood is .45 at our local large grocery store. The exact same product is .46 at Walmart.
That is how it should work and I hope it does (since this will cause Wal-Mart to reduce prices). I shop at many stores (Wal-Mart, BJs, Stop & Shop (including my gasoline), milk from Cumberland Farms and my local fruit store). I buy products from each based on the sale prices. If they try to raise prices too far then I won’t buy product there. This is the free market in action and I love it. If one of them can sell products competitively AND make big profits not only will I praise them but I’ll probably invest in them. I’m good with this. I think your cat food example is a good one in that not “every” product for sale at Wal-Mart is bottom. But I might counter with Lays Potato Chips costing $3.99/bag at S&S but only costing $2.99 at Wally. I just asked my wife for a few more examples and she replied “just about everything is cheaper including eggs, bread, jelly…” so I think your cat food price is aberrant.
I think that people need to put 2 and 2 together. An economy of cheap labor coupled with imported goods and labor results in disconnecting people in the USA from the economy.
<
p>You may pay lower prices for your goods, but you’re paying higher taxes to support the people who can no longer play in the economy that you’re pushing. And if you don’t pay for that support, the situation will likely devolve to the point where you have to pay for a private security force and a gated compound, the way it is in countries with a large underclass and no social programs.
<
p>I’d prefer to lose the social programs by losing the need for them; the way to do that is to create an economy where the most people are capable of playing in it. And that will likely mean the end of this casinolike low-priced cheap labor import economy.
pay $20,000 for a flat panel TV produced in the USA by union workers which will break in 1 year OR pay $39 for a plain white t-shirt because it has a “union labor” sticker in it? How do you think the “low end” of our income earners will feel when they find out Wallys closed due to you Dems and now they have to go to Nordstroms to buy a pair of PJs for their kids… for $49? DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION… we can give welfare cards to the lower income earners and let them buy everything at 80% off and let the hard working people of the country pay the difference!!
If they found themselves with enough money in their pocket to shop at Nordstroms.
(and please don’t cite the current downturn of the economy). I know its hard for you to swallow this but Wal-Mart helps people afford purchases they could not ordinarily make.
Downturn or not finding employment for which you are qualified is much easier said than done for reasons passing understanding. I’m early 30s, have a Masters and a teaching license and have never been fully employed, but certainly not for lack of trying. I guess it is technically true that being employed by Wal-Mart is better than not being employed at all, but that is a horrible standard. Others have pointed out that many who work at Wal-Mart even make little enough to qualify for public assistance. My philosophy is that nobody who works a 40-hour week should be living paycheck-to-paycheck.
I don’t know many people out of work and I realize that I am just lucky… but I don’t. I do know there are many people coming out of school and recently out of school who are having problems and that isn’t a surprise with our economy for the last 18 months+.
<
p>People make choices their whole lives and then they have to live with those choices. Some (like you) may have chosen a field which is tough to get a job in. There are many others who chose wisely (or luckily) and they’ll find jobs in ANY economy. You want to believe that people all over the country are well trained, eager to learn and work but they just can’t find a job. That’s bullshit. Have yo read about the performance in schools for the last 10+ years. So many kids just plain SUCK at learning. Recent trends in Grad rate…
<
p>Las Vegas, Nev. (-23 percentage points);
Wichita, Kan. (-18 percentage points);
Omaha, Neb. (-15 percentage points);
Arlington, Texas (-12 percentage points);
Albuquerque, N.M. (-7 percentage points);
San Francisco, Calif. (-7 percentage points).
<
p>Those with the lowest graduation rates include
<
p>Indianapolis (31 percent),
Cleveland (34 percent),
Detroit (38 percent),
Milwaukee(41 percent),
Baltimore (42 percent),
Atlanta (44 percent),
Los Angeles (44 percent),
Las Vegas (45 percent),
Columbus (45 percent).
<
p>You can’t fuck off your entire life and then expect to get a job at “fill-in-blank” making a good wage so you don’t have to live “paycheck to paycheck”. The opportunity to get a good education has NEVER BEEN BETTER at any level from pre-school (I never went) thru elementary, high school and now college. Colleges across the country take kids from all backgrounds regardless of income (in many cases, regardless of how stupid they are if they need your particular “background”). So for those who claim America needs to do a better job in education I would say Stick it in your ear… Americans need to take advantage of the educational opportunities that are staring you in the face.
<
p>Until this cycle of Americans choosing fucking off instead of working hard (at education and simply working) then that segment of our population will continue to struggle and get jobs at Wal-Mart and shop at Wal-Mart and earn low salaries… which is completely appropriate.
<
p>When two people on parallel paths make decisions concerning homework, studying, partying, drinking/drugs, sex/pregnancy, crime… I believe it is totally just for the person making the right decisions to enjoy the fruits of their labor while the partying lay-about complains how life sucks. It sucks because you fucked up!!!
I’m concerned, however, that you assume too much in the other direction. I absolutely agree that choices need to be made and there are certainly good and bad choices. However, life circumstances such as socio-economic status into which one is born is not a choice. I would love for all school districts to be created equal with standards of excellence the envy of the world. I went to private high school because the public one in town was struggling to maintain accreditation at the time, but my family was able to afford it, which not everyone could say. This is why I support high testable standards but also generous funding to our public education systems. I’ll take your word regarding the city graduation statistics you cited, but the question is what do we do about it, since I agree that those numbers are unacceptable. As health care is still basic to human life I’m still reluctant to judge people when it comes to providing care. There’s still plenty of incentive to make the right choices if you want a nice life as opposed to simply an existence. Other countries manage to do it and ultimately spend LESS money overall in the process.
Part of what makes him a troll is his invention of facts to back whatever he’s ranting about at the moment.
Begging you not to be such an easy mark, Christopher.
You’ve used DFTT a few times lately without much elaboration. Forgive my ignorance, but what does that stand for?
Don’t feed the troll.
that is right now looking for a part-time Science teacher. I don’t know what your certification is, but if it is in Science I’ll send you the info.
our Edgar. I don’t care what they I say about him elsewhere.
But my certification is History.
used to be .99 cents a dozen(about 3 years ago). They weren’t very fresh. You can tell a fresh egg by what it does in the frying pan. If the egg white doesn’t hold together and spreads out across the pan, it is NOT a fresh egg. I wouldn’t know what the price of Walmart’s eggs are right now, because once I realized they were never fresh, I stopped buying them.
<
p>Potato chips? You’re right. They are cheaper at Walmart. But I often pass by the chip aisle. My potato chip funds are sent to the electric company.
There is no way to shame consumers into not buying cheap goods. You can tariff/tax them away from it, but then they will just not have the stuff they need.
<
p>People will stop shopping at Walmart when they have higher incomes and want to step up in social status. Most Democratic policies of income taxation and limiting investment work to depress middle-class incomes. If you want less shopping at Walmart than that’s counterproductive.
If the cost of imported products became the same as the cost of domestic products, there would likely be more demand for domestic products and that means more people employed here — creating more domestic consumers too.
<
p>In other words, there would be more opportunities here – at the cost of higher prices of goods. It can be argued that if the cost of goods goes up, poor people will have to go without necessary goods. That could be true, but I don’t think the poor are doing so well under our current system either.
At one time, Sam Walton thought that trumpeting “made in USA” and plastering the flag on everything in his stores was a winning strategy. Then he, or maybe his heirs, decided they could leverage the cheap Chinese labor pool to undercut everyone else in the market, and that became their strategy. It’s a strategy that undermines our economy, and drags down the less-rich of our society.
<
p>In my lifetime, I have watched this country go from the manufacturing powerhouse of the world to a debt-ridden consumer of other countries’ products. A very few Americans have benefited; most of us have not. When my blue-collar uncles could buy their own homes and support their families on one income, the American Dream was within reach of millions of people like them. Now, even most middle-class families send both parents to work, and a higher percentage of their income goes to housing, while health care takes a much bigger bite out of their resources, and sends a lot of them into bankruptcy. This is not progress.
Manufacturing has suffered as a share of employment for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the price of goods is much more likely to change over time because of our floating dollar. As I have outlined here before: the movie “Trading Places” was a financial anachronism. They villain steals the weather report for the orange futures… that’s not what happens. What’s more likely is for the villain to call his friends at the Federal Reserve or Treasury Department and find out when interest rates will go up or down, and then buy/sell ahead of the market.
<
p>You are much more likely to make a killing as an orange juice futures trader than as an orange farmer.
all you orange juice futures traders won’t have futures to trade.
computers, memory chips, illegal aliens, fruit, furniture, cars, prescription drugs… why pick on Wal-Mart alone?
Wal-Mart’s corporate strategies directly lead to this practices. Pushing for lower and lower prices from their suppliers is like putting a gun to their head — they have to comply, or they will likely go out of business due to Wal-Mart cutting them as a supplier. It is grotesque behavior, certainly not how a local family business would ever operate.
I know a guy who owns a few sandwich shops in Worcester. He is constantly pitting his suppliers against each other so he can save a few cents (which he then loses to higher taxes…). But the point is he pushes his suppliers for lower prices EVERYDAY! He has to fight Subway, Papa Gino’s and other large chain restaurants who get better prices due to larger volume supplier purchases. And I’m sure my friend gets a slightly better price than a guy owning only one restaurant. That’s the way it works and Wal-Mart can enjoy this benefit like any other store can. What happened to K-Mart????
Your sandwich shop friend doesn’t have the muscle of Wal-Mart. It’s one thing for him to ask for better prices. It’s quite another for a huge company like Wal-Mart to hold a gun to the heads of their suppliers to get them.
My friend has more muscle than the single store owner, that’s all. He uses the SAME tactic as does almost every single other businessman in America (or the world). Do you think there is ANY company out there who willingly pays more money for the same product? I don’t know what companies you approve of but I’ll guarantee that whatever companies they are, they negotiate as low a price as they can get. They’ll compare Staples paper prices against Office Depot and tell the higher priced vender they are going with the lower priced one… unless they meet their price. It happens daily and it called “Competition”.
<
p>Running a company any other way insures bankruptcy!
JohnD’s claim that “Running a company any other way insures bankruptcy” is overstated.
<
p>There are multiple ways of doing business.
<
p>See for instance the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a network of over 20,000 entrepreneurs. From their website:
<
p>
<
p>These 20,000 plus businesses strive to
<
p>They strive to:
<
p>
<
p>There are six local BALLE networks in Massachusetts.
<
p>For a useful and very readable book on the subject see Michael Shuman’s Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition.
<
p>–Leo
I spoke to my friend who owns the restaurants an he said http://www.worcesterlocalfirst.org is nothing more than another “chamber of Commerce” type of organization which tries to collect fees and will provide advertising. He says a few of his friends who do belong operate in no different a way than he does. Maybe this attempt will have some success but I think it will fail because competition will put these companies at a competitive disadvantage and competition is tough right now (and usually is).
Henry Ford could not create a closed economy where he could sell all his cars to his workers who could afford to buy his cars only by making and selling his cars.
<
p>Go Wal-Mart!!!!