Yes, they are often referred to as an "economic miracle" by the capitalist elite. It also happens to be a very repressive society, a very small country (actually considered a "nation- state" whose population is less than the SF Bay Area), and its socioeconomic factors don't lend themselves to replication elsewhere. Thanks for playing.
No surprise there, one of your favorite tactics is to constantly ask for "cites", and then when you are given them, dismiss them by trying to claim that the authors are biased amateurs. (despite all sorts of evidence to the contrary)
PKB.
The point isn't whether you agree with the practice, the point is that it is common and widespread and has a substantial impact on claimed "economic advantages" of locating such a business in a given community.
It's _particularly_ significant that you apparently knowingly exclude such factors from the economic impact you claim that such businesses have on the community, when in fact those communities are "paying for the privilege" of putting them there - effectively meaning the community has to see a much higher economic "payoff" from such businesses before they begin to see a net gain from their presence.
Hehehe... good one: "I'm right because.... I'm right!!" ROFL!
JN attempted contentless blowoff #933 detected.
Walmart, as the largest employer in the world, is automatically attractive because when they open a store they immediately have a large number of open positions, and represent a very substantial portion of the local market for such types of positions. (the fact that they are often way below-market in their wage scale is the real issue)
Any employment agency knows approximately how many jobs are on the market in a given area at a given time. This is a finite, easily-known number. If a gigantic business like Walmart moves into any area, particularly one where the job market is already depressed, it becomes an "instant attraction" because they are offering a large number of jobs in that area that didn't exist before. But if those jobs aren't paying a living wage, it has the effect of potentially lowering the average wage for those types of positions, potentially magnifying the woes of those at the low end of the employment spectrum by dominating the market with low-paying jobs and making the better-paying jobs less visible.
Wrong again.
Actually JN is _technically_ correct, because he has admitted on Usenet that he was wrong on a few occasions. Of course, more importantly, it happens *extremely* rarely, and generally only on subjects of trivial significance.
It is perfectly significant as an issue of context when you berate posters for "knowing better what's good for someone else than they do", because much of the time, that decision process is corrupted by biased information which is often under the control of certain corporate or political interests. (often the same interests who have a stake in promoting the expansion of certain big-box retailers, for example)
Obviously spoken from the myopic perspective of someone who lives in and grew up in an economically-advantaged society, one which tends to consistently benefit from these policies and such proxy organizations as the IMF and the World Bank, since in many ways what these advantaged societies are doing is funding their own living standard by exploiting the cheap labor and low living standards of less-advantaged countries.
What you are conveniently ignoring is various other economic factors which are clearly going backwards, such as the US living standard, poverty levels and the national debt. Duh!
Let's identify that philosophy by what it's also called:
- Supply-side economics (little evidence it benefits any but the wealthy classes)
- Reaganomics (see above)
- "Trickle Down Effect" (see above, widely discredited)
- "Voodoo Economics" (coined by George H.W. Bush to deride Reaganomics)
Markets are people too! And they're geniuses, dammit! LOL
I might agree on the education side if it didn't mean that it encourages a "worker bee" educational mentality that undermines society in other ways.
I might agree on the infrastructure-funding and R&D side, depending on what form of infrastructure and R&D you are referring to. One of the big problems in recent decades with R&D is that as the federal and state governments keep slashing away at their higher-educational endowments, the gap is being taken-up (as intended by the politicians) by large corporations which twist the academic curriculum to their own corporate ends, failing to fund much research into anything that they don't see an immediate profit from.
And most of that "value" is obtained by:
1) much lower labor costs, sometimes an order-of-magnitude lower or more 2) lack of environmental and worker-safety laws which allow companies to build much cheaper (and unsafer) facilities to manufacture in 3) lack of various other regulations which ultimately lowers the cost of doing business in these areas by ignoring such issues as transportation safety, property rights, labor standards, etc.
There's a limit to how far that can take an industry when the workers are making 10x or 100x lower wages overseas.
See above.
Strange how you come out on the side of management. Why am I not surprised? (Trivia: the outgoing head of Walmart had been paid over his tenure the equivalent of $143,000 PER DAY to head that company. Any chance some of that money might have been put to good use elsewhere in the economy?)
Depends on exactly what we're talking about here. If it's the usual conservative idea of "The Three R's", I would disagree.
See above. Depends on what.
This has been done for many years (especially during the Reagan and both Bush administrations) and there is little evidence it helps anyone but the wealthy classes.
Can't disagree on that particular point.
They aren't being forced to work at WalMart -- if better jobs were available, they would take them. There is no blame in what WalMart is doing.
Hardly. They would actually be told what the job paid, and would only take the job if that wage was attractive to them. If and when they found better jobs, then they would leave for them.
Financial aid (welfare) for not working is a disincentive, not a benefit, and it's not a matter of looking for a job, it's a matter of upgrading skills so that they can qualify for a better job, something that can and does happen while working at WalMart.
This isn't about (limited) unemployment insurance, this is about welfare. I actually view that people are demotivated by welfare, and that they (and society) are much better off when they are working.
If that were true, then nobody would be working at WalMart.
It's patently obvious that WalMart is competitive, better than the available alternatives, given that so many people *choose* to work at WalMart.
That simply can't be true. If it were, then nobody would be working at WalMart.
If and when they can qualify for better jobs, then they will get them. When they can't, then they are glad to get the jobs they can get.
You're in the awkward position of trying to explain away a reality you don't like. Even though you don't like it, those workers clearly do. Being so critical of their *choices* is elitist and arrogant.
Either better jobs are available, in which case these people would be working at WalMart, or they aren't available, in which case WalMart is an attractive option.
It'a actually the largest *private* employer in the *USA*. The world's largest commercial or utility employer is Indian Railways. And governments are even larger employers. At least get your "facts" straight.
What WalMart actually does is offer competitive jobs in all areas in which it operates. One example (out of many) is the WalMart in Pleasanton, which is anything buy "an employment-depressed area". At least get your "facts" straight.
That's patently ridiculous. If there really was a demand for those workers, then other employers would be paying them more to attract them away from WalMart.
Duh indeed. Those workers can't qualify for jobs at Google, which is why they are working at WalMart. Blaming WalMart for that is crazy. The cause of low wages is the skill level of workers, not anything to do with employers. Thanks for demonstrating my point.
That's a wild exaggeration.
Hardly. It's a model for the Asian "tigers".
Meaningless contentless contemptuous blowoff #123487.
You have no way of knowing.
It'a actually the largest *private* employer in the *USA*. The world's largest commercial or utility employer is Indian Railways. And governments are even larger employers. At least get your "facts" straight.
It's attractive simply because if creates a lot of attractive jobs.
Patent nonsense. If the jobs weren't attractive, then people wouldn't be lining up to apply for them.
Well duh. In other words, it offers a large number of attractive jobs. If those people had better options, then those jobs wouldn't be attractive. The point is that they obviously don't have better options. It matters not what some other job pays (like your example of working at Google) if they can't get that better job.
Just the opposite. By soaking up the least skilled labor, that otherwise would be unemployed, WalMart actually tightens the labor market and *lifts* the average wage. You're playing with numbers by excluding the effect of the unemployed on average wages.
Total nonsense. Your contempt for others does you no credit.
Now that's funny. One minute you argue that free trade is hurting us. The next minute you argue that free trade is helping us. In fact those less advantaged societies clearly benefit from free trade -- those workers are very glad to have those jobs, and are anything but "exploited".
Duh indeed. I've already commented on how our competitiveness has been eroded by lack of investment in education, infrastructure, research and development, and the like. We nonetheless are still the envy of much of the rest of the world.
Wrong on all counts. What it's actually called is free market economics.
Markets aren't people.
None of these claimed factors would matter if they simply couldn't do the job. The real problem for us is that they can do the job, and are simply more productive at it, in large part because they have substantially closed the gap on skills.
What we need to do is what we are best at, not what they are best at. If we take out sufficient labor cost, not only by reducing labor content, but also by increasing labor skill level, then we can compete, huge wage differences notwithstanding.
Nope. I simply said it wasn't a significant factor in competitiveness. If good management wasn't worth the compensation, then it wouldn't get it.
Whether that particular number is true or not, the compensation has clearly been worth it, as measured by the huge success of WalMart.
In a word, no -- that would be the worst kind of social engineering. It simply doesn't work.
Economic studies have in fact shown the clear benefits of investment tax credits, the long term benefits of which we are still enjoying today.
You are simply living in the past. The days of good unskilled jobs and consequently expensive goods are over. The "price" of the abundance that has come from so much greater efficiency is the higher skill and productivity level needed in the work force. There are still lots of good jobs for those that recognize and respond to current reality. There is still WalMart (and worse) for those that don't.
Pleasanton does not have any poverty or unemployment? Come on.
It's not that WalMart is competitive or the best available alternative. What it is, it's that people are basically lazy. They don't want to spend the time and pound the pavement to find a good job. A WalMart opens up, and a person has a good chance of getting a low skilled job with little effort.
This is also one of the reasons stores like WalMart are attractive shopping places for many. One doesn't have to go to multiple locations to fill the shopping list. They even sell groceries and gasoline now. A person could theoretically go to WalMart for everything they need - shopping wise. Great for lazy people and great for WalMart. Not so great for all the other retailers in the area and their employee's job security. The other smaller retailer's can never compete on price or the convenience of one-stop shopping. Unfortunately, that's all that many people care about these days.
Even if this was true, it would be short-lived because of the other retailers they drove out of business.
It also would be short-lived until WalMart had to start paying local taxes and decides to move out. See Cathedral City's experience.
Been worth it? No one in retail is worth that kind of salary! Either the underlings are deprived or the consumer is ripped off. Even the President of the United States makes a fraction of that. $143,000 per day is pure greed when you consider the income and benefits of the other workers! I'm not surprised you find this acceptable! "Trickle down effect" indeed. Cold asphalt trickles faster.
That's not what I said, implied, or what's at issue -- read more carefully.
How nice -- you're almost as contemptuous of others as Philip.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
One apocryphal story doesn't a real case make.
The Board and most shareholders obviously disagree with you.
John,
Any chance someone with as much Usenet savvy as you could just drop the OT postings?
If you think they're on topic on any of the groups to which you're posting on this thread, please let us know why you think so.
Thank you,
-jav
Mr. Navas hit the mark. There is nothing left to be said.
- ----------- Just Me, D
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