Who Does The Walmart's Existence Serve?

[katarn]

I hear the Romans did something like that- the gluttony for new and exotic/luxurient foods has been pegged as one of the key components of their moral decline late-Republic.

Is this sarcasm or serious?

It sounds odd, but it is serious. I first saw cuisine pegged as depravity in Holland's Rubicon, although he marketed it as being pegged by historians since it was a current event.
The idea is that luxurious cuisine went against classic Roman virtue and Spartanesque toughness, and was effeminate like the cultures of the Orient.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I hear the Romans did something like that- the gluttony for new and exotic/luxurient foods has been pegged as one of the key components of their moral decline late-Republic.

Is this sarcasm or serious?

It sounds odd, but it is serious. I first saw cuisine pegged as depravity in Holland's Rubicon, although he marketed it as being pegged by historians since it was a current event.
The idea is that luxurious cuisine went against classic Roman virtue and Spartanesque toughness, and was effeminate like the cultures of the Orient.

I'll agree that there's an obvious correlation between luxury and the height of empire, but that's not a cause or even a sign that the end is nigh.

And I'm a doomsayer as much as anyone.

[TheReal_ND]

the gluttony for new and exotic/luxurient foods has been pegged as one of the key components of their moral decline late-Republic.

Man you're just on fire this week

[katarn]

Is this sarcasm or serious?

It sounds odd, but it is serious. I first saw cuisine pegged as depravity in Holland's Rubicon, although he marketed it as being pegged by historians since it was a current event.
The idea is that luxurious cuisine went against classic Roman virtue and Spartanesque toughness, and was effeminate like the cultures of the Orient.

I'll agree that there's an obvious correlation between luxury and the height of empire, but that's not a cause or even a sign that the end is nigh.

And I'm a doomsayer as much as anyone.

You remember that ~"history is filled with the echoes of wooden shoes going up staircases, and silk slippers coming down"? That is the logic behind it being like a cause; it isn't really one, its more an indicator of deeper issues. But an accurate indirect measurement works well enough for some people to conflate it with the thing being measured- here it's the decline of societies.

[Okeefenokee]

They didn't destroy the jobs. The took the jobs when they captured the market share.

If you want to kill Walmart, then kill the globalist trade deals. That's the source of it.

Why don't you go ahead and connect those dots for me.

walmart sells goods produced by quasi slave labor in countries like china and vietnam. there. dots connected.

[Okeefenokee]

What reforms are most prudent?

Removing any Federal or State legislation that gives Walmart an anti-competitive edge over small business.
I've heard, anecdotally, that Walmart gets special tax breaks or even exemption from local taxes in some states, and if this is true it should stop.

i'm with you on this being something you can't fix overnight.

those tax breaks don't exist in a vacuum. if towns don't sign off on those tax breaks, walmart just sets up a store outside of town, but close enough that customers still go there. when the local businesses are bankrupt anyway, walmart comes in and gets a much better deal now that the town has no tax revenue from local businesses, and more unemployment due to everyone going out of business.

the only places that i've seen that have been able to keep walmart out are places where most people are well to do, and of those places, i don't know how long that lasted.

i remember my grandfather telling me how mr walton got his start by setting up his first stores outside of small towns to draw out the customers before his company was big enough to muscle itself in.

it would be a good example of a good businessman finding a niche if it weren't for all the fucking slave labor factories making it all possible, but that's the entirety of globalism. great for a lot of people, but no one can deny that it royally fucks a lot of other people.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Find me a retailer that doesn't use Chinese goods. You can order your own on alibaba.com

[Okeefenokee]

guess this can go here,

[SuburbanFarmer]

guess this can go here,

What an impressive series of logical fallacies.
....

[Okeefenokee]

Find me a retailer that doesn't use Chinese goods. You can order your own on alibaba.com

well, it's not totally wrong. cutting out the middle man does bring the price down.

but are you suggesting that one factory selling to ten thousand customers is gonna sell at the same rate as one company that buys the same quantity in one purchase?

the point where you're really wrong is that you don't own the factory you're buying from on alibaba.

walmart owns their factories. of course they don't own all the factories, but they're the largest retailer in the world. no one's gonna get a better deal than them.

in the end, this is all just people voting with their dollars. i'm not in favor of any government action to coerce people into spending their money where the government says they should. a lot of people are perfectly fine with shitty foreign goods that are so cheap they can buy another when their shitty goods break. i prefer to buy higher quality goods.

by the time you're on your tenth set of shitty chinese made cookware that loses its coating after a few months, i'll still be using the same american made cast iron i bought in my early twenties.

adam carolla said something years ago about people who buy cheap shit, and how it might indicate that they think that's all they're worth. shitty food, shitty products, shitty entertainment. if you're reasoning is, "well it was cheap," maybe ask yourself why you don't think you're worth more than the cheapest shit you can find.

I don't see any reasonable way away from buying cheap chinese slave goods other than people deciding that they're personal worth is more than a lowly consumer of cheap shit.