Whats so wasteful about plastic bottled water? Isn’t importing bottled water from France extremely wasteful? But (aha), rich people buy expensive French bottled water-I guess that is not wasteful. Are not luxury goods wasteful? But people (for some reason) keep buying them.
WALMART is a business..if people don’t like what they sell, they can shop elsewhere. Mercedes Benz is the same way-people must like what they make, even though their products are extremely wasteful.
I tried to make a similar point in my post in this thread. I’ve thought about starting a similar thread in the past, but I don’t have the economic cites to back up my concerns. I know that Robert Reich (Clinton’s labor secretary) has similar concerns, basically, that he doesn’t see a way back to economic greatness without a robust middle class and he sees the middle class being hollowed out.
It seems obvious to me that without a robust middle class, the prosperity we’re used to in the USA can’t continue. However, “obvious” things in economics are often wrong, so I’d like to back that up with hard data.
I also can’t see a good way to solve the problem without something closer to a socialist society, and I know those don’t work.
This is GD and I know my argument here isn’t good enough, and I can’t defend it with good cites. I will, instead, rely on this anecdote: The happiest people in the world are apparently the Danes, and they have a high tax, robust safety net system. I would rather see the US go that way than toward a South American or Middle East way, where there is a powerful group of the very wealthy, with a large underclass. I know that the US isn’t there, or close to that, but it seems to me that we’re heading in that direction.
There’s my MPSIMS-quality “argument”. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’d like to see a econ post-doc or something do the research.
I always kind of assumed that too, but he really was trying to help out his workforce (though presumably not the Jews).
Not seeing anything that supports that in your cite. He wanted to grow the business, invest in more manufacturing plants (which, of course means hiring more people) instead of paying a dividend to shareholders. I think he saw himself as a visionary, and it was his way or the highway.
Do people really need to be convinced that Wal-Mart is one of the biggest factors of outsourcing manufacturing to China and other overseas countries? Right or wrong - that’s what the debate should be.
Or, that until Wal-Mart grew to the size it is now, no retailer held a sway over manufacturers; in fact, Wal-Mart is the first retailer to start controlling (in a manner of speaking) manufacturers - what they produce, how, where and what margins can be expected?
Those are – by now – pretty evident events and movements. If you don’t accept those claims then it’s a different discussion - as it seems to me, the debate goes off on the question - is there a bigger macroeconomic threat to US economy from having a single retail player managing the field of retail and, is that really in the spirit of diverse capitalistic society that performs for the benefit of plenty (middle-class) - especially in the economy that drives on consumer spending?
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?
What market share does WalMart have? Have they engaged in anti-competitive practices? If so, throw the book at them.
Are there other, newer laws that you think need to be enacted to prevent bad, but still legal, practices by WalMart?
People’s memories are often very short. Do you really think that mid-to small town retail offered bargain prices and wide selection? They did not. For groceries do you think the 5,000 - 10,000 sq ft IGA’s and the other small footprint small town grocery stores offered better, quality, variety or prices than a 60,000 sq ft Walmart?
You need to answer that question before any other speculation occurs.
Here’s the thing that his article entirely ignores- it’s not some unique property of big-box stores that are making them struggle; it’s general economic conditions.
Or put a little differently- if the big-box retailers, with their finely tuned logistical and purchasing systems and vast economies of scale are struggling, how in the world does he think that Mom & Pop shops are going to outcompete them in a contracting economy? Certainly not on price, and for most things sold at big-box retailers, they’re going to have a hard time differentiating themselves on anything they sell- they’re mostly commodity type items.
That’s the whole thrust of the Wal-Mart/Home Depot/Best Buy vs. Mom and Pop retailer struggle- smaller locally owned stores just flat out aren’t going to be able to compete on price, so where they can, they’ve differentiated themselves by offering hard to find or higher-end stuff than the local big-box guys.
For example, there are still hardware stores with old men wearing those little aprons around, but these days, they sell stuff like hard-to-find or unusual parts, tools and materials. They don’t make a lot of money selling regular old paint anymore- people go to Wal-Mart or Home Depot for that.
In smaller towns, there aren’t enough people who want to go to the local spiffy differentiated kitchen goods store and buy Wusthof Trident knives, vs. going to Wal-Mart and buying Chicago Cutlery. That’s where the differentiation strategy breaks down- in larger cities (or on the web) it works well enough.
Kunstler writes:
[QUOTE=Kunstler]
In most of the country there is no other place to buy goods (and no other place to get a paycheck, scant and demeaning as it may be).
[/QUOTE]
Wait, what? Without looking it up, I’m going to guess Kunstler is from New York City and still lives there, or moved there when he was young, and still lives there.
Looked it up. Bingo.
The idea that “in most of the country” WalMart is the only place to work and buy things is idiotic, the sort of thing you’d only write or say if you never actually spent any time in most of the country. Such stupid hyperbole does not speak well for Mr. Kunstler’s theories. Yeah, yeah, you hate the suburbs.
Tell you what; pick ten random places in America and see how many have Wal Mart as the only significant retailer AND the largest employer. Bet ya a thousand bucks the number isn’t five.
The idea that a paycheck earned through honest labor can be “demeaning” also speaks of a certain radical political bias and detachment from the realities of working people.
So, that would be “crank”, to answer the choice BG gave us.
There’s nothing inherently wrong. But I think one should be able to identify some event at macroeconomic level, investigate root causes and estimate trends freely.
If any of those trends have a risk of undermining your own economy, I think people should look into that and affect some sort of regulation to prevent risky trends. Also, effort should be made to review what practices constitute unfair practices as term “unfair practice” is a judgement call and not really exact science and how do we measure and determine market impact that will cause undesirable trend. What’s ironic in all of this is that Wal-Mart CEO once made a comment that UK Government should intervene and audit retailer Tesco in UK as Tesco crossed 30% market share. The thing is, on a whole, WM has about 10% share but in some specific product categories or in some individual states they have 30, 40 or even 50 to 70 percent market share. On top of that market share comes more from mergers and outright acquisitions.
This topic is far from being settled.
And it’s not like this is such a new debate.
It used be argued that allowing mergers to give life to enormous banks was beneficial for a customer but now we are talking about “too big to fail” syndrome that affects the customers in ways that saving $2 on banking fees sounds like a foolish argument. And I’m sure there were people expressing concern at the time when Citi Bank was being given life by a merger in 1998 but those debates are hardly won by arguments.
What I don’t understand is people who refuse to shop at Walmart but shop at places like Target that aren’t any different and also pay very low. I know workers from both an I know people who have been offered management level jobs at target that paid less than entry level Walmart. I think this preference has to do with superficial qualities or perhaps some reasonable preference ( target looks cleaner or whatever) than a genuine desire to punish walmartp practices.
All of these places pay US workers very low and sell an source cheap crap from overseas factories with poor treatment of workers.
American industry developed behind a protective-tariff wall for much of the 19th Century. See the Whigs’ (later the Republicans’) American System. Whether free trade is the best thing for a national economy or not is a question that cannot be categorically answered, but depends on circumstances of time and place.
Because some people believe ethics and morality are important, too.
Now it’s immoral to buy a product from a foreign manufacturer? I must have missed that development.
Yes. Yes. Yes, they are. Yes.
But I agree, it’s not the responsibility of Walmart. I’ve already said that in my prior posts. Still doesn’t make it right.
Well, he asked a question. Why shouldn’t it be that way? If a corporation can have slaves to maximize their profit, why shouldn’t it be that way?
Or rather, if a corporation can afford to share their profits with their workforce at a fair and reasonable wage, according to skill and living standards of the country, why shouldn’t it be that way? Oh yeah, because people are selfish. But it’s ok! It’s a business!
Again, I’m not even blaming Walmart. They are a product of the times and are most certainly not the most responsible culprits here. It’s most certainly our fault as Americans. There’s some good aspects to the company, but mostly bad. And as somebody said before, Walmart is just a symptom, not a disease.
But you should at least be able to recognize it for what it is.
What is the ethical or moral issue? Are you smoehow more deserving of my business than the Chinese guy? If so, why?
Most economists seem to disagree with you. It’s great for politicians who are looking to make points with people who don’t understand the concept of “comparative advantage”. But in reality, protectionism just increases costs for consumers and occupies resources and capital that could be better spent elsewhere in the economy.
As idiotic as the idea that people from New York City don’t know anything about the rest of the country?
As you point out, WalMart isn’t the only place to shop and they aren’t the only place to hold a job. And if someone lives somewhere where that is the case, they should consider moving.
People who work at WalMart or other retail big box stores aren’t “average middle class Americans”. I mean they may be “middle class” in the sense of an arbitrary political construct that defines it as everyone is isn’t a Walton or on welfare. But the median American income is $50k a year. A bit more than the $9/hr people at Walmart make.
Chances are if you are in the job market for Walmart level jobs, you really need to access to stores that offer Walmart prices. I don’t really see how that’s a bad thing.
I think it has more to do with how they may be treated on the job. But I’ll guarantee your typical lawyer, investment banker or management consultant making six figures has to eat a lot more shit at work than your typical Walmart greeter.
But otherwise I agree with you. When I was a kid, I worked all manner of low-paying jobs. They may have been unpleasent or dirty compared to working in a cushy air-conditioned office. But that doesn’t make them “demeaning”.
Walmart didn’t invent globalization. Or escalating resource costs. Or the vast income disparity between the West and China. Or economic concepts like economies of scale, network externalities, disruptive technologies or creative destruction.
Walmart exists because there is a market for people who make $18,000 a year in the US to buy goods made by someone making $1,000 a year in China.
However, one thing I do have trouble reconciling is how one family can amass more wealth than the bottom %30 of the country and yet people can complain about increasing taxes on the wealthy. Like Walmart would be less successful if the Waltons were worth $50 billion instead of $100 billion?
Then again, some other genius will create something in his basment and then that guy will be the next billionare. There isn’t a finite amount of wealth that can be created.