RE: Americans are being terrorized into not celebrating Xmas
December 11, 2009 at 1:40 pm
(This post was last modified: December 11, 2009 at 1:49 pm by theVOID.)
(December 11, 2009 at 12:25 pm)Pippy Wrote: Hey,
If I may...
Quote:They also employ a lot of people in areas where small business have failed on their own. Yeah they're big business and there is always a downside, i just don't think it's as one sided as you.
All I said, and I feel it still very valid, is that people who shop at walmart do not deserve full-time employment.
People who want cheaper goods do not deserve the right to work full time? That is utter nonsense and completely counter intuitive to your point because the less money people have the more likely they are to shop cheaper.
What about the family who are up to their neck in bills and couldn't afford to shop at a local business? Do they deserve less money? As you can see it is completely counter intuitive thinking.
Quote: This is because if supporting walmart, you have to support them as a whole. Walmart is not a close friend of yours offering savings because they really and truly care about your quality of life.
No, they offer cheaper prices because they have a purchasing and negotiating power with suppliers, which is due to the fact that people chose to shop with them in the first place. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Quote: If you decide that the most important bottom line is the cheapest products possible, than you have to live with that choice, and all its implications.
Some don't have the luxury you seem to have to chose to buy something else.
Quote: If you prioritize saving a few cents over supporting any kind of reasonable economy, then you are choosing a walmart world of minimum wage work, never enough hours, no proper benefits.
1) Global economics is a more reasonable and long-term economic model.
2) Plenty of local businesses also pay little more than minimum wage, especially in the grocery industry.
Walmart might not be the best employer by a mile, but they still make jobs that don't exist. They are a last resort for people and i wouldn't want to be in that position - but some people are.
Quote: And the next level, with 90% of the products being imported you are choosing to support the manufacturing industry that is 1000's of miles removed from you. You are also choosing not to have employee unions.
Unions, what is this? the 1930s?
Supporting industry 1000 miles away is a good thing, you have formed a tie between two communities, the purchasing community who need the product and the supplier who needs money, economic interdependency is a good thing.
Quote: You are stating that you don't want anything of any quality,
That's complete nonsense, what i am saying is some times quality is not an important factor in purchasing decisions.
Quote: but everything as cheap and disposable as possible.
Oh, so walmart only make disposable products? so a computer i buy from walmart is more disposable than the one from the local computer guy? It's the same spec Pc that will last just as long but COSTS LESS. Why pay more for no benefit?
Quote: And every cheap, disposable object has to be shipped overseas for a short involvement in your life before you throw it out and do it again. We are also now edging onto the pollution issue, because this very economic model is about as inefficient as possible.
What makes you think that i will own something i bought from walmart for any less amount of time than something from a specialist store?? Fuck, they're often the same brands.
Quote:Quote:Someone's a little bitter i sense - have a personal problem with a corporation Pippy?But it's recognized as a living (but never dying) entity with it's own rights.
With that comes my right to have a "personal problem" with this living co-operations actions that affect my life. You make it sound so petty, but am I really expected to have no negative feelings towards the actions I have seen the Walmart group doing for many years?
You are free to think whatever you want, that's not debatable, i just sensed a story there.
Quote:Quote:I think global economy is a far more powerful force for good than the local economy.Give me an example of how the global economic model is a "far more powerful force for good" than local economy, if you could. I can go on and on about the issues it has created. It was decentralized control and the outsourcing of dangerous work that led to the Bhopal incident. Look at pre-NAFTA Mexico City, and post-NAFTA. How many products made in China were recalled last year? Were the recalls effective? If you see the global economy as a force for good, you must really be ignoring or missing a lot of the information, including basic economic principles.
Then you likewise provide evidence to the contrary.
My main reason for supporting a global economy is because it builds economic interdependence between nations and regions, strengthening ties and creating a strong reason for avoiding conflict and promoting mutual respect - something a local economy cannot ever deliver as it contains the trade of goods and services and thus interdependence within a relatively small population who no longer have any vested interest at all in maintaining good relations with other regions.
Quote:Quote:lead to interdependency and make conflict too costlyOr more likely, if the interdependency becomes one-sided or unfair. Trust me, there are much better motivators for avoiding conflict that we should try first.
The other ones don't work. Look at the British and the French - they hated each other for hundreds of years even though they were so similar, had the same faith in the same god, had a number of cultural and political similarities and the geographical similarity yet none of that nor human decency stopped the conflict. It was only when the nations began to trade and become interdependent that the conflicts stopped and the two nations are relatively close now in a global context.
Quote:Quote: Both are essential but ultimately the global economy is more beneficial for both peace and innovation.I can only see that being possibly true if you were talking in an ideological sense. The perfect, functioning and well-maintained global economy, in theory, could potentially be "Better for peace and innovation". But the global economy as it stands today, and also where it appears to be going, are the exact opposite of such. Peace and innovation? We are in the middle of a perpetual war against an emotion that is part of an economic "protection racket" and are driving the same cars we had 100 years ago. Do you see peace and innovation? Please be kind enough to point that out, as it pertains to global economy. And don't say the stupid Gates foundation, or some flaky pseudo-philanthropy, because problems pretending to be solved by the ultra-rich that were in their own right caused by the global economic models flaws (that made them ultra-rich) do not count.
Where we appear to be going is a very good direction, environment asside, the scale of conflict worldwide is relatively low, no two superpowers have their missiles aimed at each other and while there is an element of extremism it aint no cold war. Want to know why there won't be another cold war? Because China, Russia and the USA are too dependent on each other. Every nation, even if not struck directly by the physical terror of nuclear war will suffer greatly due the removal of a major trade partner leading to the loss of jobs which leads to poverty and a lack of development.
It is also common knowledge that economic competition is the prime driver for innovation this century. With small businesses and local economies the competition will slow down tremendously leading to the slower development of new technologies, medicines, agricultural techniques etc all of which tremendously enhance all of our lives. Funnily enough there is an emerging technological showdown in green technologies, something that will be very good for fighting climate change mid to long term and it will be fueled directly by economic competition.
Quote:Quote:Bill Gates and Warren Buffet also populate that list, yet they are the easily amongst biggest individual philanthropists the world has seen. They've done more for the species than the equivalent net worth of local business owners combined while providing an equal, if not greater amount of jobs.You're kidding right? You're just pulling my leg? You are gonna stand there and defend Bill Gates and Warren fucking Buffet as heros?
Take a consortium of local business owners up to the net worth of Gates and then find out who donated a higher percent of the total personal income from equal amounts spent by the public. Gates will come out as more generous by a significant amount. This means that the people who bought from Gates ended up having a far more significant portion of that money donated to charitable enterprise than a combination of local businesses.
Quote: Judging from our prior disagreements, I am gonna assume you are a multi-millionaire. That is the only reason I can think that you would get any sense that the world you want to live in is in any way coherent to the world they want to live in.
Judging from our prior disagreements, I am gonna assume you are an technophobe-hippy. That is the only reason i can think that you would get any sense that the world you want to live in is in any way coherent to the world we actually live in.
Quote: Bill gates and Warren Buffet. God damn. If they did more for us as a species... I can't even begin to express how silly that is. What does the statement that "they did more for the species than the equivalent net worth of local business owners combined while providing an equal if not greater amount of jobs" even mean?
Meaning quite simply take the effect that any small business movement has ever had and compare it to what Gates did for the computer revolution that is improving all areas of life from medicine to education to entertainment, not to mention the thousands upon thousands of jobs that were created in an entirely new field, personal computing, combined with the fact that his full time job is now supporting people with AIDS in 3rd world countries.... What has local business ever done to match that significance?
Quote:When I lived on an island in the States, we had a law. No franchised corp was allowed to build on the island. They fought tooth and nail, they tried to put a Subway, a McDonalds... It did not matter that the locals did not want one, so they were forced to legislate. Why would they do that? Because even one franchised corp would ship that much money out of the local economy, and replace peoples self employment with a far less accommodating work. That is an example of local economy, as it was surrounded by 30 miles of water it was easier to understand.
That's great if they want to live on an isolated island and take care of themselves, just don't expect me to find that idea appealing in any way.
Quote:Bottom line, if the global economic model was one that functioned, we would have already seen so.
If it hasn't worked yet it never will? Sure, real factual statement... Let's just ignore the fact that economic competition has lead to more life enhancing innovations than i could possibly name.
How about this - When has the world ever been more connected?
Quote:The IMF, the WTO, the specter of "free-trade" (I am running out of stream, but ask me about free trade, soft-wood lumber, and Metclad Inc. one day, that's a good rant too) have done nothing but worsen many problems. World hunger is worse than ever
That is completely made up. The number of people living on less than $1.25 a day has fallen from 56% in 1980 to 23% today. Infant mortality in low income countries has fallen by 87% over 20 years. Adult literacy is also up Males from 72-86%, females from 56-74%. Poverty in east asia has fallen by over 80% 50% in south africa. Malnourishment is down 28% in sub Saharan africa.
Quote:sweatshop style labour have increased.
Sources?
Quote: Product quality has decreased, health concerns about these products abound. We have a much smaller manufacturing base. We have let them outsource everything, and where is the profit that they realized?
It is being rebalanced because the US lost it's disproportionate economic influence. All of this is making things more level and creating even more interdependency - which you already know i think is a good thing.
Quote:If you choose to shop at Walmart, you don't deserve full-time employment.
Cant' even begin to tell you how much i disagree with that statement, and how condescending it is to people who have no other options.
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