Americans are being terrorized into not celebrating Xmas

[Pippy]

Yeah,

Now I remember how I was the king of thread hijacks, creating pages of dialog as an absolute non sequitor to the thread... How I reminisce.

It's a downward spiral that creates people with less money,

Thanks Meatball, that is a good point that I think I glossed over in my tirade. That people that are so poor as to not be able to shop anywhere else, as Void purports, are themselves a creation of the same economic principles not only practiced by Walmart, but even championed by them.

The world is a shitty place and people don't care about each other.

We just do what we can to make it less shitty, and remember to try to care...

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.

Hey Void, I will try to be much more concise, as to try to allow people to talk about being terrorized into not celebrating Christmas.
I am trying to argue that families that are up to their necks in bills and can't afford to shop anywhere but Walmart are in that situation because of things like Walmart (in that predatory capitalism is bad for quality of life). So I am not saying that they deserve less money because they have to pay just a little more for their groceries or stuff, but that they don't deserve to be in the situation where they are as poor as you describe. And someone that poor is likely not employed, and if they are it would probably be at minimum wage for 20 hours a week. So I am saying that they deserve good employment, then we could skip the desperate poorness, and that their poorness is a symptom of which the Walmart philosophy is part of the cause.

Some don't have the luxury you seem to have to chose to buy something else.

Yes, but why don't they have that luxury? I mean the savings is minimal, we're not talking a huge difference in cost of living. And I would guess that a lot of people who are "po' folk" could save a lot more money (and live much healthier lives) if they didn't rely on cigarettes, soda pop and Mcdonalds. There we are again with day-to-day decision making trumping other factors.

It's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

That is certainly not he case. It is beneficial for the top rung brass, and especially the manufacturing base, but someone, somewhere is coming up a big loser in the deal. Namely the people who used to have a job before Walmart got to town, but also local culture and habits. That is another story though.

Global economics is a more reasonable and long-term economic model.

I would argue that it could be the best model, but it could also be the worst. Let me give an example that might start a whole new hijack, world governance. The idea of world governance is neutral. We can have as good a world government as we can a bad. If someone offers you something like that you have to ask if it is done well, or poorly. If it is functional or dysfunctional. If it is good or evil (for the most archaic terms). So a global economy could in theory have many benefits, but I think it is clear beyond doubt that modern economy is more than a little flawed. We can't say that by necessity, world globalization is good, but there are good and bad paths, and we have to address the bad ones.

Walmart might not be the best employer by a mile, but they still make jobs that don't exist.

Again, let me reiterate. I think it is incorrect to assume that a town without a walmart has fewer jobs that a town with one. Taking into account the devastating effect on the other, more localized economies, of course. They certainly do not create jobs that didn't exist, and there is no way I could see that there is a net positive.

Unions, what is this? the 1930s?

No. You think a trade union is some old fashioned thing? Holy shit. I would say they are more important now than ever. I will also point out that a union is another idea that can be good or bad, and there are plenty of examples of bad unions, and that that is not a slight on the idea itself.

Why pay more for no benefit?

I am trying to argue that there is many benefits to paying more, and that by paying slightly less you are costing yourself far more than some spare change.

Then you likewise provide evidence to the contrary.

I did, did you see? I mentioned NAFTA's impact on Mexico city, Bhopal as well as quality control and saftey measure concerns. What about the incentive to privatize things like water sources, trees, police services? Those have devastating effects. And I also mentioned that the pollution problem is almost entirely a result of modern version of economic globalization... The list goes on and on, if you would like I can probably write 10,000 words in evidence contrary to the current style of global economy being good, or certainly best.

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.

I could literally not disagree any more. I would not describe the human condition as "very good" at all. The scale of conflict has never been higher in some senses. There may be a few less boots on the ground than the height of the second great war, but the rhetoric and belief of necessity has never been greater. I would not have believed you if you had told me 10 years ago that we would let America and NATO fight a "war on terrorism". That not only would the idea of perpetual war for perpetual peace be unveiled, but that the average people would believe it. Just astounding, and that part of the war is much, much larger than never before. I mean the president just gave a nice little speech about the necessity of war, and how humans can't be expected to act any better than that, as he accepted a Nobel peace prize. Don't feel too bad about that though, they gave one to fucking Kissinger.

I can name multiple superpowers that I beleive have evidence of missiles aimed at each other. Russia and America, maybe. But the world is far bigger than that. How about India/Pakistan. How about Israel/Iran. Maybe Israel and Syria or Lebanon. China has missiles. North Korea has recently threatened America again (but we know it's a bluff). Ummmm... that might be all possibles. I know that America has said to have stopped flying bombers with nukes all the time, which is for the better since they tended to drop them in Canada by accident.

economic competition is the prime driver for innovation this century

At it's healthiest, may be. But add a little greed to the equation and people make organized religion, crack cocaine and planned obsolescence, the antitheses (literally) of innovation.

Bill Gates is one of the largest financial supporters of the GMO (genetically modified organism) industry. They talked him into how they will solve world hunger, just after they make a ton of money and permanently alter the genealogical structures of things essential to life first. That is not philanthropy, we are worse off for every dollar anyone donates to Monsanto. By not supporting that bad idea in a multi-million dollar way, you and I are a far more valuable human than Gates. Don't worship false idols, you know.

That wasn't concise, but I find myself strongly disagreeing with a lot of your argument. I hear you that my line about Walmart offends and seems stupid to you. I think you look a little silly supporting what is so obviously (to me) a very detrimental thing. So we will have to agree to disagree again, I fear.

Thank you for listening,
"We hold these truths to be self evident",
-Pip