# The Walmartization of America comes full circle **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757 "2013-02-19T02:01:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/201 "2013-02-22T02:47:17Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Wow. Soon you’ll need a bachelor’s to get a job as a waiter. And your career progression is what? Waiter, then… waiter at a different restaurant? I should probably point out that prominent conservatives and libertarians have been raising this issue for years. Actually, probably decades at this point. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/202 "2013-02-22T02:47:57Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Like I said, lots of passion, little logic. You need to bring more of the latter if you want to play in this forum. Well, your logic seems to be to lower wages until they’re on par with the lowest in the world, so I’ll stick with my logic thanks. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/203 "2013-02-22T03:00:09Z")
What’s the solution then **John Mace?** How do we fix unemployment and the debt? How do we protect the environment? How do we care for the poor? How do we provide education? ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/204 "2013-02-22T03:21:46Z")
My intuition tells me that the greater the international trade, the more standards of living of the trading partners tend to converge. As jobs move to China, their standard of living tends to improve and the US standard of living tends to decline. Perhaps due to efficiencies, the overall standard of living has a slight increase, especially if one assumes ruination of the environment is not an issue. Clearly Wal-Mart has promoted international trade with China. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/205 "2013-02-22T04:08:11Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > My intuition tells me that the greater the international trade, the more standards of living of the trading partners tend to converge. > > As jobs move to China, their standard of living tends to improve and the US standard of living tends to decline. Perhaps due to efficiencies, the overall standard of living has a slight increase, especially if one assumes ruination of the environment is not an issue. . The standard of living for both tends to rise. But it is not without challenges as specific industries may be disrupted in the short to near term. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/206 "2013-02-22T04:14:49Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Well, your logic seems to be to lower wages until they’re on par with the lowest in the world, so I’ll stick with my logic thanks. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to you to try and understand the actual argument, instead of your strawman. [QUOTE=panaccione] How do we fix unemployment and the debt? How do we protect the environment? How do we care for the poor? How do we provide education? [/QUOTE] You don’t want much, do you? 😉 How do we do all of those things, plus have an ever increasing standard of living, have wages always go up across the board, with more and more services available to more and more people, etc etc. Well, if anyone could do all of that we’d probably make him or her God Emperor. That’s the trouble…no one CAN fix all of that. How do we have our wages continue to go up, despite the fact that labor doesn’t add ever increasing value for the service it renders? No idea…it worked in the past because the US had a brief monopoly on international trade, plus we started off with relatively low wages and had just fought a major world war that we managed to be on the winning side of. How do you fix the debt when we collectively want more and more services but also collectively don’t like to pay high taxes? How do we protect the environment, when we already have a pretty strict regulatory environment wrt pollution and such, and people want ever increasing protections at the same time they want job growth and want to encourage industries to come in and bring jobs and prosperity? How do we provide an education for everyone…a GOOD education for everyone that is…when we have the tug of war between ever increasing education budgets and a public not willing to pay the high taxes (ever increasingly high taxes as we all want everything, all the time) needed to have those things? Ask a liberal and the answer is obvious…soak the rich, make them pay their ‘fair’ share and this will fix everything. Ask a conservative and the answer is obvious…cut taxes on the rich, so they will invest their capital which will stimulate the economy and will fix everything. Ask a libertarian and the answer is obvious…we don’t need all these programs, and instead we should have minimal services from the government and the private sector will step up, and this will fix everything. Etc, etc, etc. Who’s right? Gods know…none of these things, alone will solve anything, let alone everything. You could tax The Rich™ in the US to crippling levels and it’s not going to fix our problems or the debt, even if you could do this with the reasonable expectation that they would just keep on paying AND investing. We’ve tried cutting taxes on the rich, but it hasn’t really helped all that much, and only cut our government revenue, increasing our debt. Even if The Rich invest, which they do, it doesn’t magically create jobs, because our labor is fairly expensive and we have all those regulations to protect the environment which adds to the cost. As to the libertarians strawman solution above, We, The People WANT all those nice services…we simply don’t want to pay all the taxes that are required to have them all. Well, maybe John has all the answers. You did ask him, so let’s see what he says. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/207 "2013-02-22T04:28:15Z")
[QUOTE=BigAppleBucky] My intuition tells me that the greater the international trade, the more standards of living of the trading partners tend to converge. [/QUOTE] That’s true in the sense that both trading partners have an increase in their wealth. In terms of the US and China, China’s standard of living has gone up substantially, while ours has flattened out a bit. Why? Well, China didn’t really have any place to go but up, so when you start at the bottom it’s easy to have explosive growth. The US started at the top, and the real reason we flattened out is that we’ve had a pretty rough time of things since the early 2000’s, with recessions, wars and lots of fuckups. This isn’t a zero sum game though, with the US having to give up GDP so China can prosper. Our trade with China (and everyone else we trade with) is a net positive for the US, and isn’t the reason we have had our standards of living flatten out. > [@](#): > > As jobs move to China, their standard of living tends to improve and the US standard of living tends to decline. Perhaps due to efficiencies, the overall standard of living has a slight increase, especially if one assumes ruination of the environment is not an issue. No, your understanding of how it works is flawed. Our overall standard of living hasn’t declined, but even if it had it has nothing to do with our trade with China. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/208 "2013-02-22T04:59:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If a Chinese guy can make a product I want cheaper than you can, and if it’s of acceptable quality to me, then frankly you are SOL. Why shouldn’t be that way? What’s wrong with importing goods from other countries? I welcome correction by posters who are more knowledgeable than I about the business world, but isn’t dependence on imports considered a bad thing? IIRC there’s a principle in microeconomics to the effect that total wealth is maximized when everyone does exclusively what they do best and/or the most cheaply compared with the other participants in the market. However, doesn’t that rest on the assumption that everyone produces a substantive product or service to sell? _Trade_, in other words. But we’re not _trading_ with China, we’re only _shopping_ in their store, so to speak. We’re buying everything there and paying for it with bits of paper. I know, I keep hearing that American manufacturing is on the upswing, but what kind of products are we manufacturing and how much do we export? We might be making and exporting the best sleeve-bearings in the world, but how does that compare to the tons and tons of T-shirts, Barbie dolls, and TVs that come from China and land in almost every American home? How can it be that the current situation is sustainable? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/209 "2013-02-22T05:20:07Z")
But we ARE trading with China. We buy a lot of their low end manufactured goods, and they buy our agricultural products, our heavy machinery, our medical equipment, and a host of other value added goods and services. There is a trade imbalance, but that doesn’t equate to us selling them nothing. IIRC, they are either the second or third largest trading partner wrt importing OUR goods and services. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/210 "2013-02-22T14:04:55Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I welcome correction by posters who are more knowledgeable than I about the business world, but isn’t dependence on imports considered a bad thing? IIRC there’s a principle in microeconomics to the effect that total wealth is maximized when everyone does exclusively what they do best and/or the most cheaply compared with the other participants in the market. However, doesn’t that rest on the assumption that everyone produces a substantive product or service to sell? _Trade_, in other words. > > But we’re not _trading_ with China, we’re only _shopping_ in their store, so to speak. We’re buying everything there and paying for it with bits of paper. I know, I keep hearing that American manufacturing is on the upswing, but what kind of products are we manufacturing and how much do we export? We might be making and exporting the best sleeve-bearings in the world, but how does that compare to the tons and tons of T-shirts, Barbie dolls, and TVs that come from China and land in almost every American home? How can it be that the current situation is sustainable? It’s normal for a poor country (and China is still a poor country) to sell more to a rich country than it can buy. Why would it be otherwise? That’s sort of built into the definition of “poor” and “rich”. As China gets richer, their goods will be more costly, we will buy less of their goods and they will be able to afford more of our goods. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/211 "2013-02-22T14:09:11Z")
> [@panaccione](#): > > What’s the solution then **John Mace?** How do we fix unemployment and the debt? How do we protect the environment? How do we care for the poor? How do we provide education? The solution is simple. Just find the exactly correct balance between government action and private industry. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/212 "2013-02-22T14:42:07Z")
> [@panaccione](#): > > What’s the solution then **John Mace?** How do we fix unemployment and the debt? How do we protect the environment? How do we care for the poor? How do we provide education? Feds have a solution and it requires no effort: pump $80 billlion every month into the economy until things get better. US economy is like an upset stomach that is under lot of stress due to overindulgence and general mess of mixing all kinds of foods (tax on tax and another tax to prevent the other tax and similar). The US economy gets a heartburn which is unemployment and low wages and general decline. And then the fine doctors in Feds prescribe Pepto-Bismol or large amounts of cash so that you, the US economy, can continue with your merry ways of overindulgence. Sometimes saying that there is no problem is the best way to deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/213 "2013-02-22T16:06:18Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > Feds have a solution and it requires no effort: pump $80 billlion every month into the economy until things get better. > > US economy is like an upset stomach that is under lot of stress due to overindulgence and general mess of mixing all kinds of foods (tax on tax and another tax to prevent the other tax and similar). The US economy gets a heartburn which is unemployment and low wages and general decline. And then the fine doctors in Feds prescribe Pepto-Bismol or large amounts of cash so that you, the US economy, can continue with your merry ways of overindulgence. > > Sometimes saying that there is no problem is the best way to deal with it. Exactly-instead of giving money to failing enterprises (like “green energy”)-get purchasing power into the hands of people WHO NEED it. What good does it do to make Warren Buffet $5 billion richer? He spends almost nothing. Whereas, middle class unemployed people will spend right away. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/214 "2013-02-22T16:08:45Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Exactly-instead of giving money to failing enterprises (like “green energy”)-get purchasing power into the hands of people WHO NEED it. What good does it do to make Warren Buffet $5 billion richer? He spends almost nothing. Whereas, middle class unemployed people will spend right away. What do you suppose Warren Buffet does with his money? Put it in a mattress or bury it in the back yard? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/215 "2013-02-22T19:20:34Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Exactly-instead of giving money to failing enterprises (like “green energy”) Cite please. > [@](#): > > -get purchasing power into the hands of people WHO NEED it. And who would that be? The poor? No, they’re lazy and entitled. The middle class? No, they’re lazy and entitled. The rich? No, they’re already rich and they don’t create jobs. Who are you going to give money too that someone else doesn’t consider entitled, lazy and undeserving? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/216 "2013-02-22T19:27:57Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Cite please. > > And who would that be? The poor? No, they’re lazy and entitled. The middle class? No, they’re lazy and entitled. The rich? No, they’re already rich and they don’t create jobs. > > Who are you going to give money too that someone else doesn’t consider entitled, lazy and undeserving? Just an aside here, but when I read remarks like this: > [@Shodan](#): > > Actually, we are mostly in debt because of middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. To which you responded: > [@levdrakon](#): > > I think it’s more accurate to say the rich screwed up than blame it on middle class “entitlements.” It seems that you may not understand that calling programs like Social Security and Medicare entitlements just means that “people meeting relevant eligibility requirements are legally entitled to benefits”. It’s not some sort of judgment upon the character of the recipients, it’s called ‘entitlement spending’ because that’s what it _is_. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/217 "2013-02-22T19:34:25Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Just an aside here, but when I read remarks like this: > > To which you responded: > > It seems that you may not understand that calling programs like Social Security and Medicare entitlements just means that “people meeting relevant eligibility requirements are legally entitled to benefits”. It’s not some sort of judgment upon the character of the recipients, it’s called ‘entitlement spending’ because that’s what it _is_. You probably should refrain from commenting if you are that out of touch with conservative thought in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/218 "2013-02-22T19:37:33Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > You probably should refrain from commenting if you are that out of touch with conservative thought in this country. That’s rich. What’s your point, here, that entitlement doesn’t mean what I said it means, or that everyone you disagree with secretly uses it to mean lazy and undeserving? The former is wrong, the latter is wrong and irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/219 "2013-02-22T21:23:58Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > That’s rich. What’s your point, here, that entitlement doesn’t mean what I said it means, or that everyone you disagree with secretly uses it to mean lazy and undeserving? The former is wrong, the latter is wrong and irrelevant. You like to dwell on and nitpick things that don’t need it. That doesn’t impress people around here. Middle Class entitlements is not the same as “lazy entitled poor people, immigrants, minorities, Americans,” etc. I’m certain you know this and I’m not entertaining you anymore. You should also look up sarcasm. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757/220 "2013-02-22T21:33:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The solution is simple. Just find the exactly correct balance between government action and private industry. 😃 LOL. That’s what I’m saying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walmartization-of-america-comes-full-circle/650757.md?page=12)