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Originally Posted by Azure
While this is true, and Walmart is a great example of a company whose business model takes advantage of government welfare, I prefer if people would just stop shopping at Walmart, and instead start supporting companies like Costco who treat their employees fairly well.
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This is part of the tragedy of the commons.
Wal-Mart doesn't sell things for cheap because people love deals and Walmart loves slim margins, they sell things for cheap because people NEED things for cheap. The people who shop at Walmart are looking for deals because they have tight budgets, and need things like dish soap, and tupperware containers and snacks for their kids lunches.
Wal-Mart is not just driving down wages, they are a product OF them. Walmart takes off from I think something like 250 stores in 1980 to over 1000 in 1988 and something like 1400 by 1990. Now, obviously, their growth has increased dramatically since then, but, things like 'Sams club' etc, the rapid brand expansion, don't start taking off until after Reagan broke the air traffic controllers union in 1982, and the landscape of labour changed dramatically in the US.
People need to go to Walmart because they can't afford to go somewhere with a higher margin. It's not a choice. Walmart, to their credit, understand that further depressing wages on a national scale is good for their bottom line. Wouldn't it be great if people couldn't afford to go to Best Buy anymore to buy a TV? Or Safeway to buy their groceries?
The only thing that is a challenge to them, really, is Amazon, who are outbidding them through mechanization and standardization. Basically, the only way you can compete with Walmart's wages is by not paying ANY.
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Originally Posted by Shawnski
Keep reading his works. Lots of stuff on YouTube. The guy has devoted his life to this. And he isn't the only one.
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I have read his first book on affirmative action in an academic capacity and was not impressed. I don't have much of a scholarly critique, nor do I think I am in the position to give one, but, (and this may be some bias) it reads like many books attempting to utilize economics to explain human behaviour; often those sorts of answers are not found in that field.
The state is the vessel in which capitalism functions. The rules of the game are determined by the state, hence, whatever 'economics' transpire within that system are inherently informed by the state like the odds in a casino are controlled by the house. It's intellectually dishonest to not assign appropriate valuations to judgements in that regard. As I mentioned in my first reply in regards to South Africa, it is not the ECONOMICS of the situation which is the determining factor, it is the POLITICS. Yes, money informs politics, but, money does not dictate politics. It was a bunch of racist whites who prevented blacks from associating in groups and treated them as close to a commodity as you can in an 18th/19th/20th century white colony. That is the reason their wages were depressed, not for some Friedman-informed free market utopia where blacks were an economic danger to South African whites.
'Wages' is such an utterly auxiliary concern that in my opinion it is insulting to include it as an argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawnski
Let's be real people.
When the powers that be can pump TRILLIONS of dollars into the economy, benefitting those FIRST served best, thus increasing the differential 1% from the massed at an ever increasing ratio, you are debating about the minimum wage to be enslaved in this system?
The game of Three Card Monte is strong in this forum.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawnski
Look, EVERYONE wants to help out and I have no question, that EVERYONE has the best interests at heart.
So do I.
But the populous avenues (which typically are vote buying journeys) are NOT in the best interest of the ultimate societal benefit.
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This is my issue with both yours and his argument and generally with the arguments of those that describe themselves as 'libertarian'. I'm not trying to cast a huge brush here, it's an ideological issue. The idea is to neuter a policy project or direction, and then point to it's inefficiency or lack of return on investment. Sowell does the same thing in regards to school vouchers. Again, I can't critique him toooooo hard here because I am not intimately versed with that issue, however, it's an example of the conclusion based research I believe he is guilty of.
The minimum wage SUCKS. It is ARTIFICIALLY low. It's held there by the mechanism for lobbying the federal government and state legislatures which is of benefit to accumulated private money. It is held there by those with a vested interest in not paying higher wages. It isn't rocket science to figure out what part of the employer/employee relationship that is.
If you think politicians are buying votes with the minimum wage where it is, I suggest you reconsider what votes they are buying. I will give a you a start, it is NOT the populous.